#[ inside the mind of a telepath: characterization ] | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fuckit-hero-of-trains · 4 years ago

Text

Like Rock, Paper, Scissors but Not Really Ch 1

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25599367/chapters/62131759

Summary:

Rock beats Scissors. Scissors beats Paper. Paper beats Rock.

The same could be said of Water, Fire, Earth, and Air.

Water puts out Fire. Fire burns Earth. Earth smothers Air. Air dictates Water.

It seems as though their very existence should necessitate a battle. Smashing, slicing, smothering one another into nothing.

And yet, that could not be farther from the truth.

They are far stronger together than they ever are apart.

Blue has a headache.

Which normally wouldn't be a big fucking whoop. He always has a headache. He lives with three headaches. Hell, his entire existence could be characterized as one headache after another.

Not enough sleep? Headache. Too much sleep? Headache. Not enough sugar? Headache. Too much sugar? Headache. One of Green’s Puns™? Headache. Vio being a smartass? Headache. Red being Red? Headache.

Day after day after day after day like clockwork, like the tide, Blue is tormented by headaches, both metaphorical and literal in nature.

Right now, however, Blue has a literal headache. A very, very literal headache which is quickly becoming a very, very literal migraine .

He can practically feel it coming, too. Can practically feel as the low grade pounding turns from manageable– a four out of ten at most– into the actual goddess Hylia descending from on high to telepathically scream Fuck You, Blue!!!! directly into his skull; the pain all too familiar and all too fucking annoying.

Blue can feel it coming in the way the dim light of their shop begins to strain his eyes, each flicker of their too few lanterns sending clouds of fuzz and crackling stars dancing in his peripheries. Can feel it in the way the skin of his face and neck begin to prickle with needles of feverish heat. Can feel it in the way his ears begin to clog, sound dulled as cotton stuffs itself too tightly against his eardrums, tickling uncomfortably at his brain.

Blue can absolutely feel as pressure continues to build up within his skull. Can feel as what was once a light pounding behind his eyes grows. Growing, growing, growing, ramping up in both speed and power until the blue wearing smithy feels wave after wave of pain slamming against his sinuses, rattling his senses.

He can feel how it makes his jaw clench, his teeth grind, his hands itch to reach up and tear at the roots of his hair to just get some fucking relief.

Normally, Blue would be able to deal with this type of pain in a slightly less destructive way.

Normally, he would just go upstairs, slam the door to their shared room shut so the others knew not to bug him, throw the curtains across the window so the room is cast in goddess blessed darkness, and then climb into the cool sheets of his bed, pulling the blankets over his head so he could sit and wait and wallow in his own woe is me bullshit until the world stopped trying to fucking kill him.

But alas, the world is apparently going to get a shot at his head today.

Because unfortunately, Blue can’t do any of those things right now.

Because in addition to a literal headache, Blue also has a metaphorical headache on his hands.

A metaphorical headache in the form of a man who appears to be the biggest idiot this side of Mt. Crenel.

And Blue knows Green, so that's saying something.

The absolute buffoon has been in the shop for about three hours now, just meandering from wall to wall to wall to wall, goggling blankly at the array of weapons like he can’t tell a longsword from a claymore or that the stabby bit goes in the other person.

Normally, if Blue had one of his headaches while he was manning the shop, he would just grab one of the other morons he shares a house with to cover for him. They were accommodating enough, knowing by now that a Blue with a migraine was a Blue who was one step closer to actually following through on all the threats he made.

But apparently, today the stars had aligned to make Blue's day truly terrible, really, Hylia, you've outdone yourself.

Because Green was at the castle, hanging out with Zelda. Because Vio was out in the Minish Woods, doing whatever bullshit research he was currently obsessed with. Because Red was in town, grabbing groceries.

Meaning, Blue had no escape from his headache or the increasing pain and frustration this idiot was inflicting upon him with his very existence.

Every circuit of the room, the guy brings something up to the counter, asks a question about it, and upon receiving his increasingly clipped answer, just– just fucking leaves it!!! At the counter!!! Apparently none the wiser that he’s only supplying more weapons for Blue to skewer him with.

Around and around and around the shop the guy goes, getting his grubby fingerprints all over the polished Zora spears– Hylia, was the guy eating peanut butter with his bare hands before coming in???– messing up the shelving order of the Goron digging tools, and dropping several of the Gerudo style daggers.

Blue had tried to cut this whole escapade short hours ago, had plastered a smile he had hoped looked as bright and cheerful as Red’s–all the while knowing that it had probably looked as emotionally constipated as one of Vio’s attempts at friendly– and had asked the man if there was anything I can help you find today?

But the man had just waved him off, smiling in that ditzy way that Blue swore he was going to see in his nightmares, saying Oh, no need! I’m just window shopping!

Window shopping.

Window shopping! For. Three. Hours. Straight.

“Can I have a word with the smith?” the idiot asks, pulling Blue from his increasingly murderous thoughts, placing yet another weapon on the counter beside the countless others he had already brought forward and subsequently discarded. “I think there might be something wrong with this sword. I mean, it's kinda messed up, isn’t it?”

Blue blinks slowly at the man, trying to stow the pain and frustration for the sake of making a sale, and then glances down at the blade in question.

It’s a beautiful, flame-bladed rapier. One Red had worked on, actually.

Blue remembers the other agonizing over the undulating curves of the blade, his more emotional brother heating and reshaping, heating and reshaping, heating and reshaping, the slightly smaller smithy covered in sweat and ash as he worked, determined to get the wave of metal just right.

Even Blue, one of the harshest critics of his and the others’ works, had to admit that Red had succeeded in that area. The sword is beautifully balanced even in spite of the curves, each metal wave uniform and masterfully shaped, rounded and yet sharpened to deadly perfection.

Blue peels his eyes up from the sword to look into the eyes of the man, hoping this might be some kind of sick joke.

It isn’t. The older looks back at him expectantly, brows raised, eyes wide, waiting for a response.

Right. Blue really shouldn't have underestimated the depths of this guy's stupidity. Not after having had an unwilling front row seat to it for three fucking hours.

He resists the urge to roll his eyes. Not because he’s trying to be polite. But because Blue can feel his headache increasing, the waves of pain becoming stronger as they grate against his skull, making the lantern light in their shop bright and piercing and too much.

He's pretty sure if he rolls his eyes, he might actually collapse due to the strain.

“Sir,” he grits instead, words hissed out from between his teeth, customer service smile too thin lipped, too full of bite to be anything considered remotely nice or polite, “Like it says on the display case, that is a flame-bladed sword. Also known as a wave-blade. It's supposed to look like that.”

“Are you sure?” the guy asks, grabbing the hilt and waving the sword this way and that for an inspection, forcing Blue to whip his head back lest he risk an untimely hair cut or perhaps being fucking decapitated.

“I mean, a sword like this is pretty useless, right?” The mouth-breather says, suddenly shifting his grip on the pommel, turning to skim an evaluative eye down the face of the blade, obliviously stabbing the air where Blue’s head would have been had he not had the presence of mind to duck behind the counter.

“And no embellishments on the pommel either,” the idiot continues with a furrowed brow, a wrinkled nose, a down turned lip as he shakes his head at the lovingly wrapped grip, completely oblivious of the smithy he almost just killed.

The same crouching smithy who can feel the skin of his face getting hotter and hotter with every word as pain and anger dance and twine in his head, his chest, until the two are indistinguishable from one another, now a single scalding geyser building pressure, about to explode.

“A pretty sad excuse for a decorative sword in my opinion,” the deadman says with a dismissive sniff. “Not only worthless but ugly to boot.”

The man’s words slice through Blue’s head, cutting through the pounding pounding pounding of his migrain, through the searing searing searing frustration, and for the briefest of seconds, Blue feels a stillness fall over him.

For the briefest of seconds, the geyser calms, becoming an untouched pond, crystal clear and unmoving.

And behind his eyes, Blue can see Red’s smile, exhausted and soot streaked but bright and proud as he holds out that very same sword to be inspected by Blue and Green and Vio. Blue can see the relief and joy spread over Red’s face, the other practically glowing as bright as the embers of the forge as he receives compliment after compliment from his brothers; a punch on the shoulder from Blue, a fond side-hug from Green, a warm ruffling of hair from Vio.

Blue can see Red, bright and happy and proud.

And Blue can see Red, downcast and sad and ashamed if he were ever to hear the words the man had just spoken.

And then all he sees is red.

The geyser erupts inside, scalding his face, burning his eyes, Blue’s migraine somehow going from bad to brain melting in the span of a millisecond, but he could care less.

No. The blue-wearing smith is more focused on the boiling in his blood, the steaming tide of anger in his veins that buoys him up despite the stabbing pain in his skull, that causes him to slam his fists down on the counter in front of him, forcing the absolute, good for nothing, Hylia damned, FUCKFACE to cringe away from the sudden noise as he finally notices Blue once more.

“Get. Out,” Blue breathes, the searing words slipping past his lips like steam.

The man blinks twice, confused by the sudden outburst.

“W-wh–?”

“I said,” Blue repeats, sweeping Red’s sword into his left hand while hoisting himself up onto the counter with his right, drawing himself up to his full height as he levels the flame-bladed rapier with the man’s forehead, “Get the fuck out of my store before I show you just how decorative this sword can be!”

The man takes a few shaky steps back, hands up in surrender. “I-I don't–”

“Get the fuck OUT!” Blue screams with finality, voice shaking with fury and pain.

And if nothing else, at least the guy has some sense of self preservation, because with a little squeak of fear not unlike a mouse’s, he turns tail and flees, escaping out the door before Blue even finishes yelling.

Not a moment too soon either.

Because the anger, the shouting, the change in position; the heat of it all rushes to Blue’s head. The fuzziness that had been clouding at the edge of his vision increases four-fold, the twinkling monochrome stars widening into black holes that eat at Blue’s eyesight as the tidal wave of pain in his skull collides with the magma of his fury, filling his head with rocks and steam, heavy heavy heavy and yet light light light, throwing off his sense of balance.

Distantly, Blue feels his knees buckle.

And idly, as the black consumes his vision, as the sword tumbles from his grasp so he can bring his hands up to support the growing weight of the stones in his skull, as he feels himself tilt forward, Blue wonders if the dive he’s currently taking off the counter will make him as stupid as the man who caused it.

Blue falls forward.

“Blue!”

But he doesn't land.

He doesn't crash headfirst into the floor, braining himself on their hardwood. He doesnt smash his face into the ground, breaking his nose again. He doesn't experience the added pain a fall like this should have on his already agony-addled skull.

No.

Blue falls but he doesn't exactly land because something soft and warm interrupts his dive, shielding his head and shoulders from the impact with the ground even as the rest of him bangs it’s way to the floor.

And for a second, Blue just lays there, taking stock of himself.

His head still throbs with pain, still pounds out a rhythm that sends agony from his forehead all the way to the tips of his ears. He still feels lightheaded, like the world is tilting even though he can tell for a fact that he is no longer falling. His knees ache from where they took the brunt of his fall.

But his face is pleasantly warm from where it’s pressed against fabric. Fabric that shifts gently against his cheek, up down up down up down with someone else’s slightly ragged breaths, as though they had run just before ending up in this position.

Wait, breaths?

Blue peels his eyes open, pained confusion forcing him into action despite the too bright lights still clawing at his vision, the pain digging nails into his brain.

Blue opens his eyes and all he sees is red.

A red tunic against his cheek, soft and warm. A pair of amber, red eyes gazing down at him with a mix of concern and admiration.

Blue sees Red, breathing a little heavily and sprawled out on the floor underneath him but grinning like he just won the swordsmanship contest at the Picori Festival. Blue sees Red and his battered brain puts two and two together to make Four.

Red was the thing that cushioned his fall.

Red… saved him?

“Whew. You almost took a nasty tumble there,” Red says with a relieved sigh and a smile once he sees Blue looking at him. “That could have been bad!”

“Red?” Blue asks a little dumbly because really, give him a break. He just took a fucking nose dive off a counter because his blood pressure was no doubt spiking as high as the Palace of Winds while his brain was busy melting out of his ears. Excuse him if this wasn’t exactly the outcome he was anticipating.

Red, meanwhile, doesn't even skip a beat.

“Nope! It’s Vio.” He relaxes his face, expression falling from sunny relief to ambivalence, his voice becoming smoother, a bit dryer, as he imitates their more taciturn brother. “Could you not tell?”

Blue shoves him away with a scoff and immediately regrets it when his head rebels against him, sending a wave of pain from his forehead to the back of his scalp, forcing him to squeeze his eyes shut against the sudden onslaught of hurt.

“Careful!” Red chides him with his regular voice, having no doubt seen Blue’s wince of pain.

Hands, gentle but insistent, lock onto Blue’s shoulders and guide him up and back until he sits with his spine against the very counter he had just fallen from, his head hanging limply between his knees.

Once situated, the hands release his shoulders. One goes away entirely while the other reaches over the top of Blue’s hunched shoulders, pulling the fabric of his hood out from behind his neck and over his head, casting some much needed darkness around Blue’s face.

It’s not quite enough to keep him from squinting when he opens his eyes– the dim lantern light still throws sunspots and blackholes in his vision– but it's better than before, giving him a modicum of relief.

They sit in silence for a bit, Blue breathing through the pain in his head, Red sitting near, a hand on Blue’s knee, comforting.

“So your headache is pretty bad, huh?” Red whispers, careful to not send Blue into another throe of pain.

“What tipped you off?” Blue whispers back irritably, pulling the hood down lower with one hand as he massages his temple with the other.

Red doesn't even flinch at the words, which tells Blue that he must look even more like shit than he thought.

They go back to silence, Red rubbing soothing circles into Blue’s knee as the waves of pain slamming forward backward forward backward in his skull slowly begin to dissipate. Not into nothing, oh no, that would be too merciful, but they lessen, like storm aided waves slowly losing steam.

“Didn't think you would be back for a while,” Blue says lowly.

“Shopping went a bit quicker than I thought it would. Not a lot of people out today. Must be the rain.”

Another beat of silence as Blue chooses his words, fishing them from the tide of his mind.

“How much of that did you hear?” Blue asks eventually, finally gaining the strength to peek out from under his hood without his brain punching him in the brain.

Red wilts a little at the question but his soothing circles don't let up for a moment.

“Enough,” the smaller smith says softly. “I was just finishing up putting everything away and thought I would stop in to let you know I was gonna be starting dinner when I, uh, heard.”

And then, with a little laugh. “He really didn’t like my sword, huh?”

“Yeah well, that guy was a moron,” Blue says with as much venom, as much scalding conviction as he can manage, some of that familiar boiling heat from before tingeing his words as he spits them out. “He wouldn't know a well made sword if he was being fucking stabbed with one.”

That startles a little snort of laughter from Red.

Blue won't admit that it makes him feel just a bit better.

“Yeah, I know,” Red says, his words a sigh, wistful yet sort of sad. Like he’s trying to convince himself that they’re true. And then, with a little smile as he leans down a bit in order to peek under Blue’s hood more fully, “Thanks.”

“Whatever,” Blue grumbles flippantly, straightening his spine and slowly, slowly , pushing himself to his feet, his hands braced on the counter for support as his vision swims. “Asshole had it coming.”

A hand sets itself gently on Blue’s elbow, ready to help guide him if need be.

“Think you can make it upstairs?” Red asks.

Blue nods and shrugs off the hand, more from habit than anything else.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” Blue grumbles, shuffling his way behind the counter, hood still firmly in place over his head. “I can walk up a few stairs without braining myself, thanks.”

“Okay, sure you can, Mr. Tough Guy,” Red agrees easily enough with a bright grin, though Blue notes how he still follows behind as they step through the back room toward the stairs. Still notes how he can feel the other’s eyes locked on his back as he slowly makes his way up to their room.

“Have a good nap!” Red calls from the bottom of the stairs. “I’ll grab you when dinner’s ready!”

Blue gives hima wave of acknowledgement, slips into the bedroom, and promptly buries himself under the covers of their bed, allowing the cool sheets, the darkness, and the faint sound of rain lull him to sleep.

…

When Blue wakes hours later to a night-darkened room, a cool compress on his head, an iced peppermint tea with two lemon slices on the bedside table, and three other bodies in the bed with him, he knows Red lied to him about waking him up for dinner.

But as he takes a sip of the tea, as he feels it cool his throat, his stomach, as the sound of rain outside patters softly at their window, and as Red curls up a bit closer to his side, Blue finds that he doesn't really care.

His headache is gone and he really wasn't all that hungry anyway.

Blue settles back into bed, pulling the blanket back over his shoulder from where it had fallen when he sat up, throwing his arm across Red’s side as he does. He closes his eyes, settling into the warmth of his brothers, the waters of his mind stilling into tranquility.

He’ll just demand some cinnamon rolls for breakfast tomorrow.

Yeah. Then they’ll be even.

