The Outer Worlds Pre-Release Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[rusty_shackleford]

Ah I see we've arrived at the inevitable "bitch about millennial female writers" part of this game's lifecycle. Might as well get it over with.

But look, this isn't a thing that's going to go away. In fact it's going to get worse. And it's not really about California. Look at the demographics. Which of the two sexes reads more books today? Which one earns more college degrees, especially in literature and the humanities?

We're not going to return to the era where most of an Obsidian RPG's writers were overeducated dudes who were born in the 1970s and played Planescape: Torment in college. That generation has moved on. You should actually expect majority-female or even all-female RPG writing teams to be the norm in the future.

letting women vote was a mistake

 

[Major_Blackhart]

yeeesh.

 

[aweigh]

Infinitron

Bitching about a millenial female writer is warranted when the examples provided are so bad. It is obvious to anyone who can read that she is not a good writer.

Or are you saying that the examples provided are good?

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

But look, this isn't a thing that's going to go away. In fact it's going to get worse. And it's not really about California. Look at the demographics. Which of the two sexes reads more books today? Which one earns more college degrees, especially in literature and the humanities?

This is happening because of gym culture.

Gym culture is a Liberal hatched subversive tactic designed to make men become less educated and thus never reach the full potential of their intellect so they may keep themselves reserved for physical labour such as grocery bag carrying and jar opening as the woman reaps all the rewards of being properly erudite.

The bodybuilding forums all come off as homosexual corruption dens at first glance, but exploring further you will see what this really is: men that have adopted the vanity of women. No real man back in the day ever gave a shit how another man looked like, they certainly never talked about their "gains." It was about matching wits and holding deep conversations over Chess. It was learning from one another different philosophies and outlooks of life. This is steadily being eradicated and what we're left with are guys that are trying to present themselves as a trophy and are happy with that.

You'll think me crazy now, but you'll see in a few years when a lot more "house husbands" spring up that ultimately wasted their time to be the ones that make sure their superior wife eats properly and is fully appeased.

The tables have turned. ABANDON ALL HOPE.

 

[Oracsbox]

But look, this isn't a thing that's going to go away. In fact it's going to get worse. And it's not really about California. Look at the demographics. Which of the two sexes reads more books today? Which one earns more college degrees, especially in literature and the humanities?

This is happening because of gym culture.

Gym culture is a Liberal hatched subversive tactic designed to make men become less educated and thus never reach the full potential of their intellect so they may keep themselves reserved for physical labour such as grocery bag carrying and jar opening as the woman reaps all the rewards of being properly erudite.

The bodybuilding forums all come off as homosexual corruption dens at first glance, but exploring further you will see what this really is: men that have adopted the vanity of women. No real man back in the day ever gave a shit how another man looked like, they certainly never talked about their "gains." It was about matching wits and holding deep conversations over Chess. It was learning from one another different philosophies and outlooks of life. This is steadily being eradicated and what we're left with are guys that are trying to present themselves as a trophy and are happy with that.

You'll think me crazy now, but you'll see in a few years when a lot more "house husbands" spring up that ultimately wasted their time to be the ones that make sure their superior wife eats properly and is fully appeased.

The tables have turned. ABANDON ALL HOPE.

Will you all stop issuing such horrific statements of man's possible future

 

[Glenda Glenn]

Todd will sleep well tonight. :D

 

[Oracsbox]

I guess it explains why it's a lesbian planet.

That wouldn't be a problem for me if it was like this

but I know it would look like this

 

[Roguey]

By the way, our old pal and laid-off Obsidian artist Lindsey Laney would probably like to remind us that every decision in The Outer World is rubberstamped by Tim and Leonard.

still funny to see seeing folks blame developers they dont like for things that devs they do like are responsible for (or vice versa) also entire games are made by the 4 people whose names folks are aware of, anyone else is a mindless automaton who contributed nothing

maybe its not widely understood that the work of contributors in a creative project is vetted, edited, and approved/not approved by people above them before being implemented ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Quillon]

 

[aweigh]

I really would like to know how anyone could defend those writing examples provided in the previous page. It is depressing that this person has been hired to write. I see a lot of moaning about SJWs and not enough picking her text apart.

It's blog-level shit. Has nothing to do with her gender, but rather the poor quality of her education probably as I can't see any teacher stamping her shit with an approval.

