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nabrizoya · 3 years

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honestly would LOVE to hear your thoughts on the nikolai duology because i really only see blanket praise or blanket hate for it whereas I see a lot of wasted potential. Bardugo's actual writing was beautiful as ever for the most part, but the choice of the plot/beats feels baffling to me. I love Nina, but her parts felt so separate from the rest of the book until the very end, and even that felt off. I liked the first 2/3 of KoS enough, dealing with the monster, political tensions, 1/2

and even the cult of the starless saint was at least interesting because dealing with people trying to rewrite the narrative of their greatest enemy (who hurt these young leaders in deeply PERSONAL ways) was really compelling (making him literally come back was. a choice) but I feel like somewhere in the last third, KoS went in a wholly differeent direction, and RoW has this vibe of feeling like she definitely wrote it after reading the show scripts or even seeing some footage. idk. 2/2

I will try to be brief (1/12)

Hey anon! Thank you so much for asking this even though it took 38756588247834 years to answer this I’m so sorry !! The Nikolai duology was good—wonderful too maybe because of the myriad of themes and topics it discussed and explored, all in addition to how beloved these characters are. For me, it’s the end of KoS as it is for you, and the entirety of RoW in particular that irk me the most.

I have very little issue with KoS, and I agree with everything you’ve said. The political tensions, the sort of urgency in trying to secure a country at the cost of personal reservations, preparing for a war that seems unforgivably near the door, etc. was all thrilling. After all, it is the first installment in the duology, and it’s supposed to set the course for the upcoming books.

KoS managed to introduce the stakes and the circumstances, lay the rails for what the characters will face and what it might mean to a vast set of entities connected to the events. And it’s hardly out of sense to expect Rule of Wolves to pick up where the previous book left off and carry forward the themes and plot points introduced in the first book.

Except, RoW failed spectacularly in that aspect.

Rule of Wolves: the second book, and the supposed finale to the Grishaverse and the Nikolai duology; it fails to continue the other number of threads that KoS set up for it, effectively compromising the characters, their characterizations, the themes and other political tensions and stakes. The due importance that should be given to the heavy set of topics that get brought up in the povs are not through, nor are the small details that Leigh added to the conversations evolve into something worth talking about, which are the actual points that could have been given some more page time to explore than just making them facts or points of nostalgia for the characters.

If you take a step back and analyze the whole timeline, events, characterization, objectives of the arcs and the plot points etc. etc., all the way from Crooked Kingdom to Rule of Wolves, there’s so much that is left out and tied in, quite haphazardly, which leads me to believe that Leigh wanted to attempt writing a duology that is more plot-driven than it is character driven. And we know that Leigh writes character driven stories brilliantly, and SoC, CK and TLoT are testament to the same. Heck, even TGT has more consistency than whatever TND has.

So, objectively? Plot possibilities? Characterization? Potential? Personal goals? Addressing the very serious themes it brought up, in little or major light, but give no proper elaboration about them?

The lost potential readily compromised the characterizations of many characters, and it all amounted to their arcs being very underwhelming.

I’m dividing this into four parts and here’s the basic outline.

Writing and Plotting

The Plot, Possibilities and Potential.

Characters, Characterization, Character Potential.

Remedy (what I think would've worked better to tie this all up)

This can get very looong, so be forewarned.

I. Writing & Plotting

Now, Leigh Bardugo’s writing is exceptional, no doubt. The sentences are short and flowy, and convey the tone, psyche, environment and the setting and its effects on the pov character marvellously. It's also immersive. It’s the same in Rule of Wolves, except, a little or a lot weaker.

The two main parts of this is that one, that Leigh slightly overdid showing a lot more than telling, and two, that the RoW (and perhaps KoS too), was more plot driven than character driven, the latter of which is actually Leigh’s strength.

In Rule of Wolves, Leigh’s writing seemed very choppy and snappish. The descriptions were lacking, or maybe that’s just me wishing for more internal conflict and dilemma, and going back and forth in one's own head for a bit. It felt like she showed more than she told.

Example being how Zoya ‘snaps’, ‘drawls’, ‘scoffs’, or ‘scowls’ less, and even if that’s supposed to be show Zoya beginning to be a little less unpleasant than she usually is, the tone in those chapters was not strong enough to distinguish how and why the character was acting a certain way. Nor pinpoint an explanation on what brought that change about. (And there were many instances like this with many other characters), which resulted in the characters themselves feeling so off to me.

Leigh’s characters are important to the story. They carry tremendous weight and actively contribute to the plot. Except, by focusing a lot more on the plot, some parts of these characters’ relevance was not up to the mark. It is greatly due to how weak the plotting and pacing of the book was, tbh, more than just her writing.

Consider: Mayu Kir Kaat. She is integral to the story, but she is thrust into responsibilities, and that doesn’t give us much time to see her as a person, and then as a person with a duty, like we see with most other characters. Whatever parts of her we did see were very circumstantial and timed, which is probably the reason why not many we’re unable to appreciate Mayu as much as we should. (Maybe fandom racism also plays a part, so, well,,,).

Like, we know from Six of Crows and with The Language of Thorns, how great care went into describing the characters’ state of mind, which further heavily influenced their choices and decisions. This time though, I think she wanted it to be more plot driven, hence the whole crowded feeling of the book and general worry about oh my god too much is happening, how will all this be solved and all that.

And this, I think, greatly hampered Leigh's writing, leading to unsettling and rather unsatisfying character arcs. Not to mention that there was quite little space given for the characters to develop or let them grow in a satisfying way which touches on most of the elements and themes that get brought up with regard to their powers and potential,,, and when it was indeed brought up, it was all in vain since they were never followed through.

That's one of the biggest problems for me in RoW: Plot points brought up in KoS were not brought forward in RoW.

II. The Plot, Possibilities and Potential.

Phew. Truly buckle up because this train has too many coaches. And to discuss them all, let’s keep the starting point as Crooked Kingdom.

a) Parem

Now, by the end of Crooked Kingdom, we know some important things about the parem.

It's dangerous asf for the Grisha who have to sacrifice their will and capabilities for a short time superpower high that they didn’t even ask for

Which means they are more often than not forced to consume the drug

Shu Han is the creator of the Parem and are also creating a new kind of soldiers called Khergud (who additionally require Ruthenium, but we’ll talk abt that later)

Fjerda snatched the formula after kidnapping Bo Yul-Bayur, keeping him away in the Ice Court and in their possession, and used the Parem to further their own heedlessly heinous agenda

I think it’s easy to understand how KoS started off on the right track, considering that Kuwei Yul Bo is mentioned, the antidote and jurda is brought up and so come the political tensions alongside it (what with the impending war, the demon, the lack of funds in the coffers and security and peace for the country alongside safety for the Grisha).

The point is, parem is a character of its own. CK was its inception, and its fate was decreed along with its lifespan and its doom. Ideally, by the end of RoW, parem should have been vanquished while addressing its nature as a deadly drug, the addiction and aftermath, and the key person who will guide the plot: Kuwei Yul Bo.

Parem is a political tool that pitted countries against each other, making one another their allies or enemies. (Though parem is not the only one factor). Ravka doesn’t yet know about Kerch’s neutrality. The Shu made their move to assassinate in the end, just as Fjerda cleared the air about their goals.

Point is, parem is weapon, a new kind of warfare that keeps getting alluded to in KoS. The first book gave a glimpse of how the Shu and Fjerda are using parem, thereby exploiting, prejudicing etc. the Grisha in their countries. Khergud whose humanity is washed away with parem + ruthenium, and the Fjerdan Grisha (are targeted) drugged and exploited while be subjected to torture, training and imminent death, parametres of these outcomes being severely gendered.

Ravka too wanted to weaponize it and create a usable strain that would still give the Grisha their powers but at a minimal cost, until Nikolai’s conversation with Grigori convinces him out of it and to use only the antidote for the Grisha.

And when are the contents of this conversation brought up again?

Never.

Another aspect of parem (that the conversation also covers) is this: that what was once merzost, parem is its strange cousin. Parem parallels breaking the bounds of Grisha norms unnaturally, while merzost takes it a step further to break the bounds of nature itself, which comes with a heavy price. They're both the same with little differences. Amplifiers are in tune with this discussion, hence the conversation between Zoya and Nikolai about how, and whether or not the abomination in him, the parem, and the amplifiers are tied together. This gets brought up again in the conversation with Grigori.

Parem parallels the superpowers, something that Zoya too manages to achieve once the corruption of the amplifier business is resolved, which makes her realize how in tune with nature the Grisha must be, and how limited the Grisha powers until then had been. And why the amplifiers were a corrupted piece of magic.

Zoya was supposed to be the conduit in that sense that she reversed the Grisha norms and understood the importance and nature of small science. This is alongisde parem getting abolished or resolved in the least, be given a redressal.

Yet instead in RoW, we barely see any of Zoya’s powers, nor even her experimentation and hunger for power which would give her protection. We don't see how she begins to realize that while power was indeed protection, it was also a responsibility. Not clearly, anyway.

So like, not only is this entire discussion thrown away in Rule of Wolves, but no matters are resolved either. Parem did not reach its end like it was supposed to. Merzost with regard to parem would have been an excellent thing to address, with or without the Darkling being present, because the blight is there. But that doesn’t happen.

What happens instead? We get one chapter of Grisha getting the antidote during the face off at the start of the book, the women in Fjerda are not brought up again and instead we jump to Shu Han. Kuwei is also conveniently forgotten because hey, the Zemeni are here so it’s all sorted!

RoW could have (should have actually) sought to address both the political and medical (?) aftermath and implications. Maybe it did succeed in showing the political side of it, with regard to Mayu, Ehri, Makhi and Tamar’s storylines. But that’s only in Shu Han, whose state of affairs we had NO idea of until RoW. No idea, so much that it was completely out of the blue.

And what we did know (get to know about in KoS) is Fjerda and the affairs there remained… unsolved.

(...sorry).

b) Grisha Powers

Re: From the conversation between Nikolai and Grigori, and Juris and Zoya, about how parem and the amplifiers are parallel to each other in terms of being abominations, a corruption of Grisha powers. Now the theory of it is not entirely explained, but we do know that the parem and whatever Zoya learnt from Juris was meant to move along in the same direction.

But we don't see another mention of it, except maybe we could dig a little deeper and realize that it all adds up because Zoya is the Grisha Queen of Ravka, Summoner, Soldier, Saint, all of it rushed and unnecessarily magical in a war so dire and realistic in RoW.

Welp.

c) Spy business

Just… genuinely what even was Nina up to in RoW? A spy, sure, but only to garner information on the pretender?

Why couldn’t there have been two responsibilities for her to uncover: the lies or truths about the pretender while the Apparat causes hindrances, and Nina trying to seek out more documents of the locations and labs where the Grisha women are being tormented and the other Grisha being weaponized? It could have been a leverage to discredit Fjerda in front of everybody in the Os Kervo scene. Imagine if Nina whipped out the documents of Grisha labs and brought the truth of the exploitation and killing and kidnapping etc. in front of the convention of all nations. All of it together would have upped the political tensions by quite the notch.

Even then, there’s a possibility that it wouldn’t matter either because the Grisha aren’t exactly valuable to all the nations. But killing and exploiting is still wrong so maybe it might have worked? Or see, even if it wouldn’t have, the slow and sluggish realization of Mila’s identity by Brum, and alongside writing it as a tragedy where Nina’s efforts seem to have gone to waste, or where Nina is telling Zoya about not accounting for Prince Rasmus’ word and she informs her about the documents she has snatched? Something could have been done here?

The point is, KoS focused on Fjerda and its unraveling, and it wasn’t continued with and through in Rule of Wolves. Instead it sought to find the problem in a whole new country, Shu Han, and fixed it within the same book leaving the other country as it is.

d) Ruthenium and the Blight

Ruthenium, the metal that is an alloy of regular metal and Grisha made steel, could have been utilized more significantly in the books.

I mention it in association with the blight because while on one hand it is true that the blight is an area full of nothingness, ruthenium as a metal could have been utilized to show the effects of rushed industrialization that is leading to the ground losing its essence. This is supposed to be advanced warfare after all. Besides, Makhi loses someone very dear to her. Perhaps ruthenium is more dangerous in Shu Han because the Shu use it to create the khergud, so the constant manufacturing of it has been leading to the metal leeching the lands of their fertility, along with the blight.

And so also to broker peace, Ravka could have provided aid in some ways. :

1) The Darkling sacrificed himself, as a result of which the blight vanishes. While the blight took away her niece, the possibility of a blight persisting despite the ending of RoW could be attributed to ruthenium.

2) Ravka could provide the reversing effect to the alloy of ruthenium and metal using Grisha and otkazt’sya engineering and ingenuity to replenish the lands.

All in addition to whatever will be Shu Han’s policies to bring lushness to their lands.

e) Women and War:

Holy fucking Shit, where do I start with this?

Whatever we saw in Fjerda was haunting, and we see it from Nina’s chapters. There’s literally no resolution for it, nor is it ever brought up again, at all. In Zoya’s chapters, we see through her eyes the brunt that Grisha faced with the war, and in a country that has refused to recognize Grisha as the citizens and considers them expendable.

Add to it her own narrative of how the women are never mentioned, let alone the ones that she has lost or has known to suffer, at the hands of the war, at the Darkling's torture and powers. The description of these women suffering, often being forgotten and thrown aside as mere casualties… where or when was it ever going to be brought up again?

Like, switching between such horrifying things happening in Fjerda to whatever was happening with Zoya and Nikolai and Isaak is such a contrast, horrifyingly demeaning and insulting, even more so when it failed to align with the importance of parem and offer a solution to both these problems.

