dualogical

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something about using your own vulnerability to take the other's autonomy from them and forcing them into the role you want them to fill but turning yourself into something much worse in the process

[dualogical]

I think it would be insanely funny if after Arthur’s death everyone returns back in time to the place they were the day Merlin arrived in Camelot. But like, everyone thinks they are the only ones who has returned. We see it all from Merlin’s pov, who’s traumatised and wondering why the fuck Arthur is so much sweeter to him this time around and keeps saying ‘thank you’. He wonders why Lancelot shows up earlier, why all of a sudden Gwaine is there three years too early, saying he got hurt in a tavern bawl and needs a physician. He wonders why Leon keeps pretending like he didn’t just accidentally see Merlin do magic. Why Gwen keeps giving him these knowing looks. And why Morgana doesn’t seem as afraid as she used to when she was figuring out that she had magic. Everyone is trying their best to change history for the better, thinking they are alone with this duty... and then one day when uther is dead and they are sitting around the round table, merlin steps forward and is like: ‘I need to confess that I have magic, but also that I have returned from the future.’ And everyone just whips around and is like ‘YOU TOO??!’ And then they realise that they’ve all returned and wasted their time thinking they were alone.

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From here. If you think arachnids with long legs are just scary please watch this solifugid dig her nest (or try to) like SUCH a goofy little person creature. Look how she shoves dirt with her mouth and then gives it a little pat. Is she even making any progress?!

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AU from the 'oppy kills you' timeline where Shifty just can't separate you and Dragon. Or she holds the fuck on. she starts the next loop ranting about Oppy in a way that would've made Cheated proud in any other route Cold appears:

Voice of the Dragon Not this asshole again

Voice of the Cold ...Fuck you too

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So I'm doing the Dragon route with the soft Spectre because I hate myself it seems, and I discovered two Very Important Things:

One is that the body permanently has tendrils going in and out so the body is probably constantly being reshaped. SO maybe Quiet does have a beak and NOT has one! Just like how the appearance changes when the Voices are talking!

And two... she goes 'Thump thump thump' with the rhythm of the steps she's so funny I love her.

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Broken-Smitten Parallels

Ok, so we do see how my beloved fits Smitten in the Tower. Devoted, loving, nigh-impossible to talk out of that "delusion". Although the leader-follower position is painfully reversed.

We all know (or may have a hunch) that Fury for the Broken is like Burnt Grey for the Smitten. They're both going through a lot of grief due to having lost their beloved at our hand. The Broken, however, instead of redirecting his anger to just one Voice, calls out the entire gallery ("heathenS"), which could show him as being more emotional and less selective about it (Smitten calls out The Narrator, then the Cold and then the Hero). He also is less confident in this regard, needing a coping mechanism and sending out less than credible arguments ("It didn't even work, it doesn't count." regarding the stabbing attempt). They both hope for their beloveds to be alive to... "salvage things". Clearly not in the best of states, both of them.

Come Apotheosis and the Broken starts defending his Lady ever so vigorously, even disregarding his teammates. He also sounds a lot like him intonation-wise as he panics ("It's just a fluke, an accident, that's all!") Mate clearly stands with Her, but unlike Smitten, he can at least be convinced that it's his Lady who's bad, not the surroundings or partners. Smitten won't have this nonsense, it's the vile Narrator's fault.

My mind is getting hazy, since I'm about to write the part that I love. Fact is, Broken can't just be convinced that Apo's bad. He understands the fact himself. How do I know this? If we listen to the dialogue before that, my boy sounds like his normal self, squealing slightly higher as Apotheosis wrangles his hooves, but should we choose to [Fight back], after the Paranoid and the Hero have chimed in in their usual demeanors (for the route) the Broken sounds like:

A. He just got the coolest idea ever. In secret.

B. He's proven a hidden hunch to himself.

C. He's finally fed up with Apotheosis' shit.

The sudden change of intonation shows that something inevitable has clicked inside his brain. Like he has understood the gravity of the situation. And I mean gravity, because his voice from there on, countering the physical pain, gets extremely deep.

The Smitten's voice upon Damsel's death gets higher instead, showing that the poor guy has just witnessed a murder (to my beloved's credit, he barely had time to react to his). Hamlet's crying, partially rasping his lines out. In Burnt Grey he turns into a deep grumpy gus... unless he's thinking his beloved's alive. On a physical level.