 

[HoboForEternity]

It's blog-level shit. Has nothing to do with her gender, but rather the poor quality of her education probably as I can't see any teacher stamping her shit with an approval.

true. not her gender or beliefs, just talent on par with this:

 

[Oracsbox]

I really would like to know how anyone could defend those writing examples provided in the previous page. It is depressing that this person has been hired to write. I see a lot of moaning about SJWs and not enough picking her text apart.

It's blog-level shit. Has nothing to do with her gender, but rather the poor quality of her education probably as I can't see any teacher stamping her shit with an approval.

The problem is it's all media now tv,film,music,books etc..The level of writing is fucking awful some tv shows blow my mind with their bottom tier sub-human shit.
Characters have no consistency and do the most stupid things imaginable,have no charm,no proper motivations the script will be full of plot holes that's a guarantee.The dialogue as always will be aimed at 3 year olds with learning difficulties and couple this with the modern retarded "right side of history" politics everything becomes unwatchable/unplayable.
The younger the writer the worse it gets,they have no life experience,limited education and a single mindset of creating a communist utopia.

 

[aweigh]

coldsteel has good taste in music :D

 

[aweigh]

BTW...

3 million views, huh. That's a lot of view for a game announcement trailer. Word of mouth has already spread probably, "hey man check out the Fallout killer".

 

[Latelistener]

The failure of Fallout 69 surely helped a lot. You don't even need any marketing at this point. Zenithesda are a bunch of fucking retards.

 

[TemplarGR]

This is happening because of gym culture.

Gym culture is a Liberal hatched subversive tactic designed to make men become less educated and thus never reach the full potential of their intellect so they may keep themselves reserved for physical labour such as grocery bag carrying and jar opening as the woman reaps all the rewards of being properly erudite.

The bodybuilding forums all come off as homosexual corruption dens at first glance, but exploring further you will see what this really is: men that have adopted the vanity of women. No real man back in the day ever gave a shit how another man looked like, they certainly never talked about their "gains." It was about matching wits and holding deep conversations over Chess. It was learning from one another different philosophies and outlooks of life. This is steadily being eradicated and what we're left with are guys that are trying to present themselves as a trophy and are happy with that.

You'll think me crazy now, but you'll see in a few years when a lot more "house husbands" spring up that ultimately wasted their time to be the ones that make sure their superior wife eats properly and is fully appeased.

The tables have turned. ABANDON ALL HOPE.

Seriously pal, you, and some other posters above, have some serious mental issues... I mean, you need to be examined by certified mental health care professionals... Do not ignore your mental health, things can improve if you reach out for help in time!

 

[Master]

Watching the gameplay video again, I have noticed the faces have similar appearance to talking heads from Fallout.

Thats your target audiences of the two games.

How are they simmilar anyway? Other than being faces. The first looks better and says funny things. And is voiced by Ron Freakin Perlman.
The second is so generic it might be from a thousand other games.

Thinks a balding white guy with brown hair and a beard is a unique character design but an Asian woman with textured side swept red hair, smokey eyes, thick brows, non-touring makeup and a lip scar is generic? :thinking emoji:

She might as well be some Dragon Age NPC, or Elex or what have you. I wouldnt tell the difference.
But the dude is very distinct.

 

[Glenda Glenn]

Any guesses for the ESRB rating?

Spoiler

 

[TemplarGR]

The problem is it's all media now tv,film,music,books etc..The level of writing is fucking awful some tv shows blow my mind with their bottom tier sub-human shit.
Characters have no consistency and do the most stupid things imaginable,have no charm,no proper motivations the script will be full of plot holes that's a guarantee.The dialogue as always will be aimed at 3 year olds with learning difficulties and couple this with the modern retarded "right side of history" politics everything becomes unwatchable/unplayable.
The younger the writer the worse it gets,they have no life experience,limited education and a single mindset of creating a communist utopia.

The issue is not that modern writers "suck". Modern writers are equally good to past writers. The issue is something else that most of you never considered either because you are young or because you don't really follow societal trends really well... Or both.

What is the problem in a nutshell? People don't have much leisure time anymore, and their attention spans are shortened on average. Western civilization is AGEING. People have no patience for shit, they want/need instant gratification. Capitalism has made life harder for everyone but the rich 1% who never lift a finger in their lives. In the past you might have spent 2-3 hours watching a show or playing a video game, today you spent half...

