READ THE SHEPHERDS OF HAVEN DEMO

Reunite with familiar faces, forge new bonds, and continue growing into the legend you are meant to become. The Soul Stone War 3 is the thrilling 260,000-word sequel to the interactive fantasy novel The Soul Stone War 2.  

You stand triumphant. After successfully infiltrating Cnamh Briste, you have freed your captured companion and dealt a blow the Lord of All won’t soon forget.

The power of the Soul Stones is growing. Now free from Manerkol's influence, you align yourself with an unexpected force: The Resistance. Together, you will uncover long-buried secrets, unravel Manerkol’s true ambitions, unite a fractured land—and decide the fate of Dragonkind itself.

The war for the fate of the Soul Stones now wages in full swing. The time to retreat back into obscurity lies far behind you. Every action you now take will impact the fate of all. Rise or fall, Soul Stone Wielder,  your name will be written in legend.

Play as female, male, or nonbinary—with options to be straight, gay, bisexual, or aromantic.

Continue your romance or try to find love in two new, unexpected places.

Forge your relationship with the Dragon God inhabiting your thoughts.

Discover one of the best-kept secrets of the Dragons.

Figure out the purpose behind Manerkol’s machinations.

Nurture the bonds of kinship between your group and grow into a power to rival the Lord of All.

Find new and epic ways to tackle problems, utilizing the new powers granted to you by the Soul Stones.

Immerse yourself in a rich world full of magic, sacrifice, and love where every choice has unexpected consequences for everyone.

Will you rise to the challenge and shape the course of history, or will you be swept away by the tides of fate?

~*~

The big O - male edition.

I wrote of him originally:

The tall, mysterious mastermind behind the criminal network that becomes the focus of season 3. Favors opportunity over obligation, and seems to know things before they happen, hampering the investigation at every turn.

For this event, I've gotten so many questions about this character that I'm really having to dig deep to pull something interesting out of the darkness. I’ve forgotten exactly how O came to be, but I know the very earliest musings about this illusive character was as Hoyer’s twin brother; his physical mirror but polar opposite, who ran a criminal enterprise and took advantage of Hoyer’s position to evade justice. As it often is with character development, dynamics shift as the plot forms and some characters are halved and merged in different ways. Suddenly O was the abandoned child, suddenly Hoyer was Valentin and suddenly it became irresistible not to make the villain romanceable.

Would it also have been interesting to romance Hoyer's twin brother? Sure, but you know. That would've been a different story.

As with many other things in this story, the final scene with O was planned from the very start. An escaped O would catch Ghita off-guard somewhere and after a seemingly romantic reunion, pull out a knife and attack her. For a long time, I intended for O to cut out Ghita's eye (!) and then the story ending with her love interest finding her in a pool of blood and us, the readers, never finding out if he killed her or not. But the more I thought about it, the less it made sense - why would he cut her eye out? What's the romantic appeal of a guy who, in the end, just straight up kills you? I wanted realism not like.... true crime.

So instead, I went with mutilation and mutual mutilation, as an ultimate declaration of love.

Alexa, play Bad Romance ❤️‍🔥

I don't know if anyone really noticed, but for the literary nerds - I borrowed a bunch of elements for O and Ghita's love story from Wuthering Heights; the comparative deep-seated trauma, each feeling their own brand of alienation, having selfish and destructive personalities, and loving the other like a madness which will only bring pain.

I'm not a Brontë fan by any means, but she did nail the "let's make each other worse". I wanted the romance to leave players with a murky feeling of regret and longing, betrayal and devotion, and above all, a realistic ending for such a romance. Ghita getting away with it all on the corrupted path is a bitter realisation that justice is dead.

My final comment is about Odin and Mads' rivalry, which ended up being a lot less than initially expected - there simply wasn't space for it. O brings him up several times to let us know that he is well aware of the senior PA's hunt for him all these years, and I headcanon that he has a soft spot for him. I think, if Ghita hadn't been in the picture, O would've fixated on Mads and tried to bring him in by similar means; using knowledge of his family, his kinks, his insecurities, to break him. O loves a toy that he can do with as he pleases, and there's no greater pleasure than to break the strongest of the flock.

The big O - female edition!