With the Broken, the gash is much, much deeper. It's mental now, the realization that the one he's been protecting and adoring this whole time would do something worse than hurt them all. To escape alone. Leaving th-- him behind. That is much, much worse than Not Good with Rejection. And it's hella justified. So as Smitten fluctuates from deep hatred to excited chirping, Broken stays down. Growling like a guard dog ready to pounce any second now.

One final detail I want to notice is that Broken also wants revenge and actually does it, but unlike Smitten, in Her direction. He keeps saying he wants to "show her how we've felt", trying his damndest to keep himself in check, his sanity slipping. The Smitten, on the other hoof, unleashes a barrage of insults, prompting the Hero to be the therapy dog - here though, no therapy is needed. The damage has already been done and the retribution awaits... her.

And as I listen... I notice something weird. Is it just me or Brook is gasping for air the entire time? What's wrong? Is he being super overwhelmed with emotion and holding back a ginormous scream? Or is he... crying? [Was that the breakdown I was looking for?] The Smitten definitely did cry as he mourned his Damsel on the spot and swore revenge to the gallery. Here tho, it sounds much more mise-- no. Forlorn. Betrayed. Abandoned. Bereft. Those are exactly the passions, echoing in the depths of his bereavement that we wanted to hear in the Smitten... we get to hear them here. Like it's the final call. Like it's the end of the line just for them both. She's dead to him. They're through. Forever.

The abused finally stood up to the abuser. No other party wants to see each other no more. Especially, the abused. Nothing even to tell her in return to her apology, because never will it ever be accepted. It's over.

I... can't but bring my condolences to my best Voice as a recent divorcee and... that's exactly where I see the deep, profundo beauty in him.

Discussion open. I apologize for the wall.

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by the time I got to Contrarian I ran out of steam so Quiet and Hero will be done... soon.

Anyway these are how I imagine the now human!Voices look like in my Playing The Game fic. Here's the link if you wanna read it! https://archiveofourown.org/works/58882990

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to those who wish to see breakdancing priest from my last reblog do not worry I've got you

[dualogical]

Random linguistic worldbuilding: A language with six sets of pronouns, which are set by one's current state of existence. There's a separate pronoun for people who are alive, people who are dead, and potential future people who are yet to be born, and the ambiguous ones of "may or may not be alive or aleady dead", "may or may not have even been born yet", and the ultimate general/ambiguous all-covering one that covers all ambiguous states.

The culture has a specific defined term for that tragic span of time when a widow keeps accidentally referring to their spouse with living pronouns. New parents-to-be dropping the happy surprise news of a pregnancy by referring to their future child with the "is yet to be born" pronoun instead of a more ambiguous one and waiting for the "wait what did you just say?" reactions.

Someone jokingly referring to themselves with the dead person pronouns just to highlight how horrible their current hangover is. A notorious aspiring ladies' man who keeps trying to pursue women in their 20s despite of approaching middle age fails to notice the insult when someone asks him when he's planning to get married, and uses the pronoun that implies that his ideal future bride may not even be born yet.

A mother whose young adult child just moved away from home for the first time, who continues to dramatically refer to their child with "may or may not be already dead" until the aforementioned child replies to her on facebook like "ma stop telling people I'm dead" and having her respond with "well how could I possibly know that when you don't even write to us? >:,C"

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Alfred Pennyworth is Ciel Phantomhive

Black Butler x DC

Me: What if Sebastian was Alfred Pennyworth?

My Brain at the same time: What if Alfred was Ciel?

Me: ...

Also me: You son of a Betch. That's brilliant.

My Brain: :')

This is how I imagine the batfam finding out, just a slither of Alfred's Past.

Sebastian, appears bowing in front of Alfred(Ciel): My Lord, there is an urgent matter that you must attend to.

Alfred(Ciel): Hello Sebastian to what do I owe this displeasure?

Sebastian: There is-

Alfred(Ciel): There is a room filled with cat's and cat toys.

Sebastian: ...

Alfred(Ciel): Would you like to wait there as I prepare some Earl Gary Tea for the both of us?

Sebastian: While the matter is not that important I would like to be escorted to this room.

Alfred(Ciel), smiling because he knows he won this round: Why of course Sebastian.

The batfam in the dining room: ...

Tim: ... Is Alfred a demon lord?

