#[release this from the depth of my drafts lmao

[sentofight]

When Stacy had joined the UNSC, she had made countless friendships, protected the galaxy and all that lived in it. She was never prouder to have served but it was her time afterwards that would find her in the more…stranger situations. When a part of Alpha squad, she was the heavy gunner of the squad. It was her job to pin down enemies and give her squad covering fire. It didn’t give her much civilian job experience but she did work as a firearms instructor after her tenured in the UNSC. She still kept in contact with her old squadmates, including Rebecca though their communication was limited given Rebecca’s new position. To think she would be friends with royalty. They would hang out from time to time and she even babysat for the two when they would vacation in the UEG. She was always excited to see the little ones. At this point they called her Aunty Stacy and it was just the cutest thing.

So imagine her surprise when one day Spartan-197 and a mysterious woman who looked similar to Lucina but older appeared in her store one day. When she first heard that this mysterious woman was the same little girl that she had watched over was certainly out of left field. There was no way that the time went by that quickly. Stacy almost laughed thinking this was a joke but she saw that 197 would dead serious. Listening to this Lucina certainly made her realize that this was no joke. It was a lot to take in and one she would have to have Rebecca explain just what happened during her disappearance period. Though looking at this older It was then she heard the reason on why they were just here in the first place. This Lucina wanted to join the UNSC like her mother. She wasn’t really in a position to say no. Rebecca was one of her best friends and she owed 197 a lifetime debt after he had saved her. So when she heard that Lucina wanted to be trained to become a Marine, she was going to do it.

Stacy had been training Lucina for both her physical tests and aptitude test. It was important that she was taught on just what weapons she would be using as a Marine and the many different jobs. She could be a field medic like her mother, a sniper if range was more her thing, a navigator if she was more inclined to follow star charts. Something she would have time to figure out before going to boot camp. Stacy currently had Lucina running around a practice course. After making her go around the tract to go the distance of 4.82 kilometers, Stacy had clicked her stop watch that read a time of thirty one minutes forty seconds. It wasn’t a bad time but she would need to do a little better to make the cut. Stacy blew a whistle to signal to Lucina to take a rest. She walked over to her with a water bottle and the stopwatch.

“Not a bad time kid.” She said handing her the bottle. “thirty one minutes and forty seconds is pretty good though we will need to cut this by another minute for you to qualify. You’ve got your mother’s determination in you that’s for sure. Tell me. Why did you want to join the UNSC? I don’t want to dissuade you from this choice if it’s what you want to do but it’s not a decision to be made lightly. There’s a lot of choices to be made in it. Firstly which branch you want to join and then what job you want to apply for. I’m sure you are well aware that your mother was the field medic of the squad but there are other options as well. I was the heavy gunner of the squad. Got to deal with all sorts of heavy weapons. It was my job to cover my squad if we ever had to move from one position to the next. When you join you’ll be given a placement test that will show you which jobs you’ll fit in the best at according to different factors. Of course you can always choose something different than what the test suggested. It’s up to you to decide what you want to do.”

It was not strange that Lucina would favor one of her parent’s occupations. Hearing all about her mother’s glory days in the marine, made her grow fond and in awe of what she used to do. Lucina asked her parents and grandpa to help her get in that job like her mom and certainly it brought joy to Rebecca but a mixed feeling of concern and proudness. 

Spartan had brought her to whom who would help her achieve that dream--Stacy. Explaining that she wants to be like her mom and help in whatever she can, Stacy yielded and helped Lucina prepare for what will come to her in the future of this job.

Running was not bad but naga’s mercy achieving a certain time record is a tough job. Drenched in her sweat, Lucina was trying to take her breath when Stacy said she got a good record but she needs to do a little better.

“Huff... Gods ... this...is tough than I thought,” rubbing her sleeve against her forehead to wipe her sweat, she fixed her posture and took a deep breath. “I want to have different options to help people,” she is blessed by her natural father strength and her mother’s stamina, not to mention sword skills and other skill sets from her home realm. “I want to be able to do more than swing a blade to protect my family and friends.” 

She closed her eyes and opened them and you can tell the determination in her eyes. “I’d want to aim for a role like my grandfather, honestly, but I want to see where my abilities will be of use the best. Now, shall we go again, Miss Stacy?”

[mylittleredgirl]

m*a*s*h reaction post released from my drafts!! i don't know why i have been worried about making a Good Post when legitimately everything that could ever be said about this show has been said.

so i will SHARE MY THOUGHTS ABOUT SEASON THREE currently in progress:

ooooh war got a sweet budget increase in the off-season. pyrotechnics! helicopters! ACTIONNN BAYBEEEE

i'm falling more in love with everyone, details to follow

top of the list: trapper my bestie has been promoted to trapper my legit fictional crush 💕

don't get me wrong, in real life i would slap his face, but i'm with hot lips on this one. the hair, the smile, every time he takes off his shirt... take me to the supply tent or lose me forever

HOWEVER, i happened to notice that he is not on the header pic on hulu* and none of you talk about him so i must regretfully conclude that he will eventually leave the show