So any writer needing to be successful, must get his priority straight: Blow people's minds as often as possible with as cheaper gimmicks as possible! Writers care about excitement, not about quality. They want to make sure that for the little time you are going to spend with their shit you are going to get as much excitement explosions as possible, and be happy...

Of course nerds complain about it because they spend more time on entertainment than the average person and thus get annoyed a lot more about the drop in quality.

 

[santino27]

Call me crazy, but I think there's a way to call out bad writing as such without conflating it with gender. Are there zero male writers on The Outer Worlds to critique or are we only looking at the women on staff? Because I'm pretty sure if you dig into almost any contemporary video game writer's body of work, you'll find some subpar samples.

 

[markec]

Ah I see we've arrived at the inevitable "bitch about millennial female writers" part of this game's lifecycle. Might as well get it over with.

But look, this isn't a thing that's going to go away. In fact it's going to get worse. And it's not really about California. Look at the demographics. Which of the two sexes reads more books today? Which one earns more college degrees, especially in literature and the humanities?

We're not going to return to the era where most of an Obsidian RPG's writers were overeducated dudes who were born in the 1970s and played Planescape: Torment in college. That generation has moved on. You should actually expect majority-female or even all-female RPG writing teams to be the norm in the future.

Thats is why I only have any hope in games made in East Europe.

 

[HoboForEternity]

This is happening because of gym culture.

Gym culture is a Liberal hatched subversive tactic designed to make men become less educated and thus never reach the full potential of their intellect so they may keep themselves reserved for physical labour such as grocery bag carrying and jar opening as the woman reaps all the rewards of being properly erudite.

The bodybuilding forums all come off as homosexual corruption dens at first glance, but exploring further you will see what this really is: men that have adopted the vanity of women. No real man back in the day ever gave a shit how another man looked like, they certainly never talked about their "gains." It was about matching wits and holding deep conversations over Chess. It was learning from one another different philosophies and outlooks of life. This is steadily being eradicated and what we're left with are guys that are trying to present themselves as a trophy and are happy with that.

You'll think me crazy now, but you'll see in a few years when a lot more "house husbands" spring up that ultimately wasted their time to be the ones that make sure their superior wife eats properly and is fully appeased.

The tables have turned. ABANDON ALL HOPE.

Seriously pal, you, and some other posters above, have some serious mental issues... I mean, you need to be examined by certified mental health care professionals... Do not ignore your mental health, things can improve if you reach out for help in time!

don't bother to argue about this. just let it go, for your own sake.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Didn’t we go over this a few weeks ago? Starks wrote pretty much everything in Fort Deadlight and The Gullet, the two best areas in Deadfire by far—genuinely good content. Roguey I know you hates KIS, but you loved the writing in Tyranny—Bleden Mark was your main quest-giver—do you really think he was poorly written? De gustibus non est disputandum, but even if you dislike the character as Fairfax does I would say it’s more a matter of taste. You may think the character is poorly conceived; that’s not the same as poorly executed.

I’m not going to defend every piece of short fiction written by the new generation of writers at Obsidian—some of that stuff is truly awkward and some of it’s really not my cup of tea.

However, here is a Megan Starks short story—about an unraveling marriage with one light fantasy element—and while I don’t think many of us will connect with the subject, I maintain that it’s well written, even if the symbolism becomes somewhat heavy handed. Again, keep in mind, you are not the intended audience.

Spoiler

Harvest Hulls
Peter Peter pumpkin eater,
Had a wife but couldn’t keep her.
He put her in a pumpkin shell,
And there he kept her very well.

Getting into the thing was harder than she would have imagined. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked herself, how does one climb into a pumpkin shell? Beside her, their makeshift canoe rocked from side to side like a cradle in the water, like some delicate thing not built for two. The hollowed out rind now floated like driftwood despite its bulk and weight. Was floating because they’d wished it to. Because they’d made it so they could ride it together.

Jayne, the pumpkin eater’s wife, wriggled numbing toes in the reedy mud of the bank, watched the waxing glimpse of them, pale as the underbelly of a fish.

She turned to Peter.

“Hold the oars,” by which she meant, hold my oar, because he was already holding the other. (They’d thought to rig a rudder but that hadn’t turned out so well so they were going to have to steer with the paddles.) Then, nimbly, she gathered her skirts and eased into the round pumpkin boat. The inside was cushiony and sherbet-soft, a bit soggy where her knees pressed into the pulpy floor, but it held against her weight.