I'm splitting up Odin and Odette because though they are the same person and maybe 85% of their lines are exactly the same, I still believe the characterisation of Odette ends up being different from Odin by the single fact that she is a woman.

And women doing evil things just hits differently.

The initial arc design looked like this:

In S1, Ghita meets him* by chance while he* is threatening Chief Hoier late at night in a quiet car park, before we know anything about the gang or who he* is. He* takes notice of Ghita and sends out goons to follow her. His* fascination is part resentment that Hoier treats her like a daughter and part romantic obsession.  In S3, his* motives become partly obvious. Hoier is killed and Odin* leaves a trail of clues for Ghita and the team to decipher. Hoier’s participating in weapons smuggling and eliminating rival gangs while ensuring Odin* could continue his* operation with impunity, is dug up and collaborators are identified. Odin* also puts Ghita onto Hoier’s old undercover work and the bad things he did to maintain his cover. Meanwhile, Ghita is harboring the witness, Sylvester, whom Odin* wants to get his hands on. 

I had a more explicit idea for Odette's entrance in season 1, but decided against it because Ghita would absolutely not have let it go if she'd seen Hoyer and Odette talking together early on. It would've made the whole doubting arc of season 2 unbelievable and lessoned the strength of Ghita and Hoyer's bond, which in turn, would've made his death less unambiguous as a tragedy at first.

If we turn to dynamic between Ghita and Odette, I think Ghita is the first person to go up against O and win. Even on the romantic path, even when O is allowed to escape, Ghita did cause irriversible havoc in her plans, which in turn is the deeper meaning of her role as Vølven. O was so desperate to control her because she knew she had this "power" but even as Ghita is seduced by O, she never actually gave it up to her.

O was originally conceived as a male character (because he was Hoyer’s twin) but at some point after the reworks, I realised nothing was standing in the way of making him gender-of-choice. 

There was the issue of the name, though—Odine is a name, but it’s so old, your grandmother’s grandmother is called that. On top of this, non-Danish people would pronounce it in such a way that it would lose its meaning. I wanted a female name that felt realistic but also sexy, and which wasn’t too far away from Odin. Hence, Odette.

I’ve done GOC before, and my preferred approach is that this is the same character, just gender-swapped. I adjust the pronouns and rework a few gendered mannerisms, but otherwise, the character says and does the same things. 

Except sex scenes.

Some might disagree, but the vibe of Ghita x Odette x Hugo x Moon at the estate feels VERY different from the Ghita x male version. The girls are more playful and they seem to connect much more during the scene than Ghita and Odin, Odette even praising Ghita afterwards. I guess it’s a bias within me, but Ghita x Odette feel more equal than Ghita x Odin; O still considers Ghita property and not a partner, but in a strange way, Ghita x Odette became somehow more involved. It also shines through in the scene at Odette’s house, where Ghita naturally is more involved in Odette’s pleasure. Odette isn’t just taking, unlike Odin who greedily wants to take.

Are WLW just inherently more emotionally involved? I don't think so, but when I wrote a scene as Odette first, she would feel closer, more intimate, with Ghita in a way that Odin never could. Her cruelty seemed more.... deserved, idk. It's easier for me to support women's wrongs, I guess 😂

A final note: Odette's nude character also has pierced nips and I was holding out to the last moment that we would try to sneak it past the app store's strict nudity rules, but no...... #freethenips

I wanted to ask if you will be going into detail on what inspired the different monsters that haunt Ghita's mother. I know they reflect her background/ethnicity, but would love to know more about how you chose each of them! I'm obsessed with Thai Lina's monster.

Thank you!

I wasn't planning to, but I can speak on it, of course.

It grew from a conversation I had with a Polish friend of mine, comparing national mythology. I knew I wanted to explore my own country's myths, but because I like mixed-race MCs, I realised it would make sense to reference a local myth from each of the backgrounds I was planning to include. The chosen nationalities of Ghita's mother was based on people I've met in Denmark and I simply researched local monsters to find something that fit.

That's really all it was.