DON'T TELL ME WHEN

anyway i am cherishing him as one cherishes an old dog not long for this world

*speaking of hulu: i have now joined the henry blake appreciation society thanks to this One Weird Trick (reupping my hulu account for a month because i lost my shit after the dvds cut out at the climax of an episode AGAIN)

i went back to rewatch the episodes that didn't play on the dvds, and turns out a lot of them were henry eps (including the trial of henry blake and the one where he is waiting for news about his new baby...) (and also the one where he fell in love with a cheerleader but you can’t win ‘em all)

just in time to appreciate that scene in "o.r." where he tells hawkeye he doesn't want to be discharged so that he can keep doing real doctoring 🥺

"o.r." had so many good character bits!! even frank got some depth?? or at least an explanation for why he's Like That...

other eps i liked:

"iron guts kelly" -- felt like a follow-up to the one last season where hot lips got wasted and broke up with frank and then hawkeye and trapper had to sober her up, which i also loved! "we hate her but she's OURS to hate" is such a good character dynamic.

also lmao every time she cheats on frank, GET YOURS GIRL 😘

the frank/margaret thing is strangely compelling actually? it's like an inverse ship for real. will-they-or-won't-they but for breaking up. same energy though, like i'm glued to the screen rooting for them to fight instead of kiss.

"check-up" i was sooooo brave you guys making peace with the situation BUT THEN TRAPPER STAYED!!! i feel like my crush has been given a stay of execution

i don't know if i ship it per se but i really hope he and margaret hook up exactly once and literally everyone regrets it

i've seen some more episodes and have more thoughts but i need to lie down a lot first

oh one more thing:

i realize "m*a*s*h actors amazing" is not breaking news, but i'm specifically obsessed right now with how they are always interacting with props. i don't even mean the o.r. tools or scripted things, but how in every scene they're doing comedy while also moving crap around, pouring things, drinking, shaving, changing clothes, handing (or THROWING) things to each other, just making a mess all the time while still hitting their lines and comic beats. it's a master class in whatever that is.

anyway it's so good!!! more to come 💕

[outpost51]

The 51 Post

Figured I'd start some kind of digest!

Contents:

Things You Might Have Missed

This Week's Jams

WIP Breakdowns

From the Skwad

Around the 'Blr

Things You Might Have Missed:

I've got a taglist form now! Because who doesn't love a good form?

BRHP: Chapter 14 posted; Atria learns the meaning of touch starvation and really, really misses her dad.

WIP Intro: Caught in the Crossfire (18+)

WIP Intro: The Arsonist Chronicles (18+)

WIP Whenever (Open Tag): BRHP chapter 15 snippet; pop pop is having a time time

Crossing Over: the 5th entry into the Lighthouse in the Fog shorts; a new player has entered the fray, and a familiar face reappears.

Vampire Council lore and vampire origins lore

Aria/Omega snippety snip

This Week's Jams:

friends like these || Brassie [spotify/youtube]

Little Girl Gone || CHINCHILLA [spotify/youtube]

EVERGREEN || PVRIS [spotify/youtube]

Eyes on Fire || Gold Souls [spotify/youtube]

WHEN THE PARTY'S OVER || Cami Petyn [spotify/youtube]

Lizard Lady || Laura Doggett [spotify/youtube]

WIP Breakdowns:

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Chapter 15 should be coming out later today, with 16 slated for release sometime late this week or early next week. I'm finally in the chapters that don't require a ton of rewrites; most of what I've been doing is adding content. The whole thing is outlined through chapter 30 though! Since this is my entry for WIP Big Bang, updates will "stop" at chapter 18, since that's what I had published before the rewrites. After that, you'll have to wait for the release date! Which also means I have to wait for the release date for the serotonin, and that's going to be a nightmare.

Unlikely Adventures of Bitchface and Go F*ck Yourself

At this point, it's just a matter of making myself work on it. About a third of chapter 9 is written and the entirety of Act II is outlined.

Blinding Neon, Shades of Grey

nervous laughter

Stellar Parallax

Fuck, I missed this WIP. I missed Jane especially, she's so fun to write -- I'm about a third of the way into chapter 9 and it seems to be flowing pretty well? I just wanna get to the part where she and Saren beat the shit out of each other LMAO

Lighthouse in the Fog

Dunno if y'all saw, but the lighthouse keeper stories have a tag and a tentative title now! It's going to remain as a series of loosely connected shorts, and that may very well be what I end up doing with Xatal as well. Anyway, we have some lore groundwork laid! Look out for the 6th short later today!

In the Works

I still have questions in my inbox that I am absolutely getting to! I've also got a bunch of unanswered tags in my drafts and Notion. Losing a week and a half of planned answer time threw my schedule WAY off. Submission for SSSC #006 is in the planning stage. Hannah and the MILF Squad Get Up To No Good is about 30% written and fully outlined. I have... so many Kryterius prompts left to fill, and so many more spotify wrapped prompts left, send help. Still working on separating out the Daddy Issues smutshots, hoping to finish up the rewrites for the F!Shali one before the end of July. TIPYNTS is most likely going to come out in October, and by then I'm hoping to have a backlog of chapters to make posting more consistent.