Now switch to Rule of Wolves, where the Tavgahard women immolate themselves on Queen Makhi’s orders. Not only is that such a cheap and insensitive thing to do, it gets treated a simple fucking plot point in the book, and it barely gets addressed afterwards. Women in Asia have a vastly complex and complicated history with fire, and this is a serious criticism that culturally affects readers in personal ways. And what gets done about it? Fine, Zoya feels baaaad, sorry oops why would the women do that?!?!?

Where is the adequate sensitivity to the topic? Where is the continuation of the pain Zoya feels for many people, despite them being the enemy? How does she honour them? Where is all that dilemma and pain? Why does she not think of them or just get a line or two to talk about them?

Where is the due importance for this suffering given? Structurally and culturally?

f) Soldier, Summoner, Saint / Yaromir the Great

We never really get any explanation for why Zoya deserves to be the Queen, and why she is the best. But we do get to see why Nikolai isn’t the one supposed to be on the throne, and it’s not just because of his parentage but also because of his failings and doubts and the need for acceptance with the secrets he carried.

Here's the thing though; it’s not just about her showing mercy. It’s very subtle, and in good sense, should actually have been given a little bit more importance that be loosely brought up at random times.

Keeping aside the fact that Zoya is representative of Ravka—a woman, a Grisha, a Suli girl who changed the course of war and who knew what it was like living in poverty, being as an underprivileged person of the society in addition to the trauma from then and the state of living at her aunt’s place—which is meant to be covertly apparent, the other reason tracks back to Yaromir the First, who with the help of Sankt Feliks of the Apple Boughs—the one who raised the thornwood—lead Ravka at that time into the age of peace.

The Darkling testified that in his POVs, that while Feliks and Yaromir worked in tandem for Ravka, Aleksander worked for safeguarding the Grisha. In one sense, Zoya is supposed to reflect that moment in history in the present moment, except she is Queen and Sankta, and Grisha, all three at once.

It is brought up in one of the Darkling’s POVs and once in the conversation with Yuri in KoS. Other than that, we never actually get any more hints of this explanation in the text, which is the reason why the entire ending felt so so rushed, and like a fever dream, that even if it was a plot twist, it was kinda very baseless when it should have been more ohhhhh sort of a thing.

g) The Starless Cult and Saint Worship

This cult had immense potential to blossom into many things, some of which were indeed touched upon in KoS when Zoya says that she saw a bit of herself in Yuri, and brings up time and again how easily she’d been led and had not been aware enough of what’s right and wrong, just as she supposes Yuri is too. And to some extent, there is truth there, because in the Lives of Saints, we do see why Yrui comes about to hail the Darkling and how it parallels Zoya’s, of being helpless and ten being saved by a different power/ their own power, respectively.

That’s where it forks, that Zoya is older and realizes the path that Yuri has chosen and understands that it won't happen until he realizes it himself because the Darkling’s crimes are so obvious.

Even then, there’s still more potential: This cult could have been the mirror that would make Zoya reflect on the questionable methods of the Darkling, and the ways in which she might be mirroring them, despite or not it is the necessity because of the war. How she is training soldiers too, just as the Darkling did, and while the need to take children away from their homes just as soon as they were discovered Grisha was abolished, it was war, and they needed soldiers.

So like, there’s quite a big narrative going on here, how mere children are pushed into one path of becoming a soldier and the whole system that was that the Darkling followed to train the Grisha and all of that. All of this in addition to the juxtaposition to the Grisha being seen as elite despite them being hunted, and the people who are not Grisha frowning upon them. This is also the work of the Darkling, which actually paves the way to see how there can be a world where the Grisha are not feared or seen as abnormal, despite or not they are given a Saint-like narrative.

This cult could also have been the segue to discussing Yuri and his brainwashing, and the sort of cult-ish behaviour of believing in something firm when you couldn’t believe in yourself, or not seeing the magnitude of the crimes of their supposed Saint, alongside always staying focused on becoming a soldier only and never actually thinking beyond what is told.

Some of these are very subtle and some are brought up, but never given too much of an explanation.

Genya brings up another good point in the funeral chapter, about how Fjerda seemingly taking into the whole Saints thing could mean that if the Darkling moved there, he could very well sprawl his influence there to bring in supporters. Which leads to another discussion that gets brought up towards the end of the book: about Nina telling about the Ravkan Saints to Hanne and therefore to the Fjerdans,,, which doesn’t exactly sit right with me. It’s still a very nascent topic, and I think SoC3 will explore this path of faith and personal beliefs etc. but leaving it just there, while talking so much about Saints in both the countries,,, don’t exactly know how to put it into thoughts here.

But regardless, the cult of the Starless had different potential to talk of (blind) worshipping of an ideal without critically examining why the person must be put on the pedestal in the first place (and if it is simply power, then there is actually a narrative right there, which RoW gets right, about the people valuing the power still, as a result of which the monarchy still persists at the end of RoW. Even then, there’s more discussion awaiting there).

Not sure if any of this makes sense, but I’ll leave it at this here for now.

edit: 05/07/2021 | I think what I was trying to say here is that we do not have any kind of narrative evidence to seeing how and why it seems right that the Fjerdans will worship Ravkan Saints; is it merely because they are all Grisha? Or is it because of the segue explore this path of faith and personal beliefs and all of that, of the talk of the monastery and the Grisha there being of all identities, that a monastery is in Shu Han, that it has Djel's sacred Ash tree so far away from Fjerda... much to think about.

III. Characters, Characterization, Character Potential.

Mostly going to be about Nina and Zoya, but I’ll bunch up the rest of them at the end.

a) Nina

*head in hands*

I severely mourned how poorly Zoya was written in RoW, but then I realized that more than Zoya, it’s Nina whose potential was severely undermined and wasted. On one hand, I’m glad she uses her powers and quick thinking,observation and her own tactics to analyze the population and opt for the best way to make them see the truth she wants to show them (eg: making Leoni and Adrik and Zoya saints and also showing that the Grisha are the children of Djel via people’s belief to Joran and Rasmus’s mother).

But then, it’s like you said; her parts were so offbeat and outpaced and completely disjointed, when in fact, Nina is the thread that ties all the characters, their plotlines and potential, together. Nina is connected to Zoya and Hanne, two equally important characters and main characters of the duology. Whatever scope Nina has, they are greatly in parallel to Zoya and Hanne. And it’s all literally there, in the text! What a waste.

Though keeping aside these parallels, Nina’s own journey from Ketterdam to Ravka to Fjerda, while is spoken about, doesn’t touch some other parts that I see potential in. Or this is just meta.

Nina has grief not just from Matthias’ death but also from the loss of her powers as Heartrender. So much of the Second Army was built on being a soldier, and perhaps the Darkling was not outright disdainful of racial differences in his army, yet he still stripped every part of the children away until they weren’t children anymore in his view. They’re all soldiers… (albeit his soldiers, preparing them to do his bidding because hey, give and take right?). Nina was a soldier, and she is a soldier still under Zoya’s role as a General, but an ‘other’ of a soldier. That’s her only identity, and the loss of her powers means that she’s a different kind of soldier.

I imagine that this entire time, some small part of Nina longed for normalcy, or whatever settled as normal for a life like hers. In the sense that she wants to go back, but what is back and where exactly did she want to go back to? What was the before and after and where did things go wrong or change? There’s tragedy in the realization that whatever you were before what you became is not a place you can return to, and that’s a different kind of loss that she has to bear, and all by herself. She has powers over the dead now, a strange power she learns to grow to, but all the places she has been, all the lives she has led and people she had been, everything might seem like they’ve all been locked away in some strange place leaving her barren and indisposable.

She’s off to Fjerda as someone she isn’t, figuratively and literally. In KoS, Nina brings up many times how odd she feels as Mila and in some capacity longs to be Nina Zenik again. This ties in with the previous point of returning to somewhere, but where?, but is also a segue towards body dysmorphia, the thing that Nina and Hanne’s storylines parallel and connect too with in a small way. It’s a great line to follow to discuss what her discomfort with her body means to herself while it means something entirely different to Hanne, who is also not entirely comfortable being who they are. (This discomfort further which leads to gender dysphoria, while for Nina, it will be about learning to accept her powers. I’ll add on to this in a bit,).

I'm mourning the lost potential of that experience being a parallel to Hanne’s own feelings, of a discussion between people being uncomfortable with their bodies, something that can mean multitudes to each person and on their own accord.

In parallel to Zoya, I like to draw it from the fact about Nina wanting to go back to who she was, while Zoya actively tries to lock her past away and drown it somewhere or throw it to the storm, never to hear of it again. She has no identity other than being a soldier, and that’s enough for Zoya, because who she was before she was a soldier is not pleasant. But moving from being just another expendable shell of soldier under the Darkling’s rule, Zoya becomes the one third of the Triumvirate, and then the King’s general, all of which bring self-awareness of Zoya’s capabilities and challenges that are bound to excite her. But all of these also compel Zoya to be many other people to others as she slowly grows to realize that power is not just protection but also a responsibility, and it will inadvertently mean confronting her past of her lost identity, realizing the how of the Darkling, and how harmful it was. As Genya puts it perfectly in Rule of Wolves, that they were all taken away when they were young kids, not even barely children, and then thrust into responsibilities that didn’t allow them to be anything else other than what the Darkling told them to be.

Back to Nina; a few other great parts about Nina’s arc could have been about her connection to languages, as language being a mode of strengthening identity, in addition to growing to her powers. In RoW, there’s this line that goes ‘how sweet it was to speak her language [Ravkan] again’, and the feeling of homesickness. Like, Nina is trying to connect to Ravka through what she knows best—language, and then stories. In that, Nina realizes a part of her identity, which could also act as a segue to Zoya reclaiming her own heritage and ethnicity. Not only that but Zoya and Nina’s stories are literally so intertwined that it’s hard not to see how their choices and line of thought affect one another’s arcs, in the grief they have and how they choose to treat it, and also show why Zoya is particularly protective of Nina (and keeps wishing that she doesn’t become the monster Zoya had become, in the sense that Nina is more mature in handling her grief than Zoya was and the entire mercy plotline ties Nina, Zoya and even Genya together. More meta, haH).

And that’s why the ending doesn’t make sense. Even though the part about her not being comfortable as Mila is not brought up many times in the continuing chapters (and that’s why perhaps naming Nina’s discomfort as body dysmorphia may be wrong), there’s still the part of Nina readily accepting to be who she was a Mila and remain in Fjerda that seems iffy to me. Especially when Nina and Hanne literally a few chapters ago think about running away (it may be just another alternative they might be fantasizing about, but I think it still means that they both want to be their true selves without hiding any parts of it away). So her staying as Mila… well, it doesn’t exactly add up.

I’d also add the part of Nina’s story mirroring Leoni’s, and how she is from Novyi Zem and being a part of the Second Army meant that she had little to no connection with her past, her culture etc. But maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part that Leigh went for that arc.

edit: 05/07/2021 | I don't agree with my point anymore about Nina not having the kind of ending I assumed she might have, considering that it is very well possible for Nina to treat her identity as Mila as a fresh start, as a Grisha with a command over the the dead and begin a new normal that is suited for her. You can read more here.

b) Zoya

For one, white passing Zoya is not canon to me. I simply pretend I do not see it.

See, her race was handled very badly. Making her half-Suli was supposed to show the struggles and the trauma that the ridiculing of her identity by other people has caused to her. Except, not enough time nor text is given to thoroughly discuss it. Not to forget how problematic of a narrative in itself it is to make Zoya white passing.

It would have made more sense to make her dark skinned and predominantly Suli-looking than whatever yt bs she was put through. Her not being white-passing would have led to conversations about tokenization, or people caring little about her and not giving her any respect because she is Suli. Or being called beautiful to the face and praised just for it or a harmless tumble in their point of view.

So like, instead of making the ‘mistake’ of seeking for acceptance, seeking appreciation and love, from her mother at first and then the Darkling, Zoya instead makes herself someone to be feared, if respect was not what she deserved. The iciness is a part of her and has always been, but all of it soon became a shield, an armour that she vowed to harden her heart with. Just the sheer impact of this narrative and her reluctance, and seeing Nikolai love her for beyond who she thinks she is… if all of this was canon, I’m pretty sure I’d have built a shrine for this duology.

Let’s now talk about her grief, and...

…

Okay it’s not for me to point fingers at how Leigh chose to write about grief because there’s no one way or one proper approach to go through that pain, and if that’s how she chose to write about grief for Zoya, fine! But I really wish we’d have gotten a little more into her head to see how the trauma has affected her thoughts and how she struggles against why and what exactly it is that Juris wants her to do. That enough time and text was dedicated to Zoya’s feelings and the mayhem it caused her, as a result of which the dragon’s eye took its cue and made things more unbearable to her because she was the only one to bear them all.

Like, I feel like Zoya was overwhelmed throughout the book and in between she had some skyhigh responsibilities to discharge and it’s all so inconsistent and poorly woven,,, it completely dissolved her character from KoS and made it 10000000x more miserable for me to read her POVs. And honestly, what even were her assignments that the Kirkus review mentioned? Never an inch of text in RoW is given to decipher her complications of her mind, the muddled sense of hopelessness and fear that grips her time and again. Why overwhelm her so much that you fail to do her mental state and capacity any justice?

I’m not going to be harsh about how much David’s death bothered me-- no actually fuck that; what’s the point? Fine, he died. All because you wanted to make his death a plot device to make Zoya reconcile with loss and deal with it? Where was Genya’s grief? Literally no point of having a death in the book at all, and it didn’t even achieve anything. (I’m still trying to wrap my head around why David’s death was important and maybe if I find some straws, I’ll consider…)

There were so many other ways around it; could have brought back Lada and killed her off, or have the Darkling piss her off so badly or just. Something. Instead of whatever happened with David. I think this is too harsh and insensitive of me to say about Leigh, but still… there’s a myriad of other ways to have gone about it. Helping Zoya deal with her grief with Nikolai at her side, to understand that the rage that was fueled from her loneliness, like it had been in the past, could now be a weight that Nikolai was willing to carry with her… Helping someone with their grief, staying and choosing is also a love language you know?