While the monsters are different in nature, there's a high-level theme of women, children, blood and ostracism. I think European myth and 'fairy tale' tradition tends to be the baseline for storytelling in popular media, but for example African mythology is rich and varied and deals with a lot of similar themes, but in a different context which is completely ignored internationally. And while I think Chinese and Japanese mythology gets a lot of exposure, Thai (and even Korean) storytelling tradition is barely visible in popular media unless you seek it out.

This wasn't really your question, but I have this delusion that people would be interested if they knew a thing existed. So when I have an opportunity to sprinkle in some obscure stuff, I'll do it.

Commission by @hanseelie

Safaa, Safaa, Safaa.... The most beautiful girl in the world. When I was putting the list of characters together, I think she might have been one of the first, if not THE first character I immediately knew the character of. She was strong and confident, in as many ways put together as a human, mature and professionally respected, but… having come to terms with her sexuality in a way that accepted its limitations within her faith, she had a hidden side from the very beginning. The original character description said:

Safaa is the MCs partner, she is muslim, very strong and professional, but sassy among friends. She is a lesbian, but not out to her family yet because of her faith. She is always the voice of reason and is not afraid to make her opinions clear, even if they go against MCs.

I could have made her sassier, but her nerdiness felt more defining of her character, so whenever she did something sassily, she'd get very self-conscious, and I really loved that about her. In my head, she always tempered her intelligence and kept her hobbies private to “keep the peace” if that makes sense. As an adult, she gets regular confirmation that her intelligence is valid and appreciated and she’s proud of it, but dismissing her own achievements is still a form of ingrained behavior, causing her to feel embarrassed whenever she voices pride in her abilities. Which is wildly endearing to Ghita, naturally.

Their romance is constructed as an instant-connection-but-I-don’t-want-to-ruin-it. In classic workplace crush tradition, the context of their relationship meant they had to work on becoming a team while simultaneously processing why this new person made them smile so much. Several questions would’ve come up; Is this a friend-crush or a romantic-crush? Does she even like girls? And how can Ghita approach the subject of romantic feelings when Safaa is so obviously dedicated to her faith?

Safaa is not an asexual route, but there is no sex or even sexual tension within it—it’s all emotional. This was new for me, as I personally prefer to accelerate romance with physical intimacy and when I play Romance Club myself, it’s important to me that my MC has as much sexual tension as justifiably possible. But here’s Safaa, who doesn’t fit this at all! I originally considered the possibility of them sleeping together eventually, but after talking it over with friends in the faith and doing some research through hijabi forums, I abandoned the idea. Why engage so heavily with her Muslim identity, if I was just gonna abandon one of the most commonly understood practices? And why have her struggle so much with aligning her sexuality with her faith, only to add pre-marital sex as a second thing for her to feel guilt about? It felt out of character that she would pick and choose her struggles like that.

Trusting Muslim voices on the matter was important to me, as I am an outsider. I found that in many hijabi chat forums, the subject of homosexuality was met with understanding rather condemnation, which was honestly a huge anchor in how I developed Safaa’s own journey. I also found a research paper on Somali immigrants to the US which informed my approach to Safaa’s relationship with her parents. All in all, I did my best not to go blind into this, even though I know many voiced discontent with Safaa's representation in the beginning.

One thing I was very deliberate about was to ensure Safaa was a constant in season 1 and season 2 so her absence in season 3 would be felt. Safaa is Ghita’s partner, no matter if you romance her or not. If this was a buddy-cop movie, these two would be the main characters! Which is why O deliberately isolates Ghita from the one person who could talk her out of risking it all for the truth. Ghita is already thrown into turmoil with the death of Hoyer and retreats into her pain as a way of coping (I tried to show her many evenings alone in her apartment on the couch, gradually finding it more and more difficult to share her pain because she feels she has to maintain a level of professionalism so as to not get removed from the case). At the same time, the scale of the investigation means that hers and Safaa’s responsibilities diverge. They are pulled away from each other at a crucial time for Ghita's arc. O exacerbates the situation by subtly exposing Ghita to information and situations that she would want to keep Safaa out of, like the visit to Anna-Stella’ apartment, and then later, the way Ghita is manipulated to go with the Crows to the estate without back-up.