From the Skwad:

Door's always open! 18+ writing server for both fanworks and original works! Camp is starting soon! We also have a flash fiction challenge and three bingo cards running until the end of the month!

@teamdilf continues to absolutely baffle me with her productivity here we go: A Cheesy Situation is now complete, ch 16 of Alice's Adventures in Andromeda is live, ch 18 of The In-Laws and the Grandparents is live, A Night in the IKEA dropped which I'm absolutely dying over, and that's not even all of it. holy shit J i don't know how you do it but i'll have whatever you're having thx

@thetrashbagswasteland dropped ch 4 of the Sunseeker rewrite and I'm adsfdafdadsf yes. thank you king

@sparatus is tearing me to fucking pieces with Make Less the Depth of Grief. i hate you (i love you)

@uraniumwriting also obliterated me with their FFF entry.

@wrathbites is back and I'm literally beside myself I missed the Vampire AU so fucking much.

oops @commander-krios got me invested in Star Wars please look at this.

@starknstarwars updated Smuggler's Ruin aaaaaaaaaaaaa

A few of our members participated in Shenko Summer!! @dandenbo wrote Volta and @mrsd-writes wrote both We Got Here the Hard Way and Forever Home!

@regalbois dropped a new original oneshot and has been going bananas over Bioshock lately and gifting us MORE mlm deliciousness, ch 3 of Magnum Opus went live last night.

@inflarescent has a new wippppp aaaaaaa -- intro post for The Roulette Paradox here!

@discoeffect updated Far From Any Road and I am devouring the first book so I can read this one!!

Around the 'Blr:

Have you checked out the Writeblr Directory or Writeblr Cafe yet?

I'm literally still thinking about @captain-kraken's Heitha translator.

@void-botanist dropped some witch lore I'm eating with a spoon.

@tc-doherty ALSO popped off with the conlang.

The dates IRL are lining up with the dates in @elshells's Agent Ace EXCITING also a new chapter is dropping probably by the time I post this lmao

@liv-is dropped this GOLDMINE of relationship writing tips also TIL what Liv does for a living not sorry

@writernopal first of all made me absolutely CRY being sweet in the tags last night and also dropped an aasoaf 3 sneep while i was composing this thank you my friend i needed the energy snack

did y'all see Find the Word XVIII from @artdecosupernova-writing i'm going FERAL

@tabswrites's Silver Sentinels has a second chapter, I am VIBRATING

@oh-no-another-idea just slid in with this little diddy that i LOVE.

︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶

Outpost Updates Taglist: @tabswrites @writernopal @freedominique @asher-orion-writes @liv-is @starknstarwars @captain-kraken

Ask to +/- in the tags, replies, DMs, or HERE!

[deltaruminations]

Some Thoughts on Memoryhead That Were Supposed To Be Mostly Related to Gaster Knight But Then I Just Got Really Deep Into Talking About Memoryhead (AKA Sad Sack Scientists Squad Theory)

(Don't worry, Alphys won't be ignored in this.)

(Also the SSSS Theory thing is a joke please dont take the "theory" thing too seriously LOL)

In my recent slapdash summary of the possible mechanisms/indications of Gaster Knight Theory (GKT), I mentioned that information from Undertale's Memoryhead could be seen as contributing to two points:

Gaster has spent time in Dark Worlds in the past (according to GKT, ones he created), and likely the ones we've seen so far in the game (not Kris's).

Gaster's desire for a "NEW FUTURE" is motivated at least in part by feelings of regret and possibly guilt.

Here's a little bit of my reasoning for that. just kidding here's way more reasoning than you could have possibly ever wanted

(This is to a certain degree a very rough draft of a section of a bigger analysis. It involves opinionated readings of ambiguous information and I don't want to set the expectation that it's solid evidence of anything, but I think it's VERY, VERY INTERESTING possibly a worthwhile read for anyone who likes in-depth emotional/thematic analysis and/or obsessive overthinking of small details lmao)

A preliminary note on Alphys

Before Deltarune chapter 1 released, bringing with it further (possible) contextualization of some of the True Lab's outstanding mysteries, it was commonly thought that Memoryhead was a manifestation of Alphys's shame and regret over the DETERMINATION experiments.

I want to take a moment here to acknowledge that Alphys and her story are often overlooked and treated with contempt by much of the fanbase, and there's historically a tiring trend of Alphys revisionism, in which indications of her aptitude and achievement as a scientist or depth as a character are arbitrarily attributed instead to one skeleton man or another.

To be entirely clear: the True Lab sequence is without a doubt Alphys's story. While it may serve secondary purposes in offering lore and fleshing out Undertale's broader narrative, the primary purpose of this sequence is to contextualize Alphys's depression and feelings of worthlessness, as well as to demonstrate the importance of her scientific work and her capacity for compassion, responsibility, and bravery. The overwhelming majority of what we experience there is unquestionably meant to illustrate how Alphys's actions resulted in pain for others, and the grief she feels as a result.

(If anyone's interested in an in-depth reading of her character, Dorked made a great video on the topic.)

