#in case you couldn’t tell the subclasses I chose for each was

[sophiasharp]

It’s probably because of how deeply tied to their identities the Tadfools’ backstories are (and also how the fuck does Tav fit into anything) but I’m kinda surprised by how I haven’t seen much, if any, role-swap stories for Baldur’s Gate yet. Which is a shame cause I think there could be a lot of potential there, cause none of these guys would respond to each other’s circumstances the exact same way.

Think of a noble-borne Astarion, who might not have been the best person but still would give anything to see the city he loves safe. This time, it is not infernal machinations that threatens Baldur’s Gate, but the long-standing rot of the Faewild that promises to bring about its ruin. The binding of his mortal soul is made all the more bitter by his family’s formal disowning of a child who conspires with the Fae. Making himself into a hero is not done out of a genuine selflessness but out of a necessity to try and reap SOME reward out of sacrifice, to make it MEAN something other than losing all he once knew.

Think of Lae’zel, stolen from Selune’s Tears during a Githyanki training mission and brought up in the Sharran cloister, damned to forget herself while always and forever remaining OTHER compared to the rest of the acolytes. Shar bids one live their lives in the shadow, but she figures one must sometimes bring the shadows forward more forcefully if they are to further their cause. As a war cleric, she promises to become the sword-arm to the Nightsinger that might one day banish the light for good. And yet, she still wonders some days where she comes from and why her hand sometimes burns so fiercely.

Think of a young, bright-eyed, and curious Karlach, raised on tales of swords and sorcery, who more than anything wants to become one of those heroes one day. She wants to be the next Elminster, or Tasha, or Mordenkainen- no, she wants to be BETTER than them, to outshine even the greatest of spellcasters and use her power to protect those she loves. Mystra sees her determination and feeds it, letting her enthusiasm grow to obsession as she gets older, leaving behind her friends and family in favor of her greatest passion incarnate. But it’s not enough. How could it ever be, when the woman who claims to love her, the one she’s built her life around, continues to hold true mastery of the arcane just out of her grasp? Surely there is some way she can prove her worth. Surely, with her Goddess’s favor and her own deft hand at Abjuration, she will be able to gift Mystra the one thing she wasn’t able to take on her own.

Think of a Gale, a scrappy young man with so much arcane potential and yet none of the money necessary to have it be honed properly. Still, mouths must be fed, and so he pushes himself to become stronger, strong enough to support his single mother in the City of Splendor. Indeed, he grows strong enough to catch the attention of an up-and-coming politician from Baldur’s Gate who may have some shady dealings on the side, but the money was good enough for him to look the other way. Just as long as he could keep sending money back to Waterdeep, he didn’t care much what his boss did. Until, one day, everything changed. He was sent to the hells, his heart ripped out of his own chest and replaced with a searing hot contraption that threatened to burn him from the inside out. Ten years he spends down there, fighting a war he never signed up for, and a rage begins to take form. Through his anger, the magic inside him finally finds a conduit, wild enough to let him survive through everything.

Think of Jenevelle, kidnapped during her Selunite rite of passage by mindflayers and later “saved” by Githyanki raiders. She is offered the chance to prove herself more than a slave, and grabs on with both hands. She trains among them, fighting not only to survive but to be the BEST at it, to justify her existence amongst their ranks. By the time she is grown, her past life is but a distant, painful memory. She earns the title of Shadowheart, her mettle as cold and furious as the dark side of the moon. For her own safety, she can never let herself stop fighting to be better. She will become Vlakith’s champion if that’s what it takes for her to finally, finally be enough.

Think of a Wyll Ravengard born two centuries earlier, nearly killed and left for dead by one of his father’s political rivals when a cold hand offers eternal salvation. Later, he wishes he had perished in the alley as intended. He spends years, decades hoping that his father and the rest of the flaming fist would find him, only to be crushed when rescue from his living hell never comes. He outlives all that would have known the face of Grand Duke Ravengard’s late son, becomes a ghost of himself as he learns how to lead countless to their deaths in the hopes of saving his own skin from more pain. And yet, somewhere deep inside him, there lays a part of him that still holds hope for the happily ever afters of the old stories he clings to despite everything he’s gone through. By day, he sharpens his claws, remembers his training from before his life was thrown away, re-teaches himself how to strike hard and fast before anyone can react, and bides his time. Maybe, just maybe, the gods would give him the chance to be his own hero. The monster and the hunter both.

#Baldur’s gate 3 #baldur's gate #baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate #bg3 #I also have thoughts about Halsin and Minthara but they are a lot harder to switch around given that they’re so tied to the Absolute stuff #in case you couldn’t tell the subclasses I chose for each was #Archfey Warlock for Astarion #War Cleric for Lae’zel #Abjuration Wizard for Karlach #Wild Magic Barbarian for Gale #Champion fighter for Shadowheart #and Assassin Rogue for Wyll #every time it boggles my mind that Astarion is supposed to be an Arcane Trickster. how? who taught him this shit? for what purpose? #Sophia and her stuff

[masterweaverx]

Part of the fun of these character builds is taking absolutely ridiculous characters and making them work in the context of D&D. So today I’ll be looking at Makuta Teridax, from Bionicle. That’s right, I’m expanding my palette a bit!

So Makuta Teridax is a Makuta. Which means he’s a shape-shifting robot with the elemental power of shadow, a unique shadow hand, a bit of telepathy, the ability to make Kraata and Rhakshi from himself... and, oh, fourty-two seperate Kraata Powers. Which he, himself, can also use. Also he has the mask of Shadows. Yeah, Bionicle was a wacky setting, all things told. Basically, we’re going to have to go Full Caster, with some unusual considerations.

Since we’re going Full Caster, that means we’ll be using the point buy system--all six stats start at 8, and you have 27 points to spend to up them, at a rate of 1 point for one improvement up to 13 and then 2 points per improvement after. That means upping a stat to 15 costs nine points total--and we’re going to be upping Intelligence and Wisdom to 15 to maximize our spell power. That leaves us nine points to split between Constitution and Charisma--five to Constitution, upping it to 13, because Constitution is both the ‘health’ and the ‘concentration’ stat, and 4 to Charisma, upping it to 12, because when a Makuta speaks, you listen. And Teridax is the leader of the Makuta...

Bionicle characters are biomechanical and you know what, so are Warforged! Yes I know the Makuta are actually living gas clouds in airtight armor but (1) they weren’t always that and (2) this is Flavor/Mechanics oriented, not accuracy oriented. Anyway, as an Envoy Warforged specifically, Teridax gets +1 to Constitution and +1 to two other stats--which are of course going to be Intelligence and Wisdom, since those are going to be our casting abilities.

All Warforged have Integrated Protection--instead of wearing armor, they can switch between ‘modes’ they’re proficient in every long rest, great for a shapeshifter. There’s also Warforged Resilience, which makes him immune to disease, resistant to poison, renders eating and drinking and even breathing unnecessary, and makes him impossible to put to sleep magically. Speaking of which he also has Sentry’s rest, which means on a long rest he just goes inert for six hours without going unconscious.

Envoy Warforged in particular have a few other advantages. Their Specialized Design gives them a Skill Proficiency and a Tool Proficiency, and since we’re not going to get it anywhere else Teridax is going to pick Intimidation and Thieves’ tools. And they have an Integrated Tool--they can select one tool they’re proficient with, and not only is it part of their body but they have expertise with it. I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say that the tool, in this case, is a Disguise Kit--because Teridax is going to get proficiency in disguise kits from his background.

And what background is that? Why, Charlatan, of course! Free with proficiencies in Deception, Sleight of Hand, Disguise Kits, and Forgery Kits. It also has the False Identity feature, allowing Makuta Teridax to take on another persona (like say, Turaga Dume), and have all the paperwork on hand to prove that, no really, he’s Turaga Dume! Pay no attention to that sphere in the corner. He’s also really great at forgery of documents.