So in that regard, I won’t regret saying how flat the garden scene was to me. Zoya’s lines, though tinged with grief, were so out of what I would expect KoS Zoya to say. Maybe it’s also because of how bitter I was reading about David's death, despite that part being spoiled for me.

The cost shouldn’t have been David’s death, especially not when his death too wasn’t properly handled at all, and Genya’s grief was never spared a second thought beyond bringing Titanium.

Now let’s talk about how Out of Character Zoya was throughout the book. Her punchy attitude was missing, and even if she was warming up to her friends, we see little of the iciness she continues to retain. Another part of this is about exploring her relationships, particularly with Nikolai and her growing feelings for him. I wish we’d have seen them grapple with more of their confusion and propriety, if only for the yearning™. Besides, no matter how cute their scenes were, they were mostly (like maybe some. 70%) awful to read them, simply because it felt so odd to see Zoya be so open with Nikolai, all of a sudden.

A part of this definitely has to be the fact that we don’t know just how much time has passed between the end of KoS and the start of RoW, and we never, never see any description of they regarded their feelings for each other and how they understood it themselves. I don’t actually know how exactly I can put this into words in a manner that will make sense, but the only scenes where I appreciated Zoyalai were in the Ketterdam chapters, ONLY. The rest was… bleh lmao. Their scenes were so cute and brilliant, and if only we’d seen more of the internal conflict and had given some more time for them to practically approach their feelings but still end up in the puddle of it. If only.

Their scenes apart were the good ones, because that’s where we finally see Nikolai feeling the loss, no matter how temporary (on the verge of being permanent since it’s the war), of not having Zoya with him, of not being there with Zoya because who else would it be if it wasn’t her? Zoyalai had good scenes but they barely lived up to the mark lol. Their feelings are never thoroughly explored, nor their mental capacities.

While we’re talking about Zoyalai, let’s also talk about how lame it was for Zoya to say that Nikolai was the golden spirited hero all along, from the very start, when canonically we know Zoya had little to do with him in the earlier books, that she may have only been physically attracted to him and never saw him as more than just some guy with a responsibility to manage, and had sooooooo much distrust about him. And that it was only in the next few years of working with him and alongside did she grow to recognize his efforts and relish in the hope that he was building for Ravka, inadvertently making Zoya hopeful too.

Nope. Instead, we’ll just throw in some destiny bs that he was the one all along rather than show that the beauty of their relationship did not stem what they perceived of each other, but was instead built on strong respect and admiration for one another and their capabilities. 100% destroyed their relationship for me.

Some good parts about Zoya’s arc in RoW was how she acknowledged her past mistakes, and the nuance that was touched upon in seeing sense in becoming a soldier from the start, that offered her a chance to be anything other than a bride. That some part of her was grateful for the Darkling for teaching her how to fight, while still keeping Genya’s words in mind about how they were mere kids, children who had only one path to traverse because the Darkling (who wanted their acceptance and loyalty) nor the Kings of the country let the Grisha be anything else other than pawns of the war. That she recognizes her mistakes as a teen and how self centred she was, that her being snotty had at times cost some peoples’ lives too. And she doesn’t take the blame all up on herself, because it’s not hers alone to bear. Super good.

Also, the way Zoya comes to view power as responsibility instead of merely as protection was something cool to read about. It’s not clear in the books, but Zoya actively tried to not be the Darkling while still continuing to build an army for the war out of necessity, and actually sharing some parts of the dream that the Darkling had for the Grisha. I can’t articulate this so perfectly, but the point is, Zoya trying to avoid becoming a tyrant like the Darkling was an active process that she was constantly trying to change, and where Zoya could not recognize her own feelings and inherent thoughts about warfare that in some ways did mirror the Darkling’s, by the end of book, Zoya is much more self-aware and conscious of herself and her power than she was at the start of the book. And this was well done.

Now, what is up with YA and making people turn into giants or animals lol wtf. Why couldn’t we have seen Zoya use her dragon powers in a way that symbolizes the conditions of her dragon amplifier and the power of the knowledge she obtained from Juris? She is a Saint, and we’ve seen that their powers allowed them to cause ‘miracles’ and such, as we see at the start of KoS and at the end.

Why couldn’t we have seen Zoya dabble with her newfound powers and completely lose her shit in anger during the wae, only to rein back in mercy, just as someone from Fjerda begs for forgiveness since they see her then as a Saint? Adrik and Leoni used their powers in Fjerda, so having Zoya bring about a conundrum of all orders and do something about it would also have been cool, wouldn’t it? In the funeral scene we see her turn water into ice, thereby making a path for Genya. Why couldn’t we have had more exploration of the importance of the dragon’s eye and the general nausea of being overly empathetic every. damn. time? Why didn’t we get to see her powers? Why couldn’t we have seen her fail in them and realize that the reason she was not perfect was because she was trying to be strong on her own and was not relying on others and joint effort?

Her turning into a dragon was genuinely the most baffling part bc here’s a war that’s so serious and dire with metals and bombs, and then here’s this magic that will solve all of it entirely. Like I’m not saying it was bad, (I am actually saying just that) but I also don’t know what I am saying, except that the ending felt like a fever dream.

…?

Not sure if I’ve managed to convey it properly, but well. Zoya felt out of character throughout RoW, and that the only place I saw KoS Zoya was in the final Os Kervo scene where Zoya finally agrees to be the queen.

c) Nikolai

Nikolai’s arc was very satisfying and brilliant to read about in RoW. In KoS, he seemed very much like a passive character, one of the reasons why his stunt with the Shu in RoW was appreciable, no matter how ill-timed of a plot turn it was. His journey throughout this book was also introspective to see why others deemed him unfit as the King, and even if they were his enemies who thought that in want to dispose him from the throne, Nikolai realizes that him being on the throne is not of much value and that this book was entirely about him seeing his privilege and making decisions to counter and correct the mistakes he’s made. That was nice. Oh, also his father not being an antagonist was a pleasant surprise.

I don’t have many complaints about him, except perhaps wanting some more internal conflict and elaboration about his feelings for Zoya. Them being apart was where it was satisfying, and then in the Ketterdam chapters. His arc could have been better in KoS, but that’s to blame the plot for the characterization.

d) Hanne

Now, from the very start, their arc was super good and it only got better and better until… the ending. Except it’s so odd that Hanne, a poc, has to now live as white person, while feeling comfortable in their transmasc identity. Icky, no? That you need to eliminate one part of your identity in order to feel safe and comfortable about another? Add to this the whole white-passing Zoya thing,,, doesn't exactly send off the right message.

Together with Nina, the ending seems uncharacteristic for both of them. Them coming to accept their powers and knowing to use their powers on their own accord was brilliant, though the entire husband business felt very,,, eh to me, even if it did make sense. The ending about their name and their new identity was too vague.

e) Genya, Leoni and Adrik, Kuwei, Mayu,

Genya is the one who faced the most disservice along with David. While there were exceptional parts to both of their plotlines, it's still sad that even if David's death was necessary, we don't get to see the entirety of her grief and the possible anger, and that her kindness is simply used as the justification for lack of portrayal of grief.

It really did take me by surprise, mostly because I wasn't a fan of the original Shadow and Bone book, but seeing David's conscience and self-awareness, along with Genya's (and Zoya thinking of how she wouldn't let any harm come to them, which shows a bit of her development towards her character development), was plenty refreshing. David and Genya were genuinely the highlights of the book and to kill David off was just. doesn't sit right with me.

Leoni and Adrik deserved more page time. They’re saints and immensely capable (no wonder they’re now the Triumvirate), but a few more pages for them to shine would not only have been nice, but also a necessity.

And now, Kuwei...

....

I mean,,, parem should have been the plot, alongside the entire weaponry and the discussion of making a city killer. But uh… that didn’t happen.

There's not much I have to say about Mayu, Tamar and Ehri, except that their plot was superb, only very badly timed.

There's more to talk about them in the remedy tho.

IV. Remedy

Here’s the deal. Before KoS release, there should have been a Nina novella.

Nina is a very important character. All of her potential, alongside many other parts of her personality--from dealing with grief, to accustoming to her powers, to growing stronger--there could be so much to do with her as a protagonist, alongside another character: Mayu.

A whole book dedicated to Nina in Fjerda with Hanne? Brilliant. Show Stopping. Mind blowing. It gives SO much page time to explore not just Nina and Mayu, Hanne, but also Zoya, Leoni and Inej. All together.

How?

Nina’s plotline carries the entire medical effects of the use of parem, just as Mayu’s will carry the pain she feels about her brother being a part of the khergud program. The novella will give ample time to flesh them out as characters and protagonists, each dealing with plot problems and problems of their own--like the loss of ones powers and newfound responsibilities, and the shared loss of a beloved person in parallel, even if neither Nina or Mayu interact on page.

Fjerda and Shu Han could be tied together with one chapter as a POV from Zoya (or maybe two), who, along with the Triumvirate and Nikolai, are completely at loss with the political scenario in the country, and are debating over what should be the course of action. Zoya receives news from the scouts, and missives from Nina, and Tamar takes care of the information she garners from the rest of the network, including Shu Han.

Like, the entire surprise of finding a Zoya POV, from a character whom until CK we’ve known as cold hearted and stern and not giving a fuck about anything or anyone, be humanized in that one chapter, thereby building up the anticipation for her arc,,, the very potential,,, *chef's kiss*.

And by the end of book, we could have an POV--or maybe a cameo if not a POV--of Inej meeting Nina on one of her travels of slave hunting. Inej could help take care that the women that Nina has rescued (as Nina does in KoS) reach the Ravkan shorelines safely. But, for a price.

The entire parallels between Leoni and Hanne and Nina could be set up, while also building up the narrative for the Saints’ plotline with Adrik's, Leoni's and Nina’s powers (like it was at the end of KoS). KoS and RoW would thereby continue it by tackling the weaponization and the antidote, Sainthood and the rest of the politics of it all.

Coming to Shu Han: one key aspect that I’d love to have explored would be the importance of art, during or despite the war. Of how war or pain chips away culture, while detailing on the ill effects of it from the commoners' perspectives, from the soldiers etc. Art is integral to Shu Han and could be portrayed by Mayu’s pain finding balm in poetry, of seeing glimpses of Ehri poring over poetry also mayri ftw, of politics that Makhi is weaving against Ravka, etc.

Or also add some more length to Zoya’s POV and explore a bit of Tamar and Tolya and Kuwei’s interactions and perspective added to it, of missing a home that they seemed to not know, or know; of discussing culture and differences on the basis of where they’re from (maybe the twins are from the borders, while Kuwei grew up near the capital or somewhere distant from the borders etc.), all while directly pointing at Zoya’s heritage and how it ebbs at her conscience, no matter how much she wants to bury it.

POTENTIAL !!!

Like,,, Nina novella would have been too powerful. It would have been perfect. I think I’d excuse bringing back the Darkling too if this was the case. (Or maybe not).

But welp.

Hey, thanks for reading! Not sure if you could make it this far, but if you have, you honestly deserve a medal for sitting through this all. I can’t imagine how tiring it must be to read through this, considering it seemed to take it more than month to compile this there’s also me procrastinating on it too so i’,mbhbdhshfsdn

Drop an ask if you want to talk more about this!

Sincerely, thank you!!!

155 notes · View notes

florencecastlewritings · 4 years

Text

Writing Dialogue

Below the read more is a lesson on writing effective dialogue in fiction. As with everything in art, rules are there to be broken, so please do treat the below lesson as a guideline rather than a legal document, and remember that it is based on what works for me as well as advice I have received from other writers. It might not match your style, and that’s all right. It’s also a very lengthy blog post, but I have used headings to try and break it up and there’s a little contents of sorts at the start, so feel free to skim/skip where needed.

If you do find it useful, however, please consider helping me through a tricky time by sending a few pennies my way via ko-fi.

Dialogue is the written speech of your characters in your story. For some people, writing effective dialogue comes naturally, for others it feels almost impossible to master. It is worth considering, as well, the differences in dialogue for different kinds of media - in screenwriting, for example, a writer will be able to rely more heavily on actors’ expression, comic timing, body language and other effects such as music. However they will also be constrained by shorter time, more need for unnatural exposition, and lack of internal thoughts. The following lesson will focus on dialogue in fiction - for short stories or novels - although some rules will be applicable to dialogue in other mediums too, so they’re worth keeping in mind.

The Purpose of Dialogue

Dialogue should:

Progress the story

Deepen character and relationship

Have realism

Be embellished/supported with suitable dialogue tags and appropriate narration.

Easier said than done. Let’s take them one at a time.

Progress the story

As with most writing, the writer needs to be constantly asking herself ‘what is the point?’ Why am I having my characters say/do/notice this? It may be to deepen character and relationship (and we’ll get onto that), but for longer stories we must acknowledge that the dialogue needs to move the plot along as well, as much as we might want to indulge in a bit of pointless fluff now and then.

Dialogue can drive the plot in a more engaging and exciting way than plain narration. Narration on its own can be effective at building tension, but usually only in small doses, and having many pages of narration without dialogue or internal thought will feel more like a summary of events or a witness statement than the author would perhaps like. Consider the below:

Breakfast was tense that morning. They ate silently as they pondered what to do. Michael buttering his toast so aggressively that it was surprising that the knife didn’t go through it. Susan asked him to stop, but that only started the arguing again. He accused her of expecting him to get over the affair so quickly. She threw back that there was nothing left to say if he refused to get therapy, and she had warned him for years that things had to change, and that it had been one foolish night in twenty years of unhappy marriage. She, Susan insisted, had excused plenty of foolish mistakes on his part.