That said, I'm not proposing this analysis arbitrarily. While Memoryhead as a thematic symbol does contribute to and reinforce our understanding of Alphys in significant ways, there was always room for reasonable doubt as to whether Memoryhead as an in-universe phenomenon originated with her or was meant to describe only her. With the new context of Deltarune, I think we can identify further possibilities for Memoryhead as a component of that game's story as well as Undertale's. Wherever appropriate, I'll discuss its connections to Alphys Undertale as well as potential relevance to Gaster Deltarune. I believe that understanding her story may help to inform our understanding of his as well.

---

Memoryhead's nature

Memoryhead seems to be distinct from the other True Lab entities in several ways:

It appears in a group of three, rather than as one individual.

It isn’t an obvious amalgamation of identifiable monsters (or, in Endogeny's case, category of monsters) from Undertale. It doesn't comprise recognizable monster components in its sprite, attack patterns, or ACT options.

It doesn't appear in the epilogue.

It doesn't have a grave in Deltarune's cemetery alongside the other Amalgamates encountered.

(Side note: I just realized I totally forgot about Reaper Bird, who, despite having identifiable monster components, is pretty weird in their own right. They don't appear in the epilogue or cemetery, and the whole thing about Everyman is its own mystery that I can't even begin to guess at currently.)

Because Memoryhead is the first encounter in the True Lab, players are likely to take these differences for granted, as they don't know yet to expect anything else. With hindsight, however, this information seems to indicate that Memoryhead manifested via a different mechanism than DT injection.

I don't want to get too deep into guessing at the mechanisms underlying its existence. There's not a whole lot to go off of right now. My best guess based on context clues is that it's a byproduct of DT extraction, rather than injection -- it occurred when Alphys and/or Gaster extracted their own DT. However, that brings up a lot of further questions (ex. who made the blueprints/machine? Was Gaster "erased" from existence/memory in the Undertale universe, or did he simply disappear one day and no one brings him up anymore?), and I don't know if we're (read: I'm) prepared to answer them yet.

For our purposes right now, I think we just need to take for granted that Memoryheads manifested out of Alphys or Gaster somehow, reflect bad memories held by one or both of them, and keep moving.

(Kind of silly, but another aside: the Amalgamates in Undertale seem to be a direct evolution of an idea found in Toby Fox's first video game project, the Halloween Hack -- a ROM hack of Earthbound. As many others have noted, Deltarune seems to be in many ways a re-examination of ideas & themes first explored in the Halloween Hack. I'm not sure if that actually means anything in this particular discussion, but it's among the reasons why I went specifically for a ROM hacking metaphor and not a general programming or game development one and also i just think it’s cool.)

---

Memoryhead encounter

Attack pattern

Memoryhead has one bullet type and pattern (depicted above). This bullet is (to my knowledge) unique to it.

There are a number of things about this attack pattern that, when taken together, could be considered reflective of Gaster, specifically:

It's been noted many times by fans that the "face" sprite used in the bullets strongly recalls the eyes and smile of spr_mysteryman.

They are sometimes placed outside the visible bounds of the bullet box, existing beyond what's expected to be the intended plane.

Because of the timing of the bullets' placements & transformations, several identical instances of the face appear simultaneously across the box, yet no two concurrently-appearing faces are ever in the exact same state at the same time.

When attacked, Memoryhead actually becomes stronger, gaining HP far beyond the maximum.

For an emotional analysis: the rapid and randomized placement of the bullets, as well as the faces' erratic writhing motions, evoke unpredictability and unknowable intention. The crude simplicity of the faces abstracts away relatable features, leaving only the eerie, jittering smiles to suggest that they either delight in attempting to harm the Player, or that they're so far removed from "humanity" as to lack recognizable emotion or intent.

For perspective, we could compare this against Everyman -- while its sprite is also abstract, simple, and a little unsettling, with a featureless, unemotional face, its round, bipedal form and expressive movements inspire a certain amount of sympathy and even pity.

I also find it interesting that the Memoryheads dissolve away just before their attacks and then reconstitute just after. To me, this lends the impression that they are either becoming the bullets in some way, or hiding from them. Again, this is ambiguous. We could take it a few different ways.

It might seem bizarre to discuss the characterization of a magical bullet that presumably has no inherent consciousness, personality, or agency. However, I believe the choices in emotional storytelling here (as with all sources of Gaster Lore in Undertale) are in conversation with Deltarune's choices for him, especially in his direct "appearances," and how we as previous Undertale Players look at & interpret that information.

ACTs/Dialogue

Memoryhead is fundamentally connected to phones, as well as the concept of "connection" in general. Before the CELL act is used, it plays a dialtone and offers only visual noise in its speech bubble, as though it's calling and waiting for someone to pick up. After that point, it offers some peculiar dialogue:

Notably, it can only be spared by picking up the phone (allowing them to entreat the Player) and then refusing its advances. Accepting them results (IIRC) in an instant game over.

It's obvious how Alphys is reflected in an entity themed around connection, that can only communicate by phone -- phones are used throughout the game as a device (GET IT????) to explore facets of her anxiety, anxiety that both led her to make regrettable choices and was further exacerbated by the effects of those choices, and prevented her from seeking help when she needed it.

