Line #44 Heartwarming/FallenLondon


1	'''As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
2	----
3	[[foldercontrol]]
4
5	[[folder:Ambitions]]
6	!!Nemesis
7	* Potentially, The ambition Nemesis. Before you can finally kill Mr Cups and achieve your revenge, it tries to bargain for its life by offering to return the life of your lost love. Now, those who follow the lore will know that this kind of bargain from the Masters of the Bazaar has never ended well, but for the Nemesis player character, no matter how slim a chance it may seem, it's a chance to reclaim what you lost. [[SurprisinglyHappyEnding It works]]. You've given up the revenge you've been working toward since before you came to London just for a chance to be with your loved one again, and against all odds, it pays off. So what if [[LaserGuidedAmnesia they no longer remember you]]? There is time.
8	-->It is a world both familiar and changed. There is a gnawing fear in the pit of your stomach, an uncertainty in your spirit that has been long absent. Is this what hope feels like?
9	!!Light Fingers
10	* The end of Light Fingers! has these, if you decided to spare the Hybrid and, if it learned to talk, it can say how much it loves you.
11	-->"Thank you," it says. "I do not know what I am. But I know I am partly Clarabelle. And partly you. And that is good."
12	* In the monthly rewards, there's something to love about how much the entirety of London can enjoy the Hybrid's utter luminosity. The Neath entire is brighter for having it around, and not just for you.
13	-->''With the Hybrid false-star peeling back the darkness an invaluable fraction, the gaslamps are dimmed. Painters scramble to capture the city in a rare light. Restaurants drag their tables outside. A spontaneous street-party breaks out, cramming Ladybones Road with revellers. ''
14	* There’s also a special event you can get at zee where, after your ship is beset by a storm, the clouds part and the light of your False-Star shines and guides you to port.
15	-->''Your star has never guided you wrong before. ''
16	!!Heart's Desire
17	* You have the opportunity to [[VideoGameCaringPotential restore the Topsy King's sanity]]. He has been the Topsy King for too long and that will never stop, but now and then, he remembers being Tristram too. This is especially heartening if you did not face him in the Marvellous because then you would never have made the promise to restore his mind, and you do so anyway. The first thing he does with his newly restored mind is talk to his sister.
18	** If you do this and later choose to enlist his help, like anyone else, he still requires you to fetch some items for him first. Except this time, they are for [[BigBrotherInstinct his sister's upcoming married life.]]
19	** Cora, likewise, will be very grateful for you helping him. She thought the Marvellous had taken away two men in her life, and then you return one of them.
20	* Seeing Cora Bagley at the end of the story, happy in love. After all the Marvellous has taken from her and her loved ones, it's nice to see Cora get her happy ending, achieving her Heart's Desire on her own term.
21	--> You watch them go, their heads close in conversation. You note how their fingers instinctively tangle together, without either of them really thinking about it. You note how easily Cora smiles, now.
22	** You can invite her to your laboratory as an assistant. Like any other assistant, you can also dismiss her after. However, for everyone else, upon dismissal the text cites some failing on their part. Not with Cora. The player character is entirely satisfied with her talents and work ethics. They dismiss her only so she can spend more time with her [[HappilyMarried wife]].
23	---> "If you need me again, you know where to find me. In fact, do call anyway. My wife is worried about your hours. She's fair desperate to sit you down for one proper meal at least."
24	* When seeking information about the victors of the Marvellous and what they wished for when they won, His Amused Lordship reveals that he played in order to rescue a friend - implied in the storylet and confirmed elsewhere in the game to be Mrs. Plenty - from Seeking the Name. He turned down immortality, power, and adoration simply to help someone he cared about.
25	[[/folder]]
26
27	[[folder:Location-based storylets]]
28	!!Your Lodgings
29	* Once you acquire the Handsome Townhouse, you can choose to turn it into an orphanage. If you choose to, you have the option to make it an [[OrphanageOfLove orphanage that actually helps the unfortunate children living in London]], instead of one that exploits them.
30	* One of the jobs available to Monster-Hunters qualifies, surprisingly for the otherwise brutal profession. You simply help the Regiment's orphans sleep by telling them tales of your job and letting them know that whenever something goes bump in the night, you're the one that hunts it down.
31	-->''They settle for bed comforted by the knowledge that, while monsters are real, so are ''you''.''