Compared to:

‘Will you stop that?’ she said sharply. Michael did not pause in the furious buttering of his toast. ‘I said I was sorry.’

‘What, you say the magic word and I’m meant to shrug it off?’ he replied. ‘Pretend it never happened? Pretend you didn’t-’

‘You’ve made your anger perfectly clear, and I understand, but you don’t need to be so aggressive with everything, I get it.’

‘Oh, here we go. Buttering toast is aggressive now.’

‘Well, yes, like that - I’ve tried to talk to you like a grown up, but-’

‘It really bloody winds me up when you just say insane stuff patiently and without emotion and think that makes it acceptable, d’you know that? I’m allowed to be angry, you cheated.’

I could continue. The first example can pack a lot more information in, but using dialogue to drive the plot makes for more interesting and deeper meaning. It turns it into a story, rather than an account of events that occurred. It allows the writer to layer the plot with character work and unlock the story a little at a time.

In this regard, it is good to have your characters talking. To each other, to themselves, to the reader - whatever your particular style demands. Having that personable voice is engaging.

There are a few “rules” to keep in mind in order to ensure you remain plot-focused with your dialogue:

Avoid small talk. Enter late, leave early. Naturally there are exceptions (if you want to emphasise the awkwardness of a relationship between two characters you might want to include some failed attempts at small talk), but the usual chit-chat and extended greetings that we are used to saying in every day life can normally be skipped or avoided. You don’t need to have lots of ‘hi, how are you?’ ‘I’m fine thanks, you?’ ‘Fine, cheers. Have you seen the rain?’ Your characters are allowed to just get to the point and your reader will thank you for it.

Have characters on their own thought trajectories. This is a great way of driving the plot, and though it can be tricky to master it can really help in making your characters believable individuals as well as creating some conflict. If characters know each other, or both know the topic, they will likely jump ahead, make assumptions, fail to answer each other directly - this can be a great way of showing that they’re on the same wavelength, but can also be a vehicle for miscommunications and misunderstandings, or deliberately misleading one another. In that vein, don’t have the characters telling each other things they already know, unless made to sound believable.

Similarly, don’t have characters say things solely for the benefit of the reader. This is called exposition, and while exposition is necessary, it can be clumsily handled in dialogue. It’s made fun of frequently in films where they have such limited time to get background information across. You definitely don’t want dialogue like ‘So, Michael, it’s been three years since your divorce, have you thought about dating again?’ Michael knows this, his insensitive friend knows this, the reader is not stupid and knows that it’s not natural sounding. If it must be said in dialogue, weave it into a more natural conversation - ‘I haven’t been to Ibiza in three years, and I don’t plan on going back any time soon. Don’t want to run the risk of bumping into Susan and Jorge.’

We’ll get onto weaving it in with narration and dialogue tags later, which makes that a lot easier, but, in short, use dialogue to drive your story.

Deepen character and relationship

This is my favourite thing to do, and why I often prefer to write shorter stories than longer ones. A writer can find great joy in bringing a character to life through dialogue, dragging them away from plot vehicles and making them people of their own.

Firstly, it’s important to remember that your character’s background and personality will affect the way that they speak. If all your characters sound the same, they probably sound like you! A well educated character will obviously have a different way of talking than a common street urchin, but everyone has quirks and patterns to their speech that you can use to say a lot. You might use long meandering sentences with lots of rhetorical questions for a character known to be boring, for example. You might use short, sharp sentences for a character that’s grumpy or distracted with some deeper internal struggle. You can use the way two characters talk to each other to say a lot about their relationship and power dynamic, especially if you remember that good dialogue should have subtext (what isn’t being said being important).

A good example of this is from the short story Hills Like White Elephants, by Ernest Hemmingway (CW; indirect discussion of abortion). Consider the short passage below.

‘It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig,’ the man said. ‘It’s not really an operation at all.

The girl looked at the ground the table legs rested on.

‘I know you wouldn’t mind it, Jig. It’s not really anything. It’s just to let the air in.’

The girl did not say anything.

‘I’ll go with you and I’ll stay with you all the time. They just let the air in and then it’s all perfectly natural.’

‘Then what will we do afterward?’

‘We’ll be fine afterward. Just like we were before.’

‘What makes you think so?’

‘That’s the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy.’

The girl looked at the bead curtain, put her hand out and took hold of two of the strings of beads. ‘And you think then we’ll be all right and be happy.’

It’s a really interesting story that is almost entirely dialogue, so it’s well worth reading to get a good sense of using subtext. I wasn’t aware of the abortion connotations when I first read it because I hadn’t heard of the very dated term ‘letting the air in’, but really the story is great at demonstrating the uneven power dynamic between the two even without knowledge of what the operation is. Without much description (though ‘man’ and ‘girl’ says it all really, doesn’t it?), you get a sense that a much older man is persuading this reluctant girl into this act by leveraging how hopelessly in love she is with him, though he does not seem to feel the same way. He speaks most when he is trying to persuade her - the rest of the time he is snappish and short with her childish and ignorant questions about the world around them. The above passage is the only time in the story where he refers to her by a name, and we can gather that it’s a pet one. The girl’s silence says as much as her dialogue, and when she does speak it is questioning - looking to him for authority.

Understanding character motivations and background is what makes this masterful use of dialogue. It would be tempting, for a novice writer, to have the girl argue. For her to say something like ‘what if we could be happy without it?’ But where that should be, there is silence, or repeating his thoughts back to him - because Hemmingway is not only driving the story but emphasising the imbalance of their relationship and her own naive nature. She would not argue with him, she can only wish that he will change his mind. This is all through dialogue and a tiny bit of narration, barely any dialogue tags, and really says so much without saying it at all. Show vs tell is about more than description after all.

That kind of depth when it comes to writing dialogue is... really hard. I haven’t picked Hemmingway to suggest that this is the quality all writing should be at, and I certainly don’t mean to intimidate anyone. But it really is a golden example of thinking about your dialogue within the context of the character, and how their background, situation, and goals will affect how they respond and react to those around them. Your character may not always be able to say what is convenient for you, the author, to tell the reader, because it may not be in their nature or sound authentic. But there are clever ways around that and it can make for more powerful writing, between the lines of what is said.

Have realism

If you skipped down to this bit, I understand. It’s the area that people most often struggle with. I find that people tend to fall into two traps here - either their characters sound like robots because they are over formal and have too much emphasis on being grammatically correct or over eloquent at the expense of natural dialogue, OR they swing in the other direction and try to replicate perfectly how people speak in day to day life.

If you do have a problem with stilted dialogue, it is a good idea to listen to how people naturally speak and try typing it out to get yourself out of the habit. But on the whole, the way people normally speak actually doesn’t sound that great in written format. In real life, we use lots of filler words, we get muddled, we go off on tangents, we trail off, we stutter and stammer and phrase things badly, we um and ah and say far more with our body language and expression than we realise. If you ever read transcripts, from interviews or courts, you’ll see how much of it actually doesn’t make a lot of sense. Our brains make sense of it when we listen to others, based on other parts of communication. Yes, sometimes adding in a ‘er...’ is beneficial and good, and you might have a really nice character moment of someone anxious trailing off when they realise no one is listening to them. Sprinkling those moments in can absolutely make your dialogue sound more authentic, especially when carefully used with character knowledge, but be careful not to over use it. In written dialogue, our characters can and should be more articulate and quicker to formulate their thoughts than in real life for the sake of the story. Striking that balance between overly structured and too real and easy can be really hard, but it only comes with practice - reading dialogue out loud can be a big help, as can writing the dialogue first with no narration or speech tags (more on that later).

Some common mistakes when it comes to dialogue:

Having one character speak too long without a break. Monologues are tough to get through as a reader and don’t come up often in real life in any meaningful way. They can end up cheesy or exposition heavy. Occasionally you can get away with it with very particular characters, but in general, avoid.

Over use of names. It’s really distracting as a reader if dialogue is constantly like, ‘what do you think, Harry?’ ‘Charlie, I just don’t know.’ ‘Really, Harry, you need to decide if you’re going to marry her or not.’ ‘I know, you’re right, Charlie.’ Use names to get someone’s attention and then don’t use them again unless you need to make it clear to the reader who the character is talking to.

Not using contractions. Even very formal people use contractions such as don’t and won’t, it is part of natural rapid speech. Save the ‘do not’ and ‘will not’s for when the emphasis is really needed.

Having characters speak in unison. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes this can be used to hilarious effect and can always be used for a bit of comedy. But on the whole people don’t do this, including twins.

Misuse of slang or dialects. If you’re going to use it, make sure you do your research. It’s also worth bearing in mind that if you over use it, it will be hard for the reader to understand and may break immersion.

Over explain for the reader. I mentioned this before but it’s worth repeating. If you went outside right now and saw a UFO, you would probably shout something along the lines of ‘wtf is that?’, and you would perhaps point or scramble for your potato to take a shaky video. You would probably not shout, ‘look at flying saucer! I’ve never seen anything like it!’ Think carefully about realistic reactions, even if they are not particularly convenient to you as a writer.

Over use of exclamation marks/caps lock. People aren’t that vibrant and it’s tiring to read. The less you use it, the more punch it packs.

Using narration and dialogue tags

First, a quick grammar lesson. Sorry.

‘This is some speech.’

‘This is also some speech,’ said the character.

‘Is this also speech?’ asked another.

‘Well,’ said the first, ‘yes.’

‘Brilliant,’ said the other. ‘Thanks for letting me know.’

I use single quotation marks because I’m British and annoying, the conventional double quote marks the Americans use (”like this!”) is also correct. The only important thing is that you pick one and stick to it. Quotation marks always surround the words that are being spoken aloud, and must be opened and closed. Where the sentence ends, you must use a full stop (period), or another piece of punctuation like a question or exclamation mark before closing the speech with the marks.

Where there is a dialogue tag (he said/said/replied, etc), the sentence is continuing, so a comma is more appropriate (but you can also use a question/exclamation mark and the sentence still continues), and again this must go before the speech marks close the dialogue. If you want to continue the sentence with the dialogue tag in the middle, you can continue by using another comma, or you can end the sentence with a full stop and continue the dialogue as a new sentence.

Use a new line for a new character speaking.

Phew, that’s over so you can pay attention again. But unfortunately I still have more to say.

Here is a fun little exercise. Take the below dialogue between two characters, A and B.

‘Do you love me?’

‘You’re drunk.’

‘Why won’t you answer the question?’

‘Sit down. I’ll make you a tea.’

‘I don’t want tea, I want an answer! Tell me!’

The dialogue alone already tells us a bit of a story - a picture is probably already forming in your head, perhaps of the characters, perhaps of the setting. As it stands it’s ok, and if you struggle with dialogue it can be effective to write only the dialogue out in this way (this tip from my writing teacher also helped me cut down on purple prose!). But now look at the scene:

It was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that Alex was woken at 3am by repeated bangs on the floor and shouts through the letterbox. Nothing else would have made her rise from bed. If she had suspected even for a moment that it was anyone else, she would have called the police.

But as usual, it was Sam. Blonde, tousled hair a mess, eye make up smudged, pouting lips trembling as she swayed.

‘Do you love me?’

‘You’re drunk,’ said Alex, wincing as Sam’s grey eyes shone with tears. ‘You’d better come in.’

‘Why won’t you answer the question?’

Alex ignored her, pulled her in by her slender arm. ‘Sit down. I’ll make you a tea.’

‘I don’t want tea. I want an answer. Tell me!’ Sam’s voice was loud and high, and it pierced her.

So, we haven’t actually added that much narration or dialogue tags (t’s best, if you can, to avoid using them too much), but we’re able to give a clearer picture of these two characters. You may even now be reading the dialogue in a different tone to the one you originally did - picturing the scene with a different feel. Not convinced? How about now?

Yet again, as had happened dozens of bloody times before, Alex was woken at 3am by incoherent, slurred shouting through the letterbox.

‘Do you love me?’ was Sam’s immediate demand as Alex wearily opened the door.

Alex rubbed her hand over her bleary eyes and sighed. ‘You’re drunk. You’d better come in.’

Sam turned on the tears at once, mascara running in thick, spidery lines down her blotchy cheeks. ‘Why won’t you answer the question?’

‘Sit down,’ Alex muttered. ‘I’ll make you a tea.’ She stood aside and jerked her head towards the living room.

‘I don’t want tea, I want an answer! Tell me!’

Wincing once more at her piercing shriek, Alex closed her eyes.

The very same dialogue can be shaped by carefully worded narration and dialogue tags. It’s a fun exercise to do with writing buddies - all use the same dialogue and see how different the stories come out. It can also be a pretty nifty way to challenge writers block or shake up a scene you’re struggling with.

Some extra tips from my writing teacher - I fully confess that I am not always the best at following these ones, because my writing has been heavily influenced by JK Rowling who also doesn’t seem to set much store by them. But they are good, and since I’ve kept them in mind my writing has improved.

Avoid overuse of adverbs (’she said nervously’). Use action or dialogue alone to convey this information instead.

Avoid overuse of verbs besides ‘said’. The reader will skim over said and barely notice it, if every character is whispering and muttering and shouting all the time it stilts the flow of the scene - use sparingly.

Use tags when necessary to ensure clarity as to who is speaking, otherwise let the dialogue stand for itself.

Use internal thoughts in place of speech tags sometimes.

Use action beats (’he turned to stare coldly out of the window’) in place of speech tags sometimes to help set the pace of the scene.

I hope this very lengthy post has helped! Please do get in touch if you have any further questions or would like any elaborations on anything I’ve mentioned here, or if you have suggestions for future lessons!

