#maybe see the relatives i choose and actually dedicate time to them

[gravity-barbie]

How did the Sparrows control their powers? Were some powers more difficult to manage than others?

I haven’t really considered it that much and I can really only guess, but here are some quick thoughts I have on them all, listed from who I think had the easiest to hardest time dealing with their powers.

Jayme

Jayme’s power seems the most tame, I don’t think she ever struggles to control it, and I doubt it’s caused her much angst beyond maybe being jealous that she doesn’t have a particularly brutal power- Though I could see that genuinely being a real issue for her.

Her power is weirdly most similar to Allison’s in that it’s not that hard to avoid if you know about it, but once she’s used it she’s won. We see she doesn’t get the chance to use it on Ben during their spar, so she could of potentially ended up in situations like that often where her power was pretty much rendered useless and she had to rely more on her wits, her character description did say she was ‘smart and sharp as a knife’.

Marcus

So apparently Marcus and Luther have the same power, Marcus is just better at using it. I like to imagine that both of them had to work really hard just to get to a point where they don’t break everything they hold or seriously injure people with basic physical contact, though as neither of them are cautious about getting rough with people I don’t think either had any major power related accidents.

Marcus is superior now because of his speed and technique (which I choose to believe he got through his own dedication rather than Reginald just training him better), but considering how clumsy Luther’s powers make him, I assume that’s something Marcus did struggle with at one point as well.

Sloane

Sloane seems to have the best relationship with her power out of anyone, she’s at the point where she can just have fun with it, using it to sit on her bedroom roof for instance. Seeing as she seems to be a pretty sensitive person I assume she didn’t have any childhood trauma associated with her power if she’s so comfortable with it now.

Like her umbrella counterpart Five, Sloane also has a lot of physics knowledge so I do wonder if she also needs to do the same kind of calculations and things as him to best use her powers, I don’t think thats really implied but it’d make sense and flesh her out.

Alphonso

Alphonso is interesting for being the only sparrow that isn’t in peak physical condition. Alphonso’s appearance implies that besides the pain his body still experiences the effects of any hit it gets, which I assume would take a toll and really wear him down overtime and could definitely be the cause of that sluggishness of his, and maybe even his need for an inhaler.

I don’t think he could accidentally use his power, since it looks like he needs to consciously activate it (and struggles to do so when exhausted), so I’d say he has an easy enough time managing his power, though he might of had a hard time developing the stamina and concentration he seems to need to use it effectively.

Fei

I’m a little confused about Fei’s power honestly, specifically where her vision is concerned, all the scratches over her eyes seem to indicate that her birds were the ones that blinded her, but throughout the show she’s always perfectly in control of them, they don’t seem to have free will.

I have a half-baked theory that she blinded herself. Something along the lines of her being so overwhelmed when she starts to see out of all the different birds eyes that she has some kind of mental break and blinds herself in a panic while trying to make it stop. But it could also just be that there was a time when her birds had more agency but she’s tamed them overtime.

Anyway, Fei seems to be in (I’m assuming physical) discomfort when her birds are hurt, which is a pretty big weakness. It was probably quite a burden trying to keep them all relatively safe mid-battle, which could play into how she became so calculated.

Christopher

So Christopher’s actual power, that ability to induce this paralysing fear, tends to get overshadowed by the fact that he’s a cube, which doesn’t even seem to even be relevant to his power. But yeah, he appears to be incredibly powerful, he’s able to incapacitate half the umbrellas (including Viktor) seemingly effortlessly, and he’s strong enough to temporarily contain a kugelblitz, so I assume it’s not easy for him to hold back which could of been a problem for him when it comes to things like sparring with his siblings.

If nothing else I’m positive that his inhuman physiology would of caused him a lot of angst throughout his life even if he’s comfortable with it now.

Ben

I am so curious about how Sparrow-Ben ended up with such better control over his powers than Umbrella-Ben. It could be a dominance thing, as number one this Ben was trained to be in charge and maybe that carried over towards the monster inside him. Umbrella-Ben also seemed to have a much lower tolerance for causing people pain, so maybe sparrow-ben and the horror were more in sync as opposed to umbrella-Ben fighting against it, which could of made dealing with it easier.

Regardless I still think Ben must of worked really hard to get the control over his tentacles that he has.

#thanks for the ask #tua meta #the sparrow academy #sparrow ben hargreeves #sloane hargreeves #jayme hargreeves #alphonso hargreeves #fei hargreeves #lyn’s thoughts #tua theory #tua theories #christopher hargreeves #marcus hargreeves

[invertedhexagon]

How I'd do a Zelda film-

Well, I'd actually do two.

The first film would be largely about the rise of a new Link and Zelda, and would focus on them, their relationship as a duo and their characterisation. They would be deuteragonists, because a) that's way cooler than putting Zelda in the kidnap / self imprisonment box, b) that allows us to properly develop their characters in the runtime of a film and c) it gives our protags someone to interact with at all times without having to choose any of the companion characters at the expense of the others.

For Link I'd base him mostly on BOTW link in that he's largely mute, but Zelda and other characters discuss things he's said or done off screen, informing his personality. He would also have a rare voice line here or there because I would heavily focus on his characterisation; struggling to ascend from farmer / smiths apprentice / similar to hero.

For Zelda, I'd take a couple ideas from a couple of places; Among them, I'd combine her "I see the problem, I'm going to fix it, whoops I got in over my head" attributes from OOT with her "I'm responsible for a whole kingdom of people" mojo from TP and BOTW / TOTK, and finally a whisper of the distant princess theme she had going on in TP.

For both of them I'd dedicate a little time to some people close to them, like a version of Impa, a Telma equivalent, a Malon, maybe a mentor figure for Link like Rusl.

I'd establish the cycle of reincarnation as a central concept in the narrative, with Link and Zelda having moments that clearly play into this- the duo has to cross a flooded river, link seemingly sees something in the waters, dragon roost theme surges and we cut to them rafting across. They need to infiltrate an enemy fortress, we see Zelda eying an enemy uniform as Impa's theme subtly plays in the music, and we transition via shadow to her sneaking around in an androgenous disguise. That sort of thing.

The villain would be a relatively minor player, like Malladus or Veran- Malladus would be my preference, as being a toon link villain ties into the theme of these being a 'young' Link and Zelda (though they'd probably have to actually be older iterations of the characters to account for adult actors). I would use Malladus or Veran specifically because their mind control powers lend themselves to a slow start to the plot, where there is clearly a threat for Link and Zelda to oppose but it isn't a direct threat of force, so the pacing can afford to be slower. And yes, I'm saving Ganon/dorf for the sequel, but I got a reason okay?

The deku tree pops up a few times to narrate and dispense exposition, and by the end of the film Link and Zelda know that they are reincarnations and Zelda is seemingly comfortable in that role.

Film two is about Link learning to be the same; he was happy to play the role of the hero in the first film, save the people and his new friend and all, but after a time skip and a few off screen minor adventures, he's having a bit of an identity crisis. What value does he, Link the (insert down to earth profession), actually add? Everything he did in film 1 was just an imitation of The Hero's achievements, another loop of The Hero's adventures.

And then Ganondorf shows up, King of Thieves Ganondorf in fact. A Ganondorf who's gone through a few cycles, learnt from his prior conflicts, and is extremely powerful- as strong as he was in TP, if not slightly stronger. From the moment he shows up, Link and Zelda are reunited because they're on the back foot, evacuating castle town and scrambling to defend the refugees from Ganon's monsters, let alone the man himself (this Zelda's a lot less powerful than BOTW Zelda, to put herself on a more even playing field with Link).

The deku tree shows up and tells Link about the master sword, and about a quarter of the way into the film, Link enters the sacred grove.

And doesn't pull the sword. Not because he can't, though he certainly believes as much, but because he can't take another step into being The Hero. He feels like he's being subsumed by it, like he adds nothing to this grand, looming thing and is instead being replaced by it.

We get some fun drama as the extremely panicked Zelda (who feels super responsible for all her people that are dying) is very upset that Link won't take up the sword, so she draws it herself- but, of course, it will not sparkle with the power to repel evil in her hands. Fi will not accept her as her master. She ends up carrying it with them as they continue the plot.

Over said plot, the duo fight back against Ganondorf and protect the different peoples of Hyrule ala BOTW / TOTK, in the course of which they end up forming a group of allies like The Resistance from TP (with a little influence of the TOTK sages, but more down to earth- they don't have any real super powers or destined duty like the sages).

In a certain, brutal, edge of the seat skirmish, it turns out that Link is actually really good at directing this group- helping them protect eachother and capitalise on their individual strengths.

This Link does have a new skill to bring to the table, does have a self beyond his status as a reincarnation.

The simple truth is that The Hero is so mighty because of the people he became, not the other way around- The Hero didn't know how to sail, the Wind Waker learned to save his sister. The Hero only knows how to fight because Skyloft Link learned, to become a knight, to protect his people, and later to help his friend. The Hero isn't some separate alien influence, it's a legacy, a legacy he is contributing to.

A little while after that battle, after Link and Zelda patch things up and we get to see a confident Link kick some ass, he decides to take up the master sword. Fi is delighted to meet him again.

They fight Ganondorf, who particularly demonstrates his knowledge of The Reborn Goddess and The Hero by repelling manoeuvres that reference other cycles (blocking End Strikes, using Dead Man's Volley to conceal tricky plays instead of playing it straight, using cover and his monsters to prevent the sword and arrow combo from WW and TP.) The moves that actually get him are ones that involve the Resistance, tricks the duo have taught eachother, manoeuvres that previous duos never had the time to work on together.

They defeat Ganondorf by being themselves.

#Just some ideas #I know that giving Link any dialogue is controversial as balls #But I do what I want #legend of zelda #loz #character ideas for loz #legend of zelda film #legend of zelda fanfiction #fanfiction #Honestly I'd probably do it as two seasons of episodes instead of two films

[fourpillarschronic]

Hi, I'm Tori and I'm f*cking broken

I’m relatively certain this story is all too common and all too relatable; life is a tricky balance of things and when one of those things goes out of whack – everything crumbles around it.

For a long time, I’ve witnessed the people around me having their sh*t together and witnessed what they have that I don’t. For starters, usually money and a better job dealing with their mental health. Those around me that do well with their health – at least seemingly so – tend to do well in other aspects of their lives – they dedicate time to exercising their minds and bodies, they even seem to be unbothered by financial stresses. Those that might not be the strongest in one, have strengths in the other fields, and they are able to use that to reinforce those aspects of their lives.

I want to be those people. When one thing slips up in my life, the other aspects are strong enough to support me until I get back together.

I’m calling them The Four Pillars: There is a physical, mental, growth, and financial pillar.

The Physical Pillar – this encompasses everything from making sure I move enough, to treating my physical health more seriously and seeking out doctors when I can. This also means spending more time in the kitchen and tackling my issues with insulin resistance and binge eating. I will be cooking more meals, actually building a decent workout routine, and the most important: getting 10,000 steps in. Every. Single. Day.

The Mental Pillar – this is mindset: continuing what I’m doing now for my mental health, like taking my meds consistently, seeing my therapist regularly, and doing breathing exercises when I’m overwhelmed. It also means getting back into meditation and other techniques to help me process my trauma and manage my anxiety and depression symptoms. As someone who additionally has IBS-C and IBS-D (rough, I know), managing my mental symptoms will help me manage my intestinal symptoms.

The Growth Pillar – While I would love to say this is all about getting gains in the gym, it’s not. I want to further my career; I work in a field unrelated to my degree, and I absolutely do not spend enough time learning anymore. I used to love learning! Spending time every day to learn something new, be it for myself or my career, won’t do any harm to me, and can help with the mental aspect of my life.

The Financial Pillar - I am in Debt. Capital “D” Debt.  Like most Americans, I am paying back student loans, credit cards, etc., and finding myself struggling to scrape by. Add on to that my love for shiny things, and I’m the perfect, debt-riddled storm. I want to fix my financial situation. Get my debt under control, start an emergency savings and house fund, and even get started on investing. I’m getting married in about a year and a half, and I don’t want to go into my wedding worried about debt, or my credit score. The goal is to strengthen these to the point that if I have a low day with my depression, a flare-up of my IBS, or even just a bad day at work, I can recover and stay strong with the other factors until I’m on my feet again. I know that I won’t fix all these soon, or at once. I will have to choose a point to start with and take it day by day, one little step of progress at a time. Maybe, hopefully I can be one of those “has her sh*t together” women.

#workout #mindset #mindfulness #personal development #finance #growth #grit #mental health #fitness #ibs #four pillars #health #health and wellness

[arsonforcharlie]

listen champs i know i have the right to talk about my problems but........ like what if i don’t tho

#my family is pretty good on the whole! #but boy howdy have i realized over the past decade or so that how shit i feel after the holidays #correlates directly with how much christmas shit i had to do #my ideal christmas is like one small dinner and maybe a tibb's eve thing #but otherwise just doing whatever i want to do #and my whole family does the Multi Week Obligation Of Dinners Every Night #Every Song Played This Month Has To Be Festive #the entire Christmas Season thing #and it poisons the traditions i do like #because i'm too exhausted to enjoy them #and when i do go home there's no way to say 'yeah i am in town but i don't want to go' #so in a post-covid future where i can travel freely #i would rather stay here for christmas and then travel back to see family some other time of year #when flights are cheaper and everyone at work isn't fighting for the same four days off #maybe see the relatives i choose and actually dedicate time to them #instead of them being stuck in the kitchen taking care of making the evening happen #while i make awkward conversation with my grandma's husband's son's wife #who i have not thought about since i saw her two years ago and i can ensure the feeling is mutual #like i am not even rolling up like 'i don't celebrate christmas' as much as 'i would like to celebrate christmas LESS' #(this feeling has only strengthened since so many of the people who mean so much to me do not live Back Home) #and i know it is foolish to complain about this especially since i do have an easy out #i can just go home when i want to go home #and if i need to spin it as not being able to get the time off #but still jeez may i just Rest

[bigskydreaming]

For the prompt, how about Dick deciding to try the museum curator thing again? It's probably one of my favourite jobs for him

Y’know what? I think we just found my new favorite Dick Grayson’s day-job headcanon.

Because I always did like that very brief period too, but all of a sudden, I’m thinking what if not just any museum, but a DC universe specific museum.....akin to the Flash Museum in Central City, but located in New York maybe, and dedicated to the history of superheroes as a whole, throughout the DC Earth’s history.

Imagine a museum along the lines of a specific Smithsonian Institute, or maybe more like one of the Balboa museums in San Diego that are focused around exhibits for kids and visitors from various schools and universities.......all geared towards the history of superheroes on Earth, as well as Earth’s own history in the context of its interaction with various other planets and civilizations, or different arcane dimensions, etc.

There are exhibits donated by Themyscira and Atlantis, and a whole wing dedicated to a fascimile of Earth’s position relative to other known galactic civilizations from Thanagar to Krypton and even Oa. As well as exhibits centering on Earth’s interactions with all of these. There’s a history of the Green Lantern Corps with displays profiling all known Earth GLs....not just the modern ones like Hal, Kyle, John, Guy, Jessica, Simon, etc, but GLs from centuries past. There’s a reconstruction of the Starheart and a Sentinel exhibit that links up with the Justice Society’s wing, and reconstructions of monuments made to Earth GLs on Oa itself, thus highlighting the role of various Earth heroes in galactic history. The Krypton exhibit has items donated by Superman, and tutorials on the Kryptonian language, history, etc, and there are walkthroughs of replicas of the spaceships that brought many of the alien heroes living on Earth here from their homeworlds.