32
33	!!Port Carnelian
34	* If you're a good governor during your term over Port Carnelian, you'll be sent off back to London with a rifle salute, cheers, the assumedly cheerful roaring of tigers, and the assurance by your secretary that if you ever come back you'll be treated the exact same.
35
36	!!A slow boat passing a dark beach on a silent river
37	* When dying, certain opportunity cards allow you to reminisce about different areas of Fallen London. These encourage you to recover quicker so that you can make it back. Even the sketchier or plainer parts of Fallen London receive fond thoughts from you.
38	-->It's not much, but it's home.
39
40	!!Irem
41	* One future you can visit while exploring the strands of destiny in Irem is a London where the Liberation of Night has succeeded. The lights have gone out, the rule of the Masters and the Empress ended. A new society has formed, with fewer boundaries between public and private, human and non-human, self and other. And that new society has... succeeded. Londoners co-operate with Neathy creatures to adapt to the dark and produce what they need. The lights of the Neathy spectrum are put to use to provide new kinds of illumination - apocyan to see the past, peligin to see through the darkness, violant to see the truth. People share what they have to ensure everyone has what they need. The city is harassed by more authoritarian powers of the Neath, but the only internal danger the player encounters is receiving such a generous gift that they put their back out trying to carry it.
42	[[/folder]]
43
44	[[folder:Opportunity cards]]
45	* The ending of the Persuasive and Shadowy paths of the Mysterious Benefactor storyline.
46	* Teaching Lyme to coax secrets from the cats:
47	-->Everybody knows the real problem isn't getting the cats to give up their secrets, it's catching them in the first place. You share some of your more esoteric knowledge with Lyme. He props one side of a basket up on a stick tied to a piece of string, baits it with a rubbery lump, and waits. He manages to trap a ginger tabby on his first try. [[GentleGiant His huge hands are so gentle with her]] that she starts following him around and telling you both all ''sorts'' of things.
48	* The third option of the ''Crossing a bridge late at night'' card -- "The Comtessa. It's what she wanted." Of course, YMMV depending on how you resolved the story the card references. For example, if you believed that she was begging you to end her and smashed her to bits the card remains true, but isn't exactly heartwarming.
49	* The first option of the ''The little people'', where one of your minions is captured by the Constables -- "Send your lawyer after the chap. Provide sureties and whatnot. You owe these people, even though you wouldn't admit it to them."
50	* [[BecauseYouWereNiceToMe Repaying the Soft-Hearted Widow as a Person of Some Importance by contributing to her charity]]. When you've just escaped from prison and are living on the streets, one of the first options for finding a home is to charm her into giving you three square meals a day and a bed in the guestroom. By the time you see her again, you own a Handsome Townhouse in a respectable neighborhood, dress so finely she doesn't recognize you, and are wealthy enough to help many others as she helped you.
51	-->It's a terrible thing to be cold and alone on London's streets. [[BlatantLies Not that you have ever been in such a situation.]]
52	* The ''A Deviless' Serenade'' card: Apparently the one deviless who isn't a master seducer has fallen in love with a rubbery man. Two ostracized groups finding love with each other, or the former intends to take the soul of the other. Still, the card reads it as rather sweet.
53	** According to the lore of both the Devils and Rubbery Men, both sides consider the other completely and utterly useless, even anathema, to their goals. Devils can't use Rubbery souls, reject your soul if you are In Possession of a Peculiar Personal Enhancement, and in Lord Mayor Virginia's soul spa her process can't even work right if you even ''think'' about Rubbery Men, while Rubbery Men can't use Vital Essences from Devils for their Red Science at all. All in all, maybe this really is an unexpected Victorian romance that only Fallen London can deliver.
54	* Advising an urchin girl to return to the Gracious Widow who wants to raise her like her own daughter on the Urchins/Widow conflict card:
55	-->As you walk her back to the Gracious Widow's territory in Spite you fill her in on the recent antics of the Knotted Sock. She laughs a little and cries a little. Not all the memories are good. You remind her how lucky she is. A day later a gift of jade is delivered to your home. The accompanying letter is written in an exact hand. It smells of age and the dark. "Thank you," it reads. You still see the girl some days, walking back from her school with her books under her arm. She seems well.
56	* While on the subject of urchins, ''What will you do with your Grubby Kitten?'' allows you to loan your [[CuteKitten Grubby Kitten]] to them for they day. Allowing them to play with your pet like normal children their age.