#fwof #train writes #blue link #red link #brothers support each other #lu four #I guess #technically #kinda #whatever #hope you guys like #me trying to write a five chapter fic in less than 7 days?#more likely than you would think

74 notes · View notes

ckret2 · 5 years ago

Text

Home Is Where Your Shackles Are Anchored

Ghidorah, galaxy-trotting interstellar conqueror-explorer that they are, attempts to impress Rodan by telling him all about the diverse wonders of the universe.

He’s kind of only interested in hearing about volcanoes.

Hey check out who’s back. Written to the prompts:

Anonymous said: How about Ghidorah tries (as best as they can) to describe what space is like to Rodan?

Anonymous said: Hey, love the way you characterize the Titans in your fics, if you're accepting prompts atm how abt Rodan/Ghidorah reacting to blue lavs volcanoes ( they're that way due to burning sulfur right?)

... Although the blue lava only gets a short mention lmao.

This is part of an ongoing series of Rodorah one-shots. If you don’t wanna read the others, all you need to know is: Ghidorah’s an empath (telepathically transmits/detects emotions) but it only works with head-to-head contact; Ghidorah doesn’t speak any Earth languages but is slowly learning Rodan’s; Ghidorah was originally mind controlled & weaponized by Xilien aliens; and this one time Rodan made a whole globe out of lava and melted glass and Ghidorah keeps freaking out about how this dude who lives in a volcano and has never been off his own planet knows so much stuff. Links to the other fics are in the source at the bottom of this post.

###

When the red sprite asked them about other worlds, they wanted to impress upon him the vast wonders the universe contained. The ghostly filament-like serpents hundreds of miles long that swam glittering through nebulas. The vast artificial asteroid belts consisting of the armada ships of empires that spanned hundreds of populated planets. The dizzying way starlight bent and stretched when you fell almost too close to a black hole to save yourself. Planets of pure diamond, planets with hurricanes that never ended, planets where multiple suns twirled through the skies.

It turned out what the red sprite was interested in was the real estate.

"That other stuff is cool," he reassured them, flopped on his back in his volcano with his legs in the air. "But a planet's not a proper planet without volcanoes."

"Lots planets do not have volcanoes," they insisted.

Patiently, the red sprite said, "Then those planets aren't proper planets."

Oh, well, okay, if those were the definitions they were going by. "We do not look..." They struggled for a descriptor. "Do not look near at volcanoes before we come here." They quickly corrected their grammar: "Comed here."

"'Came here.'"

Irregular verbs were going to be the death of them. "Came here. We see them but do not live in them, do not have reason to learn of them." They felt like they needed to justify why their knowledge of volcanoes was so far behind the red sprite's. They couldn't let him think they were stupid. Merely uneducated. Educated in different fields due to different priorities.

(Because really, they were painfully aware, they were stupid—made from creatures that were inherently stupid and unable to change that—and they didn't know if anything would entice the red sprite to stay with them once he figured that out.)

"Nobody learns about them," the red sprite lamented, and they were relieved that he saw this ignorance of volcanoes as a global problem rather than a them problem. "But you saw volcanoes, right? You can describe what you remember."

They supposed they could do that. Second clacked his teeth together thoughtfully, mimicking the beak-clicking sound the red sprite sometimes made to fill gaps in the conversation. "We saw volcanoes with blue lava," they said. "Not blue like sky. Blue like... ih... sky near night?"

"Dark blue?"

That was exactly what they meant, but they hadn't been sure whether the words "dark" and "blue" could be combined like that without sounding like nonsense in the red sprite's language. "Yes."

"We have that," the red sprite said. So much for trying to impress him. "It happens when a volcano has a lot of—" He said a word they didn't know.

"What?"

"It's a kind of rock. Smelly. Burns blue."

Burns blue. Copper? Butane? They repeated the word a couple of times and filed it away as word-for-smelly-blue-burning-material-that-turns-lava-blue.

"What about the nearby planets?" the red sprite asked them. He rolled over, sending droplets of lava spraying over the side of his crater as he did. "Did you see any of their volcanoes? How about the moons around—" Another new word.

"What?"

"The big one," the red sprite said. "The one that takes... I forget how long it actually takes." He pointed his beak upward and leaned back and forth as if tracing an invisible path across the sky as he spoke: "But it looks like it goes forward ten months, backwards four months, and forward ten months."

He was describing a planet's apparent retrograde motion. He knew astronomy, too. Who let him get that smart? "We are not here long enough to learn how near planets cross your sky," they said, "but know big planets. Is it planet with long stripes and big storms?"

The red sprite gave them a blank look. "I dunno. I've never seen other planets," he said. "From down here, they look like stars. Except—you know—the way they move."

Ah. Yes, they supposed that was what other worlds looked like from here. They tried to imagine what that was like, looking up at little glowing dots in the sky and knowing they were other planets but simply having to take it on faith. Never having been to them to see. They could look up at the nearest planets in the sky and mentally trace the flight path that would lead them to the surface, remembering what the worlds looked like as they drew closer and closer and this planet receded to a single bright point behind them. What was it like to be trapped on the skin of a single little marble in the sky? They had been like that once, but couldn't remember it.

Did the red sprite feel trapped? Or did a little marble like this feel like the whole universe until you'd been off of it? They couldn't fully conceptualize a planetbound life that didn't feel claustrophobic.

The red sprite didn't deserve to spend its whole life anchored to this little world.

"What number is the planet?" they asked him.

"Number?"

"Number from sun, near to far. One, two, three, four... Earth is three."

"Right. It's either five or six. But the bigger one."

"Long stripes and big storms," they confirmed.

The red sprite accepted this with a chirp. "So," he said. "What are its moons' volcanoes like?"

"Its moons have volcanoes?"

The red sprite squawked. "You know what its weather is like but not the nearby volcanoes. Typical."

They reared their heads up, each of them wearing a different expression of haughty, judgmental condescension. "You do not know what it looks like but know where volcanoes are near. Typical."

They wondered what "typical" meant.

The red sprite climbed fully out of the volcano—they decided one of them should drop their feigned condescension in order to watch how the lava rolled off his wings and appointed Third to the task. Lightly, the red sprite said, "Oh, well. What good's a volcano if nobody's living in it, anyway?"

They thought he was probably more disappointed than he let on. If they had to make a trip off-planet—something inside them quelled at the thought, the parts of them that were growing attached to this world afraid that the parts of them that weren't would cause this planet to lose its emotional hold on them as soon as it lost its gravitational hold on them—but if they had to make a trip off-planet, they made a mental note to swing past the storm world and check its moons for volcanic activity.

"Maybe we take you to storm world soon," they said, leaning in to bop Third's forehead against the red sprite's so he could tell they were joking. "We carry you through the sky to it. You can see the volcanoes yourself."

"Ha! And you've got a way to make sure I can breathe for the whole trip, I'm sure."

"Yes, just make a long breath in and keep it inside you the whole trip. Easy."

"Easy! Oh yeah, sure." The red sprite bopped Third's forehead back, snapped his beak at Second just threateningly enough to make him bare his teeth back, and then hopped down the volcano's side.

They slithered down after him. "Why are you so..." They rummaged through their vocabulary for a word that meant preoccupied in the red sprite's language, and settled for, "So focused in your mind on volcanoes? There is more to other worlds than volcanoes."

"Sure, but volcanoes are where life is. You're not going to find life on a planet without volcanoes! Unless it's alien travelers like you."

They tried to think of an example that contradicted him, but supposed they didn't know of any populated worlds that they could guarantee had no volcanoes and hadn't been colonized by aliens. They didn't talk to the locals before killing them, how did they know the locals weren't interstellar immigrants?

The red sprite went on, "Any place without a volcano is just a—" He said another unfamiliar term.

Oh, now what was that? Something important, it seemed to them. A term that set these spaces bereft of hearth and hospitality apart from a home. Surely it had to mean something like cursed location, or dead place, or barren land—something like that. "What is..." They attempted to repeat the term.

The red sprite pronounced it again for them, and then explained, "Oh, you know, it's the kind of place that looks interesting—fun to visit with friends, see the sights, that sort of thing—but once you've looked around you don't want to live there. Day trip material. Two days at best."

"Aha." He'd just taught them his term for tourist destination.

"Hey, what about you?" the red sprite asked. "You haven't told me about your home planet yet."

They froze halfway down the volcano.

The red sprite had started carefully weeding the plants sprouting up along the path from his volcano to the coast; but at their silence, he looked back at them. "What?"

At the mere thought of a home planet, they felt heavy collars around their necks and chains tangled with their tails, piercings through the membranes of their wings around the bones; saw a colorless kaleidoscope, white dust and black sky; heard irresistible orders telepathically splitting their heads like a migraine. "We do not remember," they said.

The red sprite clacked his beak dubiously.

"We don't," they insisted. "We do not have our most early memories. It is common. Some species do not keep their memories of what comes soon after they hatch."

"Oh, some species here are like that too," the red sprite said. He bent down to pluck a particularly stubborn shrub from the dirt and tossed it off into the forest. "What is the earliest world you remember, then?

White dust and black sky and despair and enough fury to let them incinerate a billion worlds. "Dumb moon," they said dismissively. "Boring."

The red sprite looked like he still wanted to press them for more details; before he could, they hastily added, "No volcanoes."

"Oh! So not a home."

"Not even a good tourist destination," they said. "We leave it as soon as we could." They paused. "Left it?"

"That's right."

They'd get these irregular verbs down yet. "We do not know our home planet. Do not care to."

Both of which were true statements. The planet on which they'd hatched had existed to them only as a round dot on a propaganda poster that had failed to stir up any of the sentimentality or patriotism it was no doubt supposed to. They'd even forgotten what color the dot had been.

Nevertheless, they felt their planet somewhere behind them, like a chill up their back, like a weight on their shoulders. Like a black hole inexorably tugging them in, forcing them to fly and fly and fly forever just to stay outside of its event horizon. Like a thin chain tangled around their necks that stretched through the dark voids between the stars, stretched all the way across the galaxy.

"No wonder you bounce from planet to planet," the red sprite said. "If you don't have anywhere to go home to. Everywhere's a tourist destination."

They supposed so. Stay a day or two, burn down the planet, move on.

He sounded like he pitied them. It was surprising to be pitied for freedom—especially when, just a moment ago, they'd pitied him for being anchored down as he was.

Anchors were usually used to keep spaceships tethered to their stations so they wouldn’t float off into the dark sky and be lost. Maybe being anchored was comforting if you weren't accustomed to chains being used to strangle you.

Having finished his pruning near the base of the volcano, the red sprite turned a thoughtful gaze toward them. After a moment, decisively, he said, "If you don't have a home planet, then this one's it now."

They reared up, startled. "What?"

"This is your home planet now," the red sprite repeated. "Unless you have a better one."

They froze, their heart pounding, waiting for phantom chains to drag down on their wings.

The chains never came. Cautiously, they said, "We don't."

"Fine. So now it's here." He flapped up to land in front of them and whipped his wings dramatically into the air. "Welcome to Earth!"

First headbutted him over.

The red sprite kicked First's face and hopped back to his feet. "What about the second planet?" He said its name, and they copied it. "It has volcanoes, what are they like?"

They perked up. Ah, they'd actually seen some of those—they'd spent some time ravaging the second planet before moving on to the third. "Flat," they said.

The red sprite cocked his head. "Shield volcanoes?"

"No, more flat. And more wide. They look like..." What was the word. "Plateaus?"

The red sprite drew his head back and asked excitedly, "Really? How wide?"

"Like..." Was their grasp of the red sprite's math terms good enough to describe proportionate sizes? Probably not. They raised their heads, looking around the island for objects they could use for size comparisons. First's gaze landed on the globe of Earth the red sprite had made to explain the local geography to them. "We will make them. Follow."

They lifted off the volcano with one beat of their wings and glided down to the beach, the red sprite close behind them.

They spent the peak of the day dredging up as many trivial details about the second planet's volcanoes as they could remember, doing their best to answer the red sprite's excited questions, and sculpting volcanoes out of sand.

###

(Did y’all know that Venus’s volcanoes are totally different from Earth’s? Most of them are extremely wide and extremely flat and they’re called pancake volcanoes. It’s cool. We haven’t confirmed active volcanism in any of Venus’s volcanoes yet but we’ve found over a thousand probably-extinct ones and there are three that we’re pretty sure are currently active, we just haven’t proven it yet.)

(Next fic features Serizawa Who Is Not Dead and how Monarch at large is reacting to Ghidorah hanging around—not the local Isla de Mara outpost that’s been making memes out of Ghidorah, the main Monarch leadership.)

(Replies/reblogs are welcome and greatly appreciated! Check the “source” link below for my masterlist of KOTM and Rodorah fics, as well as my AO3 and Ko-fi links.)

#rodorah #godzilla #kotm #rodan #king ghidorah #ghidorah #fanfic #my writing #(not proofed because instant gratification)#(... but any bad grammar out of Ghidorah is because they're still figuring out how to speak pteranodon)#(also yes 'ghidorah spent some time ravaging venus before heading to earth' is a reference to three headed monster)#(aka the BEST godzilla movie accept no substitutes)

157 notes · View notes

bluerosesonata · 4 years ago

Text

A Window to the Soul: Game Mechanics and Characters in Ai: the Somnium Files

Spoiler-free!

Ai: The Somnium Files is an adventure game/visual novel for PC, PS4, and the Nintendo Switch by Spike Chunsoft in September 2019. Written and directed by Kotaro Uchikoshi, known for his Zero Escape Trilogy (999: Nine Persons, Nine Hours, Nine Doors (DS), Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward (DS), and Zero Time Dilemma (DS, PS Vita, PC), also available as the Zero Escape Trilogy on Steam and PS4), this game once again displays Uchikoshi’s signature combination of suspense, humor, and ludonarrative harmony that fans of his previous games are familiar with, alongside a cast of complex, compelling characters you’ll absolutely fall in love with.

For all my fellow Zero Escape fans, you probably remember the issues the series faced with financing, which ultimately lead to Uchikoshi helping to establish Spike Chunsoft and the eventual release of Zero Time Dilemma. In AitSF, more than ever, the fruits of that partnership are apparent. It feels we finally get to see a complete picture of Uchikoshi’s vision; Featuring fully animated 3d models, fully voiced dialogue, and some incredibly goofy and self-indulgent dance sequences, this murder mystery (and yes, it is a murder mystery) is absolutely worth it’s full price and your time.

The game has multiple endings (About 5, without checking), all leading up to and feeding into the true ending. One notable feature is that the timeline allows you to jump into previous played sections at any point of the chapter, and even provides summaries of the events that happened in each “node,” so unlike in the original 999, you don’t need to replay through every scene of dialogue to get to each ending.

Rather than spend time analyzing the story itself- something that can’t be done to a satisfying level without spoiling the whole thing- I’ll just say that the way Uchikoshi literally has us get inside the heads of characters by “syncing” with them is a great story device, and is realized extremely well in the gameplay. For me, the Sync was used in all the right places to push me into genuinely caring about some characters, that, without the sync, I would be sympathetic to, but not feel a real sense of attachment towards.

What follows is a breakdown and analysis of how well the gameplay is designed, and some non-spoilery discussion of characterization and character design:

Mechanics:

The core gameplay loop can be broken into two parts: dialogue and investigation, and “syncing.”

The investigation portion of the game is similar to most adventure visual novels- investigating crime scenes, talking to NPCs to advance the story, examining your surroundings, and in my case, clicking on scenery over and over again to get funny flavor dialogue.

The flavor dialogue does not disappoint- and for me, the best minor feature included in the game ties to this. When you click on an object, you get an initial string of dialogue- but the indicator with the name of the object will only get grayed out once you’ve seen all the text related to that object. For some people, this might ruin the “fun” of clicking over and over again- like in 999, where some bits of dialogue would only display on the 9th time examining an object- but for me, it was a godsend, because I didn’t spend any time wondering if I missed anything funny.

The Sync gameplay loop is also mechanically brilliant. Part of the in-universe rules, which are emphasized over and over, is that the main character, Date, can only spend 6 minutes within the subject’s “Somnium”- the internal dreamscape of their mind- and that staying any longer could result in disastrous consequences. As such, each Somnium loop attempt can (hypothetically) be experienced in chunks of about 8-10 minutes. This set time frame makes it a breeze to play the game in small sections at a time and let your mind breathe a bit. The time limitation is challenging, but never infuriating; even when I messed up horribly and knew I had to restart a sync from the beginning, I would just use the time I had remaining to try out the goofier actions available to try out as puzzle solutions.

Somnium Files’ adaptability to being played in long sittings or in short bursts, while still maintaining an engaging, tense narrative is an incredible strength that not all games can boast of. Not a single part of the game felt like a slog or a chore to me, unlike a few puzzles in Zero Time Dilemma, where I ran into the perennial adventure game issue of “okay, so I have this item, but where do I use it?”, “how the hell do I even solve this puzzle without a guide” (I didn’t), and “what do I need to do to unlock the next sequence?”