Lastly, I hate to do this but times must - if you have even just a couple of quid to send my way it would be a massive help to me. If you did find this useful, please consider donating to my kofi.

#Writing advice #writing lessons #writing dialogue

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rk1kheadcanons · 4 years

Note

AU after the revolution Connor becomes a “symbol of escaping your oppressors (esp sexually-conservative parents)” by becoming Markus’ partner and is very uncomfortable with everyone using him as just an object to project their fears and fantasies onto. He gets called a thot and “Markus’ good little slut” just for kissing and he hates it, the amount of pron people make of him makes him puke. No matter how hard they try, they can’t ignore how fetishized/objectified their relationship is becoming

You have no idea how vastly I love you for your prompt, Anon.

I took this prompt on for many reasons.

As an ally, it's imperative to respect and uplift all forms of love. It becomes a problem when we actively seek it out for the "entertainment value." There are people behind those alternative lifestyles with their own struggles on a daily basis. They are human, not 2d paper and pen figment of some of all perversions. They're not here to be anyone's form of sexual excitement, period. If someone asked me now why had so much more homosexual pairings instead of hetero, I got my receipts for each and every one of them, and I promise "they so cute" is not my first thought. If it is for you, well might give this a thought or two. And, no, I am NOT singling anyone out, never that.😌

Anyways, I'm off my soapbox now. I just felt l I owed it to my friends out there to say that they aren't just "quirky, gay babies, uwu."

That said, you'll have to pry booty shorts-wearing, nail polish bedazzling Connor from my cold, dead hands. I know he can be a BAMF, break my neck, and still be adorable while doing so. That's just gospel, sis. 😏

Markus and Connor had decided to go public with their relationship sooner rather than later for a myriad of reasons. There was a history between the two that no Android alive now would forget.

The famous deviant leader and the infamous deviant hunter now in a romantic relationship was the talk of New Jericho.

Of course, those hurt during the period of time that Connor had not Hu deviated was the louder voice heard from the masses. They didn't establish the 'ex' on deviant hunter for a reason. They were bitter, intimidated, and above all else, felt the relationship between the two men betrayed something that Markus had pledged to them. So long as Connor was just there acting as the security on his off time from the DPD, no one cared. As soon as he showed true signs of his deviation, that he could indeed understand the concept of emotions like love... Well, to many that was unacceptable. What about their friends and possible lost lovers in the original Jericho? They, the murmuring androids, knew that he would have been shackled to his programming, that until it was broken, he would have been just as much a slave to his protocol as they would have been in his place.

The funny thing about emotions though is it tended to make you irrational.

Connor was forever cautious when at New Jericho despite Markus and North, Josh, and Simon finally taking him under their wing. He heard those murmurs, though. It wasn't like he did not have good hearing. Then there were the social protocols that let him know that others were uncomfortable around him. Maybe they glanced away upon looking at him or more obviously changed positions to get away from wherever he strolled.

Connor hated the feeling but he wore the mass shunning like a Scarlet Letter around his neck.

Markus and the others knew of Connor's treatment. Markus often publicly condemned the behavior. It worked for some, others revolted against it. That's when they changed tactics.

Connor immediately became apprehensive about the sudden change in behavior over the next month. No longer did those who meet him look away or run from him, but more and more an odd behavior happened in some.

Connor was met with blushes, flustered looks while others, male, female, or other, looked at him with a look that could only be described as hostility mixed with lust. It caused him to recoil away from those who wore those looks, recalling how North had confided candidly in him, shared memories of how she'd been treated. Those human faces matched those of these Androids.

Markus had come to him without him knowing, so caught up in the sea of emotions he was, pulling him away.

When Connor looked at the other man, his face looked tired. He looked overall defeated and hurt. Before Connor could ask, Markus took him back to his office and gently sat him in his office chair behind Markus all in one desktop he used to interface with when going over things. It was not long before North busted in the office, Simon right behind her, both taking there side by Connor. Josh came in lathe st closing the door and locked it.

Connor was wary. What was going on? Markus began talking to him telling him about how about a month or so ago a new online group had been created, a forum. It revolved around their relationship solely. He told Connor that the maker of the room was in custody, as well as several of the main instigators, that he was heartbroken that this was happening, that he should have done more and to not concern himself, he was taking care of it and to never look at the site as they worked to close it down for good.

The LED on Connor's temple pulsed yellow and Markus had to stop him from searching for it, instead interfaced with the PC front of him on his desk. He knew Connor would want to go to it regardless. He was too inquisitive for his own good.

The website seemed pretty benign, it even had a cute shorthand for their relationship as 'RK1K' or 'R1000'.

Connor gently shed the human skin and interfaced with the site.

It was wasn't cute or sweet at all if the tightening if his other hand on the armrest indicated with the squeal of leather in the starkly quiet room. North's fiery glare was in one screen as well though she gently pulled his fingers away from the chair willing him to grab at her own hand, even if his strength in his stress crushed it. Simon placed a resting friendly hand on his thigh, sad eyes turned up to him.

Markus wrapped his arms around his lover's shoulders and rested his head on one shoulder, also taking in the devastating effects of what misguided hatred could do again with Connor.

The tears came naturally to his eyes as he took in the sheer volume of disrespectful post one after another. Pictures and videos edit made to look very realistic of Connor in a very harmful or demeaning role in his relationship with Markus.

They really did have him as if he was just Markus' slave, literal pet, or even more insulting, just a hole to use, eluding Markus still remained with North but they agreed to this arrangement due to her history as a known sex model. This was insulting to not only him but also North, cheapening her struggle.

Others said that this was his new attack on the android leader: get him used to him, in a relationship with himself, and then when they were in the throes of passion he'd strike like some twisted black widow.

The group chat was abhorrent. Connor to them was little more than a beautiful carcass. He meant nothing to them but they'd be willing to bed him. The female-presenting androids made him little more than just some sort of soft, weak invalid that lived only for Markus to dominate in and out of the bedroom. Others just lusted for them both, striping everything that was Markus and Connor away to nothing but rutting animals, nothing further.

The screen turned off with the withdraw of Connor's hand from it. He was up and out of the chair on his way, away from here. He could not do this with these people.

Markus was right after him.

North and Simon were calling all Androids on the campus for a meeting while Josh had been working on ways to fully dismantle such an awful website.

About time Markus caught up to Connor, he was in a self-driving cab, whisking away from New Jericho, Markus knew most likely to Hank's House called his own to go there.

The meeting went exactly as one would expect from two extremely pissed leaders, one who could remain level headed regardless, and the third finally joined giving the names of the known accused and that the site was permanently shut down. There was no grumbling because they knew that it would be more issues. They all have seen Connor flee the compound, markus on his heels.

For however angry North was, nothing would compare to Markus when he showed that side of him to the people that caused this and the others that cast a blind eye to this sort of abuse, allowing for it.

When Connor reached Hank's door, he knocked hard but couldn't see well due to the tears. His face was flushed as they poured down his face. It was not long before the older father figure lieutenant let Connor inside just as Markus pulled up in his own taxi.

After Hank was assured Markus was not the cause of Connor's distress, he was admitted into the house as well. Markus immediately went and held on to Connor. They were both hurting from that level of hatred.

Of course, Markus would be upset and just as hurt as if the subject matter was him. He loved Connor and the sheer disrespect for the one he cared for was a slap in the face to him, as well.

The situation was explained to Hank, who was livid for them both, and sad that the other Androids couldn't see Connor for himself. Dad powers activated and Connor would stay with him for a while, away from Jericho.

Weeks pass, Markus is hurting and the rest of the leaders can see just how much Connor helped with smoothing the frayed edges in Markus own personality when he was tired, hurt. He tended to be snappish, not meaning to be. While he still did everything required, the whole of Jericho started to understand the gravity of the situation.

Sure, there would still be those who just treated the situation like Markus lost a favorite toy like Connor wasn't even a person, to begin with. As if Markus was throwing a tantrum in the face of genuine mistreatment.

Others though would likely see the pain they caused, fear what would happen if, though unlikely but improbable, Markus decided to walk away from all of this as a leader in the Deviants for his lover.

There are very real rumors.

It's not like they don't see Josh counseling his friend and brother daily when Markus anxiously paces the floor, the sometimes bitter and harsh words directed at no one stating the same grief he feels from this strife of his people and who he's chosen to love in the end. Or how he leaves all things that can be to the three leaders now, where before it wasn't an issue to wear that heavy crown of leadership primarily. Or how when he can he sneaks off to the old human Lieutenant's house to see the ex-deviant hunter and second he can because of that love.

Yeah, the vast majority of people are feeling like they fucked up, including any androids who dared to join in with this witch hunt for Connor and they were part of the group he directly deviated and saved from Cyberlife.

Fractions start to happen among the group, those for and against Connor's presence like finally some of those saved remembered some semblance of loyalty to him. North is fucking done with this shit. All she knows is that she misses her awkward murder baby that is so much more than just arm candy to Markus and it takes both Simon and Josh to keep her from charging into another dispute of Connor this week.

"Shut the fuck up! You have no idea what you are talking about, the person you are trying to tear down just because of his past and programming."

Of course, she'd vested. It was an explicit reminder of her own life before Jericho and how people, human and Android, loved to devalue someone with a sexual abuse past.

Connor's was mentally and emotionally abuse he suffered. The abuse was abuse at the end of the day. He had confided in her. She had seen Amanda...

From that day on, it seemed quieter about the Connor subject.

Six months.

It took six months of Markus creeping to see his lover that felt an outcast, North railing at any Android who dared speak ill of Connor, and Simon and Josh going to see him at the old lieutenant's house.

Simon had missed Connor, too. Though he was quieter about the whole thing, it didn't mean he didn't suffer the same.

Connor was so unique. He could be so cold and calculating in the heat of the moment, gun out, ready to go. But in private, talking about the 'family' dog Sumo, sharing snapshots of him, and talking about a new soft sweater he thought Simon might like as well.

Simon helped Connor with his identity as a homosexual man and as such, they bonded together. Between him and North scheming when they had a night out, it was so hilarious and refreshing.

He missed him.

Josh enjoyed Connor's brand of humor. It was dry as the Sahara, and typically delivered deadpan and it murdered him. Connor did laugh like a madman, but it was typically in Markus presence at his dry humor or sarcasm.

All the while Connor was gone, Markus and Connor talked about the dilemma. Whether Markus came and got him for lunch or they met after work at Hank's place, they talked about it, kept their communication strong, and their relationship stronger. It had been hard for them, and blame had been spread, mostly hurt fueled from Connor's side to Markus initially that this even happened under their leadership. Markus mutely had taken it, feeling as though he could have done more. Then Connor would apologize, realizing that his past was not anyone else fault but his own, that he deserved this treatment to which Markus would rally against, telling him he was good and kind, no he most definitely did not deserve this disrespect. In time, the storm calmed between them and Connor knew what to do.

On a cool, wet morning in October, Connor Anderson moved back into New Jericho, back into the living quarters with one Markys Manfred. Sure, there were murmurs but nothing like before.

One android saw this again felt some sort of way about Connor and his existence at Jericho. Just as she readied her verbal barbs, another shut her down before she could even start.

Connor witness it; Markus did too, as did North, Simon, and Josh as they were welcoming him back. A majority of people saw this brave soul stand up for one of their leaders as they had never done before.

It makes a difference in the way Connor is perceived and treated. Instead of the leadership having to police the situation, the fear of another common android speaking out for Connor and against the naysayer's curves the negative vibe that attempts to take hold again.

Connor is now welcomed back by the majority of New Jericho, not the minority, and things are back to running smoothly as before he left.

#rk1k #rk1000 #conkus #marnor #dbh #connor x markus #ask #anonymous #post canon #tw: mlm fetishizing #tw: depression #tw: relationship struggles #tw: cyberbullying #whole ass story #enjoy

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blanc-et-n0ir · 4 years

Text

How the Brothers Cope with MC gone

This isn't about MC leaving the Devildom, oh noo. I'm still not letting up on that beautiful, beautiful other timeline hahahahah.

Lucifer

He'll drive himself to work more, be more of a workaholic. He's already here passing out doing work, missing meals, not functioning properly. He'd also be more snappish, considering his tiring schedule and not needing to sleep. He would drown himself in caffeine and continue working on paperwork to forget about the pain it gave him.

His relationship with Diavolo and Barbatos will probably be tenser. He'd give short, snappish replies to Diavolo or Barbatos or outright ignore their texts or shenanigans.

With his brothers, it's a lot easier for him to snap or dish out punishments. His stress levels would go higher and he's more prone to getting annoyed over the littlest arguments the brothers have. Whenever the brothers would have an outburst, he'd scream at them and immediately punish them.

"WHO TOLD YOU YOU CAN DO THAT? THATS IT, STRING HIM UP-"

"Oh, I apologise, Lord Diavolo."

"I don't need to rest, I'll just finish all this work-"

Mammon

He'll gamble more, throwing himself out there. Making more debts, getting more reckless with spending. He'd also get drunk more often. As the closest one to MC, he'd be the most affected. His bills would get bigger and longer, Lucifer would punish him more but he wouldn't complain as much anymore. Not when he doesn't c a r e about anything now that MC is gone.

He would get angry at Diavolo, probably even try to fight him or Barbatos. Like I said, he'd get more reckless.

He'd be snappish to his brothers and get angry at their quips even more. This time, it's less complaining and more of real anger. He'd storm around the place, lock himself inside his room and block all their numbers.

"MC, would like this..."

"Who cares about debts, I don't!"

Leviathan

He'd be more of a shut in. MC was the only one who could get him outside, other than the knowledge of new merch or concerts. Now, he won't even go out to concerts or buy merch. He'd hole himself inside his room, watching his recorded animes- the ones that he and MC used to watch.