57	-->'''Laughter by your hearth'''
58
59	-->By the end of the day, the kitten has been groomed, tickled, carried, and chased into an exhausted, purring heap. The last time you heard the urchin [[WhenHeSmiles laugh so much]], he'd just stolen a Special Constable's helmet. You can [[WorthIt chalk the day up as a success]].
60	* Many of the cards that get you to align yourself as closest to a faction are of the sort. Particular mention goes to giving a ShellShockedVeteran tomb-colonist the chance to finally wear the kind of proper, dapper clothes he wore in his youth, giving the urchins a treasure they had lost long ago and listening to their whole story afterwards, and spitting in the face of superstition to attend a vigil for someone who died permanently, giving the departed the proper last rites they deserve.
61	* The Fate-locked option of ''Dance with a Devil''.
62	-->You dress for the occasion in scarlet and gold. You present the lady with a deep red rose so perfect that it glows even in the red light of the Embassy ballroom. Do not even think about what it cost. It has the desired effect. The Deviless is charmed, and dances only with you. She guides you to the least dangerous parts of the dance floor. Later in the evening, when the room has grown insufferably hot, she leads you by the hand to a cool, quiet garden, lit by cages of luminescent beetles and dancing fireflies. You dance again, alone, her head resting on your shoulder. Days later, you find her earrings in your pocket. They are still warm.
63	* The Regretful Soldier's backstory storyline eventually draws a card called ''How will the Regretful Soldier's Tale end?'' While one option is to do nothing and another is to [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential be cruel for profit]]. The last however through a choice made in a [[GuideDangIt fate locked story]] allows the Solider to have a [[ThrowTheDogABone second chance at happiness]]. It's title of a ''[[SurprisinglyHappyEnding A light in the darkness!]]'' is well earned.
64	[[/folder]]
65
66	[[folder:Non-repeatable storylines]]
67	* Choosing to send Alice to the Church at the end of the Cheesemonger arc. For the first time since her family was massacred, Alice finally seems to be at peace with herself.
68	* Deciding to not betray the Tattooed Courier's trust and returning her secrets to her instead:
69	-->You know you're spending longer than you need at this. It's her fault. Must she be so charming? So animated? Must she frown ever-so-slightly when she's thinking, and push that lock of hair so prettily back behind her ear each time it slips loose? In the end it is she that reminds you of your offer to draw her, and suggests doing so at her lodgings...
70	-->(...)
71	-->Wordlessly you hand them over, and with two quick paces she places them in the fire. When she returns to sit opposite you her hands are shaking. The two of you talk, honestly. It goes no further than that. There are no confessions of feeling. You are never less than a room apart. But something else connects you: a moment of vulnerability - the firmest currency of the Game - that you cast away.
72	* Ending the Jack-of-Smiles case by choosing to ensure that Jack never returns. The people of London all hail you as a hero and even erect a statue in your honor.
73	[[/folder]]
74
75	[[folder:Seasonal events]]
76	!!Hallowmas
77	* During Hallowmas 1894, new options to "enhance" select Companions with a combination of notable Fallen Londoners' confessions were added. Some of these enhancements involve [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential traumatizing your Companions]] or encouraging them to become more ruthless/depraved, but others turn out to be surprisingly heartwarming ones:
78	** If you try to make the Grubby Urchin more moral by telling him about the Kashmiri Princess and Soft-Hearted Widow's confessions, he interprets these confessions in a different way than you intended and says that they prove that [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished people who do good deeds get hurt by others]]. But he concludes that this means he has to protect ''you'' -- [[BecauseYouWereNiceToMe the one who gave him a home]] -- from being similarly taken advantage of by others and is even willing to clean himself up to be able to stick by your side in common society.
79	--->"'ere - you done me a good deed when you took me in!" he interrupts. "I'd better stick close to you. Make sure no one takes advantage, like. Although that'll be difficult seein' as I keep gettin' thrown out of places on account of my smellin' like a cat what died in a chimney. Hm." That evening, he submits - for the first time ever - to a bath.
80	** If you share Jenny and the Soft-Hearted Widow's confessions with the Devious Henchman, he becomes so moved by the Soft-Hearted Widow's tenderheartedness that he resolves to work hard to make the world a better place, reflecting her example.
81	--->He has a healthy respect for Jenny, but a fierce fondness for the Soft-Hearted Widow. When he hears her confession, he sniffles and blows his nose loudly into his sleeve. "There's no shame in it!" He snaps, defensively. "That lady took me in when I got out of New Newgate. She's an example. This world don't deserve her. Well, it's about time someone set about improvin' it!"