Also an exhibit representing the future Legion of Superheroes, or at least the possibility of them, along with explorations into the various theories and methods of time travel....and maybe some displays from parallel Earths as well. (A nod to the fact that museums like this do exist in the time of the LOSH, but why not earlier?)

There are chronicles of various potential world-ending events and the specific heroes who saved the day each time, as well as memorials to heroes lost over the years......maybe some kind of garden or fountain where visitors who were bystanders at the sites of some of these great battles or who’d been saved by various heroes over the years can leave little notes or mementos of thank you or acknowledgment. 

There are replicas of the Arrow family’s trick arrows, and a hall dedicated to the many conspiracy theories that surround Gotham’s mysterious Batclan and which of them may or may not actually even be real. Etc, etc, etc.

And one of the primary curators of all this is one Dick Grayson, adopted eldest of Gotham’s Bruce Wayne, a known benefactor of the Justice League.....and thus its not really all that surprising that he grew up with a seeming fascination with the League and other heroes. He’s like the ultimate superhero fanboy, always happy to chatter anyone’s ear off about hero trivia, and his favorite thing is personally giving tours to the kids visiting the museum on class field trips - perks of the job, he grins at anyone who asks.

In an ironic twist that actually makes his job quite useful, both as a curator of superhero history AND a central figure in the superhero community himself......his position leads to him frequently being consulted by civilian authorities, governments, institutitions, or private individuals who have some kind of situation related to superhero or supervillain activity or which might require superhero involvement to address.....as its acknowledged that few people know more about superheroes than Dick Grayson, and even fewer seem as well connected to the superhero community as he does. If you have a question about superheroes or their history or past involvement with something, and he can’t answer it himself.....you still go to him anyway, as its a safe bet he knows who to call to get said answer.

Similarly, his job and his passion for superhero history also explains why a random civilian is so often in the company of various heroes like Troia, or Garth of Shayeris, whenever the ambassador from Atlantis is visiting the surface. Even explains how he met his one-time fianceé Starfire in the first place. There’s a representation of the Titans in one display, with the Nightwing replica deliberately off in its dimensions and proportions, and when giving tours, Dick’s been known to strike up a ridiculously exaggerated Superman pose right next to the Nightwing display. 

He tosses his hair dramatically and says: “Y’know, I’ve been told more than a few times that I actually look a lot like Nightwing myself. C’mon, you guys see the resemblance, right?”

Every time he does this, Bruce mutters something about the Clark Kent School Of Alter Ego-ing Badly, but Dick just rolls his eyes. Oh please, let’s go to the tape, he says. Bruce squints with foreboding, but Dick’s already pulled out his phone and queued up an old TMZ clip of “drunken” Brucie Wayne at some gala years ago pointing to an image of Batman and then to his own ass and loudly asking if the butts match.

“Yeah, keep trying to pin this one on Uncle Clark, Pops,” Dick laughs. “Like I really needed him to be a formative influence when it came to the “hiding in plain sight” approach.”

“I don’t remember that at all,” Bruce denies loftily. “It must have been Hush.”

Selina chooses the perfect moment to saunter by - but then again, all her entrances are artfully timed to be The Perfect Entrance. Its kinda her superpower. She peers at the phone screen for a second and then smiles nostalgically.

“Oh yes, I remember that night.” She pats Bruce consolingly on the arm and drifts off again. “It definitely wasn’t Hush. The butts did match.”

[blind-alchemists]

Meta-Analysis of the Rift Mage Specialization

I said in February I was going to do it, and it only took me seven months to follow through!

Anyway. Analyzing game-play elements for narratives purposes has become somewhat of a hobby of mine ever since I really got into GameLit. Then, I started "fangs" and felt that my fight scenes were boring, so I build ability trees reminiscent of DA:I's for my OCs. You know, as you do. During that process, though, the lack of banter acknowledging several choices struck me as odd. Especially regarding specializations. Especially when it comes to Solas'.

We’ll be taking a look at (in order)

1. Description

2. Codex Entry

3. Skills

a. in comparison to DA: II’s Primal & Force Mage

4. Specialization Dialogue with Solas

5. Conclusion

Disclaimer: I talk a lot (this post might have about 2.5k). And, I promise you, you'll be tired of seeing 'the Fade this' and 'the Veil that' at the end of it.

Description

“These mages draw upon the force of the Fade, either pulling matter from the Fade to attack or twisting the Veil itself into a weapon to stagger or crush their enemies.”

[source – DA wiki; bolding mine]

So, lore-wise, mages do ‘draw upon the Fade’. Sure. But do they ‘pull matter from the Fade’? Absolutely not.

Physical things and the Fade rarely mix well. Plus – this is mainly my theory – the way magic is utilized (the 'drawing upon the Fade part') requires it to pass through the Veil. Magic being a form of energy, and thus not physical, does not constitute to ‘pulling matter from the Fade’.

That's the first thing other mages (read: Dorian, Vivienne, possible the Inquisitor) should (or could) have referenced in banter/dialogue.

The rest of the sentence ('twisting the Veil into a weapon') is also highly interesting, since there is little known about the Veil. Nobody knows how it works. And, thus, nobody should be capable enough to manipulate it consistently enough to use it as a weapon. But considering it's Solas who gets this specialization - well. He knows the Veil well enough, don't you think? (Which is why I think Rift Mage should have been Solas' personal, individual specialization like Fenris' Lyrium Ghost, but I just really like personalized skill trees in general.)

However, having answered that question, connecting magic so closely to the very thing can be described as a “magical vibration that repels the Fade”, I'm curious about how it would work. Since, you know, mages are inevitably tied to the Fade. Wouldn't the Veil repel a try to manipulate it by a mage? Is using mana the same thing as drawing energy from the Fade? If so, it would be straight-up impossible to actually use such a method for any ordinary mage (read: not Solas). If mana can be used without the Fade, it would be possible, but is such a thing feasible? Can you switch between spells and Veil quickly enough without horrific consequences such as possibly tearing yourself apart?

Very interesting topic. Would love to go into it more, but at that point, I'd become subjective, so let's end it here.

To summarize: Rift mages do things (physically pulling things from the Fade plus using the Veil) normal mages don't do. There is also a chance, logically speaking, that no one else but Solas (or mage!Inquisitor) can accomplish such a feat without dying a horrific death.

Codex Entry

From "Power Bleeds: Harness the Flow." Your Trainer's words make one passage stand out:

There are no tomes dedicated to this manipulation. There has been no time for academics, only the practical—and not in a manner that mitigates risk. Power in a raw form has found an outlet, both visible and in ways that only we of arcane proclivity can sense. The risk is great.

An account:

From this page forward, these are the notes of Thelric. They began as the work of my mentor Julion, and I will continue in the research she began, as she cannot, because she is dead. The rift we were examining did not react well to her last investigation. We believed ourselves prepared for demonic manifestation. We were not prepared for how the energies we expected would be encountered. Well-versed in the forces that magic can produce, my senior was surprised by an alteration, a deviance. That which previously had to be coaxed is now a flood that must be staunched. The same amount in different intensity, quick to expose fault in the way it is accessed. She drew too much, expecting resistance. There was none, and her form suffered the brunt. Tread carefully in studies of new matters, for I cannot unsee the end of her.

Scattered symbols and sketches follow.

[source – DA wiki; bolding mine]

Apparently DA:I has a thing for hiding the true horror in Codex Entries and off-hand comments.

Here, we learn one key fact: The school of Rift Magic is relatively new ('no tomes dedicated to this manipulation'). I think it's safe to assume the possibility - and thus research concerning it - emerged around the time the Breach appeared. So it's new, people have no idea what they're doing, but it somehow works. A little like the whole time magic thing, funnily. (That brings me back to a lot of questions I have about the Veil: Just how powerful is it? Just how deeply is it intervened with Thedas?)

Reading further, the entry seems to (only) stress how dangerous Rift Magic is. Who would have thought! No, really, it's a fair point to empaphize. I'm not certain the Trainer and his previous teacher (or anyone else but Solas) know what kind of role the Veil plays in this, and so of course experiments are going to get ugly. The Veil holds a much greater importance than the people of Thedas realize.

And, in a very similar vein: The people of Thedas don't know much about directly interacting with the Fade through, say, a rift, which poses another risk. The wiki entry establishes two things in particular that are relevant here: Using spells (in the Fade itself) has unpredictable results, and one can draw unprecedented power from it while sleeping.

The codex entry cited above proves that. A rift is a direct connection to the Fade, and thus unpredictable ('She drew too much, expecting resistance. There was none') and that power is too much to handle ('her form suffered the brunt').

My theory is that, while a certain flunction is natural to the Fade, the Veil also plays a role here. Which I'm not sure. But it has one.

Personally, I wouldn't be sure the risks of a horrific death outweigh the benefits of power, but let's look more in depth at that!

Skills

Which brings me to the abilities themselves.

The first two you can choose from are Veilstrike and Stonefist. (Which I think should have had their names changed but, oh, well.)

Veilstrike: “You recreate your own fist from the essence of the Fade and smash nearby foes to the ground.” (Upgrades being Punched Down and Wounded Veil, but they don’t have anything interesting for this analysis. Note the names, though.)

Curious here is the 'recreate [...] from the essence of the Fade' part here. On first glance, it sounds like a rather ordinary spell, right? But it's not. That's just the 'hiding in plain sight for the first playthrough' aspect of Solas' character.

Mages do shape their spells with energy from the Fade (as far as my assumptions go). Maybe they can also recreate something. I'll give them that much. But the essence of the Fade - the inherit, unchanging nature of it - can't be manipulated by them. I think that's specifically a trait only Dreamers can have. (More evidence for my 'Rift Mage should have been Solas' personalized, individual specialization' hc!)

There is an argument to be made if this already constitutes for 'pulling matter from the Fade', but this isn't even the funkiest part yet.

Stonefist: “You summon a boulder from the Fade and smash it into your target, sending them flying.” (Upgrades being Shatterstone and Unblockable Force.)

'Summon a boulder from the Fade', you know, as in, bring physical matter from the Fade to the other side of the Veil. A thing that is pretty much unheard of. Remembers what happens to spirits when they pass violently through the Veil? There is an entire game dealing with that. (I mean, stones won't hopefully turn into demons, but my point is that bringing things through, usually, is not a wise idea.

Another thing someone could have commented on.

Passives: Restorative Veil, Encircling Veil, Smothering Veil, Twisting Veil.

Unfortunately, neither of these descriptions give me much, but they all have the ‘Veil’ component in their name, so that’s interesting.

Upon closer inspection, the Veil can function in a variety of ways: speeding up mana recovery, further weakening enemies, boosting your own damage. (Veilstrike being an example of a means of attack.)

Now, my question here would be: Do over mages notice changes in the Veil? Do they feel it shift and bend? If not, well, that's one thing. if they do, even subconsciously, I'd want banter. (I want a lot of banter, though. Just generally speaking.)

Pull of the Abyss: “You create a tiny rift that pulls enemies toward a central point.” (Upgrades being Shaken Veil and Devouring Veil.)

I can live with never hearing anything about everything else. Sure. But this one? This damned skill? You're telling me I read that the first time I played the game, nodded, and that was it?

'You can create a tiny rift-' I'm sorry, do you what now? After a good a couple of hours of learning just how bad rifts are?

And the upgrade names. Shaken Veil, Devouring Veil - is there anything this thing can't do, except for becoming more and more horrifying and giving me bad vibes ofr whatever DA4 will do with it?

Firestorm: “You summon flaming meteors, raining fire down upon enemies all over the area for the next several seconds. This ability consumes and is powered by focus.”

This one is ... honestly, I don't like it being here. It's an AOE skill, which does fit in with the rest, but it's fire and it seems rather randomly assigned compared to other focus abilities with a more personal note (Haste, Rampagne, Cloak of Shadows, Mark of the Rift).

Doesn't give a lot here to analyze, except that raining down flaming meteors is the level of (global) destruction I can see happening in the future if Solas isn't stopped. So. That's fun.

(It's the ultimate skill in the Fire/Ice tree in DA:II, or at least the ability there has the same name.)

DA: II Comparison

Nearing the end, I'll take a brief look at the Force Mage specialization from DA:II and the Primal base skill tree for mages. Both have some interesting similarities.

First, Primal.

Stonefist: “The mage hurls a stone projectile that strikes with massive force.”

It's only the name and the effect, honestly, but it is curious to see it in a skill tree that focuses exclusively on the elements earth and lightning. (Because Pride demons also use electricity ... yeah, yeah. I'm reading too much into this.)

Petrify: “The mage entombs an enemy in stone, leaving the foe temporarily unable to move. However, the target becomes more resistant to damage for the duration of the spell.”

This has nothing to do with Rift Mage, but in light of Trespasser, I'll just leave it here for your consideration. Petrifying people is neither new nor exclusive to Evanruis.

Now, onto Force Mage.

Fist of the Maker: “The mage slams enemies into the ground with incredible power, against which armor is no protection.”

The effect sounds like Stonefist (Primal) and Veilstrike.

Pull of the Abyss: “The mage conjures a maelstrom of energy that draws enemies to its center while slowing them to a crawl.”

This one is similar to the Rift Mage skill with the same name, so it might have served as an inspiration (or base).

Overall, though: nothing much to say here. Maybe I could talk more about Rift Mage being focused on crowd control, but that is probably for game-play balance. I could connect that to Solas' character and analyze every little thing to death. I'm not doing it, though.

Specialization Dialogue

Solas: You have begun practicing new magical forms. Interesting. You seem to be drawing upon the raw substance of the Fade, likely using your mark as a catalyst. I use similar techniques, although it took me years to learn that. Why did you choose such an esoteric area of study?

Inquisitor: (if chosen) I hoped that studying such magic would me help better understand the Fade.

Solas: While our fight affords little time for formal study, the wise can better themselves even in the midst of battle. Perhaps especially then. I hope your new studies serve you well.

[source]

Let’s go through this slowly.

‘You seem to be drawing upon the raw substance of the Fade-’ Alright, we’ve talked about that. Makes sense he’d comment on it. ‘likely using your mark as a catalyst’ Sorry? The Inquisitor is doing what? I’m not saying it’s not possible, I’m just saying it might not be an overly smart idea to use the Anchor in that way. Because it’s attached to the Inquisitor’s arm. And because the Inquisitor knows what happens if it snaps out of control. So, purposefully doing something that might cause you agonizing pain? Mh. Yeah. No, thanks.

Also. The 'drawing upon the raw substance of the Fade' part makes me think that the Anchor does give the Inquisitor Dreamer-like abilities. Forcefully, and possibly difficult to control, and the Inquisitor might not be aware of it, but. That would be an interesting aspect to explore.

‘I use similar techniques, although it took me years to learn that’. Well. Yeah. Mostly a sound response, except I’m not really sure it's true. Why does he say years? Because he didn’t go right to sleep after creating the Veil, or because he studied such methods theoretically beforehand? I doubt he refers to the time Inquisition spans, because it’s not that long, cannocially, (isn't it like ... a year? I forget what the devs said), but … I don’t know. It doesn't sit right with me. Solas never truly outright lies, so there is probably some merit in it.