He'd be spiteful towards Diavolo, maybe even complain about it a lot in social media. He would bash around and call him names and post everything, not caring what that might do.

He won't talk to any of his brothers. He'd just be inside him room, wallowing in despair and hatred. He'd talk to himself from time to time, acting as if MC was still there with him.

"MC used to watch this with me..."

"Hey, MC what do you think about this scene, hahahahahha!"

"MC!MC!MC! Please accept my friend request in this new game!"

Satan

He'd go into a fiery rage at first. Challenging Diavolo and Barbatos, maybe even going as far as threatening to kill them. He'd destroy everything in his path to the point that his brothers would need to hold him back. Then, later he'd be burned out from all his anger and leave him as a husky of nothing. He'd stay in his room, staring blankly at the wall and trapping himself in his own mind. Whenever someone would walk in, he'd snap at them immediately not caring that he's angry for nothing.

At first, he'd be angry at Diavolo and Barbatos. Trying to kill them as his rage consumes him. Later, when he's burned out he would be too preoccupied with his own thoughts to even think about the two.

He'd once again be too preoccupied with his own thoughts to even care about anything around him. He'd stay in his room but at times he would go outside, but he's still staring around blankly. When he bumps into any of his brothers, he'd snap at them angrily and they would fall into an argument.

"What are you doing?"

"WHO TOLD Y O U THST YOU CAN ENTER MY ROOM? GET OUT!"

"I SAID GET OUT OF MY WAY, WHAT? CANT YOU WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING?"

Asmodeus

He would break down. At first, he would cry. He'd lock himself in his room, crying his eyes out. He missed MC. Then, he'd forget about it. He'd like to himself that he was fine and continue on like normal. No one would point out that he was going out to clubs a lot more often compared to before.

He'd be mad at Diavolo and Barbatos but overall won't do anything to them. He's mad, yes, they took away the one thing he was possessive over. But he can't do an y t h I N g to them. He knows that.

He would be on very tense terms with his brothers. Considering how he doesn't seem to care, he'd get into arguments with Mammon or sometimes even Satan when he does get out. It'll end explosively and Asmo would leave the house to go to a club.

"Oh look at all of you, maybe we should go to the spa sometime~"

"WHY DO YOU EVEN STILL CARE? HAHA, THEY'RE GONE, MAMMON OR YOU STILL AN IDIOT?"

"Who cares about some silly human, they all come and go anyways-"

Beelzebub

He'd be devastated. MC was such a great friend to him. He'd lose his appetite a lot and constantly stare at the large amounts of food. He'd easily get sick when he thinks about MC. He would try and get himself back together but his thoughts would always longer back on MC.

He is not happy with Diavolo. He didn't only take away his brother but he also took away a friend. A dear friend. It was obvious he would be mad. Extremely so.

Whenever he sees his brothers fight, he'd flinch and try to keep them calm. He'd try his best to bring them back together as a family, thinking this was exactly what MC would want. But slowly, deep inside he breaks. He just wants his brothers and MC back.

"I don't think I'm hungry anymore-"

"There's no need to fight-"

"Mc... They wouldn't want any of you to fight... Right?"

Belphegor

He'd be stuck in the prison. That's it. He doesn't even know that MC left. He'd just think his brothers abandoned him again. That the human was of no use as usual.

"As expected, they were human after all."

"They probably care more about that human than me, as usual-"

Whoops, this was sad. Hahahahah, but I got inspired by someone mentioning that Mammon would be an alcoholic and this happened. Wow, my first ever headcanon thing bahahah

#obey me belphegor #obeyme #shall we date obey me #obey me satan #obey me! diavolo #obey me! lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me beel #obey me belphie #obey me asmodeus #angst angst angst #kill me now #oh boy #this was #fuck

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pidgetyy · 4 years

Photo

My application for The Underpass, a roleplay hosted by @fireflythenightlight (and which I found through my dear friend @validwofjobs). Legacy is a mostly-human, slightly-pheonix girl who loves planning ahead, making new friends, and her two identical pet giant geckos, Lychee the pet leachie and Guinep the familiar leachie-salamander. The rest about her can be found in these incoming walls of text under the cut!

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Backstory-

Legacy grew up with an older and younger sister, the treasured “only son” of her parents, especially her father. Her name, before she realized she wasn’t a boy and chose a new name for herself, was Terrence. Her family lived in an apartment above a pet reptile store, run by her father. She got her familiar, Guinep, as well as her beloved pet, Lychee, when she was 8. She bonded with Guinep especially as her familiar, but the identical Lychee received plenty of love too, and in the first few years she had trouble telling apart the identical and closely bonded New Caledonian Giant Geckos by anything other than their temperament- Guinep was very calm, but Lychee tended to be a lot more snappish. Lychee followed Guinep’s lead in warming up to Legacy quickly, but remains a little aggressive towards strangers.

Legacy was almost 15 when she finally admitted to herself that she didn’t think she was really a boy, after two years of suppressing and refusing to believe her own feelings. She began to grow her hair out, and stared longingly at the girl’s section of stores, but didn’t dare to expose her identity to her parents, whose reactions she couldn’t predict in the slightest. After about a year and a half of planning and psyching herself up, she finally had the guts to come out to her parents. The fallout didn’t come to the extremes she’d read many a horror story of online, of physical abuse or conversion therapy, but her parents still refused to acknowledge her preferred pronouns or name, and began to threaten homeschooling her, to keep “their only son” away from “the influence of those queer friends of yours.” She refused to be homeschooled, and her parents responded that, if she insisted on this, then they wouldn’t be paying college tuition for a daughter they didn’t have. Upset to say the least, she haphazardly packed the belongings she thought of first and could fit in her backpack, and left. It was the largest decision she had made in her life, and it was completely unplanned.

Her grandma on her mother’s side lived in a small house halfway across the city, and Legacy hoped her parents hadn’t shared the news with her about her identity, because she couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. It came as a surprise not that her grandmother knew, but she actually accepted Legacy, scoffing and asking her to “give me your real name, girl” when she introduced herself grudgingly as Terrence. For the next few months, she lived there happily, upset about some of the belongings she had forgotten to bring but definitely not willing to go back to her parents, who didn’t bother to come find her (after her grandmother had sternly told them over the phone not to come unless they were going to treat their daughter right). Her grandmother bought her real girl’s clothes, and even helped her dye her hair a bright shade of bubblegum pink she’d had her eyes on for months. She finished highschool a semester early, something she had already been planning to do since before coming out. Her grandmother, unfortunately, was starting to decline in her old age. She was in stage 4 of Alzheimer’s disease, beginning to get to stage 5, when she was finally deemed no longer able to care for herself and was placed in an elderly person’s home to be cared for. By that summer, Legacy was back on the streets, preferring them against going back to her parents.

She took a job as the sole member of the “Maintenance Crew” of a cafe/coffee shop in a slightly busier part of the city in order to pay for her own living necessities and her leachie’s. From age 17 to the start of rp, Legacy worked there, cleaning up spills, keeping tabs of what sanitary supplies needed restocking, and keeping the rest of the shop sanitary. She made use of the keys she had to the shop, coming in before dawn, and definitely before opening hours, to clean the shop and then to clean herself, and fix her hair to look presentable. On particularly cold nights, she would spend the night there, more to keep her beloved pets warm than for any other reason. Though her high body temperature was usually enough to keep herself and the leachies warm, she didn’t want to risk any of them getting sick on especially stormy or windy winter nights. Most nights, she would instead find a friend happy to lend a couch for the night, or a fellow homeless person she trusted enough to watch her back while she slept next to, for safety reasons.

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Personality-

Legacy is a generally cautious and consistent person. She sticks to her daily routine and her plans rather than acting spontaneously without thought. Unexpected changes and surprises are strongly disliked, because she hates being unprepared for something and sometimes has trouble dealing with surprise changes to her own plans because of that. Besides not being a big fan of practical jokes, she tries not to act outwardly uptight or prissy in social situations, even if her careful organization, tidiness and plans may make her seem like it. Most people wouldn’t pinpoint her as a homeless kid if they saw her, because she dedicates a considerable amount of time and money to making herself look very clean and neat. Half of the backpack she wears is filled with two other outfits, which she mixes-and-matches often. When she feels like a fashion change is in order, she’ll donate some clothes and buy new replacements for them at a local clothing exchange store.

Her careful and well-put-together nature stems from a deep fear of making mistakes. Legacy hates the thought that she might make some mistake, do something wrong that could ruin her life as it is now, or change it beyond recognition (even if the change was for the better). So instead, she chooses inactivity. Though she could probably find a permanent place to live if she got a second job and saved carefully, she doesn’t, and instead spends most of her paycheck on unnecessary things like new clothes when she no longer needs it to buy food and water for her and her pets. She waited and planned for over a year to come out to her parents, and it still didn’t end well, so now she just tries to avoid taking any risks like that again (besides hiding her gender- she’s definitely done doing that. She presents as female and uses her real, chosen name. Most people don’t even realize she wasn’t born a girl). Legacy prefers to be a follower in social situations, rather than a leader. That way, she’s less likely to take the brunt of the consequences if a wrong decision is made. Safer. She prefers being safe, and right now her routine and life is safe and predictable, so she doesn’t see a need to change it or plan to end up anywhere else in her life.

Her caution about life decisions and other areas doesn’t quite extend to the social side of her life, however. Legacy’s a people person and a definite extrovert. She likes to surround herself with new friends at any chance she gets, and has a great memory for faces and personal details. Since middle school, she hasn’t forgotten a friend’s birthday or favorite color. Stranger’s opinions generally don’t have the power to change your whole life around, so with that low-risk assessment of friendship Legacy goes at making friends with a sort of wild abandon. Her charisma isn’t exactly impressive, but that doesn’t matter when she can just walk away and try again with someone else if the first person doesn’t seem to like her all that much. Even though she could listen to details about a person she barely knows for hours, and loves to learn new details about anyone, she’s dismissive of people’s opinions, especially if they’re about her. Few people have ever managed to become such an ingrained part of Legacy’s life as to earn the title of “Friend I actually care about and will make an effort not to lose.” Legacy shows up at many a party, flitting between groups for a while usually before finding someone she likes enough to hang out with for the rest of the night or couch-crash with, but refuses to get any farther than slightly tipsy even if the drinks are free. Being drunk is far too risky a thing for her to ever have attempted, even as tempting as it sometimes was. Party-going and friend-making are a few items on the short list of things she rarely, if ever, plans for.

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Extra Facts™-

-She is, by a small percentage, a Phoenix hybrid (1/8th, or 12.5 percent to be precise) by her great-grandmother on her mother’s mother’s side. She doesn’t have the identifying wings because of her lack of more phoenix-hybrid ancestors, but does have the noticeably higher body temperature and small flame-producing ability. She doesn’t have a ton of control over the flames, and they’re likely to appear, purposefully or not, when she’s feeling strong emotions.

-her favorite color is, by far, pink. Second is light green.

-Partially because of favorite-color influence, partially because of its sweet flavor, her favorite food is watermelon.

-She isn’t a vegetarian, but she generally doesn’t like meat very much.

-She wishes she had the spare money to afford an instrument. Legacy used to play the flute in her middle school band, and loved it, but she left it behind in her parent’s house.

-Lawful neutral

-She’s a Libra (her birthday is September 28th)

#the underpass #underpass rp #underpass application #original rp #original story

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smollandtoll · 6 years

Text

HC: Open relationships are complicated when someone gets pregnant (OT3)

We like OT3 mostly because we can’t bear to just erase Nikita, also because Anna is smokin hot and we Get It. Even fic Geno would be so sad about it. We theorize a lot about THE PERFECT FIC where Sid and Geno’s relationship is always kind of wobbly and open because like We aren’t gay really so much as chronically monogamous and into each other and It would be career suicide to lock it down openly, and I’m so glad we’re on the same page.

(We fully acknowledge that it probably wouldn’t actually be career suicide now (...probably) but like back when they were little penguin babies before the days of You Can Play, it was; and those things are hard to unlearn or let go of)

So, anyway, Geno hangs out with Anna over the summers/they’ve been friends for a few years and when he goes back to Russia the open nebulous thing with Sid is really easy because they just have their separate lives and come back together in the season and everything is great.

Except Anna comes back with him to visit one fall and pregnancy just happens accidentally as it does (and did ...probably). There’s no real reason to panic, everyone is an adult with a (really well paying) job and time and money to spare. Most of all Anna and Geno sit down and both WANT that baby and that life together.

So Anna knows all about the on again off again relationship G has with Sid, because we firmly believe they are actually very good friends and have a healthy communicative relationship. So she definitely secretly thinks the two of them together are super hot.

Sid unfortunately does not speak Russian and doesn’t get 100% of this open communication so consequently gets all weird and irrationally jealous because Geno brings Anna to the states and sets her up in his house and goes to her doctors appointments, and talks about getting married because she needs a visa to stay in the states and being married makes hers a condition of his and it's ‘the right thing to do’, ‘babies parents should be married’ and he loves her he truly does etc etc.

But there is DEFINITELY some translation issues because Geno is probably too busy swinging wildly between OVERJOYED and TERRIFIED to explain (to both of them) that he fully expects Sid to co-parent with them.

Of course to make matters worse Anna is SUPER intimidated by Sid - he and Geno have so much history? And have this working relationship that she can never fully understand? - so her natural reaction to that is to act cool and collected and ABOVE IT ALL. In reality of course she's terrified.

She doesn't understand anything in this new backwards country and she can't even eat what she wants any more and Geno spends like 70% of his time with the most beautiful and talented and sweet man who shares his deep and unrivalled love for hockey so she is quietly freaking out.