82
83	!!Sackmas
84	* The Noman is this and TearJerker mixed into one emotionally-charged package. Though your time together is short, you can offer it happiness, raising it as if it is your own child.
85	-->'''A Newborn'''\
86	It is pale, and its eyes are shadowed pits. When first it clambers from the lacre, it is as barely-formed and inviting to the touch as snow new-fallen on the corner of a wall. But second by second, it looks more and more like you. When it looks up and smiles, its face is your own, albeit snow-coloured and fragile. "I'm me," it says in delight. "I'm me!" It reaches out to touch your face.
87	* One of the items in the 1895 Advent calendar involves a group of ex-convicts singing Christmas carols outside your door.
88	-->They're rougher than a proper chamber choir, but they make up for it by being even more lively than the drunks of Veilgarden. And they don't even threaten to rob you of figgy pudding! "We just want to spread a little joy for once," says their leader, shaking your hand vigorously. "Merry Christmas!"
89	* During "Twelve Days of Mr Sacks", one of the Fate-Locked option is to assist a Rubbery Man with its one wish, to be given a gift by Mr Sacks. The Player Character points out how foolish and impossible this wish is. [[EldritchAbomination Sacks]] only takes and never gives, and the Rubbery Man is doomed to failure. Except it doesn't fail. On day 12, as the Rubbery Man tries comfort a dying Mr Sacks, Sacks fulfills the Rubbery Man's wish in its last moment. Even the narration cannot believe it.
90	-->If ever there was a Christmas miracle, you have just witnessed it.
91	** This is even more significant when one considers the fact that Charity is considered a grave sin where the Masters came from (in fact this is what got one of them exiled in the first place). In its final moment, this Mr Sacks committed a crime in order to repay the kindness a Rubbery has tried to show it.
92
93	!!The Great Sink of 1899
94	* In 2021, as an experimental event to replace the annual mayoral election, Failbetter Games released an experimental, co-operative, one-time event called Mr Chimes' Grand Clearing-Out. It begins entertainingly enough, with the player being asked to help at various dig sites across London to uncover treasures and secrets. Once the dig sites are completed, however, the earth beneath the city begins opening, slowly destroying the city and endangering its citizens. The dig sites have accelerated the Stone Pigs' awakening, and [[TheApocalypseBringsOutTheBestInPeople it is up to the players to band together and save the city]], both by donating incredibly hard to obtain items and by rescuing Londoners in danger from the disaster. In less than a day, the playerbase collectively reaches the goal, spending actions and hard earned resources to do what they can and save their city.
95	** Not only was the goal swiftly met, most players did not stop the rescue efforts even after it had become unnecessary to progress the story. Players could have sat still and wait 24 hours for the story to progress, but many continued rescuing others in need, to the point where by the time the Stone Pigs are put back to sleep, the playerbase had saved over six times more people than it needed to to progress the event.
96	--->When London very nearly fell into a deep, dark hole – again – you did not sit idly by and watch your fellow citizen be swallowed up by the Earth.
97	** When the Masters of the Bazaar have completed the device that would avert the disaster, any player who helped in its construction could witness it first hand either from a spire of the Bazaar or from the depth of her. If they do so, they join the dreams of either the Masters or the Bazaar for one brief moment, along with every Londoner, all becoming one with the city they just saved from destruction. When they wake, there is recognition shared between all Londoners, and together they can figure out the truth of what just happened. But for now, they can rest easy, knowing that London is saved.
98	** A player who did not or could not participate in the construction of the device still joins the dreams of every Londoner. This time, they meet a familiar face, the Soft-Hearted Widow, the woman who took them in and gave them shelter at the beginning of the game. [[TheAce Big]] or [[TheEveryman small]], [[TheHero righteous]] or [[VillainProtagonist wicked]], it is implied here that the player character [[BecauseYouWereNiceToMe remains grateful]] to this widow, who immediately asks after their wellbeing as if they are still her ward.
99	[[/folder]]
100
101	[[folder:Destinies]]
102	* [[DreamingOfThingsToCome Dreaming of The Liberation of Night during the Fruits of the Zee Festival, Hallowmas, or Neathmas]]. It is almost certainly the [[StealthPun darkest]] -- see [[NightmareFuel/FallenLondon the Nightmare Fuel page]] for details -- but it also has the greatest VideoGameCaringPotential.