Characters

So let’s talk about these good characters. Some of you probably recognized the art style for the game’s key visual as the work of Yusuke Kozaki, best known by many as the head artist and character designer for Fire Emblem: Awakening and Fire Emblem: Fates. Even in his work for the Fire Emblem franchise, you can tell he doesn’t care much for drawing armor- which puts him in the same club as literally every artist I know who draws Fire Emblem fan art. His designs really shine in a contemporary setting, with modern clothing, and really give the cast a unified, unique aesthetic. Moreover, the designs are beautifully translated into 3D as well.

For a game that was most likely well underway in development several years prior to the boom of the subgenre, the design for A-set, (AKA Iris), an in-game internet idol and streamer, is incredibly in line with those of many successful “Virtual Youtubers”- for that alone it deserves some accolades. Fittingly, as part of online promotion for the game, Chunsoft posted a series of video blogs starring A-set, as if she were posting to her own channel. (I missed all of these, and that’s a real shame, because I think they would have gotten me excited for the game if I had been paying attention.)

Despite Iris’ obvious and engineered marketability, I think my favorite design of the game is Aiba, the AI partner of the main character, whose human form only appears in Somnium and in the realm world as an AR projection imposed in Date’s cybernetic eye. The way her arms fade into glowing, electronic “nerves” at her arms is a subtle reminder of her artificiality, but her design also doesn’t make her more playful and goofy behaviors jarring in the least.

As far as personalities go, I would say that Date, our protagonist, manages to hit the perfect median- maybe even fusion- between the past male protagonists in the Zero Escape trilogy. Junpei, Sigma, and Carlos were all likable in their own ways, as the narrative character, but all had a level of blandness to them. To me, they served more as vehicles for us to participate in the Nonary Games.

In contrast, Date feels very much like his own, established person, and that’s not only a huge strength, but central to the overall narrative. (For all non-ZE fans reading this review- I apologize for the heavy use of ZE comparisons here.) Like Sigma, Date is a bit of a perv, but unlike Sigma in Virtue’s Last Reward, I didn’t feel squicked out by his behavior; Like Carlos, he cares immensely for the people important to him, and puts their wellbeing first; Like Junpei, he’s, also, a loveable moron.

There are other characters- Mizuki in particular- whom I can’t speak too much about without spoiling some of the enjoyment of their character arcs, but all of them have incredibly good and complicated interpersonal relationships both with and outside of Date.

Lastly, there’s Aiba. A good companion character is worth their weight in gold. After all, most of the time, they’re who you spend most of your time with, and for that reason, the more “annoying” ones always catch more flac for being so. For me, Aiba easily slides into my top 10 favorite companion characters of all time, along such members as Maya Fey in the original Ace Attorney trilogy and Midna from Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Most of the goofiest sequences in the game are instigated by her, and every time she’s on screen there’s bound to be something fun to do, not to mention the fact she’s our avatar used within Somnium. Combine that and her telepathic banter with Date, and you got a recipe for a dynamic duo.

In closing, every aspect of AitSF is absolutely delightful; It has tightly woven narrative gameplay, wonderful and complex characters, a storyline that, despite my best efforts, I couldn’t unravel the details of before they were revealed- and I didn’t even get into how great the voice acting is. If you’re looking for an enjoyable, self-contained game that you can beat in under 35 hours, Ai: The Somnium Files can’t be beat.

#ai the somnium files #aitsf #somnium files #game essay #game review #game design #narrative design #visual novel review #visual novels #bluerose writing #bluerose-essay #bluerose game writing #bluerose nonfiction

35 notes · View notes

starr-fall-knight-rise · 5 years ago

Text

Humans are Space Orcs “For Science”

Hello everyone, and Happy 4th of July. I hope you are all doing well and having a great time. I wanted to get a few things out this week despite how busy things have been. Luckily my schedule frees up dramatically Friday of next week, so hopefully I will be able to write more. Hope you like it, and have a great day!

Commander Vir stood at the helm of his ship hands clasped gently behind his back single eye staring outwards and into the blackness of space cold and focused.

Well, perhaps not completely black. The Deep Space Galactic Penal Detention Center sat at the forefront of his vision. So deep in the vastness of space near nothing and no one, it was difficult to fathom the absolute isolation in which these prisoners existed. In all the galaxy it was most known for its miles and miles of maximum security isolation cells housing the GA’s most dangerous criminals, and only recently, for the housing of its most dangerous human prisoners.

Of course, General GA policy, supported by the UNSC, prohibited the use of solitary confinement on human subjects due to the severe and negative psychological effects it was proven to cause. And as a Rundi run prison, the rules and regulations were sure to be followed to the letter. However, even the UNSC and by extension the GA had to admit that there were a few human subjects too dangerous to subject even to other prisoners.

A soft set of footsteps cut into his thought process, and a looming figure paused at his back.

He knew her without even having to look, and A dulled smile tugged at one corner of his mouth, and, as if in response he was rewarded with a soft hum.

“This is hardly the place for humor.” He commented wryly turning to face her. Sunny stood a few feet to his back half in and half out of shadow, her blue carapace gently kissed by the incoming ambient light form the view outside, “Something on your mind?” He wondered

She shook her head and shrugged large golden eyes tilting to watch him more intently, “I was just thinking how far you've come.”

A raised eyebrow, “And what is that supposed to mean?” He wondered.

She stepped out of her pool of shadow and came to lean on the back of the captains chair staring out into the darkness. He couldn’t help but notice just how much her body language seemed to scream HUMAN these days, “Once upon a time you looked uncomfortable in that uniform, you weren’t sure you were ready to be commander. And now look at you.” He allowed the smile to tug, again, wryly at the corners of his mouth as he walked to stand next to her, “Perhaps I’m just very good at faking.” His expression grew serious then, “Now my station means taking care of this Issue.” He nodded towards the unlit prison station.

Sunny thundered low in her throat causing his ribs and chest to rattle with the power, “How did he manage to do it?”

The commander shook his head slowly, “Honestly…. I have no idea.”

“Want me to get the marines ready?”

“You read my mind. Tell the boys and girls to suit up for a full tactical breach, two teams inside with us, and two teams on the outside just in case. Get Cannon to take care of them. I want Krill and Conn with us on the entry.”

Another low hum, “Yes, sir.”

“What?”

“Nothing, I like it when you get all authoritative on me.” She teased heading towards the door.

“Ah can it you big beetle.” He muttered softly, the same smile still playing over his face as she left.

***

“Approaching target 5 knots 45 degrees on entry, over.” Adam flew primarily by the ambient light of the universe tracking the other ships on his radar as they moved around to their positions. Sunny sat in the back with the marines watching as her human companions readied themselves for the boarding. Sunny wasn’t human, and so had never experienced the sensation that humans called ‘intuition’, but even she wasn’t clueless enough to miss that they were walking into a very serious situation.

The days following the capture of the infected starborn and the experimental human soldier had been characterized by a series of horrible realizations stacked one on top of the other. The starborn and the human experiment were connected somehow experimentally tampered with in such a way that gave the human near supernatural powers, and the ability to receive telepathic communication with the starborn receiving a horrible and crazed state of mind and a deteriorating body.

She glanced to the side where Conn hovered towards the back of the troop transport exchanging insults with one of the marines.

Their investigation, and scattered memories gleaned from the humans broken mind, hinted at a possible connection between the human, the starborn, the cult, the protests, and the Tesraki earthquake. Their first assumption had brought them to a forgotten source of information: A Gib scientist who had been jailed towards the beginning of the Commander’s career for experimentation on humans, which generally lead to their eventual and horrible death at the hands of the scientist.

They had originally planned on interviewing the scientist for his opinions on the kind of person that would attempt such a thing, but when they attempted to contact the prison, usually self sustaining, and without the requirements of food shipment or even equipment, they found that no one was responding. Further investigation showed that all the radio channels had been blocked.

Even worse was the knowledge that the prison was one of the most advanced ever built with the guards safety in mind. How a prisoner had managed to break through without alerting any number of warning systems was more than a mystery. When they checked fingerprint and facial recognition of the human against the prison databases, they found what they were looking for.

The situation really couldn’t have been worse. Someone was back at experimenting on humans, and even starborn, most everyone’s money was on the original Gib scientist, and if that was the case, he was locked in with a large supply of human prisoners to experiment on freely and without repercussion. Who knew how long he had been at it, and what he could have accomplished in that time frame.

“Approaching the docking bay, prepare to board.” Adam said from the pilot’s seat voice metallic and distorted lightly over the intercom. To her right, Krill slid his arms through the small black backpack, while one of his neighboring marines double checked the small motor in the back for its functioning. When Krill had joined them on previous outings he had admitted to being the slowest member of the party on his legs, and especially when he was inflated, so to combat these issues, the engineering team had designed the small motor to propel him through the air when his helium sack was inflated. Of course one of the marines was still in charge of lugging a medical kit, but it was better than their earlier system.

Sunny listened to the rattle of the shuttle as it came to a light landing inside the docking bay. Vrul shielding technology allowed for a ship’s easy entry from the outside while also keeping the air pressure inside the ship. As the engines powered down, the marines, and sunny quickly flooded out onto the deck leveling their weapons towards the dark corners of the room. The second shuttle followed close after making landing on the distant side of the docking bay.

Sunny turned in a sharp slow circle her eyes scanning for waiting threats, which she expected to appear from the shadowy corners of the room at any moment. Due to the close-quarters nature of their mission, they had been forced to leave the mounted machine gun behind, and she had traded the bulk of the machine gun for the light maneuverability her mother’s old war staff. Of course the decorative head at the end of the shaft could be used for slicing someone to ribbons in a pinch, but the real power came from the energy coils stacked one atop the other inside the interior of the staff, the discharge of which could be absolutely devastating at middling distances.

The Drev had historically fought most of their wars in hand to hand combat, close quarters being the more HONORABLE way of fighting, but that hadn’t stopped them from developing greater weapons technology in their free time.

She finished her threat assessment of the room, and found nothing. But that in itself was a problem seeing as the docking bay should have been alive with engineers and employees, yet there was no one here, but the deep darkness of the waiting prison.

The clatter of boots followed her silent inspection, as Adam came marching down the ramp wearing matching gear to the marines and carrying a matching weapon. Sunny was aware that Adam had originally trained as a fighter pilot, and had never been meant for ground combat, but the Drev war had changed most of that, and in the past few years he had taken it upon himself to have an at least more-than-passable ability in the field.

Even so, he kept at the back of the group allowing the more experienced marines, spearheaded by her, to lead them deeper into the dark. On the other side of the room, the second team of marines were doing the same.

Outside the circling shuttles were checking in.

Krill stuck to the back of the group next to the captain, Conn and the marine’s medic surprisingly silent despite the small motor which propelled him along.

They made it at first to two matching doors on either end of the long docking bay. The second team gave a thumbs up and each team stacked up on the doorway, while the lead marine stepped into place to input the provided security codes. They readied themselves for anything that was to come behind those doors, but found nothing but a long dark hallway stretching off into infinity in either direction.

Two marines cut into the hallway glancing in either direction and clearing the space before ordering the others to follow. A designated two man team hung back to keep an eye on the docking bay as the rest of the group moved further into the ship. As the layout would have it, the hallway they were currently in would eventually take a ninety degree turn to the left or to the right, then again before meeting right back up with each other at the prisoner intake station.

What they were currently seeing was simply the product of administrative offices and storage rooms.

The two teams of marines kept in close contact with each other as they moved down either hallway cutting around corners and clearing wrooms with the silent efficiency only humans were known to exhibit. Sunny did her best to emulate those same practices staying cautious as they moved forward into the blackness.

The life support was still on of course, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to breathe so easily. However, both the main lights and the backup lights had been mysterious shut off leaving them with only the beams of their rail-mounted flashlights to illuminate the way.

They took the next corner quietly alerted to the far end of the hall by the lights of the other marines. Nothing stood between them and their companions, so they kept their weapons low.

Sunny fell towards the back of the group, allowing the other marines to take point. If she was human, she was sure she would feel some uneasiness about their open back, so she kept an eye on the receding blackness behind them.

The two groups met in the middle just outside the open intake lobby. A single door to one side lead into, what appeared to be an observation room for the intake. Sunny stepped forward volunteering to go first as one of the marines opened the door for her. She swept in quickly and silently greeted by a cramped room, with a cramped desk and cramped chairs surrounded on all sides by cameras and other monitoring machines.

And nearly lit the entire place on fire when she saw the figure hunched in a corner.

She leveled her weapon ready to cut through the thing with a bast of searing energy, but stopped immediately as her light cut over the figure…. A rundi corpse lifeless and staring, surrounded by a pool of discolored, dried brown bile.

She finished clearing the room before calling Krill in. He turned off his backpack and stepped inside walking over to examine the body. At the door Conn floated like a ghost head tilted as if he were listening.

One look by Adam, and the starborn shook its head.

The marines had now moved their way onto the intake floor weapons held at the low ready. Adam followed them slowly glancing around at the open stalls and discarded equipment which blocked their path. Krill stood, finishing his examination.

And they were suddenly blinded by a searing white light. In the other room he could hear the humans cursing and calling to each other as they staggered to stay in place and adjust to the light. Sunny lifted her weapon ready to step through the door but was blocked by Conn in the last moments.

There was a metallic hiss, and the intake’s open end slammed shut. Sunny shoved Conn out of the way and ran to the closed doors slamming up against them as if she could break through, but to no avail. She ran back into the observation room where Krill was watching hands pressed up against the glass.

She slammed her staff against the viewing window, but despite her power it rebounded back towards her head.

The humans had backed themselves into a double wide circle. Those on the front knelt on the ground with those on the inner ring of the circle standing behind them and aiming over their heads. Adam stood behind one of the marines facing the direction they had originally been going.

The intercom buzzed loudly, and all weapons snapped to apprehend the sound.

“I was wondering when you were going to show up.” The marines looked at each other in confusion and shock while sunny frantically began pressing buttons and pulling on levers and slamming her staff against the glass.

“I was saying to myself, you know humans always show up to save the day. Probably the souls of theirs…. Isn’t that right, Deus.”

Adam slowly panned his weapon from one side to the other eyes narrowed in concentration, “So it is you, the Gib Scientist. The one who went mad experimenting on humans?”

There was a scoff over the intercom, “Not mad. I was right, and people couldn’t accept that now could they.” There was a long pause, “Commander Adam Vir….. I WAS hoping that they would send you. Saw it in your eyes last time we met. Something special behind there, something powerful.”

The man made no reaction to that statement other than to continue panning his weapon slowly, “Any other day I would be flattered, but today I am going to have to ask you to turn yourself in.”

The Gib let of a rather choked laugh somewhere between a squeaking and a trilling, “Now that wouldn’t be prudent commander, besides, if I did that, than what would be the point of gassing you. See it would be silly, you would all be sleeping, and I would be standing around waiting.”

“GET DOWN!” Sunny commanded stepping away from the glass and aiming down the shaft of her weapon.

In the other room, The humans had scattered like leaves on a high wind pulling anything they could find over their noses and mouths scrambling to cover the intake vents with whatever they could find.

“I have been studying you humans for a very long time. I know all your weaknesses, I know all of your little quirks, so I think to myself, why bother fighting a human when you can knock them out remotely with chemical incapacitating agents.”

A burst of energy roced Sunny backwards shooting across the small space before crashing into the glass. The entire room shook, but the energy dissipated as if it had crashed into solid steel.

The humans were frantically calling information to each other faces covered. But sunny noticed how their movement grew lethargic, their bodies sagged.

At the other door Conn was waving to get her attention, but she ignored him as the voice came back over the com, “Do you like it, it's a little fentanyl derivation of mine that I cooked up. Of course, I wasn’t the first to think of it, I think it was originally the Russians, a human chemical derived for human incapacitant. But you know that's how you should deal with humans because the only ones that can truly handle humans are other humans.”

Inside the rooms the marines were fighting to stay upright, but it was no use; the first to go down was one of the shorter female marines. She staggered once, and then spilled onto the floor her weapon clattering loudly against the tiles. Adam leaped forward to check on her kneeling next to her body.

She was followed closely by two more marines who hit the floor with a dull thud. The others leaned heavily against the walls before sliding slowly to the floor.

“Of course, the last time this was use 15% of the people it was used on died. I really hope this batch gives me a higher survival percentage, but I can only hope.”

“Why ... are you doing this.” Adam whispered head bobbing as he fought against the chemical.

“ADAM.” Sunny screamed

He didn’t hear her as the voice above his head continued speaking, “Personally, I just want to continue my studies, but in order to pull this off I needed help, and their plans are a little more wide reaching. Conquering and destruction, you know that sort of thing. Of course, I don’t much care for it, but if all goes well, I get an endless supply of test subjects and they get dominion over the known galaxy. Oh, and don’t worry about your friends, the two in the docking bay were subdued without issue, and the two troop transports have been taken command of by my starborn friends.”

So that’s why Conn had been trying to get her attention.

Inside the room, Adam’s mouth opened to speak, but at the last moment his eyes rolled back in his head and he sagged downwards slumping over the body of the original fallen marine.

“ADAM!”