‘Why did you choose such an esoteric area of study?’ That’s … an interesting way to ask. Sure, there is a very small group who has this specialized knowledge, but it feels a little like deflection.

The rest of the conversation doesn’t give much for me to analyze.

Conclusion

TL;DR: There should have been banter. Or Rift Mage should have been a personalized, individual specialization.

Pull of the Abyss is the funkiest skill in the entire game, from a meta-perspective, because tearing a hole into the Veil is the opposite of what the Inquisitor is trying to do.

There are also many more questions than answer to take away from this regarding the Veil and the Fade and how Solas manages not to blow his cover, but I believe there are theories about at least the two former points out there.

I thank you very much for bearing with me for this long!

#dragon age #dragon age meta #meta #rift mage #solas #analysis #rift mage specialization #skill tree #ability tree #analyzing game-play-elements for narrative purposes #long post #even for my standards

[sylvie--laufeydottir]

an obligatory analysis of sylvie’s character (aka: who betrayed who?)

in case you can’t tell, i like sylvie. but here’s a big fuckin post where i share my thoughts on her role in the finale in a sort of disjointed kind of way.

NOTE: this isn’t about sylki. i don’t ship it personally, but that isn’t really relevant to this at all. this also doesn’t go into the criticisms i have of the show because this isn’t really the place for that. maybe i can do that later, whatever.

also, this is gonna be a long post. i have a lot of thoughts.

sylvie’s introduction and motivations

one of the first things we learn about sylvie is her opposition to the tva. (okay, it’s literally the first thing, whatever.) in episode 3, we get to see her entire plan - overthrow whoever’s running the tva, and... that’s it. loki questions her about the power vacuum that would leave, to which she shows that she’s not interested in running the tva. (this is also stated in ep 2.) her goals are clear. she wants rid of the entire organisation, and doesn’t care about or want the sort of power that would come with pulling the strings.

her reasoning for this seems pretty simple. she doesn’t want the power ruling the tva would entail because she knows what it’s like to be on the other end of that deal. she had everything taken from her as a child, and doesn’t want that to happen to anybody else. she believes that that kind of power belongs to nobody, not even herself.

this easily establishes her as a character who, despite having an ego, has principles that trump everything else. she’s very dedicated to her cause; the ‘never at the expense of the mission’ line in ep 3 just states it out loud. her entire life has been dedicated to this cause. this is a good time to segue into the next section...

sylvie’s personality, character and flaws

she’s fuckin stabby.

despite only really being present for 4 out of the 6 episodes of the show, we manage to get a pretty good idea of sylvie’s personality right from the start thanks to episode 3 being largely a character study with both her and loki. she’s shown as a very competent and strong character - however, contrary to marvel’s guidebook on writing female characters, those aren’t personality traits. what we actually see of her is that she’s very confident, and has a tendency to be rude or dismissive of other people. episode 3 has a bunch of examples of this, but the easiest one to point to is the fireworks scene. after loki does something nice to cheer her up, something which visibly works, her response is to waive it away as ‘not bad’.

her coldness in this scene even after bonding with loki is likely due to her upbringing. sylvie spent the majority of her life, including her childhood, on the run, unable to form relationships with people who weren’t moments away from dying. it feels a bit redundant for me to point this out, but this is, as they say in the medical field, mega fucking traumatic. not only did sylvie not have the opportunity to form these kinds of connections, she couldn’t even develop the ability to form them. loki is a bandaid to cover a bullet hole in this regard, one she needs years to heal from. while she does bond with him to an extent, she is physically unable to trust him to the point where they can be considered close.

another thing we learn about sylvie is that she’s very violent - and that she enjoys it. being a character that grew up running from an organisation that wanted her dead, it makes sense for her first instinct to be confrontational. however, despite having to fight to survive, she visibly takes pleasure from fighting. this was brought up in an interview with sophia (that i am not going to link here, because tumblr is kind of a hellsite and i’m not in the mood for that today). here’s a nice extract instead.

“She's not trained like Loki is,” Di Martino continues. “She can't do some of the flourishes that he would, but she's figured out how to brawl. She's a street fighter and she loves it. That was a really great key to unlocking part of Sylvie for me, was how much she just loves a fight. She knows that she's either going to win, or if she isn't going to win, she'll survive. She's that damaged character who's dangerous because she knows she can survive.”

her tendency towards violence is actually a key part of sylvie’s character. this works as both a strength and a flaw. on the one hand, she’s able to survive scrapes most other characters wouldn’t, and she knows that. she’s not one to freeze in most (note: most) scenarios, because she knows what to expect. on the other hand, violence isn’t always the answer, and she’s very unlikely to consider any other option than a fight.

her enchantment abilities tie into this - they’re another weapon for her to use, and one she’s not afraid to call on. however, her eagerness to enchant people without hesitation puts her in a pretty bad place morally. her enchantment clearly leaves hunter c-20 traumatised, and yet she’s more than willing to enchant people for the sake of the mission. she’s also relatively dismissive of human sentient lives. an early example of this is in episode 2, where loki asks her if the person she had enchanted was dead, to which she responds with a casual ‘they usually survive’. additionally, she’s more than willing to fight the guards on the train in episode 3, despite them seeing her as a threat for completely understandable reasons.

in the case of the guards, her reasoning for placing such little value on their lives is likely that they’re about to die anyways. everyone on lamentis is doomed, so from her point of view, whether they die at her hands or at the hands of the moon from majora’s mask isn’t really important. however, c-20 is a different story. sylvie places next to no value on the lives of the tva’s workers, content to slaughter them en masse for the sake of her goal. this is despite her knowing that every one of the tva workers is a variant plucked from the sacred timeline. this sets up a weird sort of transactional nature in how sylvie views other people - to her, they’re less important than the mission, and she doesn’t hesitate to eliminate threats.

was this a long section? this was a long section. i would like to call back to the fact that this is not a sylki post for this next part. and also to praise anyone that got this far, because fucking hell, is this excessively long or what? who would have the time to write this out?

sylvie’s bond with loki

i want to go back to that whole thing about her relationship with loki. he’s the first person she’s really spoken to since she was a child who isn’t about to face imminent death. furthermore, despite their differences, they have quite a lot in common - enough to hit it off surprising well for two people who kind of want to kill each other. they’re able to relate on common ground like frigga, and even though they clash due to loki’s initial carelessness, they’re overall able to get along well enough aside from occasional bickering. the blanket scene from episode 5 is probably the best example of this. sylvie allows herself, albeit briefly, to be vulnerable around loki.

except, not really. one of the first things she does is tries to ensure he won’t betray her. i’ve seen somebody cite this before as proof that her fondness towards him isn’t real, and that she was planning on betraying him from the start, hence why it was on her mind. that’s definitely possible, but i think it’s far more likely that it’s just her difficulties connecting to people stopping her from feeling safe around him even as they share a nice moment. she really does seem to care about loki - an easy example of this is her asking how he is during episode 4 without being prompted. she’s just unable to properly process these kinds of feelings due to an incomprehensible amount of trauma. as loki puts it, she can’t trust.

and loki can’t be trusted. she knows - or at least, thinks she knows - his nature as a trickster and a villain. loki embodies a part of sylvie that she considers herself completely separate from; the tva-approved liar whose purpose is to bring out the best in others. while she does show him more decency than to treat him like that, at the end of the day, he represents something that makes her deeply uncomfortable, hence her rejection of the loki name. despite what they have in common, loki is an incredibly difficult person to trust, especially for somebody who has deep-rooted trust issues. so, this brings us onto...

who betrayed who?

so, sylvie and loki make it to kang’s castle. after all this time, she’s finally about to reach her life’s goal. she’s clearly nervous - this is out of her comfort zone, unlike most fights. loki reassures her, and they head in. they meet kang, learn the true nature of the tva, have the opportunity to kill him...

and loki stops her.

loki’s motivations are left ambiguous. the uncharitable interpretation is that he wants to rule the tva for himself, as per kang’s offer. he’s expressed such an interest to sylvie before. for the loki we know in avengers 1, this seems perfectly in character.

however, for the loki we’ve seen in the show, there’s a different option. he believes kang’s threat that there are multiple of him, and that killing him won’t solve anything. to him, he isn’t willing to risk unknown horrors for the sake of taking his revenge out on kang. this is the loki who offered diplomacy and guile to counteract sylvie’s brute force.

but sylvie, who can’t trust, assumes the worst.

to her, loki was the one who betrayed her. they had a plan - find whoever pulls the strings, and destroy them. to her, loki’s hesitation isn’t caution, but treachery. taking kang’s offer to rule the tva is exactly what she thinks she should’ve expected from the guy who hurts everybody who loves him. her fight or flight responses kick in, and she chooses the one she always chooses. loki’s attempts to reassure her fall on deaf ears, not just because she doesn’t want to trust him, but because she’s physically incapable of it. she makes the short-sighted decision of brute force, just like she did back on lamentis, because it’s all she’s ever known, and the cause she’s dedicated her life to.

from the outside, it looks like sylvie was the one who betrayed loki, but things look pretty different from where she’s standing.

this is why i take issue with people calling sylvie a ‘villain’ or questioning whether this was her plan for the start. in my opinion, her motivations line up pretty clearly as a creature of habit, one who panics at the first hint of smoke and pushes away the first person she’s been able to bond with for the sake of self-preservation. did she make the wrong decision? unquestionably - the effects of her actions will no doubt plague the multiverse (and the mcu, for us) for as long as they go unchecked. but she made the only decision she was capable of making, and that’s not villainous, just tragic.

conclusion

well, this is a kind of depressing way to finish this post. for what it’s worth, though, i don’t think sylvie is a doomed character. regardless of how brief it was, she did show a real connection with loki. just because something requires a lot of healing doesn’t make it impossible. this is why i like sylvie as a character so much; she’s deeply flawed and complex, but that complexity makes her interesting, and relatable. marvel has a long history of sexy lamps and supposed ‘tortured backstories’, but sylvie is the first time they paid attention to this with their character writing without having to give somebody a wholeass prequel movie. with loki confirmed to appear in multiverse of madness, i’m hoping we see more of sylvie - not as a villain, but as a hero who can overcome her past experiences and rise to better things.

or maybe another kang shows up and kills her immediately. who knows.

#sylvie #sylvie laufeydottir #loki #loki theory #loki analysis #loki series #long post #like really fucking long #i’m so sorry for this #not a gif

[vivid-wisp]

You know how it be suffering from big brainrot being into FNF so I’ve compiled a list of ideas for the characters. This is more so for myself but thought I'd share some of my ideas. Take this as you will, these headcanons are based on educated guesses, actual lore, or just for fun. I also really like explaining my reasoning for some stuff so be ready for that. Long post. :]

Boyfriend / BF

- Is asian specifically Japanese, based on the idea how the dev team like to agree Hatsune Miku is BF’s canon sibling. Can also be asian American.

- Despite his appearance BF is actually somewhat physically strong and capable. If he can’t rap battle someone he’d be down to beat someone up, based on the idea how PA (Phantom Arcade) says he sucks at FromSoftware games and would rather throw down IRL than in video games.

- Him and Pico were exes, but they dated when they were WAY YOUNGER, and this was before when BF or Pico knew how to handle a relationship properly. Pico was the one to call things off. (more on Pico’s section) They may still get kind of flustered around each other.

- For most of his childhood, BF never really felt like he stood out. It leads into the reason why he likes singing since it ironically feels like he's being heard, despite not really liking to talk a lot. He was a very quiet kid back then. He'd always liked singing and rapping, he just wasn't put into a position of intense judgement until meeting GF's father and mother, rockstar and ex-rockstar. Training arc begins.

- BF took courses/majored in music design or sound design in college, but dropped out to spend more time with Girlfriend and practice his musical talent himself seeing as it felt more natural than doing boring classes.

- Despite what people think, BF doesn’t dye his hair. It WAS a different color but a shade, like a lighter blue color when he was younger. (Based on Ninjamuffin/NM's recent AMA answers)

- BF owns a dog, not specific but definitely a large breed of dog that stays at home and is taken care of by his parents. He loves a lot of pets and animals, especially anything blue.

- It’s no surprise BF isn’t the smartest, but this comes from a place of putting on the “bad boy” act and being told he’d never make it anywhere in life so he never tried. BF is really a soft guy who deep down has a good heart and just wants to show his appreciation to the person (GF) who makes him feel okay knowing you don’t have to be the best.

- BF actually CAN speak, but chooses to be selectively mute. More so because he’s not the best when it comes to words, and he’s never felt the need to talk. Don’t expect much because like in Week 6, it’ll likely just be random noises he makes or his signature “beeps!” He still reacts, just with noises. (we ignore the logic of him singing it just sounds like beeps to us the players while everyone in universe perfectly understands) [just saw NM's recent AMA I GODDAMN CALLED IT LET'S GOOOO]

Girlfriend / GF

- GF unsurprisingly, has a very wealthy background and in turn family too. So she’s no stranger to most expensive things. This doesn’t mean she won’t appreciate anything BF gifts her, in fact she’s more than appreciative of anything if it comes from BF her love.

- May or may not be a demon like her parents but she doesn’t want to scare BF, and also has slight appearance anxieties about it so she chooses to hide it by staying in her “human” form. She's self conscious of appearing like a demon, and doesn't want to scare people away just based on her look.

- So yes GF can and will in fact beat you up, a lot more than BF if she really wanted to. Especially if she went into her demon form.

- Also not the brightest, due to her extravagant background she’s been so spoiled to the point where everything is handed to her on a silver plate. Which also means her intelligence. They're both himbo/bimbo dynamic I don’t make the rules sorry.

- Actually really good at singing herself too, she’s a bit more wonky with rapping but she’s still good. Ties into the fact GF is the first to teach you how to rap/sing in the tutorial. If she really wanted to, she would destroy BF in a singing battle.

- Kinda aloof and can be apathetic, but more in the sense of “oh cool" instead of a "not caring" feeling way. Like moving on from something that was most definitely not cool like oh my god does that monster with bloody human teeth have a lemon for a head-

- Absolutely adores the large height difference between her and BF. She loves picking BF up suddenly and swinging him around. It’s cute and funny to her. (BF likes the height difference dynamic too but he'd never admit it)

Pico

- Pico never went to college nor finished, instead he takes up jobs from around the city as a mercenary. He's so skilled to the point it pays well enough he doesn't really need a job. He owns a small apartment.

- He likes spending time when he's not on the job, around BF and GF but this is more so at a distance. He does hang out with them, but don't expect him to show up automatically by their side. Like maybe once a week.

- Despite his original job to kill BF, Pico is very protective of BF and looks out for him albeit distantly. He knows BF can handle himself, but he will risk jumping into a situation if BF needs help. ONLY when he needs help.

- Pico still spends time with Nene and Darnell, but this is more so as an acquaintance thing. They're still friends, but all three of their jobs (as assassin and mercs) make things kind of awkward and distance from one another.

- Pico has a lot of untreated trauma, whether that be PTSD, schizophrenia, OCD, etc, a lot of it is very untreated. While Pico is aware he has some mental health disorders he's not aware of ALL of them. He frankly doesn't care nor does he really feel like dedicating the time to properly help himself, which stems from his upbringing in his childhood, "deal with it" attitude back then. He doesn't think it's a big deal, even though deep down he knows he should seek help. Especially after hanging out with BF and GF who, unsurprisingly, are (relatively) normal in the head unlike his friends Nene and Darnell. His disorders disrupt his everyday life and living routine, he can have a lot of very bad days.