Sid is freaking out quietly because Geno went and found everything that Sid Is Not and is now talking about putting a ring on it and he's like "Okay I guess I'm just yesterday's trash, that's cool, I always knew that, I guess my trophies will keep me warm." He probably gets VIGOROUSLY CANADIAN for a bit trying to comfort himself.

TL;DR: Everyone is quietly freaking out but acting like everything is Chill™.

Geno is the only one who is genuinely happy, if not puzzled. He keeps like trying to set up dinner dates and trying to getting the dating game going between them all and being confused about why Sid and Anna barely talk to each other when he's not in their immediate vicinity.

He knows that they'll end up best friends who gang up on him about everything. It’s so obviously to him that their personalities will be a good match and like they'll like each other and be scorching hot together ...and like throw a baby in there for them all to adore???

ENDLESS BLISS AHEAD the blinking exit ramp signs say, but for some reason he can't get anyone to take the exit with him.

It's only getting more complicated by the month, because Anna is getting like super visibly pregnant, and everyone knows she's staying with him indefinitely, and the word is spreading and pretty soon the media is going to catch on to what’s happening and by then keeping Sid on the same page is going to get slippery and awful.

He’s already just starting to get more and more intentionally distant, gracefully excusing himself and offering to babysit other teammates kids and having dinner at Mario's instead of with them and such. He's doing the Jon Snow Right Thing™ and manfully bowing out.

Leaving voicemails like : ...Sorry everything is really piling up. The season, eh? But you seem happy!! Keep it up, I’m so pleased for you, G!

Geno starting to really have had enough of it just like GET YOUR LUDICROUSLY PERFECT BUTT BACK HERE I WANNA SEE ANNA'S TEETH MARKS IN IT YESTERDAY.

Meanwhile Sid whenever even remotely cornered rambles like, I'll give you the best best-man speech, I promise, G. I'm really happy for you *FEELS HEART TEARING IN TWO WHILE SAYING IT*

Is silently pining Sid a thing for us? It is definitely a thing for us.

Anna gets on board with team OT3 with Geno first because she's the smart one obviously. Maybe Geno gets home drunk post-win one day and they’re on a couch with Geno’s head in her lap and he can hide his face in her belly and haltingly explain what he’s kind of been thinking. And once it starts making sense, some of the insecurities about Sid can start to dissolve. Also pregnancy has lowered her already fairly low threshold for dealing with Hockey-Player-flavoured Bullshit - she definitely knows she can only put up with Geno’s moods for so long, and him being so mopey about Sid is only making him even more annoying. She’s really starting to see the appeal of having another person she can tag off with, because Zhenya in a mood is a 6′4+ snappish thundercloud.

Anna: He's been dealing with your drama for a decade, Zhenya, we need him so my pregnant hormones don't force me to murder you. So, how are we gonna do this?

The only solution is basically one step short of tying Sid to a chair and forcibly explain the joys of polyamory to him. But like, you have to ease into things like that if you’re a normal person who wants a successful relationship (Anna). So she gets on board with them all mutually dating, and they start inviting Sid over to hang more. When Anna thaws Sid definitely starts to thaw as well, feeling like he’s welcome to hang out with them and Anna clearly knows he and Geno used to be a thing - they’re still familiar with each other all the time. Maybe a little more than Sid is strictly always comfortable with, with Anna watching them like that. But like, it seems like they want him around and he still does care a lot and Sid is a Good Friend™. So it continues like that for a few more months.

At some point Anna double checked with G like “...You did tell him he's supposed to be dating us right? It sometimes seems like he's trying to gently let you down?” and Geno replying indignantly with, “HE WOULD NEVER THINK THAT OF COURSE HE KNOWS US THREE ARE ENDGAME.” He somehow has completely lost the plot and didn't realize Sid didn't know he was part of the relationship at all.

We’re fairly certain it boils down to after the baby is born, Anna's like "I desperately need a bath and a nap and I don't trust either of you alone with my baby yet, so you must be together."

Sid: But I'm not-"

Geno: Hey is my baby too!

Anna just like SHUSHES them and hands them that lil teeny baby and then gives them both kisses and leaves.

Sid: I think your wife is actually losing it, she kissed both of us, not just you.

Geno would just turn to him with giant hands full of tiny baby, full of heartbroken confusion “You don't want to be WITH US ANY MORE????”

Then they devolve into whisper shouting to not disturb Anna/Nikita

Geno (paraphrased): OF COURSE SHE KISSED YOU. YOU ARE PART OF THIS FAMILY. YOU HELPED US MAKE THIS NURSERY SO BEAUTIFUL. YOU STILL HAVE A DRAWER OF CLOTHES, I WAS GONNA ASK YOU TO MOVE IN PERMANENTLY TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR YOU TO BE WITH NIKITA MORE OFTEN.

So then Sid realizes he’s actually been completely enwrapped into their relationship for months. Like none of the other guys even think its weird any more that he and G ride to and from the rink together. He hasn’t seen the inside of his own house in weeks. Anna’s moans a fews weeks ago when he was rubbing her feet were pornographic and he wasn’t imagining it that she was disappointed when he pulled away (probably to hide a mild chub).

BONUS:

Also we kind of love the idea that G and Anna are low key high key worried that their beautiful baby boy isn't going to learn English right with just them around and struggle in American school, but also he’ll be American and struggle culturally in Russia. Like they are settled in Pittsburgh and have no immediate plans to leave, their kid is gonna go to kindergarten not speaking proper english and be bullied or something!

Which is ridiculous, but like the kind of absurd thing you think about when you have a squishy jelly bag that relies on you for everything and you are two individuals who cannot master grammar.

So they're like "If Sid isn't there, he's going to end up speaking English badly and STRUGGLE." which is unbearable to think about so they keep Sid around, they tease him, just for his English skills.

#sid/geno/anna #sidgenoanna #OT3 #hockey rpf #headcanons from the icy void

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hirstories · 7 years

Text

Abraca—switch! Or The Tale of Edward Elric vs. the Mischievous Body-Snatcher

Chapter 5

A succulent dinner in the company of loved ones; Winry knew there wasn't anything else she could ask for in life. She wasn't trying to be corny or silly in her way of thinking, and she wasn't trying to be overly dramatic either. She had reasons, solid reasons for thinking—and even feeling—the way she did.

Time at the table had been something she used to hate. For years silence had been her loyal companion at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Food did tend to taste better whenever her grandmother joined her at the table but those were rare occasions because Pinako wasn't a chatty person by nature. Then the day came, after years of questing, when the brothers finally were home, and she finally began looking forward to gatherings around the table. Edward and Alphonse, and their silly antics had a way to liven up the atmosphere—and they still did—but now that Mei Chan joined their gatherings, everything sort of became perfect like when automail components come together to make-up one extraordinary piece of machinery.

Winry's reverie was cut short by sounds coming from outside. She blinked several times as she settled back into the present moment. “What was that?” she asked the group because she thought she heard something else besides Den’s barking. Seconds later, ‘that something’ was heard loud and clear.

“Looks like Den made a new friend,” Granny said after taking a long drag from her pipe.

Alphonse’s brows bunched together in worry. He pushed back the chair and stood up. “I’m going outside,” he said before hurrying out of the dining room. Quick steps turned into a hasty stride as he went down the hallway to reach the front door.

Mei stood up and went after him. The older Elric scooped up some ice cream and pie and shoved it in his mouth. Winry was still undecided about going outside or staying inside like her grandmother and her boyfriend had done.

“Dammit Den!” Edward growled again, “Just let me go already!”

The front door slammed open. Alphonse stood in front of the stairs looking around to see where Den and the cat were at. He happened to look down, and to his right, and that’s when he saw Den holding the cat in his mouth.

Edward knew the scene unraveling before his brother’s eyes looked far worse than it really was. Somehow Den had recognized him even in his current form. The dog slobbered him with kisses before picking him up like a puppy.

“Den! Put that cat down this instant!” Alphonse demanded.

The dog didn't heed his warning so he rushed down the stairs to save the cat. “Let go!” He cried as he grabbed Den’s snout and forced it open. Den whimpered. Alphonse only let him go when the cat landed safely on the ground.

Den raised his eyes at Alphonse and whined again, but Alphonse shot back a cold glare. Den’s ears flattened against his head and he began pedaling backward.

Mei rushed past Alphonse and went to Den’s side. The poor dog looked confused so she sank to her knees and tried to console him.

“What on earth is going on?” Winry asked as she looked over the balustrade. She rushed outside when he heard Alphonse yelling.

Mei looked up. “Den was holding that cat in his mouth,” she said, pointing in the general direction of where the cat was.

Winry followed Mei’s finger and saw Alphonse with a golden-haired cat in his arms. He was sheltering the cat as if it'd been hurt. Her eyes narrowed a fraction then she shook her head. “That's impossible. Den would never do that,” Winry said as she returned her attention to Mei.

“Well he did, Winry,” Alphonse snapped.

Winry turned back to Alphonse, who was still resting a protective hand on the Edward’s back. She was glowering at Alphonse but her angry expression made her look like she was pouting.

Winry’s glare amused Edward, it wasn’t everyday that he got to see her unleash her fury at someone other than himself. Out of nowhere, she turned her full attention on him, catching him by surprise. Why the sudden shift? Edward thought. Maybe she sensed that he’d been observing her. A moment later, he caught a familiar gleam in her eye that made his breath catch in his throat. To him, Winry’s stare felt as if she was peering into his very soul. But that couldn’t be... Unfortunately for Edward, he didn’t get a chance to process what was happening because Don Paco decided to grace them all with his presence.

The man stepped into the balcony and made his way to the balustrade. Standing between Winry and the stairs, he looked down like Winry had done minutes ago. His face drew down in a fearsome scowl the moment he spotted him.

Edward scowled back at the man who stole his body with the same intensity. That’s right, fucker. I’m home, he wanted to say but didn’t.

. . . Edward scowled back at Don Paco, the man who'd stole his body and trapped his mind and soul inside the body of a cat.

Edward, that is, Don Paco, curled his hands tightly around the handrail.

Den happened to look up and growled. Mei had to hold him back or he would've charged his way upstairs.

Alphonse turned his head when he saw movement. His face twisted with furious disbelief. “Stop it, Den!” he yelled. The dog lowered his head and whined. But not even this was going to calm Alphonse. “What's the matter with you boy?” he spat.

Mei let go of Den and watched him run to his doghouse. Sighing, she rose up to her feet and approached Alphonse. Her ebony eyes confronted his glare. “Alphonse-sama...” She offered him a gentle smile. “Please calm down.”

“What is all the ruckus about?” Pinako asked as she joined her granddaughter and the impostor on the balcony.

“Den caught a cat roaming around,” Winry said, her snappish tone betraying her apparent composure.

“’Caught’?” Alphonse snapped back at her. “More like he was going to have the poor thing for dinner.”

Winry gripped the handrail hard. “You know Den’s not like that!”

Don Paco the impostor, reached around Winry and pulled her close to him but Winry was so rattled by all the squabbling that she jerked away.

Alphonse narrowed his eyes at Winry. “Well Den”—he spitefully emphasized the dog’s name—”has been acting strange ever since Ed got back. Did you forget already how he nipped at him when he tried to pet him?”

Edward’s feline eyes rounded. He could feel his brother's emotions through the hairs of his fur. And right now what he was registering wasn't good. He looked up at Winry. Like his brother, she too was reaching the limit of her patience. He couldn't help but look away. The two people he loved most in this world were fighting with each other; this too was his fault. He looked up again but this time he directed a pointed stare at Don Paco. For some strange reason that went beyond logic, Don Paco was actually trying to calm Winry just like Mei had been doing for his brother.

And they haven't been successful, he concluded. It was up to him to make things right.

Edward had served as referee many times before. Alphonse had acquired a bit of an attitude after he returned to his original body. Blame it on puberty; maybe he was always supposed to be this way. While his brother often butted heads with him there were a few occasions he took the fight to Winry. And she always welcomed the challenge. It would be so easy to put a stop to their bickering if they could understand him, but he was stuck in the body of a cat.

That got Edward thinking. Alphonse was a sucker for cats—defending him is what got him into trouble with Winry in the first place. Right now he was nestled in his brother’s arms. Cats purr, he thought. He'd seen Alphonse melting into a puddle of mush before, so purring might work on him.

Edward looked up. The muscles of Alphonse’s neck were as taut as the strings of a violin. Well that sucks... Alphonse was far too gone to sense anything. He lowered his eyes to the ground.

What could he do? The answer came to him instantly.

Mewling was going to be something that would haunt him for years on end, but for Winry and Alphonse, he would swallow his pride and do it.

So Edward cleared his throat—and coughed. He sounded like he needed to cough out a hairball. The coughing must've been quite bad because Alphonse’s worried eyes were now on him. Think fast!

Edward held Alphonse’s gaze. His hairy eyebrows shot up and his eyes rounded; flickered. He held that sad face until it had an effect on his brother. Ten seconds was all it took for Alphonse to turn into putty.

Yes! That was a huge victory for him.

“What is it, kitty?” Alphonse moved his hand to the side of Edward's jaw and rubbed it. Shivers ran down Edward’s spine. Oh, that’s good...so good. He couldn't help but close his eyes and lose himself in the moment. He purred.

“You should get rid of that mangy cat, Al.” Don Paco’s contemptuous comment brought everything to a screeching halt.

Alphonse stilled his hand. He looked up, his eyes filled with confusion, his mouth struggling to form words. “What—? No, Brother!” He finally said when he snapped out of it.

Edward felt Alphonse's indignation through the hairs of his fur. He glowered at Don Paco. The fucking idiot. That man didn't know the type of mess he’s gotten himself into.

“Look at it! Who knows where that thing has been!” Don Paco pressed on.