Further out, other contestants of the annual Halloween river regatta bobbed on tiny waves like scattered apples in a water barrel waiting to be plucked, waiting to begin. Giant, 500-pound pumpkins teetered and toddled in all varieties of color and design—zebra striped pumpkins, polka dotted pumpkins, Burberry pumpkins, the eery half-submerged sneers of jack-o-lantern faces. There were some with numbers slopped on the side, bright red race car pumpkins.

There were round, apple bottomed, and lopsided pumpkins, the latter of which had trouble floating upright. There were rotten pumpkins which had never made it into the water and already sunken pumpkins—several contestants had toppled pre-race, disqualifying, their pumpkins upturned and disappeared.

And within the pumpkin boats, the array of mariners wore elaborate or tacky costumes, all the usual: Frankenstein’s monster and naughty nurses, a group of Mario Kart racers, some broomless witches. A skeleton with bone white, incandescent sculls. In one crouched a wooly gorilla, his black, nubby fingers gripping the carved lip of his craft.

And then there was them: a princess and a pumpkin eater, one of the few pairs.

Behind her, Peter looked on nervously. He spoke low, more to himself as if in self-confirmation. “This is what we wanted.”

“We don’t have time to hesitate,” she said, turning. “They’re going to signal soon.”

“I’m not the one who had to stop for Belgian waffles at 4 a.m.” He picked up his knees as he waded, sloshing up to the boat with an unhappiness. His eggshell knee socks yellowed in whole splotches from the cold water.

“I thought it would be fun to get breakfast in costume. It was fun wasn’t it? Hey, no shoes in the boat; I told you.”

Peter pried his shoes from his feet, tucking the pair of loafers under one arm to prevent the heels from etching up the soft inside of the rind.

They’d pulled off the interstate and into the near abandoned parking lot of a mom and pop diner with a burnt out sign that read ‘Mel’s, cinnamon raisin buns no smoking 10 to 2 a.m.’ In the bathroom, after ordering, she peeled into the black and gray shorty wetsuit and then layered it with her Cinderella dress, long white gloves and a set of pearls which had belonged to her mother. The blond, updo styled wig was a more difficult maneuver, and by the time she’d returned to the table his eggs had grown cold. They wobbled, big yolks threatening to spill over where he’d prodded at them with his fork for the rest of the meal.

Peter held his arm out to his wife for a hoist, but she took the oars instead, prying them into jutting angles in the riverbank to steady their position. They nearly both spilled out as he scrambled and settled in.

The fit was tight, snug, she thought, side pressed to his. Her dress crinkled when they moved, the fabric stiff and reminiscent of crinoline. She used the oars to shove off, the two of them shakily gliding out toward the center of the starting line as marked by orange and white buoys.

They waited.

“Tell me you’re having fun,” she sighed, weary and dreamy and shivering.

“You know I’m doing this for you.”

The start gun fired, and she looked away. A spindly old man, the previous four years’ winner, shot forward into the lead, weaving with the water. He was a true pumpkin regatta artist, sculpting with his double-sided blade.

Unlike most everyone else, he wore only an old-timey, full-bodied, striped swimsuit and a navy life jacket, all business. White, flaccid skin twitched against the October air. Maybe the swimsuit was his costume, but Peter’s wife imagined he’d pulled it out of a box in the corner of the attic amidst musky army uniforms and the forgotten years of his life—primary school report cards, a brunette lock of hair, the crumbled green plaster cast of a child’s first hand print.

She’d seen pictures of him wearing his four golden medals in the local newspaper, grinning, close-lipped so as to hide his teeth. Right then and there she’d wanted to take the old coot down.

Unfortunately, the seasoned winner had a couple key things going for him:

1. He wasn’t a natural, but he didn’t have to be. He had his technique down. You could see it in the way his arms bunched like there was actually some muscle under all those wrinkles, the way his oar seemed only to skim the surface. Effortless. They weren’t powerful strokes, but they were efficient, and the water loved him.
2. He probably weighed less than 90 pounds.
3. He had a reputation to uphold, a title to defend, and it was obvious he was going to fight tooth and nail to knock down anyone who got in his path.