Gaster's connection to phones is less concrete. There may be some visual indicators in the battle sprite, which I'll get to in a bit.

I also think the dialogue here could be very telling of something that doesn't explicitly indicate either of them -- but if we hold that it might be descriptive of Gaster, then it could be seen as an indication that he's involved in the corruption and/or betrayal of the Dark World secret bosses.

At face value, Memoryheads' dialogue seems to simply be entreating Frisk to join them, the Memoryheads, among their legion of constituent memories. Allow them to hurt you, so your bad memory of that pain can join them.

While there's value in that interpretation, I also think that having the Memoryheads appear in a group (as I said, this is unique among True Lab entities) is intended in part to obscure an alternative reading: the Memoryheads' dialogue actually reflects the contents of its memories -- of its source's painful experiences.

From that perspective, we learn that whoever spawned the Memoryhead may be haunted by some form of corrupted connection. They were, perhaps, drawn into some kind of movement or group and now regret their participation, and/or they themselves recruited others into such a group (could we consider shadow crystal holders such a group?), depending on whether you see the dialogue as being their words or someone else's.

The fact that refusal causes the Memoryheads to lose interest could suggest a few different things, but among them is the idea that the entreating party was looking for easy targets. Simply asserting "no" may have been enough to cause them to lose interest and move on. The memory holder may regret, among other things, that they said yes to something, or that someone else said yes to them.

Another very specific sub-detail of ACTs I think is worth discussing is the Bad Memory (described as a piece of Memoryhead itself) that's placed in a Player's inventory upon using the ITEM option.

The Part Where I Ramble For Several Paragraphs About Bad Memory

A seemingly obtuse detail of the Bad Memory is that consuming it in most circumstances will result in 1 point of damage -- but consuming it when HP is at 3 or lower results in a full heal. Mechanically, this makes it a useful last-ditch healing item for late game battles, but narratively? It's definitely a strange choice -- in theory (and acknowledging that most Players never do this in practice), consuming Bad Memories over and over again slowly depletes our energy, but once we approach maximum vulnerability, one more Bad Memory will unexpectedly make us strong again. I think we could say something there about healing through the long, painful process of confrontation, and also about the risks and inefficacy of stewing endlessly in regret.

The Bad Memory cannot be dropped, as it always "comes back." However, it can be put in the Dimensional Box for storage, sold at the Tem shop (the only shop that will purchase items), or consumed.

From an emotional storytelling perspective, this could be taken to suggest that the memories comprising Memoryhead can only be dealt with through compartmentalization, externalization (i.e. "sharing" it with others by communicating about it), or confrontation of the memories internally and in solitude.

These aren't equivalent options. Compartmentalization causes it to be out of the way, but still taking up valuable space; externalization requires carrying the memory for a time, but when the right opportunity arises, we can release it to someone who finds it valuable (just as Tem is willing to pay money for Bad Memories); internal confrontation can lead to great healing, but it demands vulnerability, may be painful, and without caution, could put us at risk.

It's very obvious how this reflects Alphys's character growth. She compartmentalizes the outcomes of her mistakes down in the True Lab, hiding them away from others, while forcing herself to care for them on her own without support. Repeatedly confronting that regret (as well as provocation by Flowey) breaks her down until she's at her most vulnerable and most exhausted, and then she faces a choice: to either admit to what she's done, or end the grief herself. Admitting to her actions allows her to move on, while providing something tremendously valuable in return: for the Amalgamates and their loved ones, the opportunity to finally reunite; and for the Players, a treasure trove of information and arguably one of the best sequences in the entire game.

How does any of this reflect Gaster's character or story? i was going to editorialize on this a bit and then realized i was drifting too far into the minimally-evidenced opinion zone so instead i’ll just say maybe we’ll see parallels between Alphys’s bad memories and Gaster’s Bad Memories develop over time.

---

The Sprite

This is where the biggest indications of a relationship to Gaster Deltarune and possible indications of his activities in Dark World MAY, ARGUABLY, be found. This section also touches on some of the most ambiguous information and the shakiest conclusions. Bear with me here.

Chatty Skull Imagery

i was gonna include images in this section but i think the post is too long and tumblrs mad at me now and doesn’t like my pictures so. sorry :(

Memoryhead's battle sprite is commonly seen to resemble a brain with a spinal cord curling underneath, and I wholeheartedly agree. I'd also argue it looks like a cartoon speech bubble -- this was actually how I initially read it when playing the game. These are both consistent with its memory theming and communication through the cell phone.

In addition to the above imagery, I've also seen arguments that it resembles a skull speaking on a phone: (imagine static image of sprite next to animated one lol)

This becomes a little more apparent in the animation, as its bobbing motion gives the impression of the skull's mouth opening and closing. While the phone aspect of this is immediately consistent with the ACT options, and "head" would certainly refer to a skull more literally than a brain, there's still some ambiguity as to what, if anything, the use of a skull could mean.

