madimpossibledreamer

I’m actually one of the weirdoes that prefers the first game to the second but thinking about “Chad” there’s some similarities here that make this song pretty relevant for writing this chapter.
Desmond actually getting to use information from Initiate is great.

I thought I’d added in something foreshadowing for a bit in this chapter previously, but I hadn’t. I went back to fix that. That being said this is actually a really good place to start to pull this in.
Thought this note from my first draft might be of interest to readers. (((Desmond share something for once in your life and stop making this so much of a pain thank you no stop no getting super vague and don’t lie about it Desmond seriously)))
This is in fact the Stephen King reference character who’s also his own thing now, because both authors coexist in my version of the world. The plot of Anne is now partially a reference to Joyland though, mostly because it’s one of the Krieg books that doesn’t have even a blurb or excerpt. You can find Krieg listed on Google Books along with covers and such despite the fact that he’s fully fictional. The mentioned blog also exists. I think I mentioned that this game had ARG elements, enough that they had an in-game browser so you could find, say, Danny’s Twitter for answers to in-game missions. (I wonder if he’s moved to Bluesky.)
Also there’s some interesting stuff here now about commonalities between books Desmond’s liked, now that we have two mentioned: at minimum for some inexplicable reason he might like “outsider protagonist” stories.

( twisting reality )

Desmond you say that but it’s still bugging you, you’re just so used to it that you haven’t noticed it’s bugging you.
and not that most people are playing it, but happy majima pirate launch day

with every single conversation with Nicholas Desmond was like “okay all of this is nice and interesting could you please go back to safety” which isn’t a normal Bee reaction.
Also it turns out he sidestepped doing the Phoenician mission entirely, mostly because Chelsea & crew were returning and the Phoenicians sent the truce and are taking it seriously...which conversely means Chelsea’s going to have to fill him in on a few things because that’s kind of crucial info.
Also in-game Nicholas Winter says that he sought refuge in the highest location he could find. Which would be the Ferris Wheel. If he’d stepped foot in there, he wouldn’t have left.
Thinking about it it makes so much sense as to why there’s continual family tragedies associated with the park but the why is a bit spoilery. We’ll get there.

Going back through to see if they talked about it and no, it was Shaun and Rebecca that discussed it and Shaun absolutely called Desmond’s reaction. Well, half right anyway. He didn’t think Desmond had actually thought about it.
Hey a wild reference to Bloodlines would you look at that
also yes desmond but you might remember you did have a big fight about the past once already so shaun had a good reason to think that might be a touchy subject
only the bit at the end was planned, but then I remembered oh hey Rebecca has the surveillance stuff and she absolutely wouldn’t let this slide now that she’s back and then suddenly I was at over 3000 words how does this happen I ask of you

Interpret the term partner however you want—there’s no context or follow-up in game, and these characters work well with a bit of mystery.