- Pico is a wannabe DJ, he likes to sing and rap but prefers the latter and likes listening to music more rather than doing it itself. When he was a kid he liked BF for his passion for singing and rapping, and admired him in a way.

- BF and Pico went to the same elementary school, and were very much friends. After the events of Pico's School, Pico acted very different than how BF knew him, and somewhere along that path BF and Pico decided to date each other when they were in middle school (at 13-14). This was very much a hasty decision and didn't end well. Pico was the one to break things off due to knowing he couldn't handle the responsibility of another person, especially in a relationship. He had too much on his plate already from the trauma that still haunted him, and also was around the time Pico told BF he would be getting homeschooled instead after many years of decision with Pico's parents. It was best to end things before they'd spiral and get worse.

- While BF was heartbroken, he knew it was for the better even if he was upset for quite a bit. After Pico became homeschooled and left middle school, BF noticeably became more quiet until he'd meet GF near the beginning of high school. Pico and BF tried to keep in contact, but eventually naturally just fell out of touch with each other, both too busy with their own lives now. Pico never really resolved his whole feelings issues, which still show up when he'd meet BF years later again but knows those feelings are best left behind.

- While Pico was very surprised and shocked to see BF again despite being commissioned to kill BF, BF himself was too busy being caught up in seeing an old friend again. Whether that be BF was either too dumb to realize he was being killed or because he was genuinely very happy to see his old friend again, the two had a small reconcile after so many years and decided to rap for old time's sake.

#fnf #friday night funkin #fnf pico #fnf boyfriend #fnf girlfriend #idk how else to tag the rest and I’m too lazy to look it up so those yup #I just thought this list would be fun to make :] #picos school #this is a really long post im so sorry to any poor soul who actually read all of this #also i just read through a lot of NM's answers in his recent AMA and one of them has ruined me dhmu going dark

[danteinthedevildom]

yes! i hate it when people say belphie doesnt care for mc, this is a personal opinion but i feel like even if we werent related to lilith (and somehow we came to life again) he would be close to us, and try. seeing how the people he cares about the most react to someone he thought was just a human dying would probably push him to get to know MC. i know some people also think and argue that beel sees MC as a replacement for lilith too; but i know 100% he doesnt, he hasnt been able to verbally talk about his sisters passing to anyone, i mean almost right after she died belphie was taken away and beel assumed he was in the human world on "buisness", so for beel to openly talk about lilith with us as much as he does it feels special. i know he sees mc as their own person because of how much hes able to share with us, beel talking with mc about his feelings means hes able to finally move on, not to say that he'll forget about her, but he knows hes ready to finally stop beating himself up for it yk? i feel like people were also conflicted about seeing belphie as someone who cares for mc, especially the 180 he does when he finds out we're liliths relative; but belphie has had so much trauma, seeing the person he loved the most die, being separated from his brothers for years and years, etc. he was locked away with his mental illness for a long time, the anger bottled up and he took it out on mc, of course it explains it but it doesnt excuse it, you can still continue to hate belphie idc but i feel like he loves mc more than the other brothers do because of it, its the same thing with beel, mc allowed both of them to cope and talk to them about their sisters passing, yk?

Honestly the whole of Chapter 16 and associated fallout is p. controversial simply bc of it being us that it happens to; the game's written for us to imprint on the MC, and because of that, some scenes - like Belphie's betrayal and his glee at having killed MC - becomes very, very personal. It's very easy after that to become biased against a character, because there's genuine emotional scarring that we're left with as players that the game then just... fails to acknowledge to its fullest. (Which is why we get so many "MC might have forgiven Belphie but I haven't" fics on AO3.)

But to say that Belphie doesn't care for MC is just. Wrong. And I can def. get your annoyance on that!

He didn't care for MC to begin with, yes; MC was a random human he knew nothing about, a ticket to freedom and the first step into enacting revenge for something he's carried with him for millenia. They didn't matter to him outside of that because he never got to see them - or spend actual time with them - outside of the short visits they could afford to update him on their pact progress. That's undeniable.

But to say that he still doesn't ignores the entire point of the Lilith revelation. Being related to her gives Belphie something to connect with MC over. It gives him a reason to overcome his hatred of humanity and to bond with MC in general - which is selfish, yes, and kind of shitty, true, but so much of Belphie's (admittedly misplaced) anger comes from being a survivor of an incredibly one-sided war and (arguably, in his mind) the reason Lilith died to begin with. Because Beel saved him instead of her.

It's not like any of them were ever given a good way to cope with the trauma of the Fall, or Lilith's death. It's not like any of them even knew her actual fate until Chapter 16. Belphie's way of coping was to become apathetic, and to try and place the blame onto something he could take action against.

To him, that meant humanity. Because she fell in love with a human. Because they'd already fought God and lost, so he wasn't going to get closure there - but maybe ending the cause for her death would help the hurt.

He hated humans because of Lilith. In the realm of good story-telling, the best way to end that hatred is likewise through Lilith. Stories are best when they have that cyclical nature to them - especially since it can then transition into Belphie overcoming his trauma (and Lilith's death) through humanity.

So, yeah; it's a selfish reason to get close to someone, to take back the really horrific thing you were going to do, but all of Belphie's anger stemmed from the Fall and what he perceived as her death. Finding out that she didn't actually die? That she became human - became the very thing he wanted to destroy - and lived out a long life? That she had children, and that her family line is still alive in MC? Of course that's going to stop him dead in his tracks. And of course he's going to want to get close to MC, the last remaining fragment of the sister he's dedicated his entire life post-Fall mourning.

Belphie's an incredibly apathetic character by nature. He doesn't care about a lot of things, and everything he cares about is overshadowed by how much he loves Lilith. He needs that connection to get him out of his natural apathy. He cares about Lilith above all else; he'll care about MC at the drop of a dime if they're anything to do with her.

But that's not a bad thing. It means there's an opportunity for him to genuinely get to know who MC is, in a positive light.

It's an opportunity for him to try and make a connection with MC that simply wouldn't have existed otherwise, and through them, to finally, finally put his memory of Lilith to rest. And he does! He gets to know MC, gets to know why Beel adores them so much - outside of just being "Lilith's descendant" - and ends up loving them for who they are.

He puts his hatred of humanity and his single-minded attachment to Lilith behind him, and he still cares for MC. He wouldn't do this if he'd really not formed some sort of bond with them before that point. If he only cared for them because they're a fragment of Lilith, then they'd mean nothing to him once Lilith wasn't such a fervent part of his daily life.

I think the game's just... really bad at showing that, however. You put it really well when you called it a 180, because in all honesty? The game glosses over it much too quickly, and doesn't do a totally good job explaining the logic behind why he'd change his mind so fast.

There's not enough time spent on allowing MC - and the player - to overcome the emotional wreckage of Chapter 16 + fallout. We're not given the chance to process it before Belphie has, to build up a natural relationship with him that transitions slowly from him seeing MC as a Lilith-connection to him seeing them as their own, defined person. It's way too easy to still be emotionally hung up on it while he seems perfectly fine and dandy.

On your bit abt him overcoming it even without the connection to Lilith - I agree tbh! There is a lot Belphie would do for Beel, and I genuinely think seeing how against him Beel is after killing MC, even if they're brought back to life, would ruin him. Belphie being locked up, trying to convince Beel that he was doing the right thing, only for Beel to disagree with him and show genuine anger/disgust, would knock the world from under his feet. If he thought trying to hurt MC would make him lose Beel too - if Beel pleaded with him to just play nice, because he can't choose between them both, not again - he'd likely (albeit begrudgingly) postpone his intended revenge plot.

And he'd try to stay bitter, and for a long time he likely would - but then he'd see how happy Beel is with MC around, and how much it means to Beel that they seem to get along, and how much Beel opens up to them about Lilith, and he'd start to... reconsider. Just a little. Just a bit. Moment by moment, day by day, until he realises that MC isn't a replacement for Lilith, but that they bring something to the table that the brothers have been missing for a long, long time.

Which would afford Belphie the moment of catharsis; where he finally, on a quiet night, opens up about the Fall. How he felt, how angry he is, how helpless. How much he misses her, how the pain and hurt consumes his every thought. And then the player would get the chance to overcome the emotional strain with Belphie, showing him that his anger shouldn't be aimed at humanity when his Father is the one at fault, and Belphie, very quietly, admitting that they're right.

It could work, and work well. It's just a point of finding - and hitting - the right story beats.

On the topic of Beel - honestly, the concept that he sees MC as a replacement for Lilith is just... I personally couldn't imagine it. I can see how someone else could - being her descendant, the attic sandwich club, their little escapade together once Belphie's back in with the family - but that includes seriously misreading/ignoring a lot of Beel's character arc/development.

Beel talks to MC about Lilith and Belphie way before he knows anything about their relation to her. He sees a lot of her in them, yes - he mentions this a few times, I think, in relation to little things they do - but he also sees a lot of what he wants to be in them - which is best seen in their ability to defend both himself and Luke, which be very subtly compares to his own inability to save both Lilith and Belphie.

To Beel, MC stands as something a little idealised. MC is everything good he saw in Lilith (as well as some of the things he loves most about Belphie), and everything he wishes he could have been. MC is a reason to be better, stronger, more capable - both so he can protect them the way they protect others, and so he can feel as if he's on their level.

But that doesn't mean he sees them as a replacement to the people he's lost. It's arguable that he's projecting, sure, I'll admit that; he sees things he misses most of the people he's lost in MC, and I'm sure forming a bond with them helped him cope while he was without Belphie. But MC is still always MC to him. They're always still their own person, and someone he cares for because of that fact.

Beel cares too much about his family to replace them with someone else. Lilith meant too much to him as a person for him to look at MC and actually see Lilith. He misses her, not the idea of her. He feels guilt that he couldn't save her. His trauma revolves almost entirely around the failure of (self imposed) duty and the subsequent loss of life. His Survivor's Guilt is the main reason Beel can't put her memory to rest - because he's constantly haunted by the thought that he could have saved her.

His trauma, the way it is, does not create a setting where he would believably see MC as a replacement for Lilith. He's all too aware that she's gone. He's all too aware that he lost something he can never get back that day. Her memory is special to him, and being unable to talk about her hurts him because that's a bit like killing her off for good.

MC can't replace Lilith, even being Lilith's descendant, and I genuinely can't believe that Beel would even want them to. He's so defensive over Belphie and Lilith, even just over the memory of them; to suggest that MC could replace one of them I feel would anger him more than anything. Not only because it's an insult to Lilith, but because it's an insult to the person MC is. To the person Beel admires.

With just how much he cares about Lilith, I think Beel's enhanced attachment to MC is more the steadfast defence of her lineage to make up for what he couldn't do for her. He still sees MC as their own person, it's just that now... now he has a chance to make up for what he failed at before. And bit by bit, he can learn to forgive himself. Can learn to stop blaming himself for something that was never his fault to begin with.

Belphie and Beel have a special relationship with MC because MC is a direct link to Lilith that helps them overcome their individual Lilith-related traumas. They're naturally going to be closer to MC due to this, yeah, but that's... not the only reason they're close to MC. To try and push down everything they feel and do with MC to "it's only because MC is Lilith's descendant" is to. Well. A) make an incredibly unsatisfying story and character development, but also B) completely ignore that MC helps them bury the memory Lilith. MC helps them move on. Their care and love for MC is what helps them finally let go - to stop living in the past, in hurt, and to finally take a step forward to a future without the weight of Lilith's death constantly burdening them.

Like. If Solmare had just spend a little more time on these two, that might be clearer. Because it's definitely there! And it's why I love Belphie and Beel so, so much. But it's also fully understandable why some players still really dislike Belphie, or why they're not convinced that Belphie/Beel see MC as anything outside of Lilith, bc the game does kind of fail on that a little by rushing a bit too much. Just. Aagh!! You know?

I could honestly go on abt them for hours. So I should prolly stop here before I go on too long adfgh.

#obey me #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #I still have no idea what to tag half of my shit as adfgh

[transgenderteensurvivalguide]

Any advice on how to get family members to use both sets of pronouns for you? Because my family doesn’t and it’s making me feel bad. Especially since I align a bit more with masculine pronouns, despite also using feminine ones

Lee says:

The easier it is for people to figure out what pronouns you’re using, the more likely they are to actually use them.

If you want them to switch between using she/her and he/him instead of using both sets interchangeably, you should tell folks that when you come out and see if you can work together to figure out how you want them to do that, like having people switch pronouns from week to week, or daily, within a single conversation, or based on a cue (jewelry, etc).

So you need to to be something that’s easy and practical for you to do, and something that makes it easy for other people to notice or find out.

You could try wearing a certain accessory that signals he/him pronouns and a different one that signals she/her pronouns, like wearing a certain necklace (example: shark tooth necklace for they/them, crystal necklace for she/her), or wearing color-coded bracelets like red on he/him days and green on she/her days. You can keep both accessories in your pocket, so it’s an easy switch between bracelets if you want to change your name in the middle of the day.

You could even buy a dedicated pronoun necklace or pronoun pin at Pride or online! This post has info on online shopping you can use when it comes to buying stuff if your parents won’t buy it for you. (Small items like necklaces are pretty easy to hide from your family for people who are closeted, but that doesn’t apply to this case obviously lol).

One thing you may also want to consider- how do you want people to address you when you aren’t there? This is a bigger question than you might think.

There are a lot of people you know who won’t see your pronoun necklace each morning, so how do you plan on conveying your pronouns to them?

Say you see your friend at during your lunch period at school and say “today is a girl day and I want you to use she/her pronouns” then that’s all fine and good, but what if that friend wanted to tell someone they were having lunch with you earlier in the day? What pronouns would they use for you when they haven’t seen you that day and couldn’t check your necklace yet?

Some people change their Instagram bios every day and ask people to check that before referring to them, but not everyone has Insta. And if someone wants to say something causal like “Hey, I know [name] likes Star Trek, should we invite… let me check instagram [then they gotta get their phone, open the app, go to your profile, wait for it to load if there’s a bad connection] … her to come over tomorrow to watch the new DVD with us?” it can be a lot to have to do which means people are more likely to just misgender you and choose what pronouns they want to use for you instead.

You could send everyone a daily text with your pronouns each day so they know what to call you, but that might be a bit much for all of you. You’d have to text everyone you know every day, and what if you wake up late and they’ve already had a conversation about you before you send the text? Are they supposed to use the pronouns you told them yesterday? And what about acquaintances you’ve come out to but aren’t close enough to be sending daily texts to?

People will talk about you or mention you on days when they haven’t seen you yet, so you need to tell them how to refer to you then or they’ll decide on their own. If you want them to only use they/them, for example, until they see you and you specify otherwise then that’s one thing you could do. Or you could say you don’t care which pronoun set they use, or ask them to switch between both she and they, or only use your name and don’t use pronouns at all until you’ve indicated which ones, or something.

But you do need to come up with a plan for how you want people to refer to you when they can’t see your necklace or other indicator, like what your default preference is if you haven’t specified otherwise, and make that clear.

This is especially true for more distant relatives like aunts and uncles, and acquaintances, and coworkers you only share a shift with once a week, and all the other people who aren’t going to be interacting with you every day and learning that particular day’s pronouns but still don’t want to misgender you either.