And now comes the tricky bit: getting 42 Kraata powers, plus all the other abilities Teridax has, onto a spell list. Doing that meant I had to multiclass, pick specific subclasses for each class, allow each class to meet a minimum level, and amp two different stats to their max. It was incredibly tricky, but through some very, VERY careful selection, I pulled it off. Mostly. The Elasticity Kraata Power just couldn’t fit, sorry about that. But everything else, I packed in! Are you ready for this?

Three levels in Tempest Domain Cleric...

...then seventeen levels in Nature Theurgy Wizard.

Okay, so before I explain the subclasses, I’m going to go over the standard class abilities. Clerics have proficiency in light and medium armor, shields and simple weapons, and Wisdom and Charisma saving throws. They get two skill proficiencies--I chose History and persuasion--and at three levels their big thing is just... Channel Divinity. Which I’ll get to in a moment.

Wizards, on the other hand, get Arcane Recovery, which lets them regain spell slots on a short rest once per day up to a total of half their wizard level rounded up. That’s 9 points here, so you can get three third level spell slots, or a fourth and a fifth, or five first and two second... but you can’t get seventh, eighth, or ninth spell slots back, presumably for balance reasons. The Wizard class is also where we’ll get our four Ability Score Increases, for a total of eight points to spread among ability scores--and putting four each in Wisdom and Intelligence lets us have the MAXIMUM SPELL POWER for this combination. Trust me, preparing Spells is important for clerics, and for wizards.

So now let’s talk about the Tempest Domain. Teridax gets proficiency in Heavy Armor and Martial Weapons from it, as well as Wrath Of The Storm--which means if somebody rushes in and hits him, he can use a reaction to force the creature to make a dexterity saving throw or suffer 2d8 Lightning/Thunder damage. And he can do this five times per long rest. Of course, it also gives him a Channel Divinity option; once per rest, Teridax can either Turn Undead (making them run away from him in fear), Harness Divine Power (regaining a spell slot of first, second, or third level), or unleash the power of a Destructive Wave (automatically rolling maximum for Lightning or Thunder damage).

And now... Theurgy Wizard. What does it do, you might ask? Well, it basically hybridizes Cleric and Wizard classes. A Theurgy Wizard takes a Cleric Domain--in this case, Nature--and those spells are considered Wizard spells for purposes of what they can learn. They also get some of the Domain’s cleric benefits--not the eighth level one, or any weapon or armor proficiencies from the first level, but at level seventeen, they have everything else.

Including Channel Arcana, which is slightly different from Channel Divinity. For one thing, Teridax can do it twice per rest, instead of just once. For another, the options are either Divine Arcana, giving +2 to his next spell’s attack roll or save DC, or Charm Animals and Plants, which... charms animals and plants within 30 feet for up to a minute.

Acolyte of Nature means that Teridax has proficiency in Animal Handling and a single druid Cantrip, which we’ll get back to in a moment. Dampen Elements means that, as a reaction, he can give himself or anybody in 30 feet resistance to an attack that hit them if that attack did acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage--very useful in a world where a good portion of the population has elemental powers. And Master of Nature means that he can take a bonus action to tell critters that are charmed by his Channeled Arcana what to do on their next turn.

And now, at last, we get to the spells. BUT FIRST! Let’s calculate this all out. Since Clerics and Wizards are both full casters, Teridax has all the spell slots--4 first level slots, 3 second-through-fifth level slots each, 2 sixth and seventh level slots, and one slot for eighth and ninth levels.

Clerics can prepare a number of spells equal to their level plus their Wisdom modifer--so 3+5--up to a level determined by their cleric level--in this case, up to second level. They also automatically have spells prepared from their domain, which don’t count toward the previous limit; while it’s only up to the level they can learn, it’s still an extra four spells.

Wizards, on the other hand, learn six spells at first level and two spells every level thereafter, so at level 17 that’s 38 spells. Granted, they only prepare their level plus their intelligence bonus a day, which is 22 spells from that 38 spell list, but hey! That’s on top of the 12 prepared spells of a cleric

And Teridax also has five Wizard Cantrips, 3 Cleric Cantrips, and 1 Druid Cantrip from Nature Theurgy. Which segues well into why I picked Nature Theurgy--I needed a LOT of wizard levels for most of these spells, but I also needed some Cleric levels for some spells wizards couldn’t get, and some Druid spells that neither class could get on their own. And most of the low-level spells I needed that come in a cleric domain actually are from the tempest domain, but the Nature domain has high-level spells from the druid list... hence, Nature Theurge.

So with all that said: The list below covers the spells Makuta Teridax has, and what abilities they correspond to. Spells from Cleric, Cleric Domain, or Druid List use Wisdom; Spells from Wizard or Wizard Theurgy list use Intelligence. The listed Cleric spells are considered always prepared; Teridax selects 22 of the listed Wizard and Theurgy spells every long rest.

The Makuta Power Shadow Hand has 2 component spells: Lightning Lure and Soul Cage. The Makuta Powers Project Voice Through Shadows and Telepathy have the same spell: Telepathy.

The Kraata Power Density Control has 2 component spells: Gaseous Form and Investiture of Stone. The Kraata Power Insect Control has 2 component spells: Infestation and Insect Plague. The Kraata Power Plant Control has 2 component spells: Plant Growth and Grasping Vine. The Kraata Power Rahi Control has 2 component spells: Animal Friendship and Dominate Beast. The Kraata Power Weather Control has 2 component spells: Control Weather and Fog Cloud.

The Kraata Power Stasis Field has 2 component spells: Hold Person and Hold Monster. The Kraata Power Teleportation has 2 component Spells: Misty Step and Teleportation.

The Kraata Powers Fire Resistence and Ice Resistance have the same spell: Protection from Energy. The Kraata Power Elasticity has no component spells, due to not really having a good match and most of its benefits being covered in other spells.

Cantrips: 5 from Wizard, 3 from Cleric, 1 from Druid for Nature Theurgy -Chill Touch [Wizard] --Shadow Blasts (MAKUTA) -Fire Bolt [Wizard] --Heat Vision (Kraata Power) -Infestation [Druid] --Insect Control (Kraata Power) -Lightning Lure [Wizard] --Shadow Hand (MAKUTA) -Mending [Cleric] --Forge Tools (MAKUTA) -Sacred Flame [Cleric] --Laser Vision (Kraata Power) -Thunderclap [Wizard] --Sonics (Kraata Power) -Thaumaturgy [Cleric] --Control world mechanics (MAKUTA) -True Strike [Wizard] [Concentration] --Accuracy (Kraata Power)

1st-4 Slots -Animal Friendship [Wizard Theurgy] --Rahi Control (Kraata Power) -Cause Fear [Wizard] [Concentration] --Fear (Kraata Power) -Command [Cleric] --Terrorize (MASK OF SHADOWS) -Cure Wounds [Cleric] --Quick Healing (Kraata Power) -Fog Cloud [Cleric Domain] [Concentration] --Weather Control (Kraata Power) -Inflict Wounds [Cleric] --Protosteel Armor (MAKUTA) -Ray of Sickness [Wizard] --Poison (Kraata Power) -Sense Emotion [Wizard] [Concentration] --Sense Moral Darkness (MASK OF SHADOWS) -Sleep [Wizard] --Sleep (Kraata Power) -Thunderwave [Cleric Domain] --Power Scream (Kraata Power) -Witch Bolt [Wizard] [Concentration] --Electricity (Kraata Power

2nd-3 Slots -Blindness/Deafness [Cleric] --Enshadow (MASK OF SHADOWS) -Crown of Madness [Wizard] [Concentration] --Anger (Kraata Power) -Darkness [Wizard] [Concentration] --Darkness (Kraata Power) -Detect Thoughts [Wizard] [Concentration] --Mind Reading (Kraata Power) -Enhance Ability [Cleric] [Concentration] --Adaptation (Kraata Power) -Gust of Wind [Cleric Domain] [Concentration] --Vacuum (Kraata Power) -Hold Person [Cleric] [Concentration] --Stasis Field (Kraata Power) -Immovable Object [Wizard] --Gravity (Kraata Power) -Invisibility [Wizard] [Concentration] --Chameleon (Kraata Power) -Locate Object [Cleric] [Concentration] --Sense through Shadows (MASK OF SHADOWS) -Misty Step [Wizard] --Teleportation (Kraata Power) -Shatter [Cleric Domain] --Fragmentation (Kraata Power) -Silence [Cleric] [Concentration] --Silence (Kraata Power) -Spider Climb [Wizard] [Concentration] --Magnetism (Kraata Power)