If you’ve ever had a toxic partner, some of these tactics might feel familiar—and that’s the point. Ghita’s self-isolation starts to rub off on Safaa, who becomes anxious without understand why, causing her to blurt out the true nature of her and Ghita's relationship to her mother. It’s terrible, but to me also a testament to the strength of their bond; even if Ghita wanted to suffer alone and handle things herself in secret, she can’t really, because Safaa is subconsciously affected by it.

In the end, they find each other again, Ghita managing to reach out in the last moment, breaking through the hold that O has on her, in order to warn Safaa. Some will have noticed that some choices lead to a gentle rejection of the marriage proposal in the final romance scene, but that the consequences of being unfaithful are solely your conscience. Safaa went through so much to get where she is and Ghita may be corrupt but she would never do that to Safaa... ending their relationship a few days after she was disowned by her parents!

I tried my best to avoid condemnation and judgement of Ghita's actions because the story is about the inner destruction of her moral compass and how she is allowed to continue despite everything—just like Hoyer. Bad people walk among us and the tragedy of corrupt Ghita's arc is that the system that wronged her also becomes her. Including the choice to deceive those she love.

That was a bit of a side track..... I had several ideas for the final scene between Ghita and Safaa, among them also a throwback to season 1 of them going to a forest to read comics, and a recreation of this:

.... but in the end, another iconic Copenhagen location felt most fitting. Safaa is a Copenhagen girl through and through and they are the type of girlfriends to really make the most of the city.

She's the character I'm probably the most proud of and she represents so many things to me, trying something very different and also taking chances, so I like to think there's a future for her and Ghita where all her dreams come true. She deserves it.

Starting the week of deep-dives with the most difficult man. I don’t know exactly how this will go, it will most likely just be a long yap so get comfy…

Where do we begin? Originally, his name was Mikkel. After a while, I realised it might be too difficult for an international audience to pronounce, so I went with the more recognisable Mads. His original character description read: 

He is known for his brilliant mind and cold demeanor, a loner who only really has his job to fill his life. He is struggling in silence with his mother’s advancing dementia and having to deal with the death of his father.

Who knew that silence was gonna last almost all of three seasons? Not me… I had in mind that the cemetery scene would’ve come much earlier in the final season but alas, it never really seemed to fit in…

Anyway, his character started with Harry Hole, and more specifically with Harry in ‘The Bat’, the first book in the series. I don’t know if I ever mentioned this, but the very earliest idea was of Ghita as a more established detective with an almost inhuman ability to find missing people, which took her from Denmark to South Korea, to New Zealand, to South Africa and then finally Greenland (representing all the at the time planned ethnic backgrounds of the MC). Mads was meant to be a Korean police inspector who tags along due to some personal issues—Can you imagine Mads as a Korean guy? Weird to think of now (I would have used Lee Dong Wook as inspo!)

When the story had cooked in my head a little longer, Ghita pulled more towards Denmark. I’d been watching episodes of ‘Rejseholdet’, an old Danish show, and been inspired to move the changing scenery closer to home. There’s a character on the show called Jan Boysen, a forensic pathologist played by Michael Falch, and his physical appearance was an inspiration for Mads. I was also influenced by The Snowman (2017) where Michael Fassbender portrays Harry Hole - Fassbender is the right level of sexy-rugged, I think, for a man who seems hellbent on repelling romantic entanglements.

His arc moved slow on purpose, his mind having to catch up with his heart when it came to letting a woman like Ghita, who is naturally reckless, play with his emotions. I wrote in the early documentation:

He and Ghita start off on the wrong foot and this follows them in the first season, until the main character meets him outside of work and a friendly respect/attraction starts to form. [...] He feels isolated and it’s not until he meets Ghita that he starts to see that there’s more to life than work.

I really enjoyed writing his early flirting, because he obviously knows that he’s tall and handsome and has the ability to command a room, but then to see him tense up and fumble so badly when Ghita is doing her thing… delicious, honestly. He plays it cool in season 1 (him winking at her in the season finale when he leaves her after their exchange at the station is like AAARGH, I know he was cringing at himself so bad all the way home, while Ghita genuine didn’t consider it anything but his smartass attitude) but in season 2, he’s had time to pine after her from afar for a few months and now she’s more comfortable with him and it’s torturous. Booking into the hotel and being mistaken for a couple? The discovery on the ship where Ghita presses up against him? The awkward tumble in the backseat of the car??? He was fighting for his life.