A man with a small child perched on his shoulder had told the news crews earlier that morning, “We just want to finish the race.”

But the pumpkin eater’s wife wanted more. Her oar dipped down into the blue water, a clean sweep. She was ready to fly.

§

They used to have fun together. For six weeks they shared this little one bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath flat up in Waterville, Maine. They’d both just finished college a few years before and were working low-status, going-nowhere administrative jobs. It wasn’t that they weren’t career oriented. They just didn’t want to move away.

The place was cozy. It was their spot.

They used to eat spaghetti in bed together. It was the only decent meal Jayne could cook back then, before she became his wife, and so they ate three, sometimes four, nights a week, fingers slick with the meaty red sauce.

The second week they were together, Jayne bought a set of plastic wine glasses from the local home goods store—the glasses were huge, goblets more like, with little marigolds on them, and they used to drink them brimming with three-dollar red wine. It seemed romantic to her at the time, magical.

Then some nights Peter would suckle Jayne’s fingers, meticulously cleaning each one, and she would try to smear sauce or a noodle somewhere along his body first. A nipple, a rib, the inside of his left wrist. Once a dab to the bottom of his earlobe. It was a silly naked game that often led to silly naked sex which wasn’t all that great on an overly full stomach but was fun anyway. Peter had a thing with food and she just liked the pretend spontaneity of it all, the recklessness. Sometimes (and that was the best part) they ended up in the plates of greasy noodles, an elbow or a knee, knocked one of the glasses.

They didn’t care that the sheets were stained.

Then they grew tired of spaghetti. They grew tired of the place and wanted something bigger. They wanted a washing machine, a dryer. A backyard with large oak trees. Then they switched plastic out for crystal, flannel for white linen as maturing couples did (so she’d thought). But they still wanted.

§

A woman with 80s spiked hair in a bowed watermelon was coming up on their rear to the right. She was spitting shiny black seeds at nearby contestants, and worse, passing them.

“Stop her,” Jayne hissed, rowing furiously, twisting wood against water.

“How?”

“Throw a shoe at her.”

“You mean bean her or are we trying to lighten the ship?”

Peter’s humor was lost on her in the heat of the moment. Jayne threw the shoe for him, but the watermelon craft was already past. They watched as the black penny loafer sank to the dark depths.

“I had a hard time finding those,” Peter said.

“Just concentrate on pulling your weight. Please.”

Peter nodded, powder from his colonial wig sprinkling the brown leather of his vested shoulders. “We can win this.” He set his jaw, eyes locked on the finish line or maybe just the bobbing horizon with it’s hazy morning half sun. “I’m sure we can.”

His first real strokes were overpowering and nearly sent them into a skittering spin. His determination was too quick and raw and held too much gusto, held all of himself; she couldn’t keep up with his pace. They needed to find a rhythm, floundering in place. So he started to indicate, “Row. Row. We can go, go.”

§

During their second year together in the new place, Jayne had painted the spare room alternating stripes of Robin’s Egg blue, Chocolate, and Topiary Tint, a gentle shade of green, because she’d had a series of dreams in which she’d borne twins (though they were always impossibly tiny, ruddy, mewling things). Surely, that must be a good sign, she’d thought. It had been so many years now, and she was ready for that next step.

She spent long hours poring through internet baby name origin sites, learned the importance of considering syllabic harmony between first and middle names. She decided if the baby was a girl she’d name her Sweet Pea and if it turned out to be a boy, well, then he’d just have to name himself.

Then they bought a German engineered minivan. They rode around it in to do ‘together’ things while she waited for the good news to come.

Then a couple more years passed.

§

Jayne heard about the Potomac pumpkin regatta through a newspaper clipping in her elderly neighbor’s grandchildren’s holiday scrapbook. Then all she’d had to do was buy Howard Dill’s patented Atlantic Giant seeds—they would plant them in the backyard—and register their number. There was a non-refundable entry fee, so they would have to make sure their pumpkin bloomed to full girth on the first go. There would be no time for second chances.

It was going to be their last hurrah and perfect.

They planted in late May and watched their seedlings grow.

§

By this point it was clear they were taking on water. Her knees were numbing where the short-legged wetsuit failed to insulate them. Soon her shins would feel like knives beneath her skin.

“Peter, it’s cold,” she said.

He said, “Row. Row. Row,” and kept his gaze straight ahead.