3rd-3 Slots -Gaseous Form [Wizard] [Concentration] --Density Control (Kraata Power) -Haste [Wizard] [Concentration] --Dodge (Kraata Power) -Major Image [Wizard] [Concentration] --Illusion (Kraata Power) -Melf's Minute Meteors [Wizard] [Concentration] --Plasma (Kraata Power) -Plant Growth [Wizard Theurgy] --Plant Control (Kraata Power) -Protection from Energy [Wizard] [Concentration] --Fire Resistance (Kraata Power) --Ice Resistance (Kraata Power) -Slow [Wizard] [Concentration] --Slow (Kraata Power) -Vampiric Touch [Wizard] [Concentration] --Hunger (Kraata Power)

4th-3 Slots -Confusion [Wizard] [Concentration] --Confusion (Kraata Power) -Dominate Beast [Wizard Theurgy] [Concentration] --Rahi Control (Kraata Power) -Grasping Vine [Wizard Theurgy] [Concentration] --Plant Control (Kraata Power) -Summon Greater Demon [Wizard] [Concentration] --Create Kraata/Rhakshi

5th-3 Slots -Hold Monster [Wizard] [Concentration] --Stasis Field (Kraata Power) -Insect Plague [Wizard Theurgy] [Concentration] --Insect Control (Kraata Power) -Passwall [Wizard] --Molecular Disruption (Kraata Power)

6th-2 Slots -Chain Lightning [Wizard] --Chain Lightning (Kraata Power) -Disintegrate [Wizard] --Disintegration (Kraata Power) -Investiture of Stone [Wizard] [Concentration] --Density Control (Kraata Power) -Soul Cage [Wizard] --Shadow Hand (MAKUTA)

7th-2 Slots -Teleportation [Wizard] --Teleportation (Kraata Power) -Whirlwind [Wizard] [Concentration] --Cyclone (Kraata Power)

8th-1 Slots -Control Weather [Wizard] [Concentration] --Weather Control (Kraata Power) -Telepathy [Wizard] --Project Voice Through Shadow (MAKUTA) --Telepathy (MAKUTA)

9th-1 Slots -Invulnerability [Wizard] [Concentration] --Limited Invulnerability (Kraata Power) -Shapechange [Wizard] [Concentration] --Shapeshifting (Kraata Power)

And I mean... LOOK AT THAT LIST OF SPELLS. It’s ridiculous. Bionicle is an amazing setting, sure, but this is insane! Even if Teridax burns through all his spells, he’s still got nine cantrips--NINE! With a lot of effects! That he can use to attack the petty heroes coming after him.

So yeah, that’s Makuta Teridax.

#Bionicle #Dungeons & Dragons #D&D 5E #Makuta Teridax #Character Build

[jekunitrash]

Chaos in the Alicein household_Chapter 6

After Licht was finally done beating Hyde up, they sat back on their chairs to pursue the game. It was Kuro's turn to ask someone but he was too lazy to think so he let Mahiru do it for him. The poor boy had no idea who he should choose so he picked Tsubaki since he didn't want him to feel left out.

-"Tsubaki, truth or dare?"

"Ahahahaha~~ this is going to be interesting! Dare!" The eighth servamp replied, laughing manically.

"Okay so... I dare you to tell all your brothers how you feel about them." Mahiru decided.

Tsubaki's smile fell as he considered the brunette's question. Finally, he said in a playful tone:

-"I love all my brothers. Even if I did some bad things to them." He glanced at Hyde and Hugh when he said that. Sakuya nudged him on the shoulder to encourage him to apologize. That's what he did, muttering a quiet 'I'm sorry'. The two older servamps looked at each other then sighed saying it was okay, besides they gained their Jinn back.

-"It's your turn to pick." Tetsu said.

Tsubaki smirked and declared: "All the eves kiss their servamp!"

Some of them chocked on their saliva, the others either blushed or smirked.

-"B-but Tsubaki, this isn't said in the rules you can pick several players at once... and you have to let them choose, too." Mahiru tried to reason. However, Tsurugi sided with the vampire.

-"Come on, Mahiru-kun! It's no fun to always do the same thing. Plus I want my otp to be canon!"

" Your what...?"

The ravenette grinned, which made the poor boy and those who knew what's an otp shiver. Jeje had stopped breathing, his mind was racing. He couldn't even look at Mikuni. He had only just realized his feelings for him, he couldn't kiss him like that. God, he didn't even know how the blonde felt towards him.

-"Hey, Tsubaki." The cow-boy said. " We don't have to kiss on the lips, right ?"

"Why, are you embarassed Kuni-chan?" Tsurugi once again interfered. By this point it was obvious to most of them who his so called otp was. It wasn't to Jeje, though, he simply wanted to hear what his eve thought on the whole 'kiss dare'.

-"Not really..." he finally replied but it wasn't credible by the way his cheeks were heating up. Lily smiled knowingly, things were getting interesting. He decided to come to the envy pair's rescue anyway.

-"I wouldn't be comfortable kissing Misono either, you know... and I think it's the same for Tetsu and Hugh."

The servamp of pride vividly nodded his head at that statement.

-"Absolutely ! I can't kiss Tetsu, he's my eve and my friend. And he's too young for this !"

Jeje silently thanked them both, meanwhile Tsubaki seemed to be reconsidering his little request.

-"Okay, I understand if you don't want to. But in that case, I want you to at least exchange a kiss on the cheek! Or else it won't be interesting."

All the pairs looked at each other, some more flustered than others. They all obliged in the end, since a kiss on the cheek wasn't much and it would be seen as a friendly act. It was pretty simple for the greed and sloth pair to do it as they were dating. Tetsu was pretty okay with that dare so Hugh didn't argue more. Misono was more reluctant, although he had nothing against Lily but it was just awkward in front of everyone. It was another story for Mikuni who was surprisingly uneasy. He was alternating between looking at Jeje and staring at the ground, as if he was scared to make a mistake. He knew his servamp wasn't comfortable with those kind of things, and Jeje had already given him so much these past few days. If it was only for him, he would have kissed the vampire already, and for real.

Only Lily and Tsurugi noticed the two's distress, and the latter decided it was about time he helped them a bit.

-"Hey, Kuni-chan, could you get this over with? I'm getting bored." He said and immediatly got scolded by Yumikage.

It worked, though, because Mikuni gained back his self confidence and faced Jeje properly after telling the other to shut up. The vampire seemed to have snapped out of his thoughts too and albeit being a blushing mess let his eve kiss his cheek. Mikuni quickly looked away and everyone was glad it was finally done. Especially Tsurugi who had an idea to make them even more flustered.

-"Hey guys, I just had a super idea! Since Tsubaki dared you all at once, I'm gonna do the same... so I dare the eves to wear the dresses I chose for them!"

-"WHAT?!" They started to protest in unison.

-"Relax, it's just for fun! Unless you guys refuse and admit defeat already..."

-"An angel like me will never lose a game!" Licht retorted, and Hyde was way too happy at the prospect to see him in a dress. Tetsu was exempt as he probably wouldn't fit in it, but the others also decided to do it since they didn't want to lose to Tsurugi, especially Mikuni.  No need to mention that Jeje's brain had long stopped functioning. He was pretty sure he wasn't going to survive this. Lily tried to give him an encouraging smile but he could barely comprehend what was going on around him.

Mahiru came out of the changing room first, since his dress was the easiest to put on. It was a simple moca dress that barely reached his knees.

Licht's was a black and white one, in goth punk style.

Misono's was a goth lolita, with many ribbons and purple fleece. 

Mikuni's was a steampunk style dress, dark brown and black with a chain on the side.