488 notes · View notes

scioscribe · 5 years ago

Note

have you got any Star Trek fic recommendations? I love what you’ve written and I’m super into the fandom atm

Oh, boy, do I. I’ll try to keep this reasonably compact, but there’s a ton of excellent fic. My to-read folder for this fandom currently has 262 items, and I’m also way behind on leaving comments on the stories I’ve loved because I’ve been glomming them so enthusiastically. Hopefully this will shame me into appreciating the authors as they deserve.

My definition of “reasonably compact” apparently means “twenty-two separate recs,” so have a cut, everyone.

Kirk/Spock

Communication: One of my all-time favorites. It’s a beautiful, incredibly romantic epistolary romance where Kirk and Spock wind up captaining separate ships during a war with the Tholians. They write each other letters where they slowly feel out a resolution to their mutual pining, and the characterization is exquisite.

To Sing the Sun in Flight: I will happily read a million “Amok Time” AUs, but this might be my favorite. It’s simple, hot, beautifully written, and perfectly characterized.

Our Bodies Safe to Shore: Excellent, plotty, and emotionally complex fic where Spock’s body is taken over by a hostile alien intelligence, one that can read his thoughts and imitate him, and he’s locked helplessly inside. And the alien has noticed his feelings for Jim.

Joyboy: Post-Tarsus IV story where Kirk and Spock meet as teenagers, when Spock is with his father on a diplomatic mission where the Tarsus survivors are brought for temporary shelter. Great characterization, maybe especially of Kirk, who gets to be both the woobie (he’s being shunned by a lot of people for doing sex work on Tarsus to stay alive) and the controlled, honorable budding leader. Little bit of underage, but not particularly explicit.

Fulfilling the Needs of the One (Or the Both): Sweet Old Married Spirk story that blends slice-of-life with a nuanced emotional plot where Spock suddenly fears that he hasn’t been giving Jim the emotional support and romance Jim needs. (Jim begs to differ.)

Sunlight: Kirk, Spock, and McCoy start filling out one of those “getting to know you” questionnaires together for a crew newsletter, and of course Spock and Kirk have ridiculously detailed opinions about things as simple as the other one’s hair color and eye color and what kind of animal they would be. Also some cute McCoy characterization and appreciation for shortish Jim, which I always appreciate.

Freely Given: The last by this author, I promise! This is the best “McCoy subtly plays matchmaker” fic I’ve read, where his prods and a trip to a planet where on-the-mouth kisses are a common form of greeting make Spock start thinking about what he wants from his relationship with Kirk. Delightful, sharp Bones, a Kirk who wants to make sure his authority as captain isn’t coming into play here, and a beautifully analytical Spock who is slowly realizing the depths of his pining.

Great Expectations: My favorite bit of xeno! Kirk and Spock are about to have their first time together, but Spock shies away from getting completely naked, and when he finally does, Kirk has an unfortunate reflexive reaction to his unfamiliar genitals. Before sweetly and humorously consoling Spock about it and boldly and sexily going where no man has gone before. This is hot and romantic and perfectly characterized, and I just want to give Spock a hug.

Centennial: More Old Married Spirk! Kirk is turning one hundred, and he’s feeling his age a little. But Spock has the perfect gift for him. Absolutely heartwarming, and written with grace and restraint.

A Private Obsession: Outsider-POV narrated by a man from a rigid, sexually conservative planet. He owns a factory where Kirk and Spock (clearly stranded and/or forced undercover for purposes the narrator doesn’t know) wind up working. He becomes sexually and romantically obsessed with Kirk and painfully jealous of Spock–and the ease with which the two men love each other–and, of course, leveraging Spock’s failing health to get Kirk into his bed doesn’t, and can’t, solve his problems.

Famous Last Words: Super adorable fic where there’s a shipboard poll of everyone’s favorite quotes of famous people’s last words, and all of Kirk’s have, um, a certain subtext about seconds-in-command, love, and sex. Contains flirting and foreplay and love confessions via quotes. Which is fitting, because Kirk and Spock are enormous nerds.

The Game: Funny, insightful story with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty playing a game–come up with something another person at the table would never, ever say–that then takes a sharp turn into devastating pining. This ends as UST, but I can’t believe they don’t get together. I mean, come on.

Warm Thoughts: Lovely, aching post-”Amok Time” story where Kirk wants to talk about what happened on Vulcan, Spock really doesn’t, and everything is brought to a head by an absolute hurt/comfort gift of a situation where Kirk comes back from a planet with an inability to get warm. Spock can ostensibly use mind melds to help him a little–but things keep slipping through that he’d rather not deal with. Excellent hurt/comfort and pining.

…And a Bottle of Rum: Adorable, hilarious, sexy established relationship fic where Kirk tries to use the “Shore Leave” planet for a bit of fun pirate role-play and Spock tries to be a good sport about it. Hilarity ensues: “Help, help,” Spock called dutifully, and was set down again with a thump as Jim collapsed in a paroxysm of laughter.

Not So Last Words: Heartbreaking post-Wrath of Khan soulmate AU. Your soulmate’s last words are supposed to be written on your wrist, but Kirk can’t understand how Spock could have died without saying what’s on his. There is beautifully layered tearjerker stuff here.

Round is a Shape: There are a bunch of “older Kirk is self-conscious about his weight, Spock loves him just the way he is,” and I will read them all, because I am a chubby sap. But this is my favorite. Utterly adorable.

And the Truth Shall Set You Free: Smug telepathic aliens force Kirk to publicly declare his feelings to a shocked, unresponsive Spock who has been avoiding him lately. The aliens feel like they could come straight out of an episode–there’s lots of debating about morality! I love debating about morality!–and the romance is lovely and the crew is 1000% in Kirk and Spock’s corner. And it’s delightful.

Cut Point: Spock gets an exceptionally flattering haircut, one that would probably make me moan, “I want to touch his hair,” even more than I already do. Suddenly, everyone on the ship can’t stop talking about how good he looks, while Kirk loses his mind due to what he thinks is unrequited love.

Gen

Way, Hey, An’ Up She Rises: Nuanced and exquisitely written first meeting story about Kirk coming onto the Enterprise and Spock evaluating him. Really well-characterized and great at the tentative feeling of the two of them feeling each other out. And has “pretty shitty but not actually an indiscriminate villain” Gary Mitchell, which is a take I’m especially fond of.

Second Decent Destiny: Very shippy and technically pre-slash, but reads comfortably enough as gen. “Amok Time” AU where T’Pau doesn’t alibi them to Starfleet and Kirk winds up with an honorable discharge for diverting the ship. Spock joins him in extremely early retirement and the two of them try to figure out where they’re going from here. Lovely, and a very good idea for a second-chance life.

Fortune’s Favoured Child: The formatting on this is kind of terrible, but it’s extremely well-worth it if you love Kirk hurt/comfort as much as I do. In the aftermath of the deaths of Edith Keeler and his brother, Kirk is foundering a little, and seems to snap under the impact of yet another crisis–and in the process, reveals layers of suppressed pain that even his friends didn’t know about.

Lost and Found: Again, superb Kirk hurt/comfort–well-plotted, tense, angsty, and perfectly executed. Kirk has been kidnapped and brutally tortured by Romulans, and as the story opens, he’s been brought back to the Federation in disgrace, having made a televised confession to all manner of crimes and (presumably) spilled Federation secrets to stay alive. His crew is supposed to keep him in the brig and bring him to justice, but of course their loyalty is such that their immediate response is basically, “Fuck no.” (I am bowled over by the sweetness of a particular gesture here.) And Kirk gets to be both extremely damaged and extremely resourceful and inventive.

Other Ships

Matchmaker of Mars: I initially left this off by mistake because I was going through my bookmarks, and I always just get to this one through my gift page! It’s Uhura/T’Pring 1930s Science Fiction Writer AU, which should be enough to make you want to read it--it has lovely characterization, note-perfect pastiche, and the two of them struggling to deal with John W. Campbell.

Oh, okay, so this was the short version. It could have been longer, I promise. This was relative restraint!

#star trek #star trek tos #fic recs

20 notes · View notes

uncertainlogic-a · 5 years ago

Note

Hi i love your blog! I would love to know your thoughts on Sarek's experience of Vulcans (disapproval of? Dislike for?) Humans/human cultures (if you want to share about it)

[NOTE: Please do not reblog this, especially personal blogs! I know I have a few who follow me who might not be familiar with RP etiquette, but reblogging posts from RP blogs can clog up our notifications and make it difficult for us to keep track of our threads.]

Thank you!

This particular topic is a big deal to me!

I think one of the things that makes it difficult to figure out what he thinks on these topics is that his canon is spread out over so many series and films, so I'm going to cover as much of it as I can here. Another thing that makes it difficult is that he just... doesn't always say what he means, and those around him seem to misinterpret him at times, so I'll try to cover that too. Which means I'm going to do SO MUCH RAMBLING before I actually directly answer your question. Whoops.

[A message from me in the future: This ended up being about 2,000 words, and I’m so sorry.]

In his first appearance, Journey to Babel, he doesn't say much about Spock being bullied himself, although it does come up in the intense confrontation between Spock and Amanda.

SPOCK: Mother, how can you have lived on Vulcan so long, married a Vulcan, raised a son on Vulcan, without understanding what it means to be a Vulcan?

AMANDA: If this is what it means, I don't want to know.

SPOCK: It means to adopt a philosophy, a way of life, which is logical and beneficial. We cannot disregard that philosophy merely for personal gain, no matter how important that gain might be.

AMANDA: Nothing is as important as your father's life.

SPOCK: Can you imagine what my father would say if I were to agree, if I were to give up command of this vessel, jeopardize hundreds of lives, risk interplanetary war, all for the life of one person?

AMANDA: When you were five years old and came home stiff-lipped, anguished, because the other boys tormented you saying that you weren't really Vulcan. I watched you, knowing that inside that the human part of you was crying and I cried, too. There must be some part of me in you, some part that I still can reach. If being Vulcan is more important to you, then you'll stand there speaking rules and regulations from Starfleet and Vulcan philosophy, and let your father die. And I'll hate you for the rest of my life.

This is very closely connected to a conversation in the TAS episode Yesteryear, in which we see a conversation between Sarek and Spock when Spock was seven years old. This takes place shortly after Spock was bullied by other children because his father "brought shame to Vulcan" when he married a Human.

SAREK: Spock, being Vulcan means following disciplines and philosophies that are difficult and demanding of both mind and body.

YOUNG SPOCK: Yes, father.

SAREK: You constantly display your emotions. You have even been seen fighting in the street.

YOUNG SPOCK: Yes, father.

SAREK: The time draws near when you will have to decide whether you will follow Vulcan or human philosophy. Vulcan offers much. No war, no crime. Order, logic and control in place of raw emotions and instinct. Once on the path you choose, you cannot turn back.

[...]

SAREK: Soon you will undergo your test of adulthood in the desert. To survive for ten days without food, water or weapon on Vulcan's Forge will demand more of you than anything ever has. To fail once is not a disgrace for others. If you fail, there will be those who will call you a coward all your life. I do not expect you to fail.

YOUNG SPOCK: What if I do, father?

SAREK: There is no need to ask that question. You will not disappoint me. Not if your heart and spirit are Vulcan.

We can see a few things here. First of all, Sarek doesn't seem to be forcing Spock to be fully Vulcan, but telling him that if he chooses a Vulcan philosophy, it will be difficult and demanding. I think it's important to remember that Vulcans have extremely powerful emotions which Humans have difficulty controlling. In the TNG episode Sarek, when Picard has to take on Sarek's emotions, Picard is just sobbing in total despair. When Sarek was in an emotional state, his telepathy also caused everyone on the Enterprise to have fistfights in Ten Forward (since Vulcans aren't actually just touch telepaths but let's have that conversation another time). Sarek can't know how Spock, a half-Human, will be able to deal with Vulcan emotions or if he'll be able to function around other people if he doesn't learn to suppress those emotions. Yet he does still give him that choice!

Now, that second part of the conversation does get a little harsh, and I don't think it's a Great Parenting Moment on Sarek's part. He is putting too much pressure on Spock, and Spock nearly dies because of it. However, I think where he's coming from is Spock faces constant discrimination for being half-Human, so any mistake he makes will be blamed on his Human blood instead of just... an entirely understandable childhood mistake.

I also think that his words are simply unclear here. When he says "I do not expect you to fail" and "you will not disappoint me", Spock takes that to mean that his father will be ashamed of him if he doesn't succeed. I think Sarek's actual intention was to affirm that he has confidence in his son. Notice, he says "there will be those who will call you a coward" making it very clear that this doesn't mean Spock will actually BE a coward or that Sarek himself will think of him this way. The problem is, of course, that Spock is very young and these little nuances of speech aren't things you want to leave up in the air.

Going back to Journey to Babel, when Sarek is not speaking directly to his son, he is much more expressive about how he feels when he believes Spock is being belittled:

SAREK: You embarrassed Spock this evening. Not even a mother may do that. He is a Vulcan.

AMANDA: He's also human.

SAREK: He's a Starfleet officer.

AMANDA: I thought you didn't approve of Starfleet.

SAREK: It is not a question of approval. The fact exists. He is in Starfleet. He must command respect if he is to function.

AMANDA: Sarek, you're proud of him, aren't you? You're showing almost human pride in your son.

SAREK: It does not require pride to ask that Spock be given the respect which is his due. Not as my son, but as Spock.

I don't really know how, as an entire ass fandom we pretend this conversation didn't happen, but. This is pretty straight forward. Although he's NOT talking about how he was mistreated by other Vulcans here, it's a glimpse into how he must have reacted to Spock being bullied as a child as well. And that last bit is important, I think. Spock received a lot of bullying specifically because Sarek married a Human woman, and it's possible he would take that personally. However, it's clear here that he wants Spock to have respect for the sake of SPOCK, not because it reflects on his own reputation. That is such a big part of his characterization to me that I think gets lost...

Now, I'm going to jump over to Discovery, because there's a lot of great stuff in there. Unfortunately, I don't have as much access to transcripts and stuff, so I'll do my best.

The first thing I have to address is the argument between Sarek and Amanda in Light and Shadows, because a lot of what Amanda says gets taken at face value, and I don't think it should be.

AMANDA: You never truly respected Humanity.

SAREK: If that were true, I would've married a Vulcan.

AMANDA: Would you have left Vulcan for me? No, you wouldn't. I sacrificed everything for our family.

I think it's really, really important to look at the context of this conversation. Spock is mentally unstable, something that Amanda says was one of her greatest fears. I think it's clear that it was also one of Sarek's greatest fears. Amanda believes that Sarek blames his weaknesses (including his dyslexia, which he inherited from her) on his Humanity, and I can see how his answer seems weak. Like, oh I married you, so I must like Humans. But I don't think that's what he's saying. I think he's saying that he married her knowing they would have a half-Human child, and if he believed Humanity would make his child weak, he wouldn't have had such a child. I think Amanda also knows that somewhere, because she changes the topic so quickly, do you see her? It goes directly from "you don't respect Humanity" to "would you have left Vulcan for me." This is great dialogue, because it's like a real argument. It's not necessarily a fair criticism; it's one you make when you're feeling vulnerable and scared.

She doesn't even wait for him to answer. Would he have said no here? It's hard to tell. Looking back at Yesteryear, it would seem perhaps he would have raised Spock on Earth if Spock would've chosen a more Human philosophy for his life. I think it would've been extremely difficult for him to leave Vulcan... Look at the room they're in. Those are the death masks of his family. This is where their katra stones are. Leaving behind Vulcan for him is more than just a simple move, it's leaving a piece of himself behind. And perhaps it is the same for Amanda, but it's hard to know. I don't think she really would have preferred to stay on Earth, if she weren't so upset in the moment, given other things she says, but I'm sure this is something in the back of her mind. Does he love her as much as she loves him? Would he make sacrifices for her? It's natural to have those questions even in a strong relationship.

ANYWAY, all of this is to say that I don't think this conversation shows that Sarek thinks Vulcan is a better place for their family or that he looks down on Humanity at all. I think it's an argument between a married couple in a very stressful situation. Like... his voice shakes in this argument because he's so worried about his children. It's a lot for both of them.

Another line that WEIRDLY gets taken at face value is from the episode Lethe.

VULCAN DIRECTOR: Upon completion, [Spock] will apply to the expeditionary group and then there will be not one but two non-Vulcans in its ranks.

SAREK: Spock is...

VULCAN DIRECTOR: Half Vulcan. Another of your experiments. The integration of Humans into our culture is an admirable goal, but it must be titrated. In honor of your position and reputation, I will accept one of your not-quite Vulcans.

SAREK: You... ask me to make an impossible choice.

VULCAN DIRECTOR: Your reaction to this is quite illogical and suggests a conclusion based on emotion.

I don't know why people think that this asshole Vulcan director's line about Spock and Michael being Sarek's experiments to integrate Humans into Vulcan culture is just the whole gospel truth, but here we are. And I wish I could make gifs on my broke ass computer so I could show the extent of Sarek's reaction to what the director said, because he is so OPENLY emotional in that moment (as the director then points out) that he must be feeling quite a lot for it to actually make it to the surface. Sarek is regularly referred to as having an incredibly disciplined mind across all the Star Trek series. The two times he falters and shows emotion in Discovery are when Amanda is questioning his devotion to Spock and when the Vulcan director forces him to choose between his children.