With each clipped command Peter cut the river with the head of the oar, his voice the regular tick of a metronome. They would finish this race or drown trying.

But she was tired of trying. They were going nowhere. She was tired of the lack of romance and the same old, same old of familiarity.

She didn’t understand how others seemed to propel forward effortlessly, gliding through the water as if riding the backs of giant swans while they, themselves, only managed to bob from side to side, the pulpy, pale orange rim of their boat dipping beneath the dark surface of the river a millimeter more at a time.

Her costume was soggy and sticking between her legs, the periwinkle ball gown surely ruined. On one row, she let her paddle slip from gloved fingers. There was something she hadn’t told him before, something she could never tell him now. It was during a time when she’d sneaked out alone—those nights she liked to ease barefoot through the pumpkin patch while he was dreaming, drape herself across the giant gourde and stroke its rotund girth like a pregnant belly. But that night she’d noticed an ugly blemish in the rind, one which hadn’t been there before. A porcupine had gnawed along the underside, leaving a nasty flesh wound. She’d been quick to fix it, desperate to hide it away, the next day suggesting they not wait to decorate the thing, and they spent hours debating potential paint jobs. She was keen to paint it to look like a pumpkin, all they needed was a prettier, deeper orange like Circus Peanut or Mandarin Mousse, she explained, but he was under the impression they needed some sort of pattern or number on the side lest they look like amateurs.

“This isn’t a god damned box car,” she’d said. “It’s a chariot.” In the end the patch had simply been slathered over, unnoticed and forgotten.

It was evident her handiwork had failed—there was nothing holding them together now.

“Abandon ship,” she yelped, spilling over the brim.

Under the water her dress became a tangled weight and she ended up kicking against more fabric than river. The summer wetsuit beneath that did little to warm her.

How Peter had managed not to also capsize was beyond her, but he was still there stroking from side to side when she came up, teeth chattering. Staring at the broad line of his shoulders, she realized he was slowly moving away from her. Without her weight he was finally making progress, falling into a rhythm. Leaving her behind.

She thought about how she’d always imagined he’d propose to her under the weight of so much water, on a scuba diving trip in the Caribbean. That amidst the coral reefs and the schools of striped damselfish, he’d dig around a corner of the ocean floor (their corner) searching for some long forgotten treasure beneath sand and shells. Then, of course, he’d motion her over with excitement, and digging now herself, she’d unearth the tiny box hidden within his hand. Opening it she’d express her jubilation with an excess of air bubbles, miming her acceptance through the universal thumbs-up sign, much to his relief.

Then they could be happy forever. Would have been, if it had happened that way. With the thumbs-up and the digging and maybe even an awkward underwater hug. But now the river was calling for her alone, dragging her down by her heels and pressing her down by her shoulders. And the air bubbles which scattered up to the surface looked glassy and sad. Like loosed balloons, regrettable.

When she swam for the shore, snaking out of the heavy dress to let it sink to the depths, each intake of breath felt like the rising sun, a slow burning in her lungs, the morning’s waffles a painful stitch in her ribs. In the distance, her pumpkin eater rowed onward in their sinking ship, paddle scooping rhythmically against the river, face outstretched toward the finish line, determined to make it work until the end.
.

What is wrong with that stylistically?

Maybe this is a better Rorschach test. Cassandra Khaw, another female millennial novelist/narrative designer who worked on Wasteland 3, just published a new piece of (very) short fiction. It’s a love story with a twist that takes place during a magical apocalypse. We’re not really the intended audience here either, but it has a certain amount of crossover appeal. I genuinely liked both the form and the content. Reminded me of some new wave SF/F from the ‘60s and ‘70s.

So how do you bad hombres feel about it? Is it good, or bad, or simply not aimed at you?

Spoiler

Monologue by an unnamed mage, recorded at the brink of the end
BY CASSANDRA KHAW
I wanted to tell you, in case opportunity absents itself forever, that it doesn’t matter. That your magic is algorithmic, that mine is an abstraction of reality. That yours demands cartographic soliloquies, every verse a phrase and a phase of mathematics and momentum, every word you speak a part of the map, and you build the rules as you recite them. That mine is raw sensation, synesthesic, sinewy as sex, worthless with context, worth everything on the ledge at the end of time.

Hold.

We have to hold the line.