It's possible that the suggestion of a skull is simply meant to contribute to the eeriness of the image. However, I feel that Undertale's precedents for skull imagery tend toward greater nuance. Sans and Papyrus are introduced early on as cute, charming characters, subverting common associations with humanoid skulls. The more frightening instances of skull imagery -- the DT extractor, God of Hyperdeath's ultimate attack, and Gaster Blasters -- recall an animal or monster's skull, not a human's.

These latter examples are also arguably meaningful beyond their unsettling nature: the DT extractor (as well as Flowey X's resemblance to it) and God of Hyperdeath's attack are both tied to Asriel's death and incomplete resurrection, while the Gaster Blasters have something to do with Gaster I Guess (or at least demonstrate a connection between him and Sans and bolster other indications of his skeleton-ness).

If we hold it to be true that a humanoid skull is present in Memoryhead's sprite, and an unsettling one in particular, then it may not be too much of a stretch to think there's narrative or symbolic intent underlying that choice. It doesn't automatically follow that it's an image of WD Gaster speaking into a phone, but it does seem to raise that as a possibility. I should mention, too, that this is consistent with what I feel to be a running theme of obfuscating information about Gaster, as well as influencing our interpretations of that information, through the emotional language of eldritch unease and the abstraction of his character.

HIDDEN SECRETS REVEALED!!!!!!!!!!

Last but not least, we have what is possibly the most crucial and also wildly opinionated interpretive "evidence" of the analysis: Memoryhead's faces. I'm still skeptical of this myself, so make of it what you will.

Some fans have raised the possibility that Memoryhead's faces are depictions of the secret bosses. This is based on their belief that Jevil and Spamton's faces can be seen on the left of the sprite.

(Image created by u/TheQueen0fNowhere, found in thread linked above)

This would suggest that the secret bosses are the constituent memories in question, or at least representative of them.

As cool as this possibility is, there's clearly a lot of room for doubt. I've listed a few possible issues in the Caveats section at the end.

---

Synthesis WRT Gaster Knight

There's a great deal of storytelling around Memoryhead that seemingly points to it being directly connected to Gaster in some way.

If Memoryhead is a reflection of Gaster's bad memories, then it suggests that he feels some amount of grief, regret, or guilt over failed and/or "corrupted" attempts to connect with others. This may have involved manipulation, of which he may have been a victim and/or a perpetrator.

Deltarune's current trend for secret bosses holds that they've all "lost themselves" and experienced some form of hardship and pain (maybe excluding Jevil lol he's just having a good time) as a result of interacting with the unseen Roaring Knight and receiving Forbidden Knowledge from them. Spamton's story in particular heavily invokes the imagery and symbolism of phones as a medium for connection, and explores the inherent vulnerability of trusting or depending on others.

Some admittedly pretty ambiguous imagery in Memoryhead's sprite may be very directly tying it to Deltarune's secret bosses, in turn potentially tying them to Gaster. While less explicit, the specificity of the themes, imagery, and symbols in common between Gaster, Memoryhead, and the Secret Bosses still suggest that Memoryhead could connect the two... wait... con... connect... oh my god

Memoryhead also serves to underscore major aspects of Alphys's experience of regret and trauma, specifically due to actions that were motivated by duty to and love for her society, but were marred by incomplete knowledge and exacerbated by a reticence to admit to her mistakes or seek help.

If we hold it to be true that Memoryhead can represent meaningful storytelling for both characters simultaneously, then we have reason to think that their stories may also be in some way parallels. While this isn't the only conclusion that could be drawn, it does seem reasonably consistent with Gaster's characterization in Deltarune -- assuming that we both recognize and are willing to trust that characterization. We do, after all, have indications that he's capable of manipulation in pursuit of a cause.

---

Assorted thoughts that aren't immediately relevant but I figured I'd make note of them anyway

There's a pretty clear allusion to Deltarune's Man in the True Lab but I didn't really get into it because idk the most concrete thing it really tells us is that Lab Related to Gaster and i feel like it's already been fairly self-evident for years why traces of him would be found in the lab. it's literally the habitat asgore made for his pet scientists and filled with important enrichment such as a kitchenette and fun toys with which to commit well-intended atrocities. of course gaster worked/lived there lol i do personally think the language of an undescribed "man" (like, not mysteryman or everyman or snowman, simply A Man) is being used to indicate that Gaster Our Good Friend Gaster (the "actual" guy, who's incorporeal and may have kind of a dispersed perspective but retains contiguity of consciousness) is present in an area, as opposed to just remnants or echoes of him. but i think that's a justification post for later

Others have pointed out the similarities between the Shower Creature in the True Lab and the things that shoot bullets in the "??????" area (spooky supply closet area) in Deltarune. I do not have any real idea about What This Means in particular but it's another interesting connection to keep in mind in the future.

Oh boy the DR team did sort of reference the shower curtain in Spamton Sweepstakes didn't they

Sort of related to that, I do have some vague opinions about the possible nature of the Watching Man (see Wiki article above) who approaches menacingly only to sweetly tuck Frisk in and peace out. but i feel like i need to spend more time on other stuff before I can even begin to justify those, and even then i'll be swinging for the fences i think

i was also going to postulate on how memoryheads name being blank also means stuff maybe but then i forgot and now im too tired. but an empty space for a name could be consistent with our guy. honestly i think the stuff around gasters name is really interesting in general esp if we consider it alongside the isolation and erasure (both possibly self-inflicted) and what it might say about his relationship to himself (deep unease at the very least, id guess lol)

---

Caveats

I want to acknowledge some important possible pitfalls in these interpretations with regard to GKT:

Most obviously, it remains to be seen whether any of the secret bosses from future chapters are represented among Memoryhead's faces.