Some may take the fact he chose Spock as favoring the more Vulcan of his two children, but I don't think that's true at all. I don't think he considers Michael less important because she's Human; I think he thought she had a better chance to succeed off of Vulcan than Spock had. Like he said, it was an impossible choice, but he made what he thought was the best one given the circumstances.

I have so much more to say about Lethe, but this response is already getting toward 2,000 words, so I'll move on to the episode Brother.

MICHAEL: When I first came to you, I know that you considered every possible effect a Vulcan education, a Vulcan life might have on a Human child. What did you want Spock to learn from me?

SAREK: Empathy. Something he would need to understand to successfully interact with Humans.

Again, this entire conversation is HONESTLY GREAT, and I could also go on about it. BUT. For the purposes of this post, I think it's really important to note that Sarek didn't ignore Spock's Human side, and in fact nurtured it when he brought Michael into the house.

Some might take this to mean the "experiment" line was true, but that's not what's going on here. Sarek didn't seek out a Human child to bring in and teach Spock empathy. He took in Michael, and then considered how this change in his family dynamic would affect everyone. This isn't manipulative, it's an attempt to create the best possible situation.

Furthermore, it's pretty telling that both Sarek and MIchael take it for granted that Spock couldn't learn empathy from Sarek. I expect this is because Sarek suppresses his emotions, but let's think about what this conversation is about. Sarek... tried to understand how bringing Michael into his home and raising her on Vulcan would affect her and how she would affect Spock. And neither of them recognize this as empathy. Sure, it's a methodical and logical kind of empathy, but it has the same purpose and result as a natural empathy.

And I need to tie this all together before it becomes even more ridiculously long than it already is.

Sarek respects and cares for Humans as equals. He didn't marry Amanda because she's Human, he married her because he loves her. This has been supported by all versions of Sarek, even including AOS where he's barely developed. The fact that he married Amanda for love is a key aspect of his character. So, he fell in love with a Human woman, had a half-Human child, and adopted a Human child.

He also loves Vulcan and is clearly closely tied to Vulcan society and culture. To him, these things are not in conflict with his love for his Human family. The conflict is created by this bigotry in his own culture, and he (rightfully) considers bigotry illogical. Because he believes in logic and Vulcan philosophy in general, he believes that there is a logical way to combat bigotry by showing that his children are just as capable of success as any Vulcan.

The memory that he fights Michael tooth and nail to hide isn't just about him "choosing Spock." It's about the fact he was WRONG. He was wrong about his children being accepted and he was wrong about logic winning out over bigotry. He could not shield them from society no matter how perfect they were. When we see him in Discovery, he's still in the process of coming to terms with the fact there is still discrimination on Vulcan, and that he can't solve it.

I don't think it's a mistake that the memory that is playing over and over in his head when Michael reaches out to him in Lethe is the day she was rejected from the VSA Expedition. This came right after one of the "logic extremists" tried to kill him after saying "Your fascination with Humans can no longer be tolerated. Your obsession has blinded you to the truth--Humans are inferior. My sacrifice will be a rallying cry to those who value logic above all."

He is tormented by that memory of Michael's rejection because it was the first indication that he was wrong about his people and about the idea that logic can solve hatred.

SO YEAH, I think that pretty much sums up how I think Sarek views the way Vulcans are toward Humans. You can always rely on me to keep things short and to the point, of course.

#headcanon;;#it is almost 1am and i've been writing this for like hours oh my goodness #i can only hope it makes sense at this point #Anonymous

2 notes · View notes

iamanartichoke · 6 years ago

Note

Do you have any thoughts on Loki’s line “Freedom is life’s great lie,” in Avengers 2012 and what it means for him?

So I have been mulling over how to answer this, because I do have thoughts on that line but, again, something about the complexity of this movie and Loki’s characterization in it renders me flaily with the words putting into sentence doing (™Gilmore Girls).

As with much of Loki’s dialogue in this movie, this line is profound and full of layered meaning. I think that, for Loki, freedom as a concept is something that has always been out of reach. He grew up as a prince, yes, and therefore had certain privileges and advantages that other people didn’t have, but those privileges likely came at the cost of the freedom to be his own person.

Royal families, throughout history, have always been bound to a sense of duty and honor, of government and politics, of retaining power. I would imagine Asgard to be much the same, in that Loki and Thor’s choices in life were limited to what would be best for the kingdom, not best for them personally. We’ve seen how Loki is scorned for practicing magic, even though he has a great talent for it; it is considered womanly, unbefitting of a warrior and a prince, a dereliction of duty. His skill is irrelevant, as is his personal satisfaction in having mastered something so powerful; it only looks to others like he is full of trickery and deceit, and actively works against him when he finds himself on the throne.

If this is what we’re shown when it comes to skills he’s learned, what does that imply about the princes’ lives behind the scenes? How are their choices limited? What awaits them when it comes to the issue of marriage and producing heirs? Can they marry for love or are there arrangements already in place? We even see how restrictive the role of king is once Thor grows past the idea of glory and realizes how much he will have to give up in order to become king. Thor abdicates because he knows that if he doesn’t, he will not be free to live his life as he chooses.

So, yes, I think that Loki has been raised with the idea that freedom doesn’t truly exist. So if you consider that mentality to be ingrained in him due to his upbringing, then when you follow it to what happens to him after he falls from the BiFrost, the concept of freedom must seem even more absurd to him. He’s tortured, brainwashed, and manipulated by Thanos. His free will, his body, and his mind have been taken from him, even once he comes through the portal, as we see that the Other still has the power to communicate with Loki telepathically.

Mind control as a general rule is such an intimate violation of one’s privacy and freedom. I imagine Loki as walking around with invisible shackles on throughout the entirety of the movie, because everything that he did and said was being observed, and the threat of Thanos loomed over every choice he made. Even when his face told us he desperately wanted to trust Thor, wanted to stop what he had done, he could not. He had to violently rid himself of the idea of sentiment and simultaneously stop Thor from trying to convince him he could be saved so that he could survive. To be saved by Thor would be to be condemned by Thanos. Having to make an impossible choice is more or less the same thing as having no choice.

In a way, when he’s bound and muzzled at the end is probably the most free he’s been in his life. He’s a prisoner, but he’s already failed Thanos. He’s going back to Asgard, far out of Thanos’s reach. He is no longer a prince, no longer bound to the duties and expectations required of him therein. He has nothing left to lose and, ironically, there is a great freedom in being in that position. (Somewhat relatedly, I sometimes headcanon that Loki was never meant to serve that life sentence; that Odin’s mind could have changed down the line, or Loki would have found a way to escape eventually. So even though he’s a prisoner, he still has more choices than he did before, and a great amount of time ahead of him in which to do whatever he wants.)

So I feel like, to Loki, freedom is absolutely life’s great lie because nobody is truly free. Everyone is bound to something, whether it’s duty or obligation or family or whatever. And this is especially true of Thor. Thor is bound to his role as Asgard’s heir, his role as Earth’s protector and, also, he’s now been thrust into and bound to the role of having to maintain a certain perfection that maybe he doesn’t always feel. Loki’s fall elevates Thor even higher, which means there’s less room for him to make mistakes or screw up.

And Thor does not consider himself perfect or flawless or always worthy, anyway. After he falls out of the Helicarrier, we see him hesitate to pick up Mjolnir in the field even though, objectively, he’s not done anything to be rendered unworthy. So what was he thinking and feeling? What private turmoil was going on inside of him to make him feel like he’d been left wanting? That pressure is Thor’s burden, and I’m sure Loki realizes that.

I have no idea if this made sense or not, but yeah, I feel like Loki just has a lot of Feelings about freedom and this line sums them up as succinctly as possible, even while revealing so much more.

Thank you for the ask!

#asks #charlotte replies #loki pokey artichokey #loki meta #avengers #thor #of-myths-and-legends

307 notes · View notes

douxreviews · 5 years ago

Text

Star Trek: The Next Generation - ‘Dark Page’ Review

“Aren’t you going to mingle, Mr. Woof?”

Lwaxana Troi is back on the Enterprise introducing a new race to the Federation, the Cairn, who communicate mostly through images, and a new man to her daughter, who communicates mostly through pauses.

What happens when the counselors need counseling? TNG tries to address this question in this emotional but, for me, ultimately lukewarm Troi family episode. Lwaxana’s increasing distress is at first apparently caused by the Cairn – but when Marques points out that there’s been a darkness in Lwaxana since they’ve met, it’s Troi who has to descend into the underworld to rescue Eurydice.

What I thought was really well done in this episode was Lwaxana. Sometimes she can seem histrionical, but I thought her characterization was on point. From the beginning – when she tries to get Troi to marry a telepathic diplomat – to the moment in the arboretum where we see Hedril falling into the water – Lwaxana perfectly shows the confusion, frustration she must be experiencing with her telepathic powers harming her. And then the dream representations of Lwaxana ranged from the terrifying to the pathetic. Majel Barrett showed an impressive range in this episode. And more – this is a character she’s managed to pull out so successfully across a range of episodes that we can even agree with Troi when she notices Lwaxana’s drab clothing.

I was also impressed by this simple story which required a few hallways and prostheses and wound up creating a world both inside and outside a mind.

Unfortunately for me there were some misses too. The revelation of Kestra and Lwaxana’s duplicity were horrendously sad, and appropriately so, and the fact that Troi’s father is dead kind of sets the frame for why Kestra was so well hidden. But then it turned out that Mr. Homn had some keepsakes from the child, making me wonder. Also, I was a little freaked out that this important woman diplomat basically fell into a coma and nobody from Betazed was like Hey, how’s our Fifth-house type daughter, youse guys? She’s not just a woman and a mother, she’s a professional.

In the end I guess what we really take away with us is the strength and determination of Troi. Except for a little wolf-running, she kept turning and facing obstacle after obstacle, even finding enough strength to leave her father when she had to. She played detective again and again (with a little help from Picard) to unravel the mystery and save her mother’s mind. And the truth is, Troi doesn’t need a man. She doesn’t need a husband. She might need a little light, bearded fun on the side, but she’s a fully realized, independent woman.

Quotables

“Your mother told me of your need. Yes... you need a husband.”

Bits and Pieces

The Cairn are a very new contact; this is the first time they’ve telepathied with another race.

Riker looks like he’s having too much fun in this episode. Even when Lwaxana is yelling at him to stop touching Troi, he looks almost as much amused as astonished. Probably thinking it will boost his reputation; bad Riker.

Troi has several changes of clothing in this episode, possibly the most I’ve ever seen her swap out.

Kirsten Dunst makes an early televised appearance in this episode as Hedril; she would soon become Claudia in Interview with the Vampire, and twenty years later, she’s dating Spider-Man. Great how life works out, isn’t it?

And its weird to juxtapose television shows from two eras. I couldn’t see the wolf on this episode without mentioning Game of Thrones.

Overall

Four out of five protective wolves.

---

JRS

#Star Trek #Star Trek The Next Generation #TNG #Deanna Troi #Lwaxana Troi #Star Trek Reviews #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews

3 notes · View notes

dgalerab · 6 years ago

Text

OKAY WHILE I’M HERE

X1: good movie. red flags all over in hindsight but honestly like A- casting, good x-men feel, fun ride 9/10

x2: still good x-men feel, wolverine is the main character of the x-men now, i guess??? rogue gets relegated to crush haver who gets 1 useful, intelligent action per movie. awkward love triangle is awkward. honestly still contains some of the most iconic scenes ever, storm/nightcrawler interaction is weird, probably plays into angry black woman stereotype, but like... good. mastermind is a mindcontrolled guy with 0 lines though, so like... screw you if you liked him as a villain. 7/10, but i’m tempted to remove 3 points for hinting at a good x3 with the phoenix hook when they probably already knew what they were actually planning

x3: jean grey is a powerful woman and that is dangerous so her Crazed Lady Emotions have to be trapped inside the back of her brain by a grown-ass white dude. and then when they break free, they have to be controlled by another man while jean grey just like... stands there looking villainous but not, like, in the cool way that the comics had, just kinda mediocre sexy villain lady. then she is saved/killed by her love interest. cool. like a hundred iterations of rogue grappling with her own happiness vs the chance to help people with her powers get condensed into “lol she saw her boyfriend with another girl and just got the cure lol women”. calypso, quicksilver and psylocke are the same person now, an extra, calypso/ororo fight is like... 2 seconds of fighting shoehorned into the back of a fight scene. also magneto getting cured against his will by the heroes is bullshit, i don’t even know why but it’s BULLSHIT and i could probably write an essay about why. mutant registration act, idk!! 3/10

wolverine: origins: why is logan, the weird uncle who sometimes shows up to drink beer and get shamed into teaching children before he fucks off to the arctic to fistfight sabertooth still the main character. deadpool is butchered so badly it spawns a franchise several years later. extra points for inspiring ryan reynolds to actually become deadpool. really cool opening scene and also soundtrack but REALLY HE NEEDS ANOTHER LOVE INTEREST THAT TURNS EVIL AND THEN DIES? FUCK YOU, FOX. start of timeline shenanigans too, so honestly fuck you for that, too. why doesn’t scott remember anything about wolverine, movie. WHY. also, forgets emma frost is telepath, i think 4/10 because at least the lady turned against him for good reasons other than “idk too powerful went crazy”

the other wolverine movie: did ANYONE see this? what was it about even? 0/10

first class: fun. good chemistry. timeline shenanigans (mystique goes from charles’ sweet sister to an assassin in like... 5-10 years? oh yeah mystique is still naked all the time, cool). good charles/erik chemistry, that was marvelous. however, darwin, so HIS POWER WAS SURVIVAL AND YOU KILLED HIM HOW DID YOU NOT NOTICE THAT WAS A LITTLE RACIST/10

days of future past: erik’s arc is a MESS. tries to cut back on the wolverine heaviness of the series by writing him out of the series but in order to do so makes him the main character to do so and also they fail because he comes back in the next movie despite them EXPLICITLY stating he was not back until the original timeline. start of mystique’s awkward characterization bc what’s her face was too lazy to put on makeup 5/10

apocalypse: honestly the minute i saw that two of the horsemen were woc i blacked out and never saw it. i’m told they were only moderately mind controlled, so i guess they were like... villainized AND deprived of their agency? i don’t know. fuck that 2/10 for the two horsemen you could have made, you know, NOT woc after you’ve been treating women and poc like shit for many movies

logan: objectively a good movie but also fox was like "so we hear you're tired of us making wolverine the main character of a series where he was one character of many very good, diverse characters, and we've solved this problem by murdering every other x-man. oh yes also we heard you're frustrated with the way we've treated women and poc in our movies in the past so we've, like, introduced whole families of poc and then we murdered almost all of them on screen for no good reason, but like, here's this latina girl who's gonna carry on the legacy we created from focusing on wolverine, the most marketable white man we could find in the comics. don't expect to ever see her in any movies again because we're busy making the phoenix jean grey's overly emotional reaction to [a woman] having power. again. even though that wasn't the plot in the comics. ha. haha” so like... 8/10 for laura? i guess? i like hugh jackman i really do but come on, fox. COME ON.

dark phoenix: fox is the kid who got a failing grade on an essay. pulled strings to get a second chance, then ran the essay through a thesaurus and turned the same essay in again. FUCK YOU/10

the new mutants: fox, staring long and hard at a colorful, fun comic about a bunch of superpowered teens: is this horror? will hatewatch and rant about it later/10

the gifted: idk pretty good, not classic x-men enough to make me forgive you, fox. fight me, fox. give me a good rogue characterization, FOX, YOU FORGOT ORORO HAS AN ACCENT, FOX, DID YOU EVEN READ ANY DARK PHOENIX COMICS, FOX???/10

(disclaimer: i honestly don’t even know anymore who owns the right to the x-men but fox has done enough to earn my ire and i will not do research to see how MUCH of it they deserve)

#words of ain #ainguish i guess #long post #sorry about this #i have a lot of x-men feelings #x-men #marvel

11 notes · View notes

likeadiamondfrost · 8 years ago

Text

Jan. Challenge #1

At Face Value: Full Name: Emma Grace Frost My name means “whole” or “universe.” Nicknames: Em [ she only allows certain people this] Frosty, Frosty-Flakes, Snowflake, Auntie Emma, Elsa [ she hates this] Birthdate: July 14, 1993 Birthplace: Boston, Massechuettes. Age: 23. Nationality: American Race: White Astrological Sign + Traits: Cancer: dominating, loyalty, suspicious, manipulative, cultured Hair color: Naturally light brunette, died religiously platinum blonde Eye color: Crystal clear Blue Prominent features: cheekbones Skin tone: Fair Bleshish, Distinguishing Marks or Scars?: Birthmark on her right shoulder, the size of a pin head, she covers with makeup. Build/Body Type: Tall and athletic; modelesque Height: 5′ 10″ Weight: 128 lbs Speech Patterns: Elevated diction, clear enunciation. Received Pronunciation [RP] accent adopted from her father and mother. (hels is just too lazy to write accents) Tag words: Darlings, blood hell Strengths: quick thinking, strategist, great conversationalist, flirtatious, brutally honest when she needs to be. Weaknesses: cold and distant, detaches from emotional problems, fear of falling/heights. Her need to help the little guy.