Ok, so basically:

You gotta explain to your family how you want them to use your multiple chosen pronouns 

Do you want them to only use she/her on some days and only use he/him on other days? How will they know which day is which? Or should they always alternate which pronouns they use in a single conversation and try to use both sets all of the time?

You have to explain to them that you do want them to use both pronouns 

Some folks who use more than one pronoun set don’t have a preference and are equally fine with either one and and don’t care if people only use one of those pronoun options, so you need to make it clear that you aren’t one of those people

You gotta tell them why it matters for them to switch up your pronouns

Explain that it matters to you and you feel depressed/upset/misgendered/disrespected when they only use one pronoun set because it feels like they see you as essentially a binary gender (or tell them whatever feelings you’re having!)

Really get into it! The more you can explain why it matters and the more emotion you show, the more likely they are to realize oh yeah this is actually a big deal for you!

Ask if they need any help and offer to remind them if they think that would help

Don’t assume they’re doing this maliciously; maybe they simply didn’t realize that you wanted them to use both pronouns and thought you meant you were comfortable with either set so they could pick the set they wanted to use!

But even if they are deliberately doing it, try to work with them instead of getting angry at them- your anger is valid, but it won’t help win them over.

Finally, see these links for tips on how to actually have the conversation with your parents!!

Help, someone wasn’t supportive/won’t call my by my name/pronouns

Parents who won’t use name/pronouns

Reminding friends to use your pronouns

Interpersonal relationships

How to help someone who forgets your pronouns

Followers, any advice on how to get family members to use both sets of pronouns for you if you use two pronoun sets?

#Lee says #pronouns #using multiple pronouns #multiple pronouns #switching between multiple pronouns #multiple pronoun sets #family #parents #Anonymous #trans #transgender #transgenderteensurvivalguide #TTSG

[theunconcernedembalmer]

ok i got the aesvic out of my system now time to pick apart the letter n why i wont really be following aesops diary exactly here. literally no one asked but i wanted to get my thoughts down somewhere cos i have. a lot

just gonna put a quick rundown of aesops diary entry as a refresher (mostly for myself so i dont miss anything): he dreamt that he was helping jerry with what was probably a murder n was affirmed n he thinks its a sign congratulating him on carrying out his duty. over the years, he carries out his duties as an undertaker n comes to the manor looking for a “fresh start” aka what sounds like his first victim. according to aesop, said victim should be quiet, n potential victim number 1 is victor. something about badly needing him to become his “silent friend” n he mentions he’ll get to wick n the 2 other survivors in due time, but for now he’s very eager to start his “mission”.

im generally okay with the letter (i have seen so many fights over this aha) cos there is no surprise he wants to kill ppl (ppl who r fighting over this point. did u even read his deductions?? guy happily killed his mentor??). but i didnt quite like the fact that he still looks up to jerry (although. i guess thats valid i just. dont like it). i was also initially kind of confused about the real reason why he would want to kill ppl since as u progress through the letter it sounds less like he kills for duty (cos of the whole dream thing at the start) but more “because i want to :)”, which is an okayish edgy kinda take imo. like not that u cant characterize aesop as Kill Kill Murder Die, but i kinda find that. pretty boring in the long term.

im just gonna put what my original take on aesop was, like all of it. first off, he hates jerry. u cannot tell me a psychotic serial killer like that can raise a child without emotional trauma. like any child, this isnt even counting the extra damage done because hes autistic. (n i also hc that aesop has read his moms letter to him at some point, n he should have come to the conclusion that it was somewhat also jerrys fault, whether through logic or denial that his mom would want to leave him, so that just adds to it.) but as much as he hates him, his teachings are the only ones hes been exposed to, n its been so ingrained in him since young so even if he hates jerry he would still subscribe to whatever twisted ideology jerry was feeding him, which ill get to in a sec.

going through his accessories, he has that origami that he folds for each of his clients, n it shows that underneath it all, aesop is still kind. this isnt expected of him n its definitely not part of his job scope as an embalmer. he (still?) has the heart to wish the best for those that have departed n takes the time n effort to fold one for each n every client he sends off, which is probably a lot. so going off on that, my hc is that jerry, being the manipulative asshole that he is (who probably definitely manipulated his mom into indirect suicide) probably used his kindness against him to make him believe that by murdering ppl he is helping them, framing all of his serial kills as a sort of mercy kill (like his mom). so the thing that aesop takes away from all this is the very twisted logic that by killing ppl he is helping them, therefore being a good embalmer and a good person in general. n everyone wants to be a sort of good person, or at least for aesop that is part of his job description to be a good embalmer. n we all know aesop is very serious about his job.

i also hc that he has killed several ppl between killing jerry n coming to the manor, cos i follow the story that he took the invitation from that poor lady n thats how he ended up at the manor. surely the lady didnt come to him right after jerry died?? but anyway, the way i see it is that he thought he liked to kill. like he finally truly understood why jerry kills so much (which is interesting now that i think about it. guy really just went along with all those murders without truly believing huh), because it felt good to kill. at least thats what he thought, the revelation that killing felt good n is good, but i say its because he hated jerry, n offing someone u kinda hate should probably feel pretty gucci. n its also so much easier to pick clients off the streets than in the manor, so i would think that he has killed ppl like his mentor did, but each time he did the great feeling that came with ending ppls life just. wasnt as good as the first time round. it just became a sort of normal satisfaction of a successful embalming.

this can go two ways: 1. he keeps on killing to try to find that great feeling again, which is cool i guess (n probably what canon would want, except canon states that he hasnt killed since jerry), but id like to go with 2. he just stops because jerry isnt around to enforce it whenever he isnt feeling up to psychoing someone to their death (which is probably how jerry got his victims, n damn if that doesnt take a lot of mind games that i dont think aesop has the mental capacity for since half of it is fighting with his social anxiety n other issues. dealing with alive strangers?? no thanks?? i doubt he would have learnt properly how to lure in clients as efficiently as jerry because of this, mostly cos he was only needed for the murder afterparty aka embalming n funerals). n as much as he stays professional, there is no. professional way of gaslighting someone to their death.

(n also since ppl have pointed out that his twitter replies n other kinda informal stuff have shown that aesop does have reverent respect for life, which also adds to him not being so blindly bloodthirsty as implied in the letter. i dont really see the twitter replies as very canon, but it does make sense that he would come to revere life with his unique take and obsession over death, for one cannot exist without the other)

so this leads me to the motive that aesop brings to the manor, at least how i see it. he isnt exactly coming to the manor to kill per se (like from the very early story, he came to the manor to return the letter to a relative of the deceased lady, something about respecting her last wishes. something like that, its really been a while since i saw that exerpt), so like killing ppl isnt his main purpose of visit. its more of hes always on the lookout for weaker (or at least those that take less mind games to kill) people to mercy kill, n it just so happens that he knows the manor n his mentor almost died from there, so theres a pretty good chance he can find some ppl that fall into this category n so it just so happens that he also has a job to do there. its still counted as a Job for him since no ones gonna tell him that embalmers dont actually. murder. 

so in my version, aesop only tries to sway ppl that he knows he can convince, n these ppl would typically be those very sickly ones like his mom (andrew im looking at u) or those with an actual death wish/ very weak will to live. but here aesop is choosing his “first victim”, and the criteria for that is... quiet? never mind “not evading him” and “not cranky” being on the list too, but that isnt quite what i was expecting from someone so dedicated to their duty of murder. sure he wants an easy first kill, but like. i dont think its consistent if his motive was really to continue jerrys bastard legacy. especially when the next paragraph is essentially him gushing over victor, that... sort of implies something else. or at least in the way i see it, since i believe that canon wants us to think that aesop just really loves to kill.

aesop likes victor. very much so. so much till he wants to kill him. which i guess makes sense cos he likes death, n now he likes victor. so he just. puts the two things he likes together. whats better than victor? dead victor. anyway the rest of the letter is more like “whatever, i technically should kill the others too but my priority is victor” so like. he confuses his (dare i say) yandere tendencies with his duty since the end goal for both is a body in a coffin.

having said that. i know i have aesvic brainrot but i also know this is one sided as hell (at least from the letter alone, not counting the letter shaped cookies in his birthday art that apparently belonged to victors birthday cake aha) n lowkey alarming since. the goal is to kill victor. i kinda want to interpret it as him genuinely wanting to be friends with victor (really wanting him to be a “silent friend”, maybe cos he doesnt actually know how to be friends with living ppl n is better with dead ones? therefore victor should be dead to be friends?) but not knowing how to n throwing in his obsession with death ends up with. this minor disaster waiting to happen. but i uh. dont know if this is valid. its valid to me at least, with my original interpretation of aesop. n again cos of his ingrained professionalism, he also kinda sees this as part of his job to send ppl off, so its another plus. not for victor, tho.

idk if ill add this yandere side in my aesop. i mean my boi has technically tried to kill victor multiple times in the past HAHAHAHA. maybe like sometimes he can be a bit obsessive. as a treat. but generally nah cos thats definitely gonna end up in a murder somewhere somehow n i cant. just kill victors here on the ask blog scene lashjflkjhdlfkjhas

so yeah that kinda takes care of the last part of the letter, as for the first part. as much as aesop hates jerry, i would also think hes pretty starved for affirmation (like i said jerry isnt going to be a good parent figure ever) n i guess it makes sense if the only times jerry has ever complimented him was aiding him in his kills n hiding the evidence, which might (?) add to his desire to kill (but that probably dies with jerry aha). so the way i see it as aesop is getting affirmation n takes it as a good sign instead of. remotely liking jerry. idk if im stretching it a little but i really dont like the take where hes okay with jerry. anyway we are ignoring that he hasnt killed before entering the manor cos that doesnt quite make sense to me (i wasnt dreaming about the letter from a lady stabbed in the face 36 times or so right???? right???????)

im also not like. trying to defend him, im just trying to make sense of his diary. boi has issues n is a little too far gone (not as far as canon tho), in my take very deluded in his way of showing kindness. literally cool motive still murder (or in canon, just murder?), please get therapy. but i just dont really like the direction that the letter was originally trying to imply, with him really just hell bent on murder without like. a clear motive (at least to me it isnt very clear since the last part really doesnt sound consistent with his supposed intentions). i mean i love being edgy with aesop every now n then but i dont think it would make for meaningful characterizations in the long run so. ill still be sticking with my original take on aesop with maybe a bit of yandere for victor cos thats always fun

#unconcerned ramblings #mun rambles #its me the mun #im so sorry i talk so much. i was like Okay i should stop talking on my blog now. n then i didnt #i dont even know if this makes sense im still sleep deprived n tired as hell but i literally cant sleep cos this was bothering me so much #also cos i see a lot of ppl like. just nope the letter n somehow began to hate aesop after loving him as a character for so long. which is #interesting. cos this letter isnt exactly out of the blue. we been knew #just a few minor things that i disagree with. but generally i think it was an okay letter

[fishmech]

tbh i despise that vox article on the helicopter thing because the overall framing and argument it makes just really sucks.

like yeah twitter is an argument factory and all but that pattern of internet discourse is so fucking old it goes back to the early days of usenet, about 40 years ago. and the original author did deliberately choose a provocative story subject and even more provocative title for it. this was always going to lead to a big fucking arguments online and honestly twitter doesn't have much to do with it at all!

and i sincerely doubt that the author would have been able to handle the nominally less 'intense' reaction to their provocation that would have happened if published with a similarly provocative title and subject in 2010 or 2000 instead of 2020.

because its not really like maybe waiting a few extra days or at most weeks for the word to spread and people to get angry and suspicious would actually matter, and that's what we'd be having over the story. the level of it might even be somewhat increased in increasingly older eras because the relevant communities that would be talking about it would be smaller and relatively more tightknit, which would put an additional level of intimacy into the people saying "who the fuck is this person". and there would likely have been an even more untrusting reaction from the trans community because yknow there was already a lot more open transphobia in comparison.

and like i think its very weird the way the article tries to position things as like "well the first few days after it was published not much had been written about it except by the direct readership and the surviving tweets seem positive from then". that's not special? like most speculative fiction outlets these days, there isn't exactly a huge direct readerbase for clarkesworld - they get about 50,000 monthly users. in modern terms that's pretty decent for an outlet to manage and it's still a low amount of people, particularly as many of the readership isn't actually reading the new stories as they're published.

but its like yeah, the most dedicated and prompt readers of the outlet are most likely to have a higher level of trust in what's being put out, that's why they're in that group in the first place. and it only makes sense that as hearing about the story radiates out from that generally most trusting group, people might raise more questions about the general weirdness of premise and choices in bios.

i'm a fairly avid reader of and listener to short fiction. i've heard and read so many snippet bios that i don't really care about which tend to have similar generic statements about the author - this author lives in x region, likes y and z hobbies, thinks cats are cute etc etc - that honestly it was kind of weird that the bio snippet associated with this particular article didn't have those sorts of things that really sound like they're telling you more about an author than they really do. because that is a notable choice to drop it. for those who aren't familiar with those, here's one of the author bios attached to a recent clarkesworld story:

incidentally i did enjoy the story this bio is associated with! but as you can see, it's the sort of thing that just gives you a vibe about the author who chooses to go into very little detail about their life, and it happens to link to a rather barebones writing business-focused site. she's not a first time published author with this story, but you'll see a lot of similar vague, frankly privacy-protecting, bios associated with a lot of first time published authors.

but the helicopter story decided to go full force with provocation and not doing, well, basic satisfy the reader's curiosity bio stuff associated. so yeah of course it looked suspicious. personally i also felt, when i read it when it was new, that is wasn't even a particularly good handling of the concept they were trying to get at and that i've frankly read/heard better stories about military forces where people's genders or other parts of their mental identification were replaced with identification with combat roles or equipment (and don't ask me for the names of those, it's genuinely hard for me to keep track of all the stuff i've read! pretty sure at least one of them was on escape pod in the mid-2010s tho).

so take modern twitter out of the cycle entirely and we still would have had a story that would have kicked off a firestorm of controversy and dislike through other forms of web community as word of it diffused out from the core readership. like i guess some people just have feigned or real amnesia about the world before they decided twitter was the real world, but internet controversies are again not new, nor is having it over provocative fiction in particular. it's not like lack of twitter usage would mean, say, that you wouldn't be able to search for people talking about the story on google or whatever to see negative reactions, or to experience it in large communities. or to take it back to the 80s and 90s, to see it in large irc channels and usenet discussions or on newsletters. or to peel all the way back to a full analog era (where frankly the concept of this provocation would barely work considering its nature, but fuck it lets pretend an alternate 1970s where people were widely accepting of trans people) it would be showing in letters to the editor, at fan cons, and in fanzines, as was the style of the time!

#text post

[mendesficsxbombay]

don't you wanna see these clothes on me? | s.m

hello! 2 fics in one month? am i even myself anymore? 

Requested ‘non sexual acts of intimacy’ from this prompt list:

7) one adjusting the other’s jewellery/neck tie, etc

 anon requested this be related to or based on the GRAMMYs

Shawn Mendes was a relatively easy client to work with, anyone would tell you that. There were a few demands to be met, yes, but demands came with every famous person. His demands were always attainable, nothing too out of reach. There’s certain types of food, certain brands of packaged water (do not bring a Dasani anywhere near him or he will riot, she’d learned that the hard way), skin care products should not run out, and so on. She wasn’t his assistant or tour manager to know the details of his rider, but this was her first job on the road, you can’t blame her for being observant. 