The others followed soon after, Licht claiming that it suited his angelic looks more than he thought, Misono cursing on how this dress had too many ribbons and Mikuni... Mikuni was very quiet. He was staring down at his feet, not wanting to meet his servamp's gaze. He mentally cursed Tsurugi for making him do that, and himself for agreeing.

-" Aw, Kuni-chan, don't look down like that, you're pretty... Although I'm sorry, I couldn't find one that matched with Abel's." Tsurugi cooed and that made the blonde raise his head to glare at him. The raven wasn't bothered by it, in fact he smirked after throwing a glance at Jeje. The poor man was bleeding profusely from his nose, and Lily was shaking him vigorously to bring him back to his senses. Fortunately, Mikuni was too busy arguing with Tsurugi to notice. That let Jeje enough time to come back to reality and turn into his snake form. He made it just in time because his eve, who was fed up with the pointless argument, was coming back to him. Lily got away to leave them some peace, praying that his brother wouldn't pass out from the massive nosebleed.

Mikuni extented his arm to his partner who hurriedly climbed along it in order to place himself on his shoulders. The blonde stroked his head and Jeje surprised himself thinking how great it would be if they could go cuddle, just the two of them like last night. God might have been on his side because as soon as he thought that, Tsubaki yawned tiredly and got up, saying that Sakuya and him should take their leave. It was indeed 10pm and everyone was starting to feel sleepy. All the pairs were gone in no time, and Tsurugi winked at Jeje before exiting the house. The latter was glad he had remained in snake form, at least Mikuni wouldn't see him blush. Lily was about to tidy the room but Misono stopped him, saying it was late and that they could do it tomorrow.

So they went to their respective rooms, the two younger boys eager to take off those stupid dresses and slip into something more comfortable. Mikuni grabbed a shirt and trousers from the wardrobe and Jeje got in bed waiting for him to change. His eve joined him once he was ready and  gestured to him to come closer. He did as he was told, but he still wanted more.

-"Jeje. You don't want to be in human form?"

The vampire wanted to slap himself for not transforming back sooner. He finally did, and Mikuni didn't let him the time to do or say anything as he threw himself in his arms.

-"Sorry." He said. "I missed it."

Jeje felt his breath catch in his troath after hearing that. He brought Mikuni closer by putting his hands on the small of his back, and thought about what Lily said. If only he could make this man his subclass, they could be together forever. There was nothing he wanted more than him. He had to talk with Johannes tomorrow, even if the answer scared him. He would speak with Mikuni if the reply was positive.

-"Mikuni, can I ask a favor ?"

"Sure, what is it?"

"Can we go to the shop tomorrow morning ? There is something I need to ask Johannes."

Mikuni blinked, the request was rather unusual. The doctor was a weirdo and neither of them got along very well. However, he thought Jeje must have had his reasons so he said yes. He fell asleep soon after, trusting his partner to watch after him.

#servamp #fanfiction #chaos in the Alicein household

[bublp0pr]

Soul Theory abridged (+ my theories)

So a bit ago I wanted to make this post about Chara and Asriel but i realised i kept having to explain myself when i talk about the nature of souls. It’s so damn annoying to try and explain every time so i figured i should compile my understanding of the game’s pseudoscience on the matter (as well as throw in theories that i operate under). Took me a bit to get it all out but i think it’s worth it (i’m such a nerd).

I tried to be impartial but i am stating my own theories at points so don’t treat everything as fact. I try to state when i’m just coming up with my own opinion though.

I couldn’t help but start a lot of personal notes (using ~italics~) and tangents along the way, sorry (I put headers before and after them so you can skip though, don’t worry :P) .

---

Let’s start with the basics. The soul is the very culmination of one’s being. There are 2 known types of general souls: human and monster. There is also a subclass of monster soul known as a boss monster which acts differently to normal monster souls (more on that later).

Stats

HP

A soul has the core statistic of ‘HP’ which defines its original and current state of health relative to how many hit points it could take before the soul will be destroyed. For example, a monster with A/B HP: this indicates their soul is originally capable of receiving B hit points of damage (the number to the right of the slash) and in their current state they can receive A more hit points before they die (the number to the left of the slash).

Some speculate that HP is short for HOPE.

Monster food, rest, DREAMS and “being filled with determination” are all the ways the game mentions to ‘recover’ HP, or in other words raise the statistic’s current value. With one exception, all forms of increasing HP cannot raise a current statistic above it’s original value, making this the soul’s normal limit. Rest however has the unique ability of raising the current value above this limit.

A soul can increase its original (i.e. maximum) HP by gaining ‘LV’.

LV (plus AT and DF)

Also known as ‘LOVE’, LV is short for level of violence. The normal soul begins with an LV of 1, as any being is in some way capable of committing violence, regardless of their disposition towards it. LV affects the nature of how ‘easily’ a soul is able to defend itself against others and hurt those around them. To me, this implies that a minimum quantity of this statistic is necessary for a soul’s basic survival because it regulates all defensive and offensive function.

~This sounds like weird stuff to be specific about but trust me, I’ve read comics where Frisk has had ZERO LV. Firstly: check the menu at the start of the game!! Second: I mean, come on! Come ON! Seriously? The character who 50% of the time agrees to go along with Chara’s plan has 0 LV to start?? If you had 0 LV you wouldn’t survive your first fight.You would also be incapable of gaining LV in the first place as you would find killing fundamentally impossible. But hey that’s only my interpretation. ~

Numerically, LV increases a person’s statistic values of DF and AT (which reflect that ‘easiness’ to defend and hurt). DF reduces the hit points a soul will receive from attack. AT raises the amount of hit points a soul’s attack can potentially deal. I won’t go further into these however because there isn’t much linking them to the soul.

~ohh i’m tempted to start an extensive tangent [foreshadowing my bad habit...] about what i think DT and AT are really linked to... but that’s not relevant to this bc it’s not about the soul so i’ll just drop it.~

EXP

LV is increased by obtaining ‘EXP’ through the act of killing other souls. EXP stands for execution points. A set amount of EXP is required for each increase in LV, with a larger amount needed for every transition. I like to think this is suggestive of how the more you commit violence, the more desensitised you become to the basic acts; only actions severe relative to your current stance or something you still find to be a large mass count of simple murder can trigger the rise.

The game doesn’t specifically state what variables go into determining how much EXP a kill will result in. From what i can tell based on the game: the strength of emotional attachment, overall difficulty of the battle and brutality/mercilessness in how you kill them all factor in, but this is purely personal opinion.

EXP and LV remain permanent irreversible values within a run that cannot be decreased- only increased. 

There is an instance of losing an ‘experience point’ when attacking Naptsablook (whose intangible body makes the action redundant and even counter-intuitive) however note that EXP represent execution points not experience points making this situation meaningless. ~(thanks nochocolate for the blog post about it that cleared things up for me. Almost started a long theory tangent about the loss of EXP without realising the deliberate difference lol. http://nochocolate.tumblr.com/post/152125281314/if-you-tried-to-kill-napstablook-which-is ) ~

No amount of good deeds can remove LOVE gained. However, altercations to the timeline can reverse LV and EXP. This means that these qualities are not transferable with the restoration of the soul on loading/resetting a timeline. Similarly, AT, DF and HP are reset to their previous state when reloading (though, because accessing a save point restores your health before even offering to use determination to SAVE, some consider HP not to be set to its previous state but simply fully restored).

Death and persisting

When a normal monster soul loses all HP, it shatters, causing the monster to die.

Human souls and boss monster souls however can “persist after death”. The exact implications of this are unknown, however evidence indicates that it involves the soul continuing to exist after the body is destroyed (consider Asgore and the 6 human souls).

Irrelevant Non-Canon Theory Tangent Time! ( I will eventually go back to the main point, i promise... or you can just skip this lol)

This being said, when Frisk loses all their HP in the game, their soul breaks in two before shattering into infinitely small pieces that scatter off screen.

Now, their soul is exposed during battle in a way that monster souls aren’t. When Frisk uses FIGHT, they are damaging the monster’s body. After the body becomes dust, the soul then shatters killing the monster. But when a monster attacks the human, their magic is targeting Frisk’s soul, “the very culmination of [their] being”, rather than simply their body. This explains how HP can be lowered as simply a stat without affecting Frisk’s actual physical condition (like breaking their legs or leaving bruises etc.) and how Frisk is able to survive the conditions from attacks that would normally kill someone (bombs, intense heat etc.) What this means however is that a monster damages their actual soul in battle, meaning that by trying to kill them they are destroying the soul.