Alphonse frowned. “I don't care!” He held Edward tighter against his chest. “Can't you see he needs our help?” Don Paco couldn't help but sneer.

Winry scowled at the impostor. “What's the matter with you?”

Until that moment, Edward only cared about exacting revenge against the man who stole his body. But watching Don Paco panic was proving to be morbidly entertaining. “Way to go, asshole!” he gibed.

Mei’s eyes widened. She slowly turned to the cat and stared at it for a brief moment before shifting her gaze toward Alphonse. His face didn't show any signs of alarm, nor did anyone else's for that matter.

Edward didn't catch Mei’s reaction. He was much too preoccupied with Don Paco to care about anything else. He kept his eyes trained on the man, who just happened to step into Winry’s personal space.

“Winry, my love, I just want the best for all of us,” the impostor cooed. He even went as far as to cup a side of her face. “That cat could be carrying some terrible disease for all we know,” he added while rubbing his thumb over her rosy cheek.

That arrogant sunnovabitch! Edward felt the hairs in his nape bristling. “Hey, asshole! The only sick thing around here is you!” If Edward hadn't been so riled up he would've heard Mei gasping.

A red-faced Winry took the impostor’s hand in hers and lowered it. She searched his eyes, then after a pause, she said, “Ed, you've never cared about things like that before.”

“I never have...cared?” the impostor fumbled to find the right words. Moments later, he was smiling with sheepish amusement. “I guess I never have, haven't I?”

Ah c’mon! “You just had to go and act stupid.” Edward sneered, hating that Don Paco was making him look like a chump in front of Winry.

Mei inhaled a sharp breath.

Alphonse turned to his girlfriend. “Are you okay?” Mei was staring at the cat with wide, unblinking eyes. She glanced at Alphonse and gave him a quick smile before returning her attention to the cat.

Edward heard Alphonse’s chest rumbling. He looked up and caught his brother staring at Mei. He too stared at her, but she averted her gaze when she noticed him watching her.

“If Al is okay with it, then I'm okay with it,” said Don Paco.

Mei clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream.

Edward raised his eyebrows. Mei had a look of frozen dismay written all over her face as if she had made an important discovery.

“Al you can keep the cat. And you will assume full responsibility for it,” Pinako said.

Edward put his thoughts on hold and turned his attention to Granny just like everyone else did.

Alphonse looked pleased with the verdict. But his triumphant smile was shot down by Pinako’s pointed glare. “You better apologize to Den,” she said just as Alphonse’s expression was returning back to neutral.

Chuckling nervously, Alphonse turned to Den who not long ago came out of his doghouse to become a silent spectator. He offered the dog a genuine smile, and said, “Sorry, boy. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.”

Den’s hips swung from side to side fueled by the force of his wagging tail. His silly dance came to a stop when he rolled onto his back for a belly rub.

Edward jumped out of his brother's arms and moved out of the way. Alphonse stared at him, but then Den barked. He returned his attention back to the dog, who was wiggling on the floor like a worm. “Okay, okay,” Alphonse said, chuckling and shaking his head as he approached the dog. He knelt on the ground and rubbed Den’s spotted belly.

Edward sat on his hind legs while he watched everyone from the sidelines. Alphonse laughed while he goofed off with Den. Winry joined in the fun and soon was taking over for Alphonse. Granny Pinako gave his impostor a pointed glare—the dumbass probably did something stupid to piss her off. And Mei—well—she had been slowly inching her way towards him. When he met her gaze, he saw worry crisscrossing her delicate features. But all thought disappeared from his mind when the princess, out-of-the-blue, decided to scoop him up.

Turning to the group, she said, “Alphonse-sama I think the poor kitty is hungry.”

Alphonse looked at Mei, then the cat, then back at Mei. “Sure,” he said as he walked towards her.

Mei switched the cat to her left side and grabbed Alphonse by the hand. “Hey slow down!” Alphonse exclaimed when she started pulling. But Mei didn't stop. She did shush him, though. “Less talk, more walk,” Mei said in a harsh whisper before tugging at his hand again.

She led Alphonse around the house of simply going through the front door to reach the kitchen. The impostor followed them with his eyes until they disappeared from sight.

"Okay, Mei, will you tell me what's going on?" Alphonse asked while Mei let the cat down on the kitchen floor.She made a shushing sound then looked at the entrance to the kitchen before setting her gaze back on Alphonse. "Something weird is going on," she whispered.Alphonse shook his head. "The only weird thing in here is you." He glanced at Mei then let out a tired sigh.Edward knew that sound all too well; his brother didn't want to get involved in another fight.Alphonse left their side and headed to the cupboard where he grabbed a small saucer from one of the top shelves. He then went to the refrigerator and took out the milk. After filling the saucer halfway, he set it on the floor. "Come here kitty!" Alphonse said as he crouched next to the plate.Edward ran towards his brother. He stuck his head in the plate but immediately pulled back; Alphonse raised his eyebrows at him. So Edward pushed past his hate for milk and decided to take another shot at drinking the vile secretion.

Meanwhile, Mei approached Alphonse. “Didn't you hear it?”

Alphonse let out another sigh. “Hear what?”

Edward perked his ears. Alphonse had tried to sound calm but irritation was evident in his voice.

Mei ignored Alphonse's pissy attitude. She looked again at the kitchen entrance before whispering, “Al, the cat can talk.” She set her eyes on Edward. “Not only can the cat talk but he also sounds just like your older brother.”

Edward choked on his milk; Alphonse let out a loud cackle.

“Keep it down!” Mei scolded Alphonse in a harsh whisper. Her eyes darted to the kitchen entrance again.

“Mei, that's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard!” Alphonse said as he wiped mirthful tears from the corners of his eyes.

“Alphonse-sama!” Mei screeched in indignation, but Alphonse cut her off.

“Listen, I know our trip has been rough. Maybe three days of rest isn't long enough to feel fully recharged.”

“But Alphonse-sama,” Mei interrupted, but Alphonse was having none of it.

“Mei, please stop this nonsense!” He snapped at her. A second later, he said in a softer tone, “I think you're still feeling exhausted—I know I am.” He paused a moment, then added, “Don't you think you could've been hearing things?”

Mei curled her hands into tight fists. “I know what I heard!” she snapped back.

Edward sauntered towards Mei, then, while looking directly at Alphonse, he said, “You should listen to your girlfriend, dumbass.”

Mei snapped her head down and looked at Edward. “There! Did you hear it?” She cried out.

Alphonse offered her an uneasy smile. “The cat meowed. That's what cat’s do.”

So only Al’s girl can hear me, Edward thought. It would've been nice if Alphonse could hear him too, it definitely would've made it easier to take Don Paco down if he did.

Just when despair started clouding his head, he remembered what Matilde said before he departed from the Far West.

“Gaea!” Edward cried out. “You can tune in to Gaea!” He said as he turned to Mei.

“Gaea?” Mei repeated.

“Yes, Gaea—Mother Nature!”

The excitement of the discovery made Edward forget about his situation for an instant. He spun around in a circle, sat on his hind legs one moment only to stand up the next. Unfortunately, he only noticed what he was doing when Mei started giggling.

Mei dropped to her knees to be closer to Edward. “Do you mean the Dragon’s Pulse?”

“Yes, that thing you said!” Edward felt like leaping excitedly around the room but he sat on his hind legs to save himself from more embarrassment.

“Mei, really?” Alphonse scoffed, his eyebrows raised in utter disbelief.

Mei let out a frustrated sigh. “Alphonse-sama, try blocking out the ambient noise like I've taught you.” Alphonse’s eyes brows hiked up higher. “Just do it!” Mei yelled at him.

Alphonse frowned. “Okay-okay.” He closed his eyes and drew in a long breath, which he released slowly. He opened his eyes and looked at Mei. “There.”

“Talk to the cat.”

Alphonse was about to complain but Edward shut him up. “Gee, Al, you sure can be a real handful when you want to,” he said, then shook his head. ”And people say I'm the pig-headed one.”

Alphonse’s eyes grew wide, and his mouth gaped open. A few heartbeats went by before he managed to suppress his shock. “What in the—?” Alphonse mumbled, and looked towards the kitchen entrance like his girlfriend had been doing. “How in blazes are you doing this?” he asked when he returned his attention back to her.

“I'm not doing anything!” Mei retorted.

“Listen, Al,” Edward intruded, trying to capture his brother's attention. He waited for Alphonse's eyes to be on him before continuing. “This is really happening,” he added.

Alphonse's scrutiny was intense. Edward knew his brother was going to react in one of two ways: either Alphonse was going to take things calmly or— “Al, don't freak—”

Alphonse let out a sharp gasp. “Hot dogs on a stick!”

Edward was now certain that his brother’s calm and calculating disposition had been left with the armor. Still, he was expecting an entirely different reaction to the one Alphonse had. “’Hot dogs on a stick?’” he asked with a raised eyebrow. “No ‘oh shit’ or ‘what the fuck’?”

Alphonse snapped out of his shock. “You know I don't like to curse, Bro—” He began admonishing, but then shut his mouth closed. His silence didn't last long. “This is crazy!” he cried.

Edward walked towards his brother and stopped when his front legs were about to touch the tip of Alphonse's shoes. Edward sat on his hind legs then he looked up. “Al, I know this is freaky—hell—I'm still freaking out myself.”

Alphonse shook his head. “But how?”

“Alphonse-sama...” Mei took one of her boyfriend’s hand in hers.

There was much Edward needed to tell them both so he spun around and headed for the table—hopefully, the would follow. He jumped on top of the table, then sat down. After taking a deep breath, he started telling his story.

“Magick,” he said in a somber tone.

“What do you mean by ‘magic’?” Alphonse was quick to interrupt.

“’Magic—k’,” Edward corrected by stressing the sound of the letter ‘K’ in the word. “Magick with a ‘K’ is not the same as magic without the ‘K’, as you can see.” He stood up and modeled around the table to drive the point across.

Alphonse pressed two fingers to his temple.

“Edward, who did this to you?” Mei asked.

Edward’s expression darkened. “A sorcerer.”

“A sorcerer?” Alphonse repeated.

“As in the kind that can cast spells and shit,” Edward explained, then he fell silent. His thoughts went to the moment before passing out. “But this one can also use alchemy,” he added after he returned his attention to them.

Edward knew, by the look of complete shock drawn on their faces, that he needed to elaborate, so he continued. “He has a Sanguine Star—a Philosopher’s Stone.” He paused to give them enough time to absorb the new bit of information. Then he said, “He might've used the stone to do this to me.”

Alphonse groaned; and Mei put her hands on his sagging shoulders.

“Are you—?” She began but stopped talking abruptly. Her eyebrows arched and her expression darkened.

Edward understood her perfectly. Shaking his head, he said, “I'm not a chimera, Mei, but I think Don Paco used the same process of affixing the mind and soul onto something else, in this case, his cat.”

“Dammit, Ed! How could you be so careless?” Alphonse bellowed.

Edward looked away in shame. Alphonse and Mei also avoided looking at each other. And the seconds stretched out in silence.

But the stillness didn't last for long; Edward’s stomach roared with the fierceness of a lion. Both Alphonse and Mei turned their eyes back to him and caught Edward with his ears flattened against his head.

“Al, I haven't eaten much in two days...I'm starving,” Edward said in a mortified tone.

“Brother...” Alphonse muttered. His face softened quite a bit and so had his tone of voice.

Alphonse motioned to pick up the saucer. “Um, since you're a cat now—”

“Don't you fucking dare serve me more milk!” Edward hissed. He could still smell that stinky secretion all over his snout. “I only drank some of it because I was starving.” He shuddered, then shuddered some more.

Alphonse let out a snicker. “Got it. No more milk for the kitty.” He waited for Edward to glower at him before continuing, “We still have some leftovers from the other day.” A pause. “It's beef stew, by the way, but since you don't want any more milk, and the stew has milk in it—”

Edward bared his fangs at him. “Do you want me to scratch your face?”

Alphonse burst out laughing, so did Mei.

“One beef stew coming up!”

Edward did well in telling Alphonse and Mei to sit down before telling the rest of his story.

“Okay...” Alphonse started but fell silent. The tale of a body-snatcher sorcerer from the Far West had been hard to digest. Edward had managed to explain things well but there were still some loose ends in the story. Alphonse looked at Mei and saw in her face that she was thinking along similar lines.

“Don Paco took my body for himself,” Edward said, his words left both Alphonse and Mei stunned.

Xiao Mei, who decided to join the group a while back, approached her companion. She sniffed one of her hands before rubbing the side of her face against it. Mei gathered her in her arms.

“How?” Alphonse muttered to himself. Turning to Edward, he said, “That sorcerer had us all fooled, Brother. I mean, he knows things—private details of our lives.”

Edward remained silent for a brief moment. “I don't know how he's doing it,” he admitted, frowning. “This man is more dangerous than I ever anticipated.”

Mei stopped petting Xiao Mei. She looked at Alphonse then at Edward, and said, “Gomenasai, Edward, I shouldn't have suggested coming back inside. That creep is right now out there with Winry and Granny...I just hope they're okay.”

Xiao Mei’s ears perked up, then she started growling at the kitchen entrance. Edward snapped his head in that direction too.

“Hey, guys!” Don Paco said as he stepped into view. Edward and Xiao Mei bristled while Alphonse and Mei jumped out of their chairs.

Don Paco put his hands on his hips and grinned. “Sorry to interrupt your meeting but you two”—he pointed a finger at Alphonse then at Mei—”were taking so long that I decided to get you.” Then he turned his full attention to Edward. “Cano,” he called, his grin transforming into a wicked one. ”Were you fibbing about me?”

#fmabb17 #fma #fmab #story update #reblog please #fmachallenges

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