By season 3, we’re either established as a couple, or not. I chose to focus on showing them having already reached an equilibrium in their relationship (before all hell breaks loose), but I understand it’s a question of preference. I wrote The Missing like a TV show and for the sake of pacing, it wouldn’t have worked for me to show every first while also gearing up to deal with Hoyer’s death. It would have been too much of a whiplash for me to write. I prefer to show enough, not everything, and I trust people’s own imagination to fill in the gaps. Having Mads established as ‘the boyfriend’ also allowed me to show how utterly lost he is in his affection for Ghita, how dependant he is on her validation and how crippling it is for him to have to express himself emotionally in such a rigid pattern, because he has so much fear residing inside his mind about vulnerability. Which brings me to the next bit…

credit to uoyiiii

…I saw the ‘Waterlily if cast by different authors…’ and I can’t believe I got the kink card when 7B is right there??? I LAUGHED but also, damn… am I a freak? I don’t think I am. I’m sex-positive and I do think a lot of people benefit from expressing their inner lives through sex, but the last thing I would call myself is kinky. I just like diversity! And with the restraint I was building up inside Mads, I knew he would need to release the tension in a unique way. An inspiration was Harry Ambrose from the show The Sinner - I wasn’t a big fan of the first season but 2-4 were really good. I want to add that the "visions" that Ghita experiences—the trolls in the darkness, the qivittoq in the snow—this was inspired by Harry Ambrose. But also, Ambrose likes it rough. He lets a partner choke him until he passes out in season 1, which you shouldn’t do, but it said a lot about him as a character. In contrast, Harry Hole, I believe, accidentally chokes his romantic interest Rakel too hard during a sex scene in one of the later books, which is also an expression of his character.

Making Lauritzen a submissive sexual partner was a very deliberate choice and meant to underline how meaningful it is for him to fall for Ghita, even when he can't articulate it. He so bravely offers his weaknesses as a sign of trust, even when they both don’t really understand what’s going on and he's pretty much risking it all to get the girl.

His journey from their first encounter in Hoyer’s office, to receiving Ghita’s present, butt-naked and on his knees, is truly something, and I will miss this pathetic yearner a lot.

We're more than half way through The Missing Week and I want to thank everyone who's participated so far, it's been truly wonderful to be able to talk more or less freely about the story!

Today, I'm gonna talk about Alba and I'm gonna dive into some of the aspects of her arc that I think worked and some that didn't. Overall, Alba stayed true to her intended characterisation, but of all the elements of The Missing, she's the one who gave me the most trouble and whom I will always wonder what could've been.

In the design phase, I wrote:

Alba comes off as very forward, excitable and live-each-day-like-its-the-last. She’s playful but once you get to know her, you realize that she has very low expectations of other people and is driven by a desire to be happy no matter what. She lives with her brother, and they both work for the criminal gang that becomes the focus of S3. Despite this, Alba disapproves of Ghita if she chooses to go down the path of crooked. She dreams of leaving her criminal life behind and moving to Berlin.

It was always my intention that Alba was working with the Crows and could be both an ally and an enemy of Ghita. In season 1, their date at the end of the season, if you don't take the intimate scene, Alba asks Ghita a bunch of questions about things that means something to her, and I had initially expected to use this at the end of season 3 when it's revealed that Alba was, in fact, a honeypot and was sending information back to the crows about Ghita. O would've brutally taunted Ghita with knowledge she shared with Alba, driving home the betrayal. Alas, it didn't work out in the end.

This is also why, if you don't "bite" so to say; if her honey-potting fails, then yes, she doesn't really appear on your route and you were meant to be "safer" in that final stand-off with O.

During the course of the first two seasons, Alba turned out to be harder to pin down than I had anticipated. Her naturally flighty personality meant that Ghita had to chase HER a lot, forcing her to deal with things in front of her and slowly prying her open. Despite being a physical fast-burn, Alba's emotional arc is the slowest - and for good reason! She's literally deceiving her!