She was working very closely with him though, if you count picking out his clothes for the day and helping her actual boss, Tiffany, with his show outfits as working closely. The gig with Tiffany was a chance she had taken a little blindly. She was 21, fresh out of fashion school, and her mind was in bits about potential careers. She’d worked at stores, workshops, assisted designers and interned at a fashion week and penciled down her life into two options - styling and client servicing. Would she rather dress people or would she be the one making business happen for a fashion house to dress people? She had no goddamn idea. 

Right after graduating though, she heard of an opening with a ‘well experienced stylist, in the field of dressing musicians, a travel job with months on the road and suitable perks’, and she sent an application in to the agency. 

She’d read of Tiffany Briseno in her copies of Vogue multiple times. A celebrity stylist with years of experience to her name, most famous for styling a world famous Canadian pop star. He shall not be named because she herself just happened to like his music, a little bit here and there. Not like she lined up to buy a copy of his debut album at Target or anything. Of course not. 

When she was called in for a video interview, Tiffany clearly explained the amount of work that went into styling for a world tour and she clearly needed an assistant who was serious with their job, and not in it for the glamour. She, in turn, explained to Tiffany about how she worked all through university, and how serious she was with her career. Her knees shook under the table she placed her laptop on, praying that Tiffany couldn’t see her body locking up with anxiety through Skype. Tiffany complimented her dedication, but also reminded her that absolutely nothing would compare to having to work on the road. She felt her shoulders sink in subconsciously, smiling and nodding as she had throughout her life and ended the conversation. 

She told her parents about how she applied for this job that was just a lot of work and how she was so sure they were looking for someone with much more experience, not just a clueless grad school kid. The agency did not feel the same apparently, because she found an offer letter in her emails a few days later. She was required to meet the rest of the team and Tiffany in a few weeks’ time, and until then it was her job to look for sourcing options for Sha- for her client.

That was a whole year ago now, and as so many of the crew members said, the road had started to feel like home. 

She bit the inside of her cheek, deep in thought while trying to fix a particularly stubborn crease with her steam iron on the deep red suit jacket he was meant to wear in just a few hours. She always had the option of having someone else do the ironing, but she found it calming, found it easier to collect her thoughts with a steam rod and press in her hands than she did otherwise, so they let her be. 

She took the jacket down from the hangar she was using, neatly placing it on another adjacent hangar, and moved to bring in the Louis Vuitton shirt he would be wearing. Going down the front of the high quality linen she thought of how he recently liked unbuttoning way more buttons than he used to. If this weren’t a red carpet and another regular show he’d be wearing a much tighter shirt to hug around his arms, she remembers taking measurements for his other outfits to the exact inch and he said he liked it that way. A tight shirt or even a wife beater that completely let go of any barrier between showing off his biceps. 

She remembered teasing him at times, and he used to blush furiously, until he started asking her if she was looking. Then it used to be her turn to blush. She thought back to the first leg of tour. She remembers them constantly sneaking around each other - but also finding excuses to share their space. She remembers feeling sparks, and she knew he felt them, too. 

What other explanation could they possibly have for the middle school crush they had on each other? She would love to fend these concerns off by saying he was solely worked up because she was the only girl around his age on the crew. But that would be a lie, she knew the team of runners had a few girls their age - she was friends with them now. And the production teams had people close to them, too, even though they had alternating staff.

She could say that she was the only one working close enough with him, but that wasn’t true either. Telling herself it was just an infatuation would be the biggest lie, it had been months and he still behaved the same way around her. She was tired of having to tiptoe around him for as long as she was doing her job. 

Shawn liked her so, so bad. And there was nothing she could do about it. 

She had started noticing the little signs at first. Anytime he’d bring in water for himself, he had an extra bottle for her. He always saved her a spot at the dinner table. Got disappointed when she didn’t come in for at least half of his soundcheck. He liked having her near the stage when shows actually took place. And then there were bigger signs. He bought her a copy of Leave Your Mark, a book she had been trying to find for months - and when she asked him how he only ducked his head and said he found it at one of the airport bookstores. A quick ask around helped her know that he had contacted the publishers themselves and acquired a copy. 

She had started noticing how the people around them moved away if they were talking. She saw the smiles passed at her every time she stepped out of his dressing room. She knew how Tiffany jumped at every chance of leaving her alone to sort his look out before every show. There were looks and whispers and she saw them all, she felt them all. 

He made her nervous. Not because he was a star. God, no, that phase came and went by in a breath. He made her wonder. He made her think of a future with him, doing what she did and being with him on the run forever. He liked her, and she liked him more than she knew what to do with. 

Unfortunately for her, being together all day did not help. At all. She felt hyper aware of him. Every time he walked into a room, she felt the atmosphere sizzle. She felt the change and there was no ignoring it. Just like now. 

“I can feel you staring at me, you know?” 

She heard him laugh once, walking closer to where she was standing, multiple cases of clothes open around her. “Don’t know why you choose to slave over an iron every day - we have people to do that, you know?”

She sighed, hanging the steam rod onto its pole and turned around to look at him, chest constricting at the sight of him in a plain white shirt, tight as she had mentioned before, wearing a pair of glasses she knew he stole from someone on the team. 

“It feels nice to iron, it helps me-”

“De-stress. I know. But maybe if you just hung out with all of us once in a while you wouldn’t be so stressed…”

She crossed her arms before herself, cocking her head sideways. Get to the point, her expression said. 

“Okay, look, after the awards tonight, everyone wants to go to some club where they’ve booked out a private room for the team. I wanted to know if you’re gonna be coming.” He tucked his hands into his jeans. He was one second away from swaying on his feet because otherwise he looked like a little boy asking for candy he wasn’t supposed to have. 

“Ah - I’m not sure, Shawn,” her face was slowly pulling into a grimace, “All your outfits need to be back out first thing tomorrow morning and we need to send them a review as well… plus I need to get the exact details of your outfit so Tiffany can write it in her piece for GQ, and tha-“

“I knew you would say no,” he smiles immediately, and she’s scared. What did he do now? “Which is why… I have booked a table for us. For the - just the two of us, like a date.” He felt shy, felt like he was in high school asking a girl out for the first time. No smiles on his face anymore, just pure hesitation. “There’s this new place, um, it’s called Antico. You said your favourite cuisine was Italian - Antico is Italian, OH and it also has some great vegetarian food so there’ll be so many options for you to choose from…” he’s doing the thing again. He’s blushing and he can’t stop it. He needs to go to the washroom and splash water on his face. He needs to call his friends and tell them he finally asked his pretty stylist out, for real.  He needs her to say yes. 

She matched his expression. Wide eyes filled with wonder and face flushing hot. Was she even ready to go on a date with him? 

“Sh-Shawn,” she breathes out, barely a whisper. Her eyes had grown wide, and he didn’t know if she was hesitant like him or just horrified. She wasn’t prepared for this, and one part of her wants to hug him, say yes, and then run off into the sunset with him. The other part of her though, the rational part, knows this isn’t possible. “I thin-”

“Oh, there you are!” Tiffany exclaims walking into the room, not really noticing how close together the pair were standing, and immediately starts taking clothes off the rack for Shawn to change into. He immediately steps away from her, knowing how she gets. She wasn’t one for showing too many emotions when she was surrounded by people. She did open up to him sometimes, more than she did with anyone else on the crew. He had a sneaking suspicion that unlike his past advances which were subtle and not very direct, it was this one that fully got her attention to how much he liked her, and it had her flustered. Well that makes two of them. “Is it all done, babe?”

“Yes Tiff just, let me finish the shirt and I’ll bring it to you.”

“Shawn, you wanna move to hair and makeup till we wait for your outfit?” Tiffany walks out the door swiftly, not waiting for him to answer, just calling out his name again to make sure he was following. 

“Mhmm,” he says, walking backwards to the door, eyes still stuck on the girl he has pined after for months now. He refused to go down without a fight. “I’ll wait.”

________________________________________

She sees him again when he is pulling his shirt on with Tiffany straightening the material out from the back. He looks winsome in just the shirt and the red  suit pants, and her mouth nearly waters thinking of the contrast the red of the  blazer would have to his skin. Men who were dressed well always made her thoughts run wild, mostly because she learned to focus on the fit and the cut of the fabric, the attention to detail, the simplicity of the design or the lack, thereof. She paid way more attention to the outfits than the men wearing them. Shawn, however, was a different story. She had come to the gasping realisation that she liked him more than his outfits. And she was screwed, because no one knew how soon all of this would be ending for her. 

He senses her staring holes into his back. When he walked away, he only had her expression as a response to his question, and while he wasn’t worried if she rejected him, even if it hurt real, real bad, and he constantly worried about never finding someone like her, it was okay. He was worried about this running deeper than him, she shouldn’t have to look mortified just at the mention of a date. 

He looks down at his feet, the tailored hem of the pants at perfect length, discreetly raising his head to still find her looking at him. To his pleasure, the corners of her lips were upraised, eyes still on him but not really looking at him. He flashed her a smile, and she quickly realised what she was doing, scrambling to put down his pair of shoes for the evening along with the jewellery box she picked up on the way. 

She starts talking to Tiffany about his accessories, and, something. He can’t really be bothered to be focusing on yet another conversation about what he’s going to wear. He wants to talk to her. He wants to know things she hasn’t told him yet. It’s been a year of this slow burning attraction between them, but is it only attraction if he wants what’s in her mind and not just what he can already see? 

He already knows what stories he wants to talk about over dinner. He wants to tell her about his cheek scar, and then ask where she got the one on her right hand from. He wants to tell her about his high school prom and then ask about hers. He wants to know why she fell in love with fashion the way she did, because it consumed her fully, and she has to make conscious efforts to pay attention to things beyond art and fabric and clothes, he knows she does. He wants a deeper understanding, not for the sake of dissecting her personality, but just to know her, if she only allows him. 

He only zones back in when he knows Tiffany is directly addressing him. “Shawn, you finalised the BVLGARI one last week, we’re still okay with that?”

“Yes,” he says, not sure of where to look, so he continues looking at himself in the mirror. 

“Great, honey, you can put this and the chain on him and I’ll go check with the rest of the team.” Tiffany squeezes her arm with a bright smile, and turns to Shawn again, “Looking good, little Dean, it’s almost show time!” 

Shawn smiles back silently, watching Tiffany leave the room, as does she. She makes quick work of walking back to him and placing the box on the vanity before him. She takes his vest off the rack, helping him get into it and buttoning him up, and then does the same with his blazer, not a word exchanged between them two. 

Shawn used to be an “I can do it myself” guy until Tiffany just had to go ahead and hire the prettiest, shyest girl he’d seen, and he suddenly never wanted to button anything up on his own ever again. 

She carefully picks the royal white and blue beaded necklace from the box where it was placed amongst a few other expensive ones. She clears her throat and he leans his head down out of instinct, coming to a more approachable height for her to hook the necklace in. 

“So,” she starts, and he chokes on a breath he didn’t know he took, “I just, I googled Antico. It looks … upmarket to say the least. Very pretty, though. Looks like a place you would pick.”

She feels his eyes continue to follow her around, she still chooses not to look him in the eye, how could she? She delicately pulls out the chain meant to be hooked into his vest, the one that will complete his look for the night. He looked… beddable, to say the least. 

“But I also saw another thing,” she says, stepping closer into him and he inhales deeply. “Antico doesn’t stay open on the weekends, Shawn. How were we supposed to go there on a Sunday?”

shitshitshit. He’d been caught. Honestly what was he expecting? She’s literally one of the smartest humans he knows, what did he expect her to do? Say yes? No questions asked?

She looks him dead in the eye now, letting out a hmm? and he’s choked up again. He staggers around a bit, she pulls at his hands to adjust his sleeves and tuck in his cufflinks. 

“You said, um,” come on, brain, pull it together. “Remember when we were in  London? And we all went out together and when we got out there was this whole crowd waiting?”

She remembers. Of course she does. It was the first, albeit not the last time she had come really close to having a panic attack in front of all her coworkers. He recognised the look on her face. He’d seen it on his own face in the mirror when he tried to talk himself away from breaking down. He knew what this anxiety felt like, even though years of being in the business had numbed him to large, loud crowds, overzealous fans and intrusive paparazzi alike. He had taken her hand in his and pulled her back inside the pub immediately, calling his driver and asking him to pick them up ‘round the back, and getting out of there in record time. He didn’t know what came over him but he pulled her into his arms as soon as they were in the car. He murmured softly into her ear, he was here, they couldn’t get to her anymore and she had sniffled and cuddled closer - until they reached their hotel and it was back to being a standard five feet apart from each other. It was one of the last times she had gone out with the whole team, especially him. 

“I made a special request, they’re opening up only for us tonight. I don’t really want to stay for the whole show, thought we could sneak out a bit early. I just didn’t want us to be crowded again.”

Her hands froze around his, he left her tongue tied on most days but this was something else. At the lack of response from her, he gently pried her hands off his wrist, holding both lightly in his. “It’s okay if you don’t want to go. I won’t like you any less.”

Her mind rushed back to all the times they had stood close just like this. The time he almost kissed her on her birthday and she almost kissed him on his. The one night they both passed out on the couch in his tour bus, when she wasn’t even supposed to ride with him. She thought about the offer letter that had been in her emails for two days now, offering her a place in the client servicing team for Burberry in London. She thought about the 4 weeks’ notice she had typed out for Tiffany weeks ago, the only reason for her not sending it out standing in front of her. Her mother’s words rang in her head, as they have her whole life. If you’re not moving, you’re not growing. 

He squeezes her hands once, ducking his head to the floor and walking away. She thinks about letting him go, but she refuses to. 

Her fingers clasp around his wrist, pulling the gentle giant back a little bit. 

“Will you wear the silk shirt? The black one?”

He looks confused. Didn’t he just get dressed?

“To Antico? Thought we could match.”

taglist: @shawnwyr​ @mendesstories​ @lanallaa​ @sleepybesson​ @rulerofnocountry​ @luvluvxx​ @wholesomemendes​

dm to be added or removed ♥️

#my writing #shawn mendes #shawn mendes x reader #shawn mendes imagines #shawn mendes imagine #shawn mendes au #shawn mendes oneshot #shawn mendes one shot #shawn mendes request #shawn mendes writing #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes fanfiction #shawn mendes fan fic #shawn mendes fluff #shawn mendes angst #shawn mendes x oc #fanfic #fanfiction #plots #prompt list #writing prompts #shawn mendes oneshots

[chorusnihili]

what is wd gasters past

"A rather broad and invasive question, I'd say, but I suppose I can give you the rundown."

"I was born on the surface while tensions were already high, enough that my parents, assuming that I had them, were gone before I had a chance to remember them. I was mostly raised by a mismatch village of monsters; well-cared for, not the only one that didn't have a specific home."

"I didn't miss living on the surface and never wished to return there, quite frankly. The only thing that made it worth living there is that in my final few years there, I did have something close to an adoptive parent. Who, unfortunately, chose death over leaving their home."

"A lot of monsters like to paint the underground as this hellish, soul-sucking fate worth than death. Personally I never found it that bad. I suppose I never was the type to feel wanderlust or anything of the sort. I was happy merely knowing we were safe and humanity likely had no interest in pursuing us."