This does not make sense. The soul of course needs to remain intact for Asgore to use it and break the barrier. The only contradiction to this is Papyrus, who instead captures you when you reach 1 HP. But it is established that Papyrus misunderstands the general objective of monsters attacking humans, so this is not done deliberately to maintain the soul for Asgore. Even Asgore himself, when fighting you to collect your soul, triggers a shatter scenario when he defeats you.

All of this leads me to think that when a monster brings a human’s HP to 0, this is not expected to destroy the soul. That can mean one of three things: A) Frisk’s soul works differently to what the monsters are familiar with, B) The soul is supposed shatter and the pieces are collected because that’s how human souls ‘persist’, or C) Something is destroying their soul other than the monster after their HP drops.

Possibility B is irregular though, because this is not how Asgore’s soul ‘persists’ when you defeat him. For a brief period, the soul remains intact, hovering over the space Asgore previously filled. Note that this time period is longer than any of Frisk’s pauses after they lose all HP. After Flowey attacks the boss monster soul, it too shatters in the same way as Frisk’s and the game treats it as though his soul is now unrecoverable after this action. As humans and boss monsters are both described as having souls that last without bodies using the same term (persist) it would make sense that they function in the same way so possibility B is unlikely in my opinion.

My theory is that Frisk refuses to ‘persist’ in order to return to their save point. In other words, they need to place themselves on the brink of death to reload. An interesting case to correlate this is Flowey, when describing his first experience with resetting. Not wanting to live in a world without love, he chose to kill himself. It wasn’t until he was “leaving this mortal coil” that he began to refuse to die, using his determination to reload the world. Note that ‘refusing to die’ created a paradox where the soul itself had already been allowed to die because Flowey chose to, but determination made this option impossible. This contradiction may be the source of why time is affected to resolve the issue - ‘reloading’ to a point that had similar levels of determination but with a not-destroyed soul.

~but i don’t know a damn about quantum mechanics or what sort of impact determination has on it. So... yeah, the paradox thing might be overboard~

Another reason possibility C could be the case is because Frisk is aware of what happens if a monster catches them. Toriel explains to them in the Ruins about why monsters want to attack them, so it is reasonable to assume they may think this when they die. Using their determination, they refuse to allow monsters to contain their soul and instead shatter it and reload.

Tangent in a Tangent(???) The six souls

I think it is important to highlight the six already contained souls when considering this argument. Recalling possibility A, obviously how these 6 souls interacted with the monsters lead them to believe that depleting their HP still allowed them to collect the soul.

Not much information is given into the specifics of how each ended up in containers, whether Asgore killed each of them or if some were defeated by other monsters before they could get to this point. It is also not known if all the humans could reset.

Like I discussed in a previous post, Toriel mentions having the feeling when meeting all of the humans, she has the feeling they are “already old friends” (implying it isn’t the first timeline they encountered her. Note this is only mentioned after Frisk themself have also encountered her twice) and Asgore nods sadly when you tell him he has already killed you multiple times (suggesting he may be familiar with this from at least one of the previous humans). These pieces of evidence lead me to the conclusions that Asgore personally killed at least one of the humans and that all six had some semblance of determination allowing them to reset.

Why they eventually became captured despite this (again, like i said in a previous post) may be linked (in my opinion) to either a loss of their desire (and therefore determination) to continue - survival seeming impossible or their determination to return home waning - or a deliberate choice to sacrifice themselves for the cause of monsters.

*bringing tangent of tangent back to topic of original tangent now

This idea attributes more understanding into the nature of how determination and reloading works. That the humans had choice in whether to use their determination or could eventually lose that power makes the idea of Frisk also deciding what happens to their soul after defeat sound sensible.

It is also possible that Frisk’s soul shattering could suggest Chara’s intervention. It is of course Chara’s memories of Asgore insisting they remain determined that echo within the reload screen after Frisk dies so there may some sort of link there. The relationship of control between Chara and Frisk however is wholly unspecified for most of the game however so this speculation cannot be conclusive.

~This one webcomic called ‘The Thought’ by TratserEnoyreve has a scene that shows this idea about choosing death and Chara being involved pretty well here : http://tratserenoyreve.deviantart.com/art/The-Thought-45-597910634 (it was cool and inspired some of my idea so i wanted to show it :D )~

* End of Tangent * (finally)

Persisting does not specify if the soul will continue to exist forever unless destroyed or if there is a small period to use the soul before it eventually dies like others.

Boss monsters won’t die of natural causes unless they have children, that is not to say they’re immortal though because we know they can be killed (Asgore, Asriel and Toriel are/can be killed). The rest of soul types, humans and normal monsters, are also mortal and can be damaged and killed.

Composition of the soul

Monster souls are said to be made of love, hope and compassion. Human souls, as far as monsters observe, do not require these to survive and so their composition is not known. Alphys does learn however that human souls possess determination, which she concludes is what allows human souls to persist after death.

~I want to point out that Alphys harvested determination from the existing human souls, so all human souls have determination - NOT JUST FRISK! Siggghhh the amount of people that assume Frisk is the only human to possess it...nm. I’ll save the rant for later.~

A common theory among fans is that the qualities of Determination, Bravery, Justice, Kindness, Patience, Integrity and Perseverance (associated with the colours red, orange, yellow, green, aqua, blue and purple respectively) are what can/do compose human souls. Some fan theories go so far as to suggest one particular one particular trait manifests itself in each person, as the six human souls appeared to demonstrate qualities associated to one of these each.

~Now, i don’t really like going into all that jazz, especially since it’s all based on just the colour of their souls and a snowball mini golf game of Ball. So that’s all i’m going to say about those.~

Unnecessary Theory Tangent Time again! (I’m basically done this section so feel free to skip)

There is one thing about what makes up souls that i tend to theorise about that i haven’t mentioned yet...

Think about Flowey. He possess two things that that gave him life: determination and Asriel’s essence. Now, I’m not using that term lightly. We all probably understand at this point that when Asriel turned to dust - the seeds of the flowers Chara wanted their dead body to be buried with (before they were attacked) dragged back across the barrier with him - his dust became spread across the flower seeds that then grew  like in normal monster funerary practices. And we know that the flowers eventually received injections of determination from Alphys awakening the essence of Asriel left there because of this dusting. See, I said the word again! Essence is mentioned specifically from the book in the Library, where we learn about monster funerals:

“When monsters get old and kick the bucket, they turn into dust. At funerals, we take that dust and spread it on that person’s favourite thing. Then their essence will live on in that thing”

Obviously at this point their soul (which is described as the culmination of their being) is destroyed. So what exactly is the difference between a monster’s essence and the culmination of their self?

I’ll be honest. I don’t know myself. In a lot of fan fiction and art I’ve encountered, the term ‘essence’ becomes lost in story and they suggest that Flowey has Asriel’s memories brought to life by determination. Some say that means Flowey is simply a husk of Asriel, like an imperfect replica missing a soul that replaces someone long dead. Others say that Asriel’s consciousness is that essence or memory, and Flowey is in fact truly the original Asriel. Either way, what really fascinates me are the ideas of memory or consciousness being that essence we’re talking about.

These properties sound like the kind of things that come from the soul rather than the body... so what could that mean?

Well, option number one: it’s not linked to the soul. Perhaps this essence is intertwined with their magic (i’m going to be talking about monster bodies a little later), which means it would have to go somewhere when the body turns to dust. Voilà, you have the essence existing inside the favourite thing. I wonder if there needs to be some emotional connection to the object for the essence to be able to make a new connection, otherwise the essence would simply exist in the location they became dust rather than what their loved ones intended.

Option number 2: it is a part of the soul, possibly the shattered pieces or some part of it that becomes dust when it’s destroyed. This then has a similar effect as option 1.