I miscalculated how hard it would be to juggle this with Ghita's work taking her out of Copenhagen in the first two seaons. With Yasin, the challenge was "just" distance and I didn't struggle to articulate their bond, but Alba suffered both distance AND her deceptive nature. I think I technically succeeded in illustrating how Alba is physically present and intense, but her emotions are miles away. Her exterior is so tough for a reason, and in hindsight, I probably wouldn't have even made her a love interest. As interesting as I find her arc, it's not really suitable for the medium.

I probably should've made Saga one instead.

Hindsight is, however, 20/20, and as I've said many times, once I'm committed to my plan, I have to keep it for my sanity. In season 3, we finally got to delve into Alba's mysterious circumstances and as much as I enjoyed unravelling her emotional state across the episodes, I recognise that Ghita already had a million things to deal with and that her lying girlfriend sorta drowned in the chaos.

Despite the carefree beginnings, Alba's route is not rainbows and butterflies. If you get involved with O, there's an ominous cloud hanging over her and while she will always try to sacrifice herself in the end as a doomed apology, the cheating Ghita loses her for good. Alba's arc is overall very tragic and across the romantic paths, it's the only one where Ghita has to do 100% of the work; she has to save Alba and I'm not really sure Alba offers anything concrete in return, other than distracting Ghita from her own pain. Which was the point, admittedly, but in a VN? It might be a little too realistic as a relationship dynamic 😅

When we add Kuno in the mix, their dynamic doesn't change markedly - Alba agrees to it, not because she's particularly keen on Kuno, but because she's on a mission and can't risk losing her mark. In my head, Alba is still loyal to the Crows by the end of season 2, but she's struggling morally with what she's doing because she actually cares for Ghita and is genuinely falling for her.

By season 3, Alba is in deep crisis - She's found something real with Ghita (and Kuno) and just like Hoyer, wants to step away from the Crows, but is acutely aware of the consequences. If you're romancing her, I head canon that O made sure to involve her brother in Hoyer's murder for an excuse to kill him, solely for the purpose of keeping Alba in check. Sylvester was freshly out of jail, sober, and with a sister already planning to make a break with the gang.

O loves to see people dig their own graves.

Again, in hindsight, I would've liked to give Alba a better chance at explaining herself, but that's only something I can reflect upon now that it's over. She gave me a chance to explore tragedy and bittersweet ending, and her resilience and unapologetic character was really interesting to work with, even if she caused me a lot of trouble creatively.

A final interesting fact - very very early on, I had many more potential hallucinations planned for Ghita and one of them involved Alba as a more pronounced enemy, pulling off her fake hand and revealing a knife hidden within it. Ghita wouldn't have known about the fake hand and been paralysed with fear. I also considered the hand having a camera or listening device inside it, but it felt overly James Bond-y so I stuck with the more "normal" microphone and camera plant.

Oh Yasin....... a man of many word, beautiful words, hot-tempered and still devoted, who shows respect but also has enough self-respect not to let himself be compromised beyond salvation. I love this man, kisses on both cheeks, in the sunlight and the moonlight, he is perfect!

Too perfect perhaps?

If we go back to the beginning, his character went through quite radical changes during development. I believe I already mentioned once that Anders was a much more ambiguous character at story conception. He was a person who wanted to aid Ghita in her search, but who also secretly was the father of the missing child.

As the plot took form, so did the need to refine Anders’ character and it meant splitting the ‘helpful’ persona from the antagonistic one. I was listening to a lot of Tobias Rahim at the time, so Yasin emerged as middle eastern immediately. I wrote in the design document:

Son of a local shopkeeper in the small town where season one starts. He has a Syrian background, born in Denmark and with a younger sister. He is quietly flirtatious, but also very serious when he’s in his element.  He is finishing his law degree in Copenhagen, but is on a sabbatical while his dad is ill. 

There were slight changes to his background and context to match the plot better as it developed, but as it were, he was meant to be a chance encounter that would merge naturally into Ghita’s life by season 3, regardless of your relationship with him. I used to watch Law and Order a lot, and I pictured Yasin as the 'Law' part to Mads' 'Order' - we didn't get to experience the two of them going head to head as much as I had initially imagined, but whenever they were in the same room, I tried to make sure it was obvious how their different perspectives clashed.