Kris's fountain in general could potentially destabilize many aspects of GKT as I currently see it. Concerning Memoryhead in particular, the logic here assumes that Gaster (from his perspective) previously interacted with Deltarune's secret bosses. If we do see the secret boss of Kris's (or any other characters') Dark World represented, then what does that mean? Does it mean that Kris opening their Fountain is something that happened in Gaster's past, and is not a new twist in the Deltarune universe's trajectory? Does it mean that Gaster somehow visited those Dark Worlds as well? Right now, I'm not sure what we can make of that. While I'm not sure it would necessarily disprove the general idea that Gaster has some regrets about the secret bosses, for some reasons, it would destabilize many of the ideas laid out here.

The above two thoughts lead to another possibility: that Gaster wasn't opening Fountains himself, but was somehow simply interacting with the secret bosses on the side. Again, not sure what to make of that right now.

There's another possibility for why both Alphys and Gaster seem to be reflected in Memoryhead: perhaps Memoryhead is a manifestation of bad memories she has about him, and not directly reflective of his thoughts or experiences. I chose not to get into this because it begs a lot more questions that are hard to answer and i think the above interpretations pretty successfully counter-indicate it. but also the idea of that honestly just makes me feel very ":/ ok" (listen im very earnestly trying not to woobify the guy but i also think his flaws and potential for villainy are likely more nuanced than outright malice or a disregard for other people or whatever.) But anyway i figured i should acknowledge it

[kindahoping4forever]

💫 🤍💘 pls crystal 🥰

Anything for you, Jess. 😌💙

💫what is your favorite kind of comment/feedback?

I really appreciate hearing from readers who chose to read something despite it not being their usual cup of tea - whether it be the particular band member, something in the tags, the genre or even that they don't read much fic at all - but for whatever reason, they decided to give me and my story a chance. It's a nice feeling to know that they saw something there that made them want to make an exception and that they ended up being happy they did. That kind of faith and intent is a special kind of reader/author vibe.

🤍what's one fic of yours you think people didn't "get"?

Two fics came to mind but I can't really pretend that I don't understand the response they got because in one way or another, I feel like I didn't totally "get" what I was going for either. Both have a slight angst element to them and while I was intentionally trying to challenge myself to write something different, I should have realized that my audience (at least at the time) really just wanted to have a dirty, banter-y good time and so it made sense these stories didn't hit like the others did.

The fic that immediately came to mind is I'd Rather Be In Love, the one and only non-smut fic I've ever written (and most likely, will ever write). It was written in the 5+1 format and while I'm actually fairly proud of the way I structured the narrative, it's ultimately a story that didn't need to be written (I was in a rut and 5+1s were going around so I tried it out just to try it) and at least to me, it doesn't really feel like one of my stories without the smut. So with the confines of the format limiting my ability to give my characters as much depth and personality as I typically do, a wildly different tone (I literally have it tagged as fluff on AO3) and a blink and you miss it sex scene, I think my audience simply didn't know what to make of it and to date, it remains my least engaged story on both Tumblr and AO3.

The other story I thought of is Threw Out Our Cloaks & Daggers Because It's Morning Now (also probably my worst title lmao). For some reason, I thought my super fun and sexy Gardener!Ash series needed some dramatic weight and this was meant to be the first in a multi-part emotional arc (spoiler: that was for some reason going to culminate in Ash getting pegged) but I struggled so much with writing it and the reception was so underwhelming, I shelved the entire series. It was an unremarkable idea executed poorly (the structure is a mess, the tone is all over the place and you can absolutely tell I cobbled the final draft together from a pile of scraps because I just needed it to be done) and again, it was an unfortunate case of me just not understanding what my audience liked about my writing and specifically, that series. Who wants to see Gardener!Ash sad?! It made sense it bombed and I've genuinely considered retroactively calling it a standalone piece instead so it can be retconned out of the Gardener!Ash universe.

💘Is there any posted fic you want to rework/re-edit/re-write?

In the years since I wrote Release, I've quietly gone back in and made some changes but I think overall I'd like it a lot more if I gave it a more thorough overhaul. It was my first fic and I'm still proud of the concept but I just know that 2023 Crystal could handle certain ideas and scenes with a lot more grace and style.

Stylistically, in a lot of ways it feels like I was kind of mimicking Cass and a few other authors I looked up to at the time so a lot of my own sensibilities were still forming and thus don't really feel present. But the biggest issue for me is the centerpiece of the fic contains this extended rough dom sex scene and while I don't think it's a misstep (I still like what it means for the characters and the overall narrative), I can totally admit that I was out of my depth attempting such an emotionally complex scene like that with so little writing experience. If I were to write it now, I would definitely check in with the characters and their thoughts more to make sure that the point of the scene, what it meant to them and their relationship was spelled out a bit more responsibly. Thankfully, the majority of readers understood it anyways but still, I wish it was a little more obvious a lot quicker because as it stands now, it's kind of a crazy tonal shift.