The questions What is your character’s name? Emma Grace Frost. Unlike her two sisters, Emma’s only nickname is Em, and it was bestowed on her by Christian and adopted by those who are closest to her. She won’t allow anyone she doesn’t trust and let in fully call her Em. Hazel Frost chose the name for it’s classical link to literature, which just so happened to be her favorite novel growing up, and regal connotation it commanded. Winston didn’t care what she was named, only that she not be named something stupid or famous for the era. Her name derives from the Germanic word: ermen meaning “whole” or universe. For the most part, Emma’s name plays no part in her story, but she’s contemplative whether the connotations with Emma have shaped her outlook on a thing.

How old is your character? Emma is 23, born July 14, 1993. She’s a third-year grad student at SHIELD having completed her undergraduate degree at E.S.U [Empire State University]. She looks a bit older than 23, but not by much. Being a telepath, Emma certainly knows more someone at her age should, in multiple areas. With multiple degrees under her belt and a little-transferred knowledge from Shaw, Winston, Edmund Buckman, and more she’s certainly got enough to create a mental library to pick from.

What does your character look like? Emma looks uncannily like Amber heard. She’s 5’ 10” and in heels—which let’s be real she wears every day she can—she’s over 6’. Emma has fair skin with pink undertones to it, upon her right shoulder she has a small almost unnoticeable birthmark. Her hair is to her shoulders now, dyed platinum blonde religiously as to avoid roots, usually with some wave or styled in some way that is in trend now. Her eyes are baby blue, though in some lights they take on a grey hint. Emma has been size 1-2 in pants since maturity and thanks to her diets and rigorous workouts that don't seem to be changing anytime soon

How does your character dress? During her youth, Emma wore a uniform daily but was very much aware of the world of fashion thanks to her sister Adrienne. She often took her hand-me-downs that Adrienne discarded after her modeling gigs. Emma wasn’t as picky as her sister though and took to wearing anything she could after her uniform from her school. It was a learning experience to watch her sister dawn lavish gowns and fur coats, come home with the latest designer handbag or better yet a whole line of clothing. Though in early childhood Emma shied away from being too revealing, feeling more ugly duckling that graceful swan, the invaluable lesson to look good and feel good was ingrained inside her. As she developed into a teenager, Emma took more time in her appearance taking after her eldest sister.

After her time in the Hellfire Club, Emma’s conservative nature was broken and replaced with higher confidence in herself and her body thus the more revealing clothing. On her days to class, Emma can be seen wearing the latest trends from jumpers to off the shoulder crop tops and jeans [some designer some bought off the rack at a 75% sale]. When she attends board meetings and such, Emma can be spotted in designer dresses or white slacks and some colored [or white] top and blazer. Never a pantsuit as those are far too 80s for her. When she's lazy, Emma is almost always in some shirt that falls off her shoulder and a pair of shorts or depending on the weather something comfortable. As of late, she can be seen sporting a pair of sweats swiped from her dare, or her cheer shorts. If Emma is attending any sort of event like a party, she almost always dresses in something tight and revealing, skin and high priced jewelry are keys. If she were to attend another wedding, she would opt for something more conservative, and not white, something that doesn’t reveal too much of her cleavage and falls to just above or below her knee. Emma’s sense of style come from the fact that she is always dressing to impression, always striving to be flawless and impeccable, but she never forgets her confidence. The way she dresses is an extension of her personality in a way—dominating and controlled—and when Emma Frosts leaves the house you can bet she doesn’t give a damn what you think. Her clothing then by definition make her feel good, empowered and as Emma’s learned is a tool to get what she wants when she wants it. While her closet is full of many colors, it’s about 75%, White.

What are some notable relationships your character has? Emma’s life is riddled with significant relationships. From her favorite school teacher: Mister Ian Kendell to people at SHIELD it’s a broad range of things.

The first and foremost coming from her family. Emma’s relationship with Hazel and Winston is estranged at best. Though she used to be the loving daughter, upon her mutant developing did it become clear to her who exactly her parents were, though her revelation with Hazel didn’t come until later. Emma has without a doubt Hazel had the same level of contempt for her children that she did Winston. It was a tolerable situation, one she was passive in rather that active. That doesn’t mean she didn’t love Emma or her siblings. Winston Frost’s opinion of his children deals solely with their usefulness, Emma proving to be the most attuned to his mindset over her sisters and brother she was his bright pupil. The one who was meant to inherit the title and business. For a while, Emma played along until it became more than obvious she was simply a pawn to Winston, he didn’t actually care about her. Her relations with her sister fell into the same disrepair as with Winston. Adrienne being the first but not the last person Emma learned to hate. Later on when she learned how manipulative Adrienne had become Emma’s distaste for her only grew. Cordelia, on the other hand, was a different story. The two were at odds far less than Emma and Adrienne, but as they matured, it became that Cordelia’s behavior was shaped by being the rebellious daughter and the reason—without a doubt in Emma’s mind that Christian fell into drugs. It put a damper on their relationship, though Emma still talks to her sister on occasion sending a card of “well wishes” or something generic of the sort but hasn’t spoken to her since Adrienne’s funeral. Christian, was the expectation to everything. He was her closest friend growing up, someone she felt comfortable talking to about everything, except her mutation. It put a strain on their relationship immensely, and in her attempt to help him Emma lost the only person she was closest to in her family. And to this day can’t…forgive herself for letting Winston manipulator her and his admission into Snow Valley Mental Hosptial--which she would later in life attend as well.

The next, and probably the most important relationships are the ones that shaped Emma, her ambitions, drives and more important her “tastes” are the multitudes of boyfriends. Beginning with Ian Kendell. Ian was the first to show faith in Emma’s brains and ability to be more than she saw herself. While the other girls teased her mercilessly and her family care for nothing but perfection, Ian as she later called him, was helping her and encouraging her. During the delicate time in her life just at the peak of maturity when her telepathy was beginning Emma found Ian’s hopeful kindness the light at the end of the tunnel. As the two began to spend more and more time together, Emma’s school girl crush blossomed, and it was Ian who made the first move—mentally of course. Emma, being Emma and growing in confidence as her powers developed made the first move kissing Mister Kendell on her front porch after he’d graciously given her a ride home. To say she always had unresolved feelings for Ian would be an understatement. After he was forced to leave her school—at the words of Winston how was a huge donor to the school’s financial department—Emma moved on with her life. Reuniting when she graduated early and began attending ESU. Dating her college roommate Christie, Ian had found a job as a counselor to the students. And just like being struck by lightning, Emma’s old buried feelings resurfaced. When Christie and Ian broke up, due to what Emma would later find out to be Astrid’s doing, Emma and Ian began to have a relationship. It became apparent to Emma that Ian loved her and she reciprocated the feelings foolheartedly. It was the first after Troy that made Emma lose her guards. When Ian’s job was put in jeopardy due to his pervious and current relationships, Emma used her telepathy to control Christie’s testimony and have the charges dropped. Unwilling to keep secrets between her and Ian, Emma told Ian she was a mutant. She expected understanding and love, the only thing Ian had ever shown her. Instead, she was met with hatred and heartbreak. The words: “You’re a monster” are one she’ll never forget. To this day, Emma has learned her lesson of opening up to people, to letting them see the real and very vulnerable Emma Frost. Ian is the primary reason Emma doesn’t do long term relationships anymore, and the main reason she believes everyone will ultimately leave her. Tory. After Emma had graduated high school, she set her sights on New York. After years of being Winston’s personal telepathy, Emma turned down his generous offer to be the next in line to take the company and all it’s worth, Emma packed her bags and left. Multimillion dollar inheritance was all but forgotten. Being in a strange city, and still grappling with her telepathy, Emma found that she could—if she concentrated enough—trick people into giving her what she wanted. After dining in a high-class restaurant, Emma was discovered on the video camera. Forced to pick between washing dishes and jail, Emma complied never having washed a single dish in her life, much to the amusement of the busboy Troy. The two became fast friends and soon, Emma and he were living together in a small studio apartment a quick walk from their work. And for once, Emma thought things would end out okay. She should have known better. After learning that Tory owed a drug dealer money, Emma offered to tag along at his casino excursion to help him win the money to pay back his debt. Unfortunately for them, time was not on their side. While Emma was convincing Troy she could really help, more so than being a good luck charm, collectors had come. Hearing their thoughts just in time, Emma was able to give Tory and her a head start, but fate had other plans. Catching up with them, Emma and Tory were beaten and held captive. After explaining he didn’t have the money, and he could Tory’s life dangled in peril. Scared and battling the onslaught of voices in her head, Emma was no use. After bargaining for his life at gunpoint, Tory told the dealer that Emma came from a wealthy family. Not in means of helping them both, but because he was trying to save his own skin. Finding no use for Tory, Emma while gagged and caged, witnessed his death. It’s a memory that still haunts her. It was the first, but not the last time Emma would see someone’s death.

Even though she might not have come into her own until later on in life, Emma grew up beside several others including Charles Xavier, Warren Worthington III, and Tony Stark. The two latter were a point of character building. They were Emma’s solace during her time in the Frost Manor as the three banded together and alongside a few other wealthy family children created the #richkidclub. Beginning with her on again off again relationship with Warren Worthington, Emma found that she rather liked defying her father and Warren was the perfect excuse to do so. When they first began dating, Emma was mousy and quiet but soon came into her own. The two were inseparable. Showing up at all the parties hosted by people in both their schools, galas, charity balls for the families. It never failed that alongside Tony, the two could be seen getting into some trouble for stealing a bottle of champagne to drink on the roof to partying in one of their yachts. When it became apparent to Emma that Warren had the heart of a playboy, she and he called it quits only to start back up again when it was convenient for both of them. And while Emma might have loved Warren, the two were better off as fuckbuddies than actual partners, much to the happiness of Worthington II. With Warren, Emma experienced a lot and even learned that she was the type to stray given the right circumstances—meaning she’d been unable to think of a way of getting out of some Hellfire business. Though it was the first and last time, she ever did. It was with Warren that Emma found a liking for adventure and sexuality. Warren was the first real relationship, outside of the Hellfire Club Emma had while she was a dancer there and the last before she moved to Iowa. Tony Stark, is a very different type of person. Emma’s on again off again relationship with Tony had a bit more substance than the flings she had with Warren. She cares, still to this day, about Tony but knows her on again off again relationship with him and Warren was a spot of friction between the two. When she wasn’t draped on Warren’s arm or tangled in his bed, Emma was with Tony until she left New York. The two were inseparable for a while, and Emma often turned to Tony when her family became unbearable over the long breaks from ESU. For a while, Emma had even pictured being married Tony, but it became apparent that some things just weren’t for her. When they broke off, Emma and he stayed friends and even rekindled a bit of their romance during the first semester at SU. These two relationships are what defined Emma’s life after Troy, and helped define who she was as she discovered herself in the Hellfire Club and in New York. She finds them comforting and unlike her pervious relationships don’t end in heartbreak and horror.

Emma’s best friend, oddly enough, is Tiberius Stone. The two had a rocky start with her slapping him and calling bullshit on his anti-mutant hate when he didn’t know what was going on. The two are now thick as thieves. They enjoy their TLC nights and quietly—not so quiet really—judging people together. Emma would do anything to make sure Ty is in her life and to protect him. She would probably commit murder if needed. She was willing to do it the moment his powers were discovered, and he was thrown into the very cells that she had been locked into. It was a turning point in their relationship and one she keeps in mind. She's there for him for girl talk and her new favorite ritual TLC nights and knows if she finds herself in yet another bad ending relationship at least someone will let her be emotional without judgment.

Sebastian Shaw and Emma’s relationship is complex as is it intertwined. Beginning as her first friend at the Hellfire Club, Emma took a strong liking to Sebastian. Though the two frequently didn’t work close to each other, as Emma was busy on the stage and Sebastian with Buckman, the two found time to talk with each other on her breaks when she wasn’t off entertaining on of the clubs many wealthy members. Sebastian was Emma’s first real taste of the world of craft and elegant manipulation. Shaw was the first person to see Emma for who she was now in the world and help her develop her view on mutant rights. As they got to know each other, Emma developed a crush on Sebastian, and after he initially turned her down, Emma was rather cool toward him. She’s not one to take rejection lightly. Though she softened up toward him again, working her way in his good graces once again. After overthrowing Buckman, the two grew quite close and though at time Sebastian became possessive of Emma—her being his white queen and right hand—the two shared a causal relationship. That didn’t mean Emma didn’t love Sebastian as they grew closer, finding a kinship and likeness in the darker side of the world. Upon her death and the misguiding of Selene, Emma’s faith in Sebastian faltered, but as she stands now, Emma follows him. She knows every queen is nothing without a king and vice versa. And Sebastian has yet to prove to her otherwise.

Astrid Bloom is and will always be Emma’s first milestone marker. Astrid was many things to Emma and continues to be many things though the two haven’t talked or seen each other in years. Starting off as Emma’s friend and mentor, Astrid was the first telepath, besides Charles, Emma had met. While she and Charles always did thing the proper way, Astrid taught Emma control. Emma felt a bond with Astrid she hadn’t felt before, and in a way Emma loved her like a sister. The two grew close and what Emma believed to be her best friend quickly turned into possession and manipulation. Astrid had been behind Emma’s back sabotaging all of Emma’s other relationships at ESU. From having a sweet boy named Max to lose his mind and strike Emma to manipulating the board and Kristy to get Ian to lose his job, Astrid was behind. When Emma found out and confronted Astrid in their dorm. What should have been the end, turned into Emma being trapped in the girl’s psyche while Ian’s trial was held. For the next part, Emma has nothing but praise for Astrid. Without her mind and her psyche, Emma would have never learned the things she did. And learn she did. Emma found a way out of Astrid’s mind, and in turn dragged the woman into her own mind where she locked the door and threw away the key. Leaving her comatose, Emma left Astrid to be found by campus EMTs and moved to right the wrong she’d done to Ian.

Over her lifetime, Emma Frost has made enemies of many people. She knows that her personality and way of going about things that don't make her privy to gaining many friends. And she’s okay with that, protecting those she cares about with a fierceness.

What is in your character’s memory? Being a telepath, Emma is able to vividly remember a lot of things, store it and recall it within in seconds. A trick she picked up muddling around Astrid’s psyche. The most vivid of course comes from the moments that happened to shape the woman she is today: her first dance, Winston’s betrayal, The Clinic, Troy’s death, Ian’s rejection, meeting Shaw, the first time she saw a dead body. She’s burned those into her memory as to never forget what she’s been through and what she’ll continue to go through all her life because she’s ‘different.'

Though she remembers most things, Emma has blocked out the harder to swallow moments of her life. She hasn’t severed the memory, but she’s diluted it enough it feels foreign to her. These are only a handful of moments: What the orderlies did to her, the feel of their hands among other things on her at the Clinic, the miscarriage, and Tory’s death are all the top of the list.

Emma’s memories begin at the age of 6. She remembers playing school in her room while Winston had some meeting downstairs. She, Christian, Adrienne, and Cordelia had been running through the halls when they’d bumped into one of their mother’s priceless vases. It had shattered and disrupted Winston’s deal. Winston never hit his children more than needed, and Emma remembers each of them being too scared to say anything or cry out. It’s one of many unpleasant memories she has with her family. Though Emma has been conditioned enough to say to the press that Winston was a role model.

Her memories with her friends are much different. She can remember the first-time Tony, Warren and she snuck away during a winter gala, a few stolen bottles of champagne between them. She remembers the giggles the first time, prim and proper Emma had tasted champagne. The feel of it on both their lips as they played spin the bottle with a few other mischievous kids who’d found them sitting in one of the offices. She remembers the time they were on Warren’s yacht, and someone had pushed some kid overboard, but they were far too drunk to do anything but laugh, it had been Warren who’d rescued him. Though many of these memories are happy, there are few not so happy in the mix. The most recent being her fight with Tony over her powers.

While Emma might have an excellent memory, she tends to make sure things are wrapped up, and there are no loose ends when she moves on to bigger things. While Emma might remember certain faces and names, they only remember what she wants them to remember, and thus never leaves any stones unturned. It’s a habit she developed with Shaw to ensure her powers and identity as a mutant were kept secret.

Where does your character live? Emma’s lives several places throughout her life. The first being Frost Manor, in Boston. Frost Manor was the epitome of what one expects from a wealthy family. Three stories, too many rooms to count at a young age. Grand kitchen, several dining rooms- one formal used for nightly family dinners, parlors, offices, library, long winding drive, grand entrance. Located in the high society part of town, Frost Manor was situated on acres of land the nearest building being a good 15 minutes from the grounds in the gated community. For the most part, the community was conservative 1% and almost always Winston’s business partners.