As a love interest, I went in with the purpose of creating an uncomplicated, honest and dreamy man, a character who (in theory) would “tick all the boxes” and ensure Ghita a happy ending. He’s smart and competent, absolutely smitten with her and loud about it, has a great relationship with his family and overall has his life together. There is always this unfortunate correlation between ‘a good man’ and ‘a boring man’ so despite his infatuation, Yasin always pushes back on Ghita’s nonsense (Mads is right there but let’s face it, he’s a natural pushover in Ghita's presence lol) to offer friction on the route. A more…. dramatic source of friction is that unlike Yasin, Ghita can be one hell of a problem and her potential (repeated) infidelity is a major part of their arc—can she even commit to this man? Does she even want peace? Or is she too broken? Yasin is the only one with the capacity to deal with her antics head-on (unlike both Alba and Mads, who run away at the first sign of trouble). I love/hate the “bad” reunion at Yasin’s house at the end of Season 2, it was a real bitch to write, but the emotional turmoil, angst and regret was kinda fun to read in-app. She really put him through hell.

inspo for Yasin's gorgeous face - the nose was very important.

I say he's perfect and maybe too perfect... he seems to have taken the backseat in The Missing discourse and even I'm struggling to "reveal" a lot of stuff about him because he's so freaking open. He has a jealous streak though, and as much as I think he's incredible at handling Ghita, there are more than one instance where he tenses up, uncomfortable with the knowledge that Ghita's flaws can hurt him so deeply. He's very much the ultimate lover and I, too, wanted to test how far Ghita could go. In the end, he did have a limit.

Yasin has the honour of being the only love interest to properly propose to Ghita. Though both Safaa and Mads talk about eventual marriage in their endings, Yasin was the only one whose arc was meant to have this explicitly stated. In my head, he was picturing them growing old together on their first date (while they were doing the dishes)—that man was waiting for Ghita to make up her mind about him this whole time, there was never any doubt that he wanted her. I also think he’s the healthiest choice for a partner (followed closely by Safaa) as he doesn’t have any personal issues and has the mental capacity to take on the full brunt of Ghita’s chaos. 

All in all, Yasin is in my eyes, the perfect man. Ghita Davoud is a lucky girl.

Delayed as I had some other things to attend to today and it ended up taking more time and so on - I made some of these in advance, but not all, so here we are. Woops!

The big man, the safe harbour; Kuno joined the cast in season 2 in the most dramatic way possible and became one of the most (if not THE most?) stable love interests of our girl Ghita. I described him originally as:

A Greenlandic dog trainer who befriends Ghita and her colleagues and supports them while they investigate in Greenland. Kuno was born in Greenland, but his parents split when he was young and his mother, a nurse, moved to Denmark. He stayed with her until finishing school at 19 and then made the decision to move back to stay with his father and pursue a dream of training sled dogs.  Now in his early 30s, he takes an interest in the investigation team and seizes the opportunity to be their guide and help them when the local police become inadequate. He is a kind man and down to earth. His build is large and sturdy. He falls for the main character quickly, but respects if she is unwilling to pursue a relationship.

Kuno is very much a 'he fell first and hardest' as his quick and sometimes shy attraction to Ghita is accelerated every time he gets the chance to spend time with her. I liked him being concerned and professional after saving her from the ice, but when they meet again, he's had some time to think and he just goes for it. I think it's so cute that he seemingly went "what the heck, might as well try" and stated his intentions.

There's something about it that I thought was very fitting with the setting. These small settlements are quite isolated along the coast, you can only get from one settlement to another via planes, so any outsiders come with a purpose. They're not there for long and they might never return. If you feel a spark with someone, it's honestly a race against time to sort out your feelings before they'll be gone forever.

I characterised Kuno as a very sociable man, someone who really needs human connection to thrive, and there's just something about the way he connects with Ghita - especially if you choose the Greenlandic background - that works on so many levels. His physical presence, his kindness, his spirituality; he was so acutely aware of his surroundings and at ease in the cold, harsh nature around them, that I think Ghita immediately felt safe around him and that's part of the reason why asking him to come to CPH without knowing him for that long didn't feel implausible. I do think we sometimes meet people that we connect with beyond knowledge and history, but really just that intangible soul connection. And Kuno really did feel deeply.