That I can speak through my spells and you can’t. That you have the world tessellated in amber, while nothing of my magic will mark this earth, only a faint lambency, as though of candlelight staining the black-gold kintsugi bowls your mother gave us. That our friends are dying, that the gods are coming, many-bodied and million-eyed, that the fucking door won’t open, although we’ve made it keys of our bodies, keys of bone and breath and broken promises. All of this doesn’t matter.

What matters is the night when I first met you and how cold the air was, and how the ice needled my breath, and how you stood there with your hangdog smile, your hair rough-tangled, and the light in your eyes, sacrosanct in its shyness, was better than anything the heavens could stitch from the suns. What matters is that I asked you to run away with me and you said yes, and that we kept running even after our Orders came hunting for us, seven to a coven, like we meant something, like we were bigger than two people making vows of the salt-silver rain.

That they dragged us back, bound in brambles and bronze, that they made us choose between being separated or being part of the vanguard against the apocalypse, all that is of no importance. That we laughed at their ultimatum, that we said yes, that we held hands as they told us we probably wouldn’t come back, that is what matters.

What matters is that I love you and that I will always love you, and I won’t let them have you, even if I have to husk myself of all that I am and splinter the universe again. You’re mine and I am yours, and what are gods to people who have seen the continents fold up like paper planes?

I made you a promise the first night of our expedition. Do you remember that? Lying on our backs, blankets spread over the brittle grass, a charred skein of stars strung up above us. We laid there, counting the constellations as they vanished into the black, our hands intertwined, your hair still dark. I told you I’d always protect you.

You laughed. Like it was that or crying.

You said you’d keep me safe too.

I remember the Blacksmith and the curls of her long hair, like wedding rings, forever threaded with lilac, and I remember the Bard, the Cook, the Huntress, the Knights who came last, their armor gilded with rust, their Lord’s body held safe between them. There were others too, I remember that. Like the Crossbowmen, their skin mantled with scars. Like the Priest, who wore burgundy at his collar instead of white. But their faces were taken along with the names of our friends, eaten, nothing but grit in the teeth of those numinous bastards.

Don’t falter.

Please.

This is a kind of magic too, you know? The Bard told me this. Resurrection by way of oration, every retelling a species of necromancy, and if some of it fails to be beautiful, if some of it crooks from the truth, that doesn’t matter. Stories are meant to adapt. I used to wonder what was the Bard’s purpose, if she had a purpose, if there was any meaning to putting music to our massacre, if it’d be better to just forget. Easier, safer to bury our dead in the decay and pretend it was always like this.

She asked me one night what then would be the point. If we were just going to forsake what we loved, forget why we fought, forswear that chance we might make it, although the sky is unmade into fractals, why not just let the gods win? Without stories, there is no memory, no trajectory to illuminate what came before and what might come after. Without stories, there can be no hope.

The fact that the gods don’t understand this is what will ensure we’ll find our way home. Because nothing is just fact and though the world is cinders, if enough people believe we’ll make it, there’s still soil to grow miracles.

Yes, I heard that scream too. How could I not? But don’t look back. There’s not our part of the story. Ours is the chapter engrossed with the task of holding our ground. Be careful, beloved. See how they’ve creped the borders of our barriers, their villi seeking cracks, seeking the gaps made by our grief?

Let me help.

There.

I’m going to marry you when we survive this.

I decided this on the road between here and the ruins of the last elvish capital. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. It never seemed like the right time. But you might as well know now, as opposed to later or never, that I intend to marry you by salt and silver, with the sea as our witness and the mountains as our minister, by the shore at the edge of the world, by the house in which all this began. That I plan to wear white and in my dreams, you wear silk, and though there might be nothing but handfuls of hope to hold in the cup of my palm, I intend to make you a home and a hearth.

That smile of yours, that light in your gaze, the way you look at me even now, while the universe buckles under the weight of its deaths, that is what matters. You are my story, its beginning, its happy conclusion. More than anything else, more than this world, more than this life, you are what matters.

The door is open.

I think someone sold their soul to shatter that lock.

Are you ready? We can do this.

Take my hand—

I don’t know about you boys, but that made me want to know a fuckton more about the world. And any author who leaves you wanting more is doing something right.

 

[Xeon]

Flou has Leonard Boyarsky tagged as Lead Writer as one of his jobs so hopefully that will help offsets things.

 

[Quillon]

Call me crazy

crazy