Fern has come up a handful of times over the course of the game with other characters but Finn has never fully told anyone about him

Which is good for Finn’s regret (although I have long plans with that too, so it won’t go away, I HAVE TIERS)

From the beginning i think a GOAL of mine was that Finn needs to mourn Fern, because his death is a lingering, unresolved problem in large part because it’s basically a break down of being able to grieve and move on

(Complicated by the fact that Finn doesn’t know, for instance, that Fern is alive in Jake’s timeline, which is further along)

I think in terms of talking about it, Finn is NOT going to talk to anyone about it before he rips the bandaid off and tells Jake that he killed him (Jake already knows, but Finn doesn’t know he knows so it’s a stressor)

ALTERNATIVELY, this could be an opportunity to address that, albeit a probably more traumatic way, rather than like, coming to it himself

We Need To Talk About Fern

Like, the injury one would probably make the most sense, I could set it literally right after the fact of killing him, whcih is Finn’s exact canon point! but I FEEL LIKE THAT’S KIND OF TOO MUCH??? I feel like it would just re-traumatize Finn with something he hasn’t healed from at ALL

safelybeds: I knew you would understand

let me make my case for why

retraumatizing him might actually be a healthy thing

LMAO

let me rephrase

LMAO

MIGHT BE GOOD FOR HIM, ULTIMATELY

we talked about this before how like, because of how finn was jumped into things and never had to talk about fern he really

really buried it deep. and it's just been buried deeper and deeper

I mean NOT ADDRESSSING IT definitely isn’t good for him

Like I honestly think........ like, i feel like waiting for Finn to come to it himself in a healthy way would require Finn acknowledging he has a problem

perhaps

PERHAPS?

(COME TO IT, not in a healthy way )

LMAO WELL STILL

WAITING FOR HIM TO ARRIVE AT IT AND ASK ABOUT IT

you could address the fern thing by not addressing it directly? like fingers crossed maybe there's a memory from another character that could trigger thoughts of fern

which might not be as traumatizing as literally making finn relive it again

LIKE, IT COULD BE... FOREVER. i genuinely think that it's telling that finn literally cannot open his vault himself in the finale, jake has to do it for him

I could absolutely make it happen, but yeah

like i think that is important Thematically to how Finn's trauma is. The thing that is wrong with how he deals with trauma is being like "I can deal with this myself"

Like, it's important to note that in canon when

the only person he would tell is Jake

Finn kills Fern and goes back to the treehouse

LIKE.... SO MANY HOURS LATER, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

AFTER PRESUMABLY

JUST FREAKING OUT FOR HOURS AND HOURS

he never actually tells Jake he killed Fern?

Like we never hear the words "I killed Fern" in that moment

I don’t think he would keep it from him forever

he just stands there opening and closing his mouth

and Jake infers what happened

I REALLY DON’T

No, he wouldn't, but i genuinely think it is thematically important that his family are there to catch him because they can literally see his pain even if he can't voice it

like i think that is what makes that moment so emotional, because it's a situation where he doesn't have to ask for comfort, which is notoriously REALLY hard for him, and also it is a lot to ask of a kid to be so allone with his trauma all the time

Acknowledging that has to be a huge part of like, Finn healing

derkins: Yeah i was thinking this! I’ve already see a couple things that made me think I could easily angle it!!

like 'maybe this is bigger than you deserve, maybe you not being able to handle this is not a character flaw'

yeah i totally agree with all of that

TL;DR

i think even if nobody else sees him see that memory

or finds him only after it's done

and he doesn't say anything to them, but goes to Jake

or Jake finds him elsewhere after the fact

Like I'd say someone else finds him would be more interesting, just so we're not replicating canon. But maybe that person could call Jake?

And that kicks off the Moment?

Even if the other person doesn't actually know what's happening?

maybe we could see if anybody wanted to do a three way thread

Yeah that could be good!

YEEEEEE

rubs little hands together

i like how we did 59 comments in this plurk that boil down to "yes, let's retraumatize finn and have him talk to jake"

which is basically what you said at the start

but twist my arm to get too talkative about AT themes LMAO

SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO GO FULL CIRCLE

I guess i did make this plurk to talk about themes TECHNICALLY

LMAOOO

Anyway, gotta get a move on this because otherwise how will Finn get the next stage of changing his regret

Someday i want to be able to talk about how Finn will eventually start really moving backwards on his regret....ie/ regretting things that led to killing Fern in an attempt to make all of it less bad and

Have a crisis about how all signs point to him essentially regretting Fern

Existing, period

AND I DONT EVEN KNOW IF THAT’S WRONG TO REGRET. FERN KIND OF JUST, EXISTS MISERABLY AND EVENRUALLY IS FREED FROM HIS EXTREMELY TRAGIC CURSED EXISTENCE

I don’t think Finn would even be like ‘yeah it would be good if fern never existed’ because that’s....him. A literal piece of him.

And also the sort of inherent godmoding, even hypothetically, of unpleasant realities wouldn’t really click with his worldview

LMAO HONESTLY I'M SO EXCITING FOR THIS

EXCITED, EVEN