Option number 3: perhaps a monster’s ‘essence’ is neither of these things. What if monster essence is their form of an intangible afterlife. Consider that Chara, like Flowey, was awakened when exposed to a large stimuli of determination. Unlike Flowey, we have no idea how Chara functions. Most consider them to be a lingering memory that now happens to reside in Frisk. Perhaps determination’s residual effects, when powerful enough, draw other beings back from the dead if they can find a host. But this is unlikely.

Relationship with body

A soul establishes an inseparable relationship with a body. This doesn’t mean that the soul must be physically attached, but a body cannot be sentient or function without connection to at least some of the elements of a soul.

Monster bodies

For monsters, their bodies are composed of magic manipulated by the soul. Though this is a broad statement. Ghosts, for example, are fundamentally under this same definition as much as skeletons however there are obvious differences in how this magic manifests.

The physical forms taken by monsters are surprisingly diverse. To name a few: beings made entirely of fire that they can choose not to let burn things, bones composed of and held together by magic that can twist their skulls shape to make expressions, incorporeal expressions of non-tangible magic, inanimate objects possessed by magic to complete corporeal beings... all mixed in with the more normal forms of anatomy that we’d place somewhere between animal and humanoid. All these forms however are made purely of magic sourced directly from their soul.

Because a monster’s body is directly connected their soul in this way, attacks to a monster damage not their form but their soul - which is why attacks affect simply the statistic of HP rather than their physical body. 

An exception to this rule is Mettaton, whose body shows sign of physical damage with the loss of limbs when you attack their soul. Though, i feel i should point out that Mettaton is made of both “metal and magic” (as included in the quiz) so parts of him are non-magic, purely physical.

Monsters food is designed to be converted to energy instantaneously on consumption, implying most monsters don’t have a need for digestive systems. Though a monster in Grillby’s does say he intends to try human food on the surface so it is likely that some forms are still capable of it.

Because of this direct connection between the soul and magic necessary for control of a body, all monsters can use some form of magic. It also makes their bodies more attuned to the disposition of the soul - which lets their battle statistics become dependent on their emotional state towards a fight. “If a monster doesn’t want to fight, it’s defenses will weaken. And the crueller the intentions of our enemies, the more their attacks will hurt us.” according to a book from the library.

Regardless of the form of a monster, with their body’s destruction the form shatters apart into s similar dust. There are notable instances from main characters in the game who are able to remain intact after losing their HP to deliver final words before eventually shattering, showing actual injuries such as cuts and losing their head. However most monsters simply just go paralysed for a second, shock on their face, and then shatter.

Human bodies

Unlike monsters, human bodies are composed mostly of water. I assume we all know what a human body is, it represents the actual things we have in real life. Human bodies have advantages over monsters because they are composed of physical magic rather than magic. It makes them stronger than monsters and lets their fighting skill be independent from their emotional state. But it does mean that humans can’t express themselves with magic in the way that monsters can. 

This isn’t to say that humans may not have been able to use magic, as seven magicians on the side of the humans sealed the monsters underground. But we don’t see any evidence of humans being capable of magic within the game to ground any arguments on. A book in the library states explicitly though that “the will never know the joy of expressing themselves through magic” so obviously there’s some significant inability on human’s part to ‘express themselves’ with it.

When a monster attacks a human, their magic is targeting the soul, “the very culmination of [their] being”, rather than simply their body. This explains how HP can be lowered as simply a stat without affecting Frisk’s actual physical condition in the game (like breaking their legs or leaving bruises etc.) and how Frisk is able to survive the conditions from attacks that would normally kill a human (bombs, intense heat etc.)

~^ I mentioned this part in my tangent... but who the hell reads tangents??~

Obtaining additional souls

Souls that can persist are able to be absorbed by other beings. Souls of a similar nature cannot be harnessed by each other (monsters can’t possess monster souls and humans can’t posses human souls). Note that Flowey, being a soulless creature that classifies as neither category, was able to collect and use both types in his process to becoming the Ultimate God of Hyperdeath. 

When a creature in possession of more than one soul dies, all souls existing connected to them die as well... though considering the only example of this is Chara, who maintains some sort of existence considering they’re awoken by Frisk (at the very least in genocide routes, debatably in all of them), I personally think the term ‘die’ may not be totally correct...

~and no, i’m not going to start discussing the tens of different interpretations for Chara’s role. So i’ll just stay as vague as that.~

Containing more souls makes the being owning them more powerful, manifesting a physical change in appearance and a dramatic increase in strength and attack abilities. The strength of the souls becomes cumulative, with additional souls adding their original strength to the new total. 

The combined soul strength of all the monsters in the Underground is equivalent to one human soul.

~(though not including Napstablook for some reason...) As this doesn’t extend to Mettaton or mad dummy, it may have something to with his non-tangible nature~

Examples within the game:

- A human possessing an additional monster soul or a monster possessing a human soul becomes powerful enough to pass through the barrier capable of resisting the strength of any monster or human without this.

- Flowey possessing six human souls is in possession of enough determination to override Frisk’s ability (this is an indication of the irregular amount of determination within Frisk considering this much is necessary). It also gives him the power to entirely destroy Frisk’s save file.

- The power of seven human souls in one being is considered to make the being a god. This power is also the standard needed to break the barrier. 

- Asriel, in his true Ultimate God of Hyperdeath form, is composed of six human souls and all the monster souls of the Underground that equates to the strength of 7 human souls. With this power he is able to regenerate a monster form for himself again and shatter the barrier. 

Comparing the strength of this form to when he had six souls, we receive an idea of how significantly the increase of a single human soul’s worth of power can raise attack.

Determination

~A fair deal of determination stuff feels like it should really be classified as it’s own field of lore pseudoscience. So i’m not going to go into detail. Let’s just get the basics out here though...~

As previously mentioned, human souls naturally possess an entity known simply as ‘determination’. Alphys describes determination in her research to be “the will to keep living... the resolve to change fate.” 

Determination is considered in multiple contexts to mean different things. However, in discussing the element as it relates to the soul, it is what lets Frisk (and quite possibly the other six souls at some point) reload after dying and reset the timeline if they wish to do so. 

Here’s an overview of how i understand determination to work:

in a situation or environment that fills Frisk with the emotions and convictions of determination, this determination manifests itself as a physical thing called a save point

Accessing the save point and making use of that power, flavour text for the player provides a description of what filled Frisk with determination and they recover their HP. (determination has been shown to be able to recover HP. Consider dreams in the Asriel fight “through your DETERMINATION, the dream became true. HP maxed out.”)

Using the determination they access at this save point, they can SAVE their progress - a manifestation to their determination to continue on the path they are on (as it saves over any previous files)

They then continue on their way.

When they lose all their HP, their soul shatters and they hear Chara’s memory of Asgore speaking encouragement over their sick bed when they were dying. He specifically tells them they can’t give up, that this is all just a bad dream, and that they should stay determined. This is COMPLETELY personal interpretation but i like to think this is somehow Chara trying to communicate to Frisk through sharing memories to press on.

This reminds them of their determination and Frisk is given the option to continue.

By selecting to continue, their determination to survive brings them back to their last source of determined commitment to their progress (i.e. their save point). This brings everything about them, from their physical to soul-related properties, back to the state they were in when they SAVEd.

~I’m not going to go into quitting. Because that’s a topic for another day.~

Alphys also suggests it is the component of human souls that allows human souls to persist after death, whether this is true or not though is never confirmed.

~if it is it raises questions about how boss monsters persist... do they maybe have determination? Or perhaps Alphys was simply mistaken, assuming it was used for persisting when it actually allowed reloading instead~

---

Annd that’s everything. That i can think of. There’s probably more. If there is i’ll probably edit the original post. But that’s what i understand about souls haha. 

And now that this is done i can go back to harmless lyric posts and continue writing my fanfiction because it sorta fell on hold i got so many theory concepts i wanted to back up while doing this lol. 