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I don't like Obsessions. I don't like the way they are used to 'dehumanize' ghosts, depersonalize them. But I was thinking what's the human equivalent of a fundamental species wide drive to do particular actions and, well, you could say all humans are Obsessed with eating food, with drinking water, with all those other things we need to do or suffer the consequence that is painfully dying. And then I thought well, why do ghosts need an Obsession, what function does it fulfil, if it's 'food' is there anything else they could 'eat'.

So. A combined Ghost Obsession and Ghost Hunger AU.

A ghost fulfilling their Obsession generates ectoplasm. And ghosts need ectoplasm to live. But this doesn't mean a ghost has to fulfill their Obsession, it just means that a ghost who isn't following their Obsession needs to consume Ectoplasm instead.

How much this influence ghosts depends on questions like:

Do they need to eat ectoplasm in the Ghost Zone or does it have a background field of ectoplasm that supports their existence?

Do humans generate an emotional energy that can be converted into ectoplasm?

How much ectoplasm does a ghost need to support itself? Can they store up ectoplasm or do they need to feed regularly? Does this vary according to their use of powers?

[dualogical]

Now that I think about it, if we apply that logic to Damsel we should apply it to other proto-princesses. Proto-nightmare straight up doesn't care, proto-beast eats the heart and uses the body like a deer...

Prisoner is, by nature, more distrusting and prone to think things through than Damsel. She would've realized she wasn't dying from thirst and such at some point. Maybe she even tried her little decapitation trick. Sure, she did not intend it to be a trick, but she must've known it would have worked for a reason.

Proto-Tower... seems hella smug that she bested you in battle, and considering she projects herself as an untouchable Goddess, if anything, she would have been repulsed by the decomposition process. Look, I hate Tower, but looking through that lens maybe her offer of being her 'pet' by her side could be constructed as an act of mercy... if there's anyone that could make the body Not Rot, it would be her. And if Shifty doesn't take her in her chapter 3... well at that point she saw how. malleable bodies are, be it by decomposition or by taking a beating. Who knows what else can bodies turn into?

Enter Fury.

We don't quite know how much time passes between the end of chapter 1 and the beginning of chapter 2

What if it was a lot

What if princesses like Prisoner and Damsel saw his body rotting. Bloating, flesh sloughing off. Withering until it was an unrecognizable shape. An expression of nothingness, no light in his eyes. Eventually, mushrooms and vines sprouting off of it. The deepest traces of someone being stripped away by time and change itself. And in Damsel's case, she did this. She drove the blade into his heart and made this happen. Is it any wonder she's so agreeable when she sees him (alive, alive, alive) again? Why she keeps trying to hold his hand so she can make sure the flesh is firm, that a heart beats there? Why her chapter isn't one where he can give her the blade?

Maybe if she gets stabbed, the terror in her eyes are both for her and for him. What if Quiet has to see her rot too?

Fire is better. Fire is warm. It's quick.

'You came back! And now we're talking!'

Yeah not quite.

[dualogical]

We don't quite know how much time passes between the end of chapter 1 and the beginning of chapter 2

What if it was a lot

What if princesses like Prisoner and Damsel saw his body rotting. Bloating, flesh sloughing off. Withering until it was an unrecognizable shape. An expression of nothingness, no light in his eyes. Eventually, mushrooms and vines sprouting off of it. The deepest traces of someone being stripped away by time and change itself. And in Damsel's case, she did this. She drove the blade into his heart and made this happen. Is it any wonder she's so agreeable when she sees him (alive, alive, alive) again? Why she keeps trying to hold his hand so she can make sure the flesh is firm, that a heart beats there? Why her chapter isn't one where he can give her the blade?

Maybe if she gets stabbed, the terror in her eyes are both for her and for him. What if Quiet has to see her rot too?

Fire is better. Fire is warm. It's quick.

'You came back! And now we're talking!'

Yeah not quite.

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[dualogical]

Well this isn't normal

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Also, for the record, I think Narrator isn't that different from Shifty in terms of personality.

It's just that they have exact opposite views. And neither of them can really break away from those views easily or accept others' views easily.

It's funny, people think of him as an opposite to Shifty, but in reality they're actually very similar. But it's ironically because of their similarities that they cannot get along.

And in making Quiet as an opposite to Shifty, he actually made someone that can get along with her better.