I wanted to address two things - first of all, the unspoken tension between Kuno and Mads. 🤫

Sometimes I get an idea and it is of zero consequence, but also is so obscure that I know, in advance, that this is more an inside hee-hee haa-haa to myself than to anyone else.... and I will add it.

Writing is supposed to be fun and stuff like this makes me smile.

Mads already gave a beautiful performance of "I'm not gay" at the front desk of the hotel if you're playing with a WLW Ghita, and this little joke chases him around until the end (him being weirdly specific about not arriving "together" with Yasin in the final scene like, yes, we get it, you're straight). The part of it I had the most fun with though, were these secret signals that Kuno was sending out to test if Mads was interested.

I'm not about to claim I know the first thing about how a man determines in the wild that another man is gay, but flirting is flirting and rejection is rejection. The fact that Mads recognises Kuno checking him out and changes how he speaks to him is just another one of those layers. Kuno on the other hand is pretty funny about it - in the breakfast scene episode 9, I couldn't help but phrase Kuno's address to Mads playfully, while Mads is rigid and dismissive, not impolite but just...... "hello stop flirting with me."

What can I say, it brought me joy!

Secondly, Kuno's role as the boyfriend. He was always meant to be unconnected to work once he was in Copenhagen. His quick adoption into Ghita's friend group and the sharp separation of work life and private life was very much on purpose. Kuno is perhaps the ideal "policewoman's husband" as Ghita can truly let go of work when she gets home to him. He's there for her to offload her burdens and he can shoulder a lot of her worries as he isn't himself involved.

In the dynamic with Alba, he offers the parts Alba cannot. Where Alba needs saving from Ghita, Kuno is there to pick up the slack. He will carry Ghita after she's spent all her energy carrying Alba. It's the first time I've done a poly relationship and I don't know if it necessarily added anything to the arc, but it was a good experiment. I also found that it changed the vibe of their interpersonal relationship, where Ghita (if I remember correctly) is much more stressed and worried about Kuno's giving nature on a Kuno-only route than she is on a Kuno-Alba route, simply because she needs more of him with a third person in the relationship.

Will it last? I don't know. Both Kuno and Alba challenge Ghita in their own way and with different motivations to reconsider her whole life. To me, they each seek a place to feel home and unfortunately, they're pulling in opposing directions. Compromises could be made, but at the end of the day Ghita's own dependency on her job, her police identity, could end up being the deciding factor. I don't know if she could settle for a bohemian life in Berlin, or wouldn't get bored in Sullulik.

I think Kuno is an important relationship for Ghita because he inadvertedly teaches her so much about herself, but given the kind of person she is, their happiness depends on her willingness to change for him too.

…  my pen slipped and…     Then there was a Damon Reznor on my screen. ;) This said, did you know that @andromeda-six​ are launching their first Visual Novel chapter this weekend?    ^   This new game is a sci-fi visual novel set in the year 3025, where you take on the role of a lost traveler, with no memory of your past before you wake up on the Starship Andromeda Six. Sci-fi ?   Nice! Choose your gender ? Sweet! Romance not mandatory? Good.  Choose your species?  What really? Amnesiac and stuck on a spaceship?  SIGN ME UP! =^.^= Follow the links up there to get more information. 

11th of March ! Happy Birthday Bash ! If you catch a whiff of earthy cologne and oil, you know this charming engineer isn’t far. He might even be watching you from a distance, distracted from his work. Bash is a romanceable character from the game @andromeda-six from Wanderlust Games. Bash’s Chest tattoo is “Tree of Digital Life” by Adoomer (adoomer.deviantart.com)“ More thoughts about this piece after the break:

=^.^= A crop in honor of Bash’s warm lips and beautiful hair <3  (You can find the original picture here)

Sebastian “Bash” Ilahaj is a romanceable character from @andromeda-six His Chest tattoo is “Tree of Digital Life” by Adoomer (adoomer.deviantart.com)“

=^.^= I’m currently working on an illustration of Juniper Nyux, from @andromeda-six It’s good practice to get more productive:  Spent a day on the sketch, then another for the base colours.

Adventures on Cursa