103	** Saving your spouse:
104	--->You'll save who you can, but there's one who must come first.\
105	'''Together in the dark'''\
106	[...]\
107	Without someone you could trust absolutely, you'd never have made it through. You pass through the fungus-choked corridors, the pits where the Inhabiters walk, the broken gates. You ascend through the galleries of fossil and memory. You cling together in the dark. You breach the surface, at last, in an apple orchard just outside Shepton Mallet, through a Neolithic tomb of unlikely age. It's night, but the air is warm, and scented with summer.
108	** Saving "whoever you can":
109	--->There are so many in need of help. Start with the closest, and the most helpless.\
110	'''The old, the young, the desperate'''\
111	[...]\
112	Weeks pass. The Observatory becomes a refuge. You arrange rationing, supplies, healing. You sleep when you can. Occasionally you make forays into the city to seek survivors, but it's horribly dangerous. You lose almost as many, to spiders and anarchists and human wolves, as you save. But your crowd of innocents and protectors grows day by day.\
113	Months pass. The Bazaar is long since extinguished. Candles are still useless, fire still sheds no light. Your people - they are your people, now - experiment with clicking like bats to navigate, with tricks of memory and insight, and with the variant spectrum of night: the colours called irrigo, cosmogone, violant, apocyan. Over time, strange lights bloom in the vaults. You hardly dare take those lights out into the darkened world, but in the refuge beneath the Observatory they permit you to read and write again, to memorialise your world in art, to recall what it is to be human. It is not a good life. But it is a life, and you have given it to them.
114	* In ''A Pricked Finger'', you are given a number of options, all of which will grant you immense power; you can be a god or a conqueror. You can turn down all of this to free an old friend.
115	-->"He's frightened. He weeps in his briar-cage. He betrayed the Fingerkings for the sake of compassion, and he knows what awaits me. But I know him. Somehow. We met in a dream, before we lived in one."\
116	'''Mercy'''\
117	"He went weeping into the world. I see him there now. He'll work his passage on an explorer-steamship. (Or he already has.) He'll solve the riddle of the East of Everything. (Or he did, and he fled here.) He'll visit a stranger's house and offer him a hint of things to come, and the stranger will save him in turn. Or he saved him long ago." \
118	"Time. I used to think it was a wheel. The Fingerkings say it's a flame. Coolest at its heart. But wildest at its edges."\
119	"I'll see him again. It's his turn to be there when I need him most."
120	* And in ''The Taste of Blackest Brine'', you're brought before {{Eldritch Abomination}}s and can offer them a number of darkly-themed "gifts" (or destroy them). But it is also possible to TakeAThirdOption, and [[SympathyForTheDevil offer them redemption]].
121	[[/folder]]
122
123	[[folder:Exceptional Stories]]
124	* Almost the entirety of the Exceptional Story, ''HOJOTOHO!'', but the ending takes the cake. The Songbird finds the Valkyrie, who appears to be considering his offer. If you wish to steer her away from this path, you immediately begin singing [[TitleDrop "HOJOTOHO"]], alerting the other urchins who immediately [[ThePowerOfFriendship come to her aid]], causing the Songbird to swiftly leg it. After unashamedly crying her eyes out, the Valkyrie and the other urchins resolve themselves to starting a gang of urchins who are essentially [[KidHero vigilante kid heroes]] helping people for little to no reward. Uncommonly for London, it is an unambiguously happy ending.
125	-->[[KidHero "There is a Valkyrie in London, wearing a colander and carrying a sharpened broom. She is the stuff of song."]]
126	* At the end of the Exceptional Story, ''The Noises from Upstairs'' your character can sacrifice a large reward to save the life of Dashing Debunker. Doing so means he find some sort of resolution with his issues and [[FireForgedFriends joins you as a unique companion]].
127	[[/folder]]
128
129	!!Miscellaneous
130	* There's a quality called Adrift on a Sea of Misery. "Step outside the lamp-light and London is an abyss of disease, poverty, despair..." Do something Magnanimous and sometimes it increases, with a message like "Nothing seems to have changed. But perhaps one day it will."
131	* The Legacy of the Anchoress, a philosophy you can choose to identify with, which is an entire watchful philosophy based on the work of Julian of Norwich. Everything about it is comforting and heartwarming, most notably:
132	-->"All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well"

Context Heartwarming / FallenLondon