In New York, Emma had a loft in Manhattan. With one wall filled with floor to ceiling windows, she had a fantastic view over the city below her. Clean and modern in style, Emma made sure things were exactly as she see fit and it shows her. Its community was pretty diverse, and many didn’t know she was a sex worker on the side of being CEO, but that was neither here nor there. For the most part, Emma stayed to herself, a friendly hello or exchange in the halls but for the most part. She never entertained gentlemen or club members at her loft, it was strictly off limits. Keeping a part of it to herself and only herself. It became a rule for her. Unless she knew them like Warren, Tony or Sebastian Emma never allowed those two things to cross.

When she moved to Iowa and was forced to live in dorms. Emma took the opportunity to 1) make sure she didn’t have a roommate for the first year 2) makes sure that all the needed things are taken care of. At the expense of her wallet, Emma made sure she had the best of the best. And the included finding a way to block out the noise of the students. It’s not fool proof, but she’s still in search of something that keeps her from going insane in her head. Now that she’s in the co-ed dorm, Emma is about keeping her door closed. Whereas before she never locked her bedroom dorm, she had it to herself after all. She doesn’t care she’s sharing with two males, she’s perfectly okay co-habituating with them, but she has a feeling it’s going to be trying in the future. And yes, she wishes she was back in New York. She doesn’t and sometimes can’t fall asleep with the quiet the campus offers and often spends those hours in her bed working on her powers or bouncing from head to head.

What is your character’s room like? Contrary to popular belief, Emma’s bedroom is not all white. It’s impractical. Though the walls a white, as is her frosted glass desk, but the bed, closet doors, and wood floors are dark wood. Her style is very modern as one can see through the platform style queen-size bed pushed up against the wall that is across from the window (with storage for out of season clothing and shoes underneath), wood and glass closet doors, complete with organizers that keep everything neat. Her attached bathroom is like the others: modern in style. With white fluffy towels and white rug and her bathrobe hung in precisely the right spot. Her time with Astrid as a roommate taught her to be organized and yet lived in. After a long hard day, a few items of clothing can be seen see across the floor, heels at the inside of the door instead of putting away.

For the most part, Emma’s closet it always full of clothing, high priced and some sales rack discounts, neatly hunt and sorted by item of clothing rather than color. Her shoes hang in a shoe organizer or on the shoe rack at the base of the closet. Though it’s small because what dorm closet is big? Emma has taken the liberty of using the spare room in her shared dorm for clothing she doesn’t often wear—like summer outfits in the winter—regardless of what Alex or Tony think or care.

What is your character good at? Emma would like to think she’s perfect at everything, but that’s not always the case. Being a telepath Emma is very well adept at reading people. It comes from quiet observations during his childhood as well as her psychotherapy training more so than being in their heads, though it certainly helps. Emma was never particularly overly smart, school wise, though the development of her telepathy helped that area immensely. She was, however, smart in another way. Emma was able to, like in chess, see the way piece and areas moved together. This was a talent that Winston first manipulated and was proud to see in his daughter. It’s the trait he wished all his children had, but Emma was the only one to act on it accordingly and wisely. Being able to do such things is also what draw Emma to Shaw. She at his side learned how to craft that ability into a skill and talent. Over the years, she’s learned to make it her own of course and its one of those skills she find she needs in every given situation. Emma was always excellent at commanding the attention of a room, this came about the older she got and the less time she spent being mousy at home and with her siblings. She likes to give the credit to Tony and Warren among others in their little group for bringing that out in her. While she was certain more bookworm than an athlete, Emma excelled in her fencing lessons and equestrian training, without the use of her telepathy. Always been more physically inclined than her sisters. She took an interest in the latter as it was one thing she and Christian did together. Them and no one else. Foreign languages, due in part because of her telepathy, also come very easy to Emma and by now speaks over thirty languages fluently. Her favorite, of course, being French and Italian.

What does your character want? Emma wants a lot of things in life. Always have and perhaps always will. But Emma’s driving force is her want to do something meaningful with her life and help others. She doesn’t want to be the next Winston in the world where all she does is to benefit for her and her alone. It’s what drove her to choose education and psychology as majors at ESU, later obtaining her master in psychotherapy at a rapid pace and it’s what drives her to want to help mutant kind now. While her methods of going about it haven’t always been morally correct, the end results have never altered. Emma Frost at her core wants to contribute to the world and make it better for mutants. Whether it be teaching, leading a team, protecting them when they don’t want her defending, brokering backroom deals Emma Frost has never, in her life, lost sight of that. It’s become clearer to her, as she’s aged and even more so recently, that her passion for teaching, to be that force in someone's life is still very much a goal of hers. What good is having money, having power and control if all she does it waste it on furiously things. She’s always dreamed of opening her own school. One exclusive to mutants. A place where they can train, learn and grow as a community rather than ostracized in mixed company or selected as the next scapegoat.

It’s from this that Emma’s want for mutant rights comes from. To see to it that, though they’re superior and different from humans, they are no less human and worth the same. It comes as no surprise to her or others how far Emma is willing to take things to see her goal through. She has, after all, died for mutant rights and activism. Has died to make a difference in the world and would gladly do it again if it meant a change for her people. She has no qualms about using people, manipulating situations, brokering shady contracts and other such immoral things to see that what needs to be done is done. In short, Emma will stop at nothing to make it a dream, even if she knows that for every step forward they take humans will always fear them. And in that case, Emma would be more than willing to get even and prove just how big a mistake that is to anyone who stands in her way.

While her primary goal might be the help, Emma’s learned over the year this goal has been tainted by the want to be accepted and if not loved. She chalks this up to the lack of love she experienced as child and daddy issues, but it remains that unlike others Emma has never been able to fully say she is loved. That someone sticks around. It’s not something that she expresses or cares about (openly) because she finds it’s silly and stupid to base one’s desires and ambitions on something like love and acceptance, but she’s come to realize, more recently especially at SU, how profoundly influencing that can be when she’s making choices. Then again who doesn’t wish and hope to be loved in their life? Especially given her relationship with love and emotions it comes to no surprise to her that this is something that motivates her. She’s found that when she loves, she loves ferociously and falls fast—even if it’s only one-sided—and protects them with everything she can offer. While it might not be easy for her open, Emma tends to be more honest and more forthcoming with people she cares about. She feels guilt and questions herself more as well. She would willing put herself in harm’s way if it meant someone she cared about was save in the process. [ Examples: Halloween Dance 2015. Punching Logan in the face, Cure Plot 2016.]

What does your character do when they’re not at home? Mainly when Emma is out with her friends, she is usually in their dorm room or having coffee and at the campus bar. Nothing overtly fancy. When she’s out by herself, Emma tends to find ways to avoid people and thus the constant banging of thoughts against her head. This includes running, working out in the danger room/rec center, meditating, gardening, horseback riding and spending time curled up in bed with a book or Netflix.

She’s never been religious, always saying she’s an atheist because she’s learned that if there ever was a god he certainly didn’t care enough to notice what was going on in life, and thus doesn’t attend church. She doesn’t understand the process of those who do but allows them to believe what they wish as long as it doesn’t impact her life she could care less.

What does your character like to do? Emma has always loved horseback riding. Even as a young girl it was her favorite activity. She can’t explain the draw of spending time with horses or the calmness it causes in her. Perhaps it’s the reminder of when things in her life weren’t so messed up, or perhaps it’s the idea that such a beautiful creature can be deadly and a force to be reckoned with. Beyond this Emma has a deep love dance and art. While she can’t draw to save her life—though she’s downloaded the information from Ciaran and others she knows –shes more into admiring artist at work and the product than making it. While she’s taken many dancing classes through her life, Emma’s favorite has always been ballet. She often as a child dreamed of being a ballerina but that quickly disappeared with age.

How does your character love? Emma’s always been more of an open relationship type of person, but somehow it always ends up being exclusive. Except for Warren, Emma typically dates one person and one along. She has always identified as female and straight, though she’s been known to experiment from time to time and has no qualms about others sexuality. This comes from the hellfire club and how she was known to entertain. Not all dignitaries and members were male. Either way, Emma’s consideration that looks are just as important as personality is titled more toward looks. While she’s not one to complain if the person of her affections happens to be below average in appearance but has a better personality. She’s shallow and mostly gravitates toward someone of handsome features rather than not.

Emma is a hard person to know in general. She’s closed off and cold because she’s learned from her past not to let anyone in. They leave. They hurt her, intentionally or not. But when she falls in love with someone she falls in love with them. It’s not coated with unrealistic ideals or expectations. Emma only ever expects—and foolishly lets herself believe—they’re going to be different than the last. For the first few moments that she realizes she’s in love, she knows it’s panic setting in instead of giddiness. Love means mistakes and getting sloppy. It means letting them in and seeing her at her most vulnerable and weak and accepting that she’s allowing them to see her as such. It means Emma Frost showing them the real, raw Emma without hiding something or pretending it’s a fluke. Most of the time, with few exceptions, Emma doesn’t act on her feelings. She doesn’t let it progress, like stomping out a flame. But there are exceptions to this rule. People who get past the cold and hard exterior. Individuals who make her wish she wasn’t how she is. Make her want to be better, to feel more openly. And then they leave, and she’s left feeling empty in a way she can’t explain. There’s only so many times a person can go through that before it begins to affect their outlook. And as of late, Emma has begun to realize that she will never be anyone’s first choice—nor has she ever been—and has come to accept that while she can have any many she desires for a night, she will never have someone beside her to last.

Because of this, Emma’s ideal partner doesn’t exist. She doesn’t spend nights daydreaming of her wedding, or who they’ll be. She doesn’t lie to herself like that.

While her romantic love life might not be so happy, Emma does loves platonically and just as fiercely. Unlike romantic love, Emma allows herself to express and feel this type of love. She showers those she loves, like Ty and Tony with gifts and things they might not need and spends most of her time with them to express it.

Regardless of how they feel about her, platonically or romantically, Emma is willing to do whatever she needs to or can to protect them and show them she cares. While it’s harder for her to open up, she has no problem proving she cares and making sure they are safe before going about her business. Emma is exceedingly vengeful as well. If someone or something hurts someone’s she loves there will, without failure, be fallout from her. And when it happens there is no spot in heaven, hell, or earth anyone can hide. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorn, has nothing on the wrath a Frost can rain down upon anyone who deserves it.

What will ultimately destroy your character? Emma Frost’s ego and personality are probably the worst things to happen to her. She is her own worst enemy. While, the tearing down when she’s left by yet another romantic interest, losing someone she cares about or being hurt, harm her, it’s her choice after these events that cause the most damage. She’s more likely to be reckless rather than rational and won’t let other’s influence her decisions or actions. Her ego, while she tends to keep it in check can and does get the better of her. Highly competitive, Emma strives to always be the best in the room—unless she knows she’s outmatched and then she settles for second best. The best example of this coming from the Cure Plot 2016, There really is no way to prevent it from happening, as one can’t battle themselves but Emma knows now more than ever if anything can bring a queen to her knees it’s her whims, ego, and the king.

Emma was her own demise, and nothing in the world can change that. The only thing that comes close is Sebastian Shaw. He’s the closest thing to someone important in her life, someone who hasn’t left yet. He is and might always be, the only man that Emma fears. Not because of brute strength but because he knows her too well. Knows just where the holes in her armor lie. Being open and honest with someone does that. While she trusts him, Emma can’t help but feel as of late that perhaps things will change and she’ll need to be ready for what’s to come. She doesn’t worry about this too much as they are on good terms but if the winds were to change, Emma would like to think that she can and would be able to bring him down. For she knows just as much about him as he does her. But physically isn’t a match for him. If this were to happen, Emma knows the end result would not stack in her favor. The results of losing Shaw as an ally would be disastrous in more than one way. There’s a good chance, though Emma would bounce back quickly, she’d sink into a slight depression—losing someone close can do that to even the mightiest of people. Shaw is the closest thing to family she has—nix Tony and her friends at SU—and is the only person who has seen Emma as Emma. Not as some force to be taken down, or as just a lover or the telepath with loose morals. It would be like losing a part of her. Her outlook on everything she’s ever done for and with Shaw would change, and the excuses that she doesn't see as excuses would cease. There would be a shift in everything she does, how she handles things, how she sees the world.

#[ inside the mind of a telepath: characterization ]#suchallenge1 #//i am not sorry #//DO NOT QUESTION MY DEVOTION OR LOVE FOR EMMA FROST. I WILL SHUT YOU DOWN #//this is like 6700 words read at your own risk

1 note · View note

tipsycad147 · 3 years ago

Text

Earth magic

by Crimsonwolf

INTRODUCTION: Each plant, animal, rock, and other entity has a spirit (consciousness resonance matrix). These spirits can join together, in a hive-mind, as a spirit of an area. Nature spirits include real biological intelligences, are psychically powerful, and are much less abstract and controllable than the Elementals that many magical people who perform all of their rituals indoors are familiar with. They can be extremely powerful allies. It is possible to sense nature spirits, to determine if they are receptive to a ritual planned, and to have them actively participate in magical workings if they are.

SOME EFFECTS OF WORKING WITH NATURE SPIRITS: Spectacular physical manifestations can happen when working with nature spirits in the wild. I have personally seen actual foxfire mark the boundaries of a magic circle at a location that was identified as a receptive power spot and attuned to a planned ritual the day before. I have seen more than one site attuned for ritual be dry and comfortable, with a round hole in the clouds overhead, on days that were cold and rainy at other nearby locations. Birds have joined in rituals, flying around the circle when energy was being raised; and insects, birds and animals have joined in chants. In addition, the wind often responds to invocations. Generally, these spectacular manifestations happen unexpectedly.

With or without such manifestations, nature spirits often will channel tremendous amounts of power into the magic being performed. It is suggested that you do not consciously try for specific manifestations. Let Nature channel her power into the magic in her own way. If approached with respect, nature may give you many pleasant surprises.

Spectacular physical manifestations are not a necessary sign of success. If you need a spectacular manifestation and nature spirits know this, you will get it. The best success in magic is on the inner planes and more subtle than such manifestations. This success involves beneficial changes in consciousness that last and helpful chains of synchronicity. In addition, working with Nature Spirits can also bring a deep sense of partnership with Nature, and bring new levels of attunement.

To get the best results, perform nature spirit attunement several hours to several days before the main ritual. The purposes of such attunement are to find suitable power spots and to get the help of friendly nature spirits. This timing gives Nature time to gather her children and to prepare to actively participate in the main ritual.

WHAT TO NOT DO: If nature spirits are approached with disrespect by attempting to command them rather than listening to them and inviting them to work with you, nature spirits may flee, rebel, or attack. I once attended a ritual by some pseudo-Crowleyites who attempted to perform the "Ritual of the Barbarous Names" at a power spot in a forest and then to extend the circle several hundred yards in all directions.

While the forest in general had loud insect and frog noises, the area at which the ritual took place got quiet immediately when the main ritualist declared that all spirits were subject unto him. The vibes from nature could best be characterized as "Oh yea, Mother...!" One participant was quickly possessed by an angry spirit and kept repeating "You killed my children, your children will never live in peace." When the priestess stepped out of the boundaries of the original circle, she was attacked by bees; and bees covered the Book of the Law. Magicians should know better than to attempt to command spirits whose true names they do not know!

CALLING NATURE SPIRITS: To make the most out of working magical ritual in the wild, one should find power spots where nature spirits are receptive to the ritual planned and approach the spirits with respect, as equals. In my experience, the most effective power spots for working with the living intelligences of nature are located in wild areas with diverse, active ecologies.

When entering a wild area to find a site for a ritual, find a place that feels good. Then do the following, either individually or, if in a group, as a guided meditation:

o Relax, while standing upright, and focus on your breathing. Breathe deep breaths from the diaphragm. Breathe together if in a group.

- Feel the wind, and let it relax you and awaken your spirit within, as your deep breathing takes you into non-ordinary reality.

- Picture, in your mind's eye, a light inside you. As you breathe, feel the light expand, purify and energize you as it expands to fill your aura.

- Feel yourself glowing, balanced, purified, and full of power.

- Connect with your inner self (your higher self), and feel your intuitive self operating.

o Feel yourself as:

- The wind, full of life and intelligence, communicating with all round.

- The Sunlight, warm, alive, channeling the power to communicate with nature and energizing all around.

- Water, emotional, intuitive, refreshing, and connected with nature.

- The Earth, and note how your physical body is able to wander while remaining part of Mother Earth.

o Focus on your spiritual self, and:

- Note the light within and feel it as love,

- Expand the light and love beyond the immediate aura of your body to the surrounding area

- where you will go to find a power spot and contact nature spirits.

o Telepathically (by thinking while channeling the love and light energy) send out signals to nature spirits to emerge and be aware of your presence.

- Say why you have come, and invite them to join in sharing, mutual celebration, and the work you intend.

- Visualize the light and love energy you are channeling extending out and merging with the light from distant places.