#undertale #undertale trash #undertale theory #why'd i waste my time on this?? #meh #atleast i had fun doing it #it raised more questions than answers really #and did you SEE those tangents i went on??? #after i'd typed one or two i just decided to do personal notes raising the question and then just moved on #otherwise this thing could've taken weeks lol #i spent days of my life on this #atleast i somehow managed to write a theory without bringing soriel into it this time #dodged a bullet there #i mean #look how much i typed because i wanted to compare monster and human souls #imagine the essay that could be my soriel rant #it would be hell #essay

[nbjackson]

Clips: Mousetraps: A Symbol of the American Entrepreneurial Spirit (The Atlantic, 2011.03.28)

Everybody, it seems, has tried to build a better mousetrap: more than 4,400 patents in dozens of subclasses have been awarded.

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."                              -- Apple CEO Steve Jobs

My mother has a mouse in her home. During a recent phone call, I couldn't get more than two words out before she started telling me about her troubles. The little rodent is hiding out in the attic -- or is it the basement? She has never seen it, but she insists that it's there. In an attempt to remove the mouse, she loaded up a standard spring trap with peanut butter and left it out.

When the trap failed to lure in a critter, she did not give up. She refused to admit that the noises could have been coming from outside the house or from something decidedly non-living inside. Maybe the old furnace, tired from battling the harsh Chicago winters was squeaking in protest. No, she kept at it: She declared that she could build a better mousetrap. She couldn't, of course, but she's not the first one to think that.

We've been reading -- and arguing -- about the decline of the American entrepreneurial spirit since the end of World War II, when Galbraith insisted that the giant corporation had replaced the small businessman. Big business, big labor, big government. And then the '60s happened. Things got worse: Walmart was founded, McDonald's started popping up in every state across the country and mom-and-pop shops were forced out of small towns.

A natural extension of the American ethos, which would have you believe that by working hard you can succeed, might suggest that by working harder you can succeed more; by striking out and making a name for yourself you can live forever, if not physiologically, then through your creations, biological or otherwise. This country was founded and built by risk-takers and innovators. And while we live in the age of Amazon and Facebook, Google and Microsoft -- huge tech companies all, each continuing to absorb smaller companies as they prosper and grow -- I don't think Galbraith was ever completely right. The giant corporation is here -- but it has always existed alongside the small-time American entrepreneur.

And representative of that entrepreneurial spirit is, of all things, the mousetrap: A quick-release spring and a piece of metal bent in a few key places that Americans have been trying to improve upon for more than 100 years. "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door," Ralph Waldo Emerson, philosopher, essayist and co-founder of The Atlantic, supposedly once wrote. And that little saying has popped up time and again, most recently in the April 2011 issue of Wired. In a feature story about the founders of Kickstarter, an arts patronage idea that has morphed into a website responsible for funding thousands of projects, Carlye Adler dismissed Emerson's dictum as "a lovely thought."

"Reality, though, has fallen somewhat short of this promise," Adler declares. "Build a better mousetrap and, if you're extremely lucky, some corporation will take a look at it, send it through dozens of committees, tweak the design to make it cheaper to manufacture, and let the marketing team decide whether it can be priced to return a profit." Adler is right, of course, but that hasn't stopped thousands from trying to improve on an existing design.

Between 1838, when the United States Patent Office opened its doors, and 1996, the year that Jack Hope wrote a story about the device for American Heritage magazine, more than 4,400 mousetrap patents were awarded in dozens of different subclasses, including "Electrocuting and Explosive," "Swinging Striker," "Choking or Squeezing," and 36 others. That's an average of more than two dozen patents every year for more than 150 years. What makes that number more spectacular is that 95 percent of those patents were given to amateur, or first-time inventors.

That's more patents than have been awarded for any other device, according to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History (NMAH), which is currently celebrating the mousetrap by displaying several different designs on the first floor of the museum in one of several long glass cases that greet visitors, both new and returning, when they enter the building.

"We chose them to represent technology because the drive to 'build a better mousetrap' symbolized to us the American drive to innovate," Bonnie Campbell Lilienfeld, deputy chair of the division of home and community life, told the NMAH's "O Say Can You See?" blog.

The "Little Nipper," a prototype for the standard spring-loaded snapping device you might immediately think of when asked to imagine a mousetrap, was invented by James Henry Atkinson in 1897. It's simple: flat wooden base, wire fastenings, spring trap. And, like the paperclip or the thumbtack, the simplest design is often the best, often the one that sticks. The "Nipper" slams shut in 38/1000ths of a second, which means you could set off a string of ten traps, lined up like dominos, in the time it takes you to blink once. That record still stands and Atkinson's device has reportedly captured about 60 percent of the international mousetrap market.

Atkinson sold the patent to Procter, the company that still manufactures the "Little Nipper," in 1913 for £1,000. He continued to work on traps while Procter made a mint off of his design and eventually erected a 150-exhibit mousetrap museum in Procter's factory headquarters.

Around the same time -- some say two years before and some say two years after (the patent wasn't awarded, though, until 1903) -- John Mast of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, patented a similar design that he released here in United States. But in a case that's reminiscent of the great telephone controversy between Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray, Mast's design was incredibly similar to that of Atkinson. Mast, too, sold off his patent. Oneida Community Ltd., known for its silverware, purchased Mast's design in 1907 and unloaded it years later to Woodstream Corp. Today, Woodstream still manufactures between 10 million and 30 million mousetraps based on Mast's design every year.

The two most successful mousetraps are incredibly similar devices. So what does building a better mousetrap mean, anyway? Does it snap shut faster? Is it assembled more quickly or use cheaper raw materials? Probably not: In 1900, the snap trap design sold for about five cents and, more than 60 years later, it was still available at retail for seven cents. Austin Kness had a different idea altogether. The Kness Catch-All Multiple Catch mousetrap, released in the 1920s, doesn't use bait at all; it was the first humane mousetrap. It went on to be a huge success.

Over the years, many other types of mousetraps have been designed, patented and sold, including the mouth mousetrap, which consists of a plastic set of jaws that snap shut on the rodent; the electric mousetrap, made up of a circuit that, when completed, zaps the catch with a lethal dose of electricity; and glue traps, which trap the rodent to either natural or synthetic adhesive until it dies of starvation, exhaustion or worse. Many mice and other small animals caught by glue traps end up gnawing off limbs or tearing skin in an attempt to escape. They've also been known to suffocate after getting their faces stuck to the cardboard or plastic that makes up the bulk of the trap.

There are bucket traps, which can be either lethal or non-lethal. Most contain liquid -- soap, water or poisonous chemicals, depending on the manufacturer -- meant to drown the mouse after it falls down a ramp. There's even a trap, invented by Rentokil Pest Control, that uses carbon dioxide to kill trapped mice and then sends an email to the owner/operator so he or she can empty it.

Out of the 4,400 mousetraps issued by the Patent Office, only about two dozen of those have made their creators any money on the U.S. market. But each of those 24 or so improvements or variations on the original spring trap design comes with an amazing. story. The Kness Catch-All? It was designed by a janitor at an Iowa school who noticed that mice were multiplying in the building, according to an article on the history of mousetraps written for Encyclopedia.com. Today, Kness Manufacturing, founded in Albia, Iowa, several generations ago, sells the Catch-All in 14 different countries.

The corporation continues to exist alongside the American entrepreneur. "By the time your mousetrap makes it to store shelves, it is likely to have been fine-tuned and compromised beyond recognition," Adler wrote in Wired. But at least, then, your mousetrap has made it to the shelves. You've built a better mousetrap, which has, since the 19th century, come to mean that you have achieved an ideal.

#Sample Work #The Atlantic

[jekunitrash]

Chaos in the Alicein household_Chapter 5

Jeje woke up at 7am, which was really early considering they weren't going anywhere today. But he wasn't sleepy anymore and vampires didn't need to sleep in the first place. He was about to move but quickly caught himself when he realised Mikuni was still comfortably installed in his arms. He looked peaceful for once and Jeje would feel guilty if he was to wake up because of him. So there he was staring at him sleeping again. It was becoming a weird habit, although it wasn't that shocking. They had known each other for years, and they were also linked by the contract. There was nothing wrong about taking care of his eve, Jeje decided.