"So I dedicated most of my life to making the Underground as good a place as possible. Anything that could make life more bearable. Try to cheer up those affected the worst by the change. During this time, a lot of monsters took up psychology; you can find a lot of studies on stress, despair, and trauma written during this time; techniques for coping and helping loved ones, many of which still hold up to this day."

"Unfortunately given the fact that communication has always been a hassle to me, it ultimately wasn't a field of study that suited me well, although I've been told I'm a good listener."

"So my attention broke from such studies to poking around the world about me. Much of the underground was new and needed to be explored and understood, and, what can I say, I was young and ready to believe that magic could do anything. Except, maybe, restore my eyesight. Heh."

"The migration through the underground was relatively linear. The forests of Home, the snowy landscapes of Snowdin, the rainy marsh of Waterfall, the deep caves of Hotland, and finally, the empty caves of New Home. But New Home was the end. The final stop. Assuming a vaguely dome-shaped barrier forming to the shape of the mountain, we had found it on all sides; the entrance at Home, the exit at New Home, the presumably small entries in Waterfall that human trash falls through, the tunnels in Hotland that the lava flows through. We reached the end; there was nowhere else to go."

"Monsters began to fan out, build permanent civilizations. Asgore and Toriel chose to build their castle and kingdom right on the cusp of the barrier; why, I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps it was meaningful, to them. A sign of having conquered the humans, something to put them at ease. I never asked, it never seemed appropriate."

"Although many monsters seemed disappointed that there was nowhere else to go, I found a sense of satisfaction from it. We had discovered everything; there was nothing else that might creep out from the shadows. We had an understanding of the world we now lived in, a map from top to bottom, left to right. And now, all we had to do was reshape it into the world we wanted it to be."

"Much of my early life was uneventful. I spent a lot of time in theoretical research, interested in the topics of how and why magic worked, but specifically, the interaction of two magical forces. Why some attacks seemed to be so devastating and others seemed to do no damage at all.  A spent a fair amount of years analyzing magic, categorizing it, writing formulae for the so called Stats, for LOVE, EXP, HP, ATK, DEF, INV, et cetera, et cetera.  Frankly, the field is incomplete; close enough for most situations, I think, but not perfect.  I found it wasteful to continue efforts on it.  I believe that the main goal of science is to improve life; if the science cannot be applied to do so, then I do not see the point in continuing it.”

“My studies were broad and varied.  Sometimes I’d dip into the health sciences, sometimes I’d dip into architecture.  I’d do odd favors for people, look into anything that caught my interest, sometimes even take up tasks for the King himself; ones of minor interest that he didn’t want to bother the Royal Scientist with.”

“But, the focal point of my studies always came back to energy.  What could we do with it?  How can we harness it?  All monsters are made up of energy, of magic, it’s inherent to our souls, the way we express ourselves, even our body is made of magic, turns into magical dust due to a complicated chemical reaction when HP is depleted.”

“This, of course, lead to my most famous accomplishment.  The idea of using magic to power things had been around forever, before recorded history.  But there was always a mage or monster involved, directly or indirectly powering the thing in question.  I sought to cut out the intentional casting of a spell to induce power.  After all, this entire Underground was full of ambient magic; from previous spells, simply from Monsters existing; recycled, reused, breathed in and out, baked into food and released again:  Why couldn’t the world itself power things?” 

“It turned out to be more complicated than expected; failure after failure taught me that it simply wasn’t feasible to use magic without a soul casting it.  But, we found another way--and to be fair, it wasn’t exactly an idea so much as exploratory research, but research with very promising results.  Promising enough to earn me another scar on my face, heh.  Had one of the other scientists not pulled me out of the way, I might have been destroyed by the CORE before the CORE was even a thing.”

“Nonetheless I was far from discouraged.  I was actually very ecstatic.  Enough so that Asgore had a very hard time calming me down and getting me to explain what had happened and why I had a new crack down my face.”

“I started work on the CORE immediately.  Sketching out blueprints and gathering people to start building the skeletal structure of the building while I put together the intricacies of the mechanism that would create and convert pure energy that could be harnessed and used for whatever purposes we desired.  It took a very long time, but it’s no doubt one of my greatest creations.  Asgore asked me to take up the position of Royal Scientist not long after.  I accepted, of course, I wouldn’t think of declining, but it was a very strange thing to me.”

“It wasn’t long after that when the human child arrived.  I remember hearing about it, one of the other scientists telling me that Asriel had chosen to keep the child.  Keep the child, I had thought, like a pet, like a person would choose to keep a dog or a cat.  I thought it frankly ridiculous, but having the human child around brought a new era of hope to the kingdom and, I, ... couldn’t resist being pulled along.  I personally thought that the idea of peace between humans and monsters was ridiculous, but it was such a pleasant idea and the people were so happy...”

“Of course, it didn’t last.  In a single night, both the human child and Asriel had passed away.  The duo had broken through the barrier, only to seal their own deaths.  It was a travesty.  A whirlwind of horrors, one after another.  The devastation, the despair--it was unlike anything I had ever experienced, even when humanity had first sealed us underground.  At least then, we had the relief of peace.  Now, we had nothing.”

“The King declared war on humanity.”

“It was a dark time.”

“The peaceful life I had was replaced by one of fear and anxiety.  I knew what humans were capable of.  I lived through it, I wore the mark of their hostility on my skull--and Asgore wanted to willingly throw us back into that over revenge?  We wouldn’t survive.  There was no way we’d survive.  But if there was any chance of giving us any sort of fighting chance, I was going to find it.” 

“My research turned from finding ways to make the underground better to combat.  Once again, energy proved to be my friend.  I revisited old research about LOVE and EXP and ATK and DEF--and wrote up a hypothesis about another state.  ITK.  Intent to Kill.  Unlike LOVE and EXP, which are slowly, solely increasing values, ITK rapidly fluctuates and acts as a modifier on attack.  Even a soul with a LOVE of 1 can do an extreme amount of damage if they, in a particular moment, are filled with the desire to kill the one they are striking.”

“Monsters aren’t made for war.  In general, monsters aren’t made for hurting each other.   It’s one of the many reasons we were slaughtered so mercilessly.  So I created a ... weapon.  That could circumvent that weakness.  The ITK Blasters, as I called them, could take even the smallest ITK and multiply it to do horrific damage.”

“I did other research on the topic as well.  How to convert HP into a temporary boost of ATK.  With these two advancements...even a monster as relatively weak as I am could be incredibly strong.”

“I wanted to perfect the techniques before I tried teaching them to anyone.  But, such things never came to pass.  Asgore lost his will to continue seeking war.  He knew that he had only declared war in a fit of rage and to give his people hope.  So rather than continue killing, he wanted to find a different way to bring everyone hope.  He wanted to find a way to break the barrier without anymore bloodshed.  He asked me to research the human souls.”

“...”

“I wanted no parts of it.  We got into a ... rather nasty fight.  I said a lot of things I regret.  I called him a coward for bending to the will of his people instead of doing what was right.  I told him that any attempt to breach the barrier would result in the complete extinction of our species.  I told him that it was his job as king to protect us, not lead us to our death.”

“I was angry and afraid, and I took it out on the wrong monster.”

“It��s about at this point that you really cannot understand my history without a basic understanding of how time flows.  I’ll spare you the lecture of multiple timelines and parallel realities, but at the very least, you must understand that the flow of time is... well, it is inherently linear, but, consider it like a... I want to say a Turing Machine.  Or perhaps, a VHS Tape.  The same segments can be replayed again and again, can be overwritten, can change from iteration to iteration.”

“So the fact that Asgore died in this timeline...and is still alive in the current timeline...it may at first seem contradictory, but it is not, I assure you.”

“Asgore’s death hit the Underground hard.  Undyne took over as Queen, but the knowledge that the last remaining member of the Royal Family was gone still loomed over everyone’s heads.  Undyne was more determined than Asgore ever was to free the monsters and I felt like there was nothing I could do.”

“So...There was little I did.  I was overwhelmed with grief and hatred.  I kept at the research.  I honed the abilities, again and again and again.  I drove myself to exhaustion, I isolated myself.  I barely slept and ate.  I neglected my duties and while the others understood I was grieving, it eventually got to the point that Queen Undyne delivered the ultimatum that I had to either get my act together or surrender my position as Royal Scientist.  I resigned without any argument.”

“Much of the time is a blur.  Most of my studies and research done with poor practices and hardly documented.  The research that lead to me creating Sans falls into this. I wished to know if...  

“Of course, two monsters can create another soul.  This much is obvious, monsters reproduce on a regular basis, enough that in the modern day, there’s an ongoing population crisis for monsters that need certain environments.  But I wanted to know if ... a monster, could theoretically, singularly donate a portion of their soul and create another living monster out of it.”

“This is probably a piece of research that very much fits the criteria of not stopping to think whether or not I should try to do so.”

“It required extracting part of my soul.  Which, to do so without killing the monster, requires a massive power source...luckily, or unluckily, I had the entire CORE at my disposal.  So I constructed a machine that could, indeed, extract part of my soul.  What resulted was the most painful experience of my life and left me comatose for six months.  It’s also the cause of the circular scars in my palms.”

“I hadn’t intended to extract two pieces of my soul, but, it happened, whether through oversight or simply as a matter of how the procedure was carried out.  I used the smaller piece to create Sans; intending to keep the larger piece for further study.  I destroyed everything used in the experiment afterwards.  I felt it was something that no monster should have the power to do.”

“That’s not to say I regret creating them.  I don’t, and nothing will ever change that opinion, even knowing some of the terrible things they’ve done in other timelines.  But I do regret the methods that lead to their creation.”

“I don’t know why Sans is so weak.  And I resisted the urge to try to figure it out.  There’s a fine line between a healthy interest in your child’s health and treating them as a science experiment, and I ... wanted to stay as far away as possible from that line.  He’s fine the way he is.  He doesn’t need to be fixed.”

“That didn’t stop me from using the second piece of my soul to create Papyrus to look after him, though.  Or teaching him magic to the best of my ability, even teaching him how to use the Gaster Blasters.”

“Having them...helped.  A lot.  I won’t say whether I was very good at it, but I enjoyed being a father very much.  The grief was still heavy, but I was able to start returning to a somewhat normal life, and even start following what was going on in the Underground again.  I learned of Doctor Alphys’s research on the human souls, and though I personally disagreed with it... decided to look into it in Asgore’s honor.”

“My immediate thought was that her ideas about Determination could mesh well with my previous research about soul extraction, albeit with a few modifications--although I had destroyed the equipment I used for the process, I remembered it well enough.  So I got to work on a theoretical DT Extractor; but the further I got with it, the more horrified I became.”

“I simply couldn’t tolerate the idea of it.  Humans or not, already dead or not--the mere idea of extracting the literal lifeforce out of a soul...  No.  It was not a process I would condone.”

“I had just finalized my decision to destroy the blueprints when I fell.”

“It was... a laughably simple mistake, really.  The CORE is designed to rearrange itself to prevent the wear from the heat from causing too much damage in any one area.  The doors pneumatically seal themselves to prevent egress during this time but...  I was simply too distracted by the blueprints and I opened the door, and walked through anyways.”

“There were no further safeguards.  There was nothing I could do to save myself.  It was over before I had a chance.”

“...”

“I don’t regularly talk about my time in the void.  Not because doing so bothers me, but because it’s simply... indescribable.  When I awoke, I couldn’t breathe.  I couldn’t move.  I couldn’t speak.  There was no me, but my consciousness existed.  I could see and hear thousands of timelines at once, as if I was standing in an arena, with each and every seat filled with a television playing a different movie.  A jumbling mess of information.”

“I have no idea how long I was there for.  It was like learning to exist all over again.  Step by step.  Learning how to move closer to visions of interest.  Learning how to seep into those visions.  Learning how to block out the immense noise.  Learning how to speak without a body.  Learning how to see the void.  Learning how to construct a body out of it.  Learning how to hunt down my timeline.”

“In many ways, it was a rebirth, and with each and every step, I lost more of myself.  I lost myself to the aching hole of my soul being missing.  I lost my conscience, I lost my heart.  I dedicated everything to the endless goal of stitching myself back together again.”

“I learned so much about the reality I live in.  How malleable it and time is.  I evolved into something grotesque, something that shouldn’t be alive.  I gained power that no monster or human should have.  Things, and even souls, could be changed at my whim.  And yet the one thing I truly wanted seemed to be impossible.”

“I did a lot of terrible things while I was stuck like that.  Some were intentional, some less so.  Many were reset thanks to Flowey, others will never be fixed.”

“I have Sans to thank for finally helping me to achieve the goal, even if not fully.  He built a machine that gathered enough of my soul that... I’m able to manifest my original form and can think clearly once again.”

“Even so...  It didn’t change the fact that my soul is still shattered, somehow held together by the tug-of-war between Determination and Void, and that my fall into the Void reset the timeline into a state where I never existed.”

“And that leads us to now.  The Gaster you currently speak to exists in a timeline that has made it to the surface, though I’m not particularly fond of being up there and generally hide in my lab in the CORE.”

“Well, I certainly hope you didn’t expect even a rundown of over a thousand years to be short.”

“...Or, were you posing the question to someone other than myself...?”

#let type = answer #Anonymous #let type = headcanon #let type = in character #let form = refused #((Gaster stop talking holy shit

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

Ooh, on the topic of dad!Dan and cute kidfic, which of the main GG characters do you think would want to have kids, and of the characters that did have kids, what kind of parents would they be? Dan is the one character actually who I feel like would definitely want kids, he’s just so... nurturing, I guess? Like he’s the mom friend of the group despite being kind of a human disaster lol. Whereas with Serena I’m not so sure that she’d want kids at all. Curious what your headcanons are!!

Dan and Blair both feel like characters who want to be parents. This is probably not a super common opinion, but I feel like Blair’s pregnancy and everything pertaining to it, miscarriage aside, was not handled very convincingly by the show. There was just too much going on, and I wasn’t really a fan of the way it was portrayed, but I don’t know how to explain that better. Like it wasn’t ~bad~ or ~problematic~, it just didn’t convince me. I just didn’t get the Blair Wants To Be A Mother vibe from her (which I think makes sense, given everything else she was going through at the time, but like - even then? it fell a little flat to me personally.) 

That said, Blair as a character does feel like she would like having children, but during a time in her life when things are more settled. She would want to provide her kids the sort of stability that she and her friends never grew up with, and she would love them with all her heart. I think she would do her best not to repeat what her mother did to her, and she would be gentle and kind with her children in ways she never was with, say, the girls at Constance who she belittled to tears for daring to wear tights instead of leggings. The way Blair takes care of Serena when Serena’s wasted and making unhealthy decisions? That patience and unwavering support? I think Blair would give her kids all that. 

And Dan, of course. We’ve been over dad!Dan so much, I don’t know what is there to say that hasn’t already been said :’) 

Nate and Vanessa both feel relatively neutral on the topic. Like, it depends on their partner. If they were with someone who wanted kids, they would be like “sure!”, but I don’t think they would be those people who absolutely want children, and would be just as content if their partner didn’t want any kids and they ended up adopting cats/dogs or even just living alone with their person. I don’t think either of them are super particular. 