- Feel the power of the Earth flowing up through your body and feet. - Feel the power from the sky, and channel this power also to further energize the carrier signal of light and love for communicating with nature.

- Visualize the light expanding and merging.

- Continue to send out telepathic signals.

o Now go deeper:

- Close your eyes, sit on the Earth, and feel your connection while you channel more light and love.

- Continue modulating the light and love with your thoughts

- inviting receptive spirits to join with you and to make themselves known.

- If in a group, someone should start playing a drum at a rate of about one beat per second; and you should listen to the drum and let the drum take you deeper.

- Affirm that you are a nature magician, a medicine person, who knows and communicates with nature. Let this part of yourself emerge to full consciousness. Let the drum and the connection to your inner self awaken that part of yourself that naturally communicates with other life forms. Let it awaken your telepathic senses.

- Continue sending telepathic signals to nature.

- When you feel ready and an inner urge to begin, open your eyes a crack and look around, while continuing to channel love and light and telepathically calling for a response.

- You may see light coming from certain areas that are receptive. You may get other signals, such as a feeling of power or love returning in a certain direction. Perhaps the type of response to this work will be unexpected; follow your intuition in interpreting it.

- You may test your connection by communicating (mentally) instructions for signals for yes/no responses (such as light getting brighter for less and darker for no) and then mentally ask questions and observe the responses.

o When you have found an areas that seems to be responsive and receptive, begin walking to the area, while beaming love energy. Extend your aura to the area and sense the energy.

ENTERING A POWER SPOT:

Before entering a power spot, ask permission to enter. If the response is good, enter; if not, locate another more receptive area.

When entering the power spot, look around. Perhaps the responsive energy will be concentrated around some singularity (a bush, a tree, a specific branch, a moss covered rock, or other entity that stands out). Perhaps the energy will be more general. Use your intuition and feedback from the spirits to guide your actions.

If it feels right, send out a signal that you would like to touch the singularity (or the ground) for better communication. If the response is good, approach beaming love energy, and then touch or hug the singularity (or the ground).

Treat the spirits as you would other Pagans you meet for the first time - be sensitive, open, and listen.

DEEPENING COMMUNICATION WITH NATURE SPIRITS:

o Now that you have made contact with spirits that seem receptive, deepen the communication:

- Breathe deep breaths from the diaphragm, and with each breath, feel more refreshed.

- Now imagine that your spine is the trunk of a tree; and, from its base, roots extend deep into the Earth. Deep into the rich moist Earth.

- With every breath, feel the roots extending deeper

- Feel the energy deep within the Earth and within the waters of the Earth. Feel your roots absorbing nourishment from the Earth and from its waters.

- Feel the moist, warm energy rising.

- Feel it bursting up from the Earth and rising up your spine, like sap rises in a tree.

- Feel the energy rise to your crown chakra (at the top of your head).

- Now imagine that you have branches, branches that sweep up and then bend down towards the Earth, like the limbs of a willow.

- Feel the branches extending and interweaving with your surroundings.

- Feel the warm, moist energy of the Earth flowing through your branches. As it flows, feel yourself being purified, centered, and connected to the Earth.

- Feel the power from the Earth flowing through your branches and then down back to the Earth, like a fountain.

- Note how your branches absorb energy from the air. Also, feel them receiving light (fire) from the sky.

- Feel the energy from above penetrating deep through your body into the Earth.

- Feel the warmth of the Earth rising also. - Feel the energy circulating.

o Notice how your branches intertwine with the branches of energy surrounding you.

- Feel the energy dancing among your branches and the branches around you.

- Notice how your roots also intertwine with underground energy channels.

- Feel the energy dancing between your roots and the surrounding energy patterns.

- Notice how you and the life around you are rooted in the same Earth, breathing the same air, receiving the same fire, drinking the same water, sharing the same underlying essence. You are one with the magical grove.

o Telepathically mention the time in the past when nature spirits and people communicated regularly and the need to establish such communication now. o Test your connection by asking questions and observing the responses.

WORKING WITH NATURE SPIRITS:

o Explain to the spirits the purpose of your coming to them and the nature of the ritual you plan. o If the spirits you contacted are receptive:

- Explain to them the details of the ritual and invite them to provide ideas.

- Listen, you may receive suggestions on how to improve the ritual. Such suggestions may come in the form of hunches, visions, answers to yes/no questions using pre-arranged signals, or in other ways.

- Explain what type of space is needed and ask what the best place to perform the ritual is.

- You may see light or get other psychic signals leading you to other sites, or you may be at one of them.

- You may also ask what the best places for other aspects of the planned work are (picnicking, individual vision quests, etc.).

- If preparation of the site is needed (removing briars, preparing a fire circle, etc.) ask permission of the spirits before proceeding with such action.

- Before you leave the power spot, tell the spirits you have contacted when you plan to return to do the ritual (visualizing the associated lunar and solar aspects can help with this communication).

- Invite them to join in the ritual when you return and to bring their friends.

- Ask if it would be best to return silently, with drums, with chanting, or with some other form of approach.

- You can also ask the spirits to provide guidance for working in balance and to provide a teacher to provide further guidance.

o Before you leave the power spot:

- Thank the spirits,

- Channel love energy,

- Trigger your memory of the experience, and

- If it feels right, leave an offering of tobacco, or beer and honey poured on the ground (or other suitable material).

o Leave in peace and love. o Proceed to other sites that were indicated by the spirits, doing similar meditations at each site. o If you need something, like a staff, a Maypole, or a wand, you can also ask where you can find it and follow the guidance you receive (not slavishly, but as you would guidance from another Pagan). o Before leaving the general area in which you found power spots and contacted nature spirits:

- Channel love energy towards the receptive sites you found,

- Thank the spirits of the land,

- Pull back your roots and branches,

- Ground any excess energy into the Earth (placing your hands on the Earth, breathe in any excess energy, and channel the energy down your arms, while visualizing and feeling the energy going into the Earth), and

- Leave in peace and love.

o Naturally, you should leave the area at least as clean, and preferably cleaner, than you found it. o If you work with techniques of Wicca or Ceremonial Magic, you may find that by casting a circle, calling the Elements, the Goddess, the Gods, and the local nature spirits while you are at receptive sites, you may be able to greatly increase communication. o Through the use of drums and other power raising techniques, it is even possible to energize receptive nature spirits. The results can be very interesting. If with a coven, such circles can be done as part of a group attunement to a power spot you have located. o If you do not get good feelings in response to your explanation of the ritual and are unable to come up with a ritual that gives good responses, do not try to force a good response. You would only be fooling yourself.

- Thank the spirits for their attention.

- Ask them why they are not receptive (if it feels right and they are communicative).

- Trigger your memory.

- Pull back your "roots and branches," return any excess energy you feel into the Earth.

- If it feels appropriate, leave an offering of tobacco or other appropriate material, out of respect for the spirits.

- Move to a more receptive site.

o If it is hard to find a site that is really receptive, you should: - Consider any impressions you got of why the nature spirits weren't receptive in the area you were in, and re-think your plans for a ritual, as necessary and appropriate. - It may also be appropriate to look for another general area in which to find a suitable power site that is receptive to the work planned.

WHAT TO DO WHEN RETURNING: It can be very powerful to purify and center yourself and to attune to the spirits of the land using the techniques previously described for calling nature spirits immediately upon returning to the site.

Often, individuals may have found small specific power spots to which they have a special attunement, where the spirits are interested in participating; but where the site is too small, has too much vegetation, or is otherwise unsuitable for the main ritual. Individual attunement to the spirits in such areas and inviting them to participate in the main ritual can be worthwhile.

Then approach the main ritual site using the previously arranged technique. You should have the details worked out with the spirits of the land. An exceptionally powerful technique involves doing a procession through or past receptive power spots, inviting nature spirits to join as you pass each power spot, and then moving to the central power spot for the main ritual. If participants are at individual power spots, they can join the procession as it passes nearby.

When consecrating space in the wild, or casting a circle, do not set up the perimeter as a barrier to all outside forces; it should be a beacon to attract friendly nature spirits, a container for holding magical power, and a barrier to spirits who it isn't right to be with.

One thing that is fun and worthwhile in nature is to bring instruments, such as a rattle, a flute and/or a drum, to tune in to nature's sounds, and to make music in time to nature's sounds. You may be able to get some very interesting back and forth exchanges of music going with selected creatures of the wild, and get into an amazing jam session.

After the work is complete, be sure to thank the spirits for their participation. Libations and other offerings may also be left for the spirits during and/or after the ritual.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: There are other ways of working with nature spirits. This is one approach. The author thanks Selena Fox for teaching the basic guided meditation technique for locating and contacting nature spirits at a tranceworking session sponsored by the Chameleon Club (part of the Association for Consciousness Exploration) in 1981, Vicky Smith for editorial review of this article, Isaac Bonewitz for the outline of the expanded tree meditation, and Carlos Castenada, Black Eagle, Pasha, the Goddess, the Gods, and various nature spirits for teaching the rest of the good methods. Most of this article is an expansion of an article by the author titled "Finding a Sacred Grove for Druid Initiation" by Larry Cornett, published in The Druid's Progress and in Amaranth Anthology.

By Larry Cornett

https://crimsonwolfe.tripod.com/id33.html

0 notes

obscuraxrp · 7 years ago

Photo

The smoke settles to reveal PARK JIMIN, a 22 year old were-dhole of Sunseong. He is a police officer who appears to be adept in enhanced senses, enhanced condition and canine manipulation --- but like most things in Sunseong, there must be more to him than meets the eye.

FACECLAIM: Park Jimin, bts

APPEARANCE:

Jimin’s dhole-form is distinctly canine but his coloring is most similar to the red fox. His coat is plush; a vibrant copper from his face to the base of his tail and on the outer parts of his legs. From his jaw to his belly, inside his legs and his paws are snowy white. His ears are large, rounded, and soft, with feathery tufts of white fur inside. His nose, whiskers, toe pads, and long fluffy tail are black.

BIOGRAPHY:

It’s not easy to fully understand ‘who’ you are when you don’t know from ‘where’ you came. This was something Jimin found especially painful as he grew up in the Busan orphanage where he was abandoned. He has never managed to remember any details about his parents and without any way to track them down, a void began to grow inside him. As a few years came and passed slowly in the orphanage, Jimin couldn’t help wondering why his parents didn’t want him and why none of the other parents who visited wanted him either. What was wrong with him that others could see but he couldn’t?

Eventually, the day did come when he found a home, but it was not with a happy young couple like he’d expected. An older man had been hanging around near the orphanage grounds for a few days prior to him beckoning to Jimin when he caught the young boy’s eye. Far too trusting, despite multiple lessons on the danger of strangers, Jimin raced over to see what he wanted. The man told him that he was different from the other children; he was special. It was everything Jimin had ever wanted to hear. The old man didn’t seem to mean him harm although he did smell strange, but he offered to come back that night and take him away if he could manage to sneak out without getting caught. And Jimin did just that.

Thus started a strange but beneficial journey between the two males. The old man was a recluse who lived completely off the radar of modern society. The next few years of his life were spent living in wild forests with the strange old man who claimed he could actually turn into a leopard when he felt like it. Jimin believed him wholeheartedly, despite the lack of visual proof and soaked up every little bit of knowledge the seasoned survivalist bestowed upon him. As he came closer to puberty, Jimin began to resent their lonely lifestyle and doubt the stories of magic and strange creatures he’d been told up to that point. He started to think maybe he should run away and try to find a city to live in with ‘normal’ people. This agitated, unrested feeling continued to grow until the full moon when Jimin’s reality was turned completely upside down.

The wise old man had managed to teach Jimin everything he would need to know about living part of his life as an animal without actually mentioning the part about him being one. Sensing that it would only cause fear and distrust in the boy, he waited patiently until the change inevitably happened naturally. The realization of what he truly was could’ve been quite scarring for Jimin, but more than anything, he began to realize not only 'who’ he was, but 'what’ he was. The animal part of him is a dhole, a type of wild dog that’s nearly extinct in Korea. Somehow instead of being depressed by this information, it gave him a sense of hope that his parents and other relatives were out there somewhere but living their lives as humans, which was an undoubtedly safer option.

Life became much easier after that realization. Since then, Jimin has worked tirelessly to rejoin society and catch up on what he’s missed. Now, nearly ten years later, he is living a life that he’s proud of. And has a reputation he’s proud of too. He has lots of friends; which he likes to think of as his own honorary pack and finds enormous fulfillment from his work on the Sunseong Police Force.

CHARACTERIZATION:

Above all else, Jimin is kind. He has always yearned for a family, meaningful friendships, and bonds strong enough to form a pack someday. He is diplomatic and dutiful; a dependable young man with strong moral fiber and a code of honor that he is willing to defend until his last breath. He’s protective of those he has befriended and anyone he feels could benefit from his care. It’s clear by looking that he is quite athletic and capable but it’s not in his nature to be overtly aggressive or confrontational. He is soft spoken and friendly; easily approachable. Perhaps too empathetic; he habitually puts the feelings, desires, and well-being of others before his own. He tends to worry about what people think of him and second guess his acceptance in social circles as he does suffer from abandonment issues.

Positive Traits - Nurturing, determined, patient, forgiving, honest, altruistic Negative Traits - Stubborn, idealistic, naive, workaholic

SPECIALTIES:

Shapeshifting (Innate) Enhanced senses (See below) Enhanced condition (See below) Animal communication (See below)

Enhanced Senses - Rank I (20 pts.)

Jimin’s five senses are enhanced due to his canid DNA, but he’s also spent extensive work sharpening and honing these skills. His senses are amplified from strongest to weakest as: smell, hearing, taste, touch and finally, sight. The time he’s spent living in the wilderness has led to the following enhancements through his fine-tuned senses.

Enhanced Tracking - Using his senses, Jimin can track targets via various means, ranging from sound/visuals to scent to footprints. In some cases he can even reconstruct what happened in a certain location by examining the area they are searching.

The longer it has been since the target passed the area or the more the area has been disturbed, the smaller his chances of success become.

Enhanced Intuition - Jimin can sense near to immediate danger to his well-being and attempt to evade it. Intuition usually involves another person in suspicion, but may include surroundings such as a building or oncoming car accident. Jimin can sense ill-will or malice, usually by scent but also as a gut instinct feeling. + to Body Language Analysis

He cannot sense distant dangers. Sensing an attack or malice does not mean he can defend himself from it. Can be hard to decipher the specific threat beyond the feeling. He would probably doubt the feeling if it is coming from a person that he previously trusted, i.e. a close friend.

Lie Detection - Jimin is able to sense/identify when a person is lying to him. If the target is close enough to him that they are speaking face to face, he can hear their heartbeat quicken, for example.

This is not necessarily applicable to people who lie easily and without guilt.

Enhanced Athleticism - Rank I (20 pts.)

Jimin’s physical condition is enhanced due to his canid DNA, but he’s also spent extensive effort training his body so that it reacts quickly, precisely and can endure long bouts of physical activity and strain.

Enhanced Dexterity - Jimin can control his movements and muscles expertly without fumbling. He can slip through narrow spaces, keep balance at high altitudes, and manage to usually land on his feet if uprooted or pushed. He’s able to regain balance quickly and can perform tasks at inconvenient angles or on unstable surfaces. This also contributes to exceptional aim.

Accuracy is diminished when Jimin is exhausted or distracted by outside means.

Enhanced Leap - Dholes are exceptional jumpers and so is Jimin. He can jump farther than average both in human and dhole-form; vertically and horizontally.

Not to the extent of superhuman distance. Requires a solid surface to land on. Circumstances could affect his aim or cause him to miscalculate distances.

Enhanced Reflexes - Jimin has enhanced reaction speed, allowing him to dodge, block and maneuver around complex attacks, catch falling objects, block detriments react almost instantaneously to events. + to Enhanced Intuition

Objects moving at tremendously quick speeds or with too much force may be too difficult to dodge.

Body Language Analysis - Jimin can intuitively read others’ body language and anticipate their actions. He can intuitively anticipate their actions and respond accordingly, often allowing him to predict opponent’s attacks. + to Enhanced Intuition

May not work on targets with enhanced speed, strength, or that use misleading or erratic movements.

Canine Manipulation - Rank II (40 pts.)

Jimin is able to influence and manipulate canines such as dogs, wolves, coyotes, foxes, dholes, dingoes, etc. The skill allows him to communicate telepathically, sense emotions and empathize, request assistance, or even form a spiritual bond with the animal he is focusing on.

Not applicable to shifted animals. Range is limited to hearing distance. Canines with sentience may be hard or impossible to control.

Mind Link (Canine) - The ability to develop a link between minds with other living canines, sharing thoughts, memories, emotions or feelings.

Limited to a maximum of five animals. May be irreversible.

Animal Scrying - Jimin can access a linked canine’s senses. He can experience what they taste, feel, smell, see and/or hear while he is channeling through their link.

Only applicable with an animal that is bonded or linked with Jimin. Maintaining the scrying takes complete mental focus and leaves Jimin completely vulnerable to what is happening where he is.

#obs: follow #*park jimin #*bts

4 notes · View notes