Speaking of Mikuni, he was starting to wake up. His brows  furrowed slightly and his eyes fluttered open, but he closed them immediatly, burying his head into Jeje's chest in the process. The vampire would have laughed at his antics if he wasn't so quiet and introverted. He felt something else besides amusement that reminded him he had to talk with Lily. Mikuni on the other hand didn't seem to want to get out of bed, as he resolutely kept hiding in the vampire's arms. The latter thought he fell asleep again at some point but a grunt from the blonde indicated him that it wasn't the case.

Mikuni snuggled a bit more, which made his servamp blush, before finally raising his head. He was still drowsy but at least he managed to keep his eyes open. He stared at Jeje for several seconds, and the vampire couldn't help but think he was cute like that.

-"'Morning Jeje." He said with a smile.

-"Good morning." The servamp replied. " Do you want to go for breakfast?"

Mikuni seemed to ponder on the question for a while. Misono should be awake by now, possibly waiting for them to show up. So he nodded in affirmation but recalled something at the same time.

-"Speaking about breakfast... I proposed you blood yesterday." He said looking to the side. Even he could be embarrassed.

Jeje blinked then smiled, but it was covered by his paperbags that he had miraculously kept the whole night. He lightly tugged on his eve's collar, as if asking for confirmation. The blonde merely tilted his head to the side, indicating that it was fine. Jeje then bit gently (if it was possible) and started drinking. Like last time, he didn't take too much, just enough to enjoy the taste. He pulled back as soon as he was done and they stayed in bed for two more minutes before getting up.

As expected, Misono was waiting for them. He gave a questioning look to Mikuni who suddenly remembered the 'conversation' from last night.

-"Ah, Misono. Um... sorry about yesterday. I overreacted. It's fine if we invite the C3."

"I don't really mind." Misono replied. " I mean, I already knew you were a pain."

Mikuni looked scandalized at that, eventhough his brother said it in a teasing way.

-" But what made you change your mind?" The teen asked. Mikuni threw a quick glance at Jeje before answering :

-"Let's say I had some time to think about it... and I have a good partner." He had mumbled the last part and although Jeje was probably as red as a tomato, at least he wasn't the only one feeling embarrassed. Misono didn't make any comment on the two, he only said it was good if Mikuni was sure.

So it was settled, they would invite the C3 except for Touma. Lily was in charge of helping his eve preparing the food and games for every one. It was currently 9am and their guests would be coming at 6pm, so they had more than enough time. They got to work right after breakfast, Lily sent texts to everyone to inform them about the party, Mikuni who was good at manual tasks made some decorations with Jeje helping as best as he could and Misono made a list with all the games they could play. There were still three hours left after they were done with the preparations, so Jeje thought it would be a good time to ask Lily about those 'feelings' he couldn't put a name on.

-"So what did you want to talk about?" The servamp of lust was surprised when his older brother said he wanted to speak with him since he rarely piped a word.

-"It's about Mikuni..."

" Is something wrong with him?"

"No, actually... I've been feeling weird around him lately. Not in a bad way, but..."

Lily smirked to himself. He already knew where this was going.

-"I've always wanted to protect him. I felt guilty for what happened to his mother, and it was hard for him to move on."

The other vampire nodded from time to time, letting Doubt Doubt sort out his thoughts.

-" Even so, he's never resented me, and we were in good terms... But I feel like he's more comfortable talking to me since we came back and... I think... that makes me happy... for some reason."

Lily hummed, he could understand that but there was something he wanted to confirm.

-" You said you felt weird around him, right? What kind of weird?"

"Well, you see... when I heard him laugh yesterday, I felt flutters in my stomach... I was worried about him when he got upset, and when he refused to explain why, I became angry. Because he asked me what did it matter to me, and... I didn't want to let him think I didn't care."

"I see... so basically, you've always cared a lot about him but now you've realised there might be something else. And it's bothering you because you can't pinpoint exactly what that is." Lily concluded.

Jeje bit his lip, that was right. He wanted to put a name on his feelings but he didn't even understand what they were. Lily sighed fondly at him. It was obvious what was troubling his brother but not to the one concerned, apparently.

-"Well, I think it might have been long since last time in your case... But surely it's not the first time you experience this, is it?" He tried to give him little hints so he could figure it out by himself. Jeje thought for a while until realization downed on him.

-"You... don't think I 'm in  l-love, do you?" That would be terrible. Lawless was devastated when Ophelia died. Jeje always tried not to think about the inevitable day Mikuni would have to leave his side. It was already painful enough to see his previous eves die, eventhough he never held them dear. Mikuni was different and he didn't want to imagine his life without him. Crap, he really was in love.

Lily could easily guess what he was thinking by the way he was looking down. He didn't want to lose Misono either but they were vampires and their eves humans. Unless they found a way to make them immortals, they couldn't be together forever. That's when Lily had an idea.

-" You know, we've never tried but... maybe it's possible to turn an eve into a subclass. The C3 conducted studies on us, they might know things that de don't."

That sounded too good to be true, but there was hope. And Jeje knew Johannes personally. They couldn't discuss it any further since the boys came in the room. They were perceptive, so they instantly knew something was wrong.

-"Is something the matter?" Misono asked. The servamps looked at each other, silently agreeing not to worry them with that. Not today.

-"It was nothing too serious, don't worry about it boys!" Lily exclaimed while Jeje nodded.

They didn't seem to believe it but the eves just shrugged it off.

-"Okay, well that's good because our guests will be there in an hour. And I won't tolerate for anyone to be in a bad mood." Misono declared.

-"As I said, no need to worry Misono! Everything will be fine."

Right after Lily said that, the doorbell rang. Misono sighed thinking it was most probably Mahiru and Kuro. He went to open the door anyway and his servamp followed after him.

Mikuni watched them go then he turned to face Jeje who was as quiet as usual.

-"Was there a problem? What were you two talking about?" He asked.

Jeje shook his head no, saying it wasn't important and that they should go welcome the sloth pair too. His eve wasn't pleased by this answer but it wouldn't be wise to push the subject now. So he complied and they both went to the entrance hall. When they arrived, Misono was giving a lecture on manners, saying things like 'the guests shouldn't come too early' and such. Mahiru kept apologizing and explained that they went to the store before coming, which was why they arrived earlier than originally planned.

-"Okay then. Follow me to the living room, we'll wait for the others there." Misono finally gave up. They sat at the table talking about trivial things until the other guests showed up. The C3 members came last, which Mikuni was glad for. It would have been disturbing to be face to face with Tsurugi, even if Jeje and the others were there. At least now he was approximately sure the situation wouldn't degenerate too much. That didn't prevent him from tensing up, though, but he was able to relax when he felt Jeje's presence beside him. He could tell the servamp was being protective by the peculiar aura he was emitting.

Soon enough everyone was chit chatting, eating the snacks Mahiru brought. Tsubaki came with Sakuya only, and Junichiro couldn't make it to the party since he had no one to keep his son. So the only C3 members present were Tsurugi and Yumikage. Hyde who was already starting to feel bored suggested they play truth or dare. Admittedly, it wasn't a bad idea, and they all kind of wanted to learn more about the people here.

"Okay, I will start! Nii-san! Truth or dare ?" Hyde exclaimed pointing at Kuro. The latter mumbled a 'can't deal' and chose truth since he was too lazy to move. Predictable.

-" I will be nice since it's the first round... do you love Mahiru?"

Said eve blushed madly at the question while the spectators thought to themselves it wasn't such a nice question. Kuro glared at Hyde as if saying 'are you kidding me?' but answered nonetheless.

-" You're annoying... you know we're dating, did you have to make me say it in front of everyone? Seriously."

There was a blank before some of them yelled in unison, those who had already figured it out just smirked at the pair. Mahiru was far worse than a tomato by now.

-"Oh by the way, Lichtan and I are also dating!" Lawless declared proudly.

More screaming ensued, the most part made by the hedgehog himself as he was receiving his angel's wrath. The rest sweatdropped at the scene. It would be Kuro's turn to choose a 'victim'... when the greed pair would be done, that was.

#servamp #fanfiction #chaos in the Alicein household