But I think Nate would sway more towards wanting kids - we see how much love and loyalty he has for family, even though his family on the show is really shitty. What I want for Nate is a family of his own, and I think Nate would be such a good parent. Me wanting Nate to be a dad doesn’t necessarily equal to Nate wanting to be a dad, though. The way I characterise him, I really think it’s a 50/50 chance either way. 

Vanessa, on the other hand, I feel would sway towards not really wanting kids unless her partner does (or if she got pregnant, I feel like she wouldn’t abort - V would definitely be pro-choice, duh, but I think she would choose to keep a child? I don’t know how to explain this, but I have strong feelings.) I feel like Vanessa’s dream life is very ‘travel the world making documentaries’ and I think she would be very dedicated to her work and to creating art in a way that is super full-time. But when Milo was around, Vanessa was so taken by him and so fascinated - I think Vanessa would like kids of her own? But I don’t think she’s planning for them or anything.

I agree about Serena - I think she wouldn’t want children of her own. She would love being the godmother and would spoil the Dair children (? Date children? Blairnessa children? well. whatever. whomsoever’s children) and she would 100% be the cool aunt, everyone’s kids would love her and she would love all of them, but she wouldn’t want to be a parent and have kids for her own. It’s just not for her.

I don’t think Jenny would want kids of her own. But I don’t think she’d be super opposed, either. A lot like Nate & Vanessa, but not entirely unbiased. I feel Jenny would be one of those people who’s like “I don’t think I ever want kids of my own” and then she sees her girlfriend holding a baby in her arms and talking in a quiet voice to the baby and she’s like “Hmmm. Maybe. Just maybe.” (which is not to say everyone is like this. A lot of people who do not want kids will never want kids, and that’s obviously totally valid. Just putting this disclaimer so that it doesn’t get misunderstood.) 

I do think Eric would want kids, but I think once he’s older (in his 30s). And I think he would want to adopt / foster a teenager, or something like that - he’d want to adopt one of those kids who don’t usually find homes through the foster system. I can see him adopting an LGBTQ+ kid, or a disabled kid, or a kid with a lot of trauma - I actually see him as a proper foster parent, who’d foster slightly older teenagers (15-17.) I don’t really see Eric as someone who would want to raise babies, toddlers or smaller children, but I can imagine it’d be fulfilling for him personally to be a parental figure for teenagers who feel as alone as he once did, and....... come to think of it, actually, I think Eric would prefer being a foster parent. I think he’d really like that.

Now for Chippy Wisk, whom I was gonna skip because most people on my blog do not care about him, but I just felt like I couldn’t skip him. I don’t think Chuck would want kids for the sake of having kids - if he did it’d be for his ~reputation~ in the business world, for seeming dignified, etc. And honestly, looking at canon and the number of times he prioritises his business above all else, even Blair - I think if he did have children, he would not spend time with them, and I just don’t see him being a good parent at all (6x10 finale is a fever dream, y’all.) He feels very much like the sort of parent who destroys a child’s favourite toy and makes them watch him do that just to teach them a lesson. I know it probably sounds like I’m being biased, but nah. I’m just thinking based off the show, his canon violence towards the ‘woman he loves’, and his attitude towards business. Oh my god. Chuck should get with Anne Archibald. /j (but lbr, that could’ve been totally serious.)

#anon #long post #meta #anti chuck #well. sort of #i love this discussion. keep going

[daydreaming-away-reality]

Hearing Your Voice

Zen x Reader | ☁️ | 2.6k | Soulmate AU

You tapped your fingers on the desk, doing your best to stay quiet while in the study room. With the beautiful melody playing within your head, it was hard. Especially when the singer sounded like he had the voice of an angel. 

Doing your best in trying to study, you couldn’t help but breaking into a smile and pause when you recognized a tune of the song.

I heard him sing this yesterday too. 

Trying to study was hard. Not because the content was hard to grasp - no, you could have all the material down with a bit of reading and some flashcards - it was hard because you were always conflicted. Part of your brain would tell you school is important and as a university student, you had to work hard towards your future. The other part of your brain however, would be loudly screaming, hey, that song sounded familiar! We’ve heard that somewhere before, but where?! 

Most of the time, you were fine. You would just study with the music playing in your head. There were moments when your heart would chime in and remind you, we’re still looking for our soulmate, (Y/N). Then studying was a challenge.

The song you could hear in your head? That was your soulmate singing. Even though you grew up hearing the voice of your soulmate singing, you were never able to find them. 

Every few weeks, or months, your soulmate would have a couple of songs that he would be constantly singing. Kind of like the most popular songs of the season caught on loop by the radio stations. However, whatever songs your soulmate was singing was never these pop songs. 

You were a lucky one, you knew that much. 

You had friends who would be complaining about their soulmate’s choice in singing because it would be the overplayed pop songs. There was only so much one could take of the same song all the time after all.

On the other hand, shower singing stories were hilarious to hear about.

Moving back to your story...

Personally, you didn’t sing too much. Not unless you were certain no one but your soulmate was listening. Your soulmate probably heard you humming most of the time though. It was hard not to hum along to his beautiful singing.

Staring at your study notes, you shook your head.

This was going no where.

Just as you closed your notebook, someone tapped on your shoulder. Startling, you turned around and pulled down your - not plugged in - headphones.

“I had a feeling you weren’t studying,” Yoosung said, looking at you with an amused smile. “Listening to your soulmate again?”

You gave him your oops, you caught me smile. “Yeah. He’s always singing.”

Yoosung’s eyes darted around the room, then he leaned forward and asked, “You want to get out of here? Grab some food?”

You flashed him as thumbs up and packed up your stuff. Tailing after the blonde haired boy, you were greeted with actual sunlight for the first time in a few hours.

“It’s so bright out,” you whined, shading your eyes as they adjusted. 

Yoosung laughed. “Vitamin D is good for you! You’re going to be a troll like in LOLOL if you don’t see the light of day, (Y/N).”

You huffed, faking indignation. “I am not a troll! I’ll show you how a troll would beat you up if you call me that again.”

The boy shook his head quickly. Although he was ranked 2nd in game, he didn’t want the risk of losing his loot by being beat up. He worked hard to earn those super rare weapons.

Way back during first year courses, you had met and became friends with Yoosung through LOLOL. You weren’t obsessed with the game as much as he was, but you did well enough to rank within top ten with a bit of effort. Nowadays, getting through your courses was your priority. LOLOL was a fun break though, when you found the odd break.

“That’s what I thought.”

“You still play LOLOL?”

“Not as much as you - but yeah.” 

“We should team up sometime!”

You laughed. “Do you even study at all, Yoosung?”

“Sometimes!”

As the two of you stepped into the cafe near campus, Yoosung paused and turned to look at you.

“You said your soulmate is always singing right?” he asked.

You nodded, wondering where he was going with this. 

“Maybe he works in the music industry,” Yoosung mused. “Like, behind the scenes? As a producer?”

Hearing this, you paused and thought about it. Could that be a possibility?

“Maybe,” you murmured. “I’ll look into it.” 

Yoosung gave you an encouraging smile. “You’ll find him one of these days, (Y/N). Don’t worry about it.”

You hoped Yoosung was right about this. 

As you were walking back to your own apartment, a poster caught your eye.

Daydream: The Musical

Tickets now on sale!

The poster showed a shadowy figure surrounded by colourful nature and city scenes. Your eyes skimmed through the cast absentmindedly, as you didn’t recognize any names.

Starring: Julie Kim, Zen, Soobin Park...

Lingering in front of the poster, you decided that, it looked interesting. Pulling out your phone, you hastily took a picture so you could look further into the details of the musical later. 

“Dinner,” you recalled suddenly. You needed to eat but you also needed to study still. Well, can’t study on an empty stomach. Deciding to grab something light to snack on now and throw together some leftovers later tonight, you went in search of the local bread stand in your neighborhood.

Your eyes lit up when you spotted the vendor.

Excitedly moving towards them, you missed nearly colliding with the tall man in a hat walking the same way. Stumbling, you felt a strong, steady hand on your back, helping you regain your balance.

“Oh, sorry,” you squeaked out. “And thank you!”

How did you miss this guy? He was pretty tall and stood out - his features were really handsome too. Could he be a celebrity or something? He definitely had the looks for it. You were definitely not staring.

“Oh no, I’m sorry,” he replied. “Go ahead, ladies first.”

“T-thank you!”

You stepped up in front of the stall, knowing exactly what you were going to get. Hearing the man’s footsteps behind you, you decided to thank the kind stranger from saving you from an embarrassing fall.

“Two goldfish bread - separately wrapped, please!”

“Coming right up! Done classes for the day?” the owner asked.

You bobbed your head as you handed over the payment. “Yeah. Not done studying though.”

“Ah, must be rough. Good luck on that.”

“Thank you,” you chimed back. as you accepted the bread. Turning around, you held out one bag for the handsome stranger behind you. “And thank you for saving me from tripping earlier.”

“No, no, I couldn’t -”

“I insist!”

He accepted with a grateful smile. You swear, he sparkled in the light of the sunset.

“Thank you then.”

You returned his smile with your own before heading off.

Time to prepare for the upcoming exam.

Your week had flew by rather quickly. With exams and some other assignments being all crammed into such a short amount of time made you feel like you lost a few years on your life. 

Sometimes you wondered why anyone would choose to suffer.

Yet, here you were. And all you had to do was attend post secondary. 

Your soulmate seemed to be busy all week as well. The sound of his voice singing the same melodies over and over were in the back of your head the entire time. He had such a soothing voice that you were certain that he was the one who was keeping you sane.

Finally gifted with free time, you decided to make the most of it.

Browsing around on your phone, the picture of the musical poster caught your eye once more. Noticing the showings aligned with your newfound freedom, you decided - why not?

Searching up the link for the theater, you looked around the website and then bought a ticket. 

A sense of excitement and anticipation filled you. It’s been a while since you did anything fun. This would be a worthwhile experience.

Settling down into your seat at the theater, you couldn’t help but glance around. The place was relatively busy despite it being a weekday evening. Looking over the pamphlet that was given to you at the entrance, all the cast and crew were listed.

Your eyes skimmed over it, not recognizing any of the names except for the few you’ve seen on the promotional poster. Perhaps it would take a more theater experience before you would become familiar with any of them.

The lights began to dim and the chatter died down as music became to play. Ensuring your phone was silent, you made yourself comfortable. The moment the musical started, you were swept away in awe of the performance. 

Experiencing a musical live felt different from watching a movie. It was so much more... uplifting. You were absolutely enchanted by the musical. 

When the male lead became to sing his part however, that was when things felt strange to you. It felt like you were hearing an echo of their singing. None of the other actors and actresses had that effect. It took a moment, but then it dawned on you. You’ve heard this before, nights before.

It was your soulmate.

They must be singing this song too.

But when every note, pitch and pause matched the ones on stage, you had your suspicions. 

After intently watching the male lead sing though, you soon drew to a new conclusion.

That was your soulmate on stage. 

You continued to watch in silent surprise as your soulmate danced and sung their way across the stage. His red eyes had swept over you briefly in passing, but you could see the passion blazing. It was clear he loved his career. 

Once the musical ended with thunderous applause, you immediately pulled out your phone to do some research. Since you had chosen a seat near the middle front, you knew it would take a while before you’d be able to get out.

Doing a search for ‘Zen’, with the words ‘musical actor’ hastily typed afterwards, you soon found a plethora of information about your soulmate. Zen had a dedicated fan base that loved his every production - there was even a section about his unknown soulmate. An interview caught your eye. It was dated for a few months back, but a quote from your soulmate made you pause.

“I’m really focused on my career right now - it took a lot of work to get to where I am today, but I’m happy to be here.”

He was good looking, hard working and dedicated. You knew your soulmate would be perfect, but you never expected this. Zen was basically the ideal guy. 

Seeing the theater emptying out, you stood and walked out.

Sure, you had been super excited to meet your soulmate after spending late nights listening to singing, but after seeing this article, you had a feeling that he might need more time. 

Zen was a busy person with a lot going on in his life. With how popular he was now, you didn’t was to disrupt anything at the moment. You would give him the opportunity to seek you out when he was ready.

Zen had nearly faltered in his singing the first time when he had heard his soulmate humming along the tune he was singing. Listening to the tune and timing of the song, they were definitely doing it alongside with him.

He remembered his eyes searching the audience hopefully. Wondering who might his soulmate be. That first night... he wasn’t able to identify her.

Nor the second, third or fourth.

When he had heard her humming the second time he was performing, he was certain that his soulmate was in the audience and made the effort to come see him perform. She must have known who he was. 

Zen had lingered around after shows, hoping to see his soulmate. Hoping that she would reach out to introduce herself and he could become her knight in shining armor to sweep her off her feet. It never happened though.

Regardless, it made him happy to hear her humming alongside him when he performed. She was supporting him.

He knew he was a busy person. Perhaps his soulmate knew that and kept her distance. What she didn’t know though, was Zen was dying to meet her. 

He always wanted to make the effort to go find her, but never had much to go off on. His soulmate was a rare singer, so he never knew where to start.

Now that he knew though, he was constantly searching.

He noticed someone over the past few times with (H/C) hair that sat near the middle of the theater. The girl’s smile seemed to brighten when he showed up on stage. It was possible that she was another one of his fans, but at the last showing, she had tried very hard to step out of room quietly and his soulmate had stopped her soft humming at that moment too.

Zen felt certain about this. 

She had to be the one.

Having finished another showing for the day, Zen tried to slip out quickly to catch up to his soulmate. Making sure not to be rude, he thanked his co-stars, staff and director before taking off. She tended to linger around a little longer, being almost the last person out. There was a chance Zen could catch up to her and he was going to take it.

Catching a glimpse of (H/C) hair, he instinctively moved towards it. 

The figure seemed to have sensed him coming, because they turned around and (E/C) eyes met his.

Stopping only a few feet away from her, Zen could see the glimmer and recognition in her eyes as she looked up in awe at the musical actor. 

“Great performance again tonight,” you said softly.

Finally hearing your voice in real life washed away any doubts Zen might have had. 

It was you.

“Thank you,” he breathed out. He could feel his heart pounding with excitement. “It’s... really you.”

Seeing how lost for words he was, you decided to speak up.

“Hyun Ryu, right?” you asked. When he nodded, you broke into a smile. “I’m (Y/N) (L/N). Nice to finally meet you, soulmate.”

The biggest smile broke out on his face as he engulfed you into a hug. His tall stature didn’t bother him as he nuzzled into your neck. While you should have been startled, you weren’t. Knowing this was your soulmate, you felt safe being held in his arms. You relaxed and returned his hug. 

“(Y/N)... I’ve been waiting for you,” Zen murmured. He pulled back a bit to look at you. “I want to get to know you better. Would you like to grab something to eat together?”

“Sure!”

“Okay, I know this great goldfish bread place -”

The two of you stopped, a distant memory resurfacing. Zen grinned fondly at you.

“ - I’ll treat you this time, though, princess.” 

With all the lost time between the two of you, finally being together felt natural. Like finding an old friend and being able to catch up without any awkward moments. 

Your soulmate was your perfect match and with Zen you knew that you couldn’t be happier. Just as much as you loved to listen to him inside your head, hearing his voice in real life and getting to be by his side made life all the more wonderful.

The two of you finally found you happily ever after.

#mystic messenger #mystic messenger imagine #zen imagine #zen imagines #zen x reader #zen #hyun ryu #x reader #reader insert #imagine #imagines #hearing your voice