I'd also probably tone it down a little bit. Hard dom fic was A Big Thing at the time and so I didn't think twice about including some fairly harsh physicality and degradation elements that I don't entirely vibe with now and are a pretty stark contrast to the type of fic I'd go on to write lol. Again, I don't regret the scene, I just think if I wrote it now, I'd be able to provide it with the nuance it required and deserved. (Cass and I have also discussed revising the poly!Lashton series we collaborated on for these same reasons.)

Let's chat! Writer Asks

[holyalto]

♡ A Sims Tag! ♡

This is from ALMOST a year ago. I seen it in my drafts so it's getting posted NOW because I'm finally playing the sims again lol.

Show us a rendition of yourself in your own art! Can be anything! Sims render? Random stick figure? Picrew? Go nuts! (Just be sure to tag the artist if you use someone else’s picrew!!!!) Tag the blogs you want to know, and don’t be a dick that’s it! Also, feel free to answer as vague or in-depth as you want. And if you don’t want to answer a question for any reason just don’t vibe with it! Skip it if you wanna!

(original tag by morgynemberisagenderfluiddaddy and the original post is here. i was tagged by cosmiksims, thank you!!)

1.) Do you prefer to be referred by your name or blog name?

either one is fine with me! i go by my nickname on here anyway. my full name is mercedes. :)

2.) Where are you from?

ohio. i have never tasted anything except corn and chocolate covered blobs of peanut butter in my life. someone please help me.

3.) Do you have pets? 👀

yes! my fiance and i have quite a few. we have a cat named tiramisu, a guinea pig named cookie, a bearded dragon named borris, a leopard gecko named anubi and a florida king snake that i call roach because i can't pronounce his real name <3 (and i don't like him rip)

4.) Tell us about your “dream.”

i just want to be a good mother, partner, friend, family member, stranger. that's it. i know it's very simplistic but that's my dream. i want to be a good person.

5.) Aside from art, what are your hobbies?

my 'art' is playing the sims apparently hahahaha. uhm, i like other video games as well. more simulation management style. things like software inc, jurassic world evolution, project highrise, tropico, ANIMAL CROSSING EEEEE, etc.

6.) Does anyone irl know about your blog?

my fiance! he called my bee legacy 'fan fiction' and i nearly died.

7.) Do you know anyone from your blog irl?

nope.

8.) What are some fun facts about you?

i own every animal crossing main game. i still play pokemon go everyday. i have a six month old son who is VERY cute. and i'm turning 22 next month.

9.) What’s your day job?

i'm a stay at home mom :)

10.) What’s your aesthetic?

uh!! next question because i'm just... slob trait lmao

11.) What kind of artist are you?

i actually went to graphic design school. college sucks hard when you're mentally ill tho lol

12.) How did you get into your form of art?

art - wattpad. i was 12 and started making book covers for people haha. i got really into photo manipulation after that and took that as my focus in vocational school and then went and did about two semesters of it in college. sims - i was 11 and wanted the paranormal pack. my mom went out and bought it for me because i begged for it for days. i played with it daily and eventually collected all of the sims 3 packs except for the last one. it took me a long time to switch to sims 4 after release because i was stubborn. i bought it like four months late, opened it twice, hated that i didn't understand the controls, and refused to play it again until a few months later.

13.) What do you watch/listen/read/anything else while you create?

youtube mostly, in the background. a lot of flabaliki/simssupply and buzzfeed unsolved because i love them and their dumb faces so much.

14.) What meme would you use to describe yourself?

probably the 'not a thought behind those eyes' tiktok audio

15.) If you were on the run, what would you change your name to?

why would i just give away information i may need in the future

16.) Have you ever or do you want to change blog names?

yes! i want to but i have some cc that uses that name. so i'll stick with it.

17.) God forbid Tumblr decides to pull a MySpace and lets us have page songs, what song would you choose?

i would simply delete my blog.

and now, the tags. only if you’re comfortable though! ♡ just tagging the people i see most in my notifications. don't feel pressured <3 @almost-spring @coatedinhoney @whyhellosims + absolutely anyone else. just say i tagged you.

[protectchara201x]

(ignoring all the other juicy Deltarune 2 stuff to shove Chara Talks into it lololol)

I haven’t been super active on this blog because frankly I have like, three? looong analysis/theorycrafting posts I’ve been putting off working on and it fills me with shame to log in and see them waiting in my drafts.

But.

With the release of Deltarune Chapter 2, I wanted to talk kinda in general about how I thought it could impact the fandom’s perception of Everybody’s Favorite Demon Baby, and also point out something in specific about the Weird Route that might connect back to Undertale.

Putting it under the cut to avoid spoilers and long-winded ramblings for the unwilling. Includes spoilers for the Weird Route.

(NOTE: may update later if I notice more things for to put in section II. I’d like to make a full list of parallels if I can tidy them up.)

I. Pre- vs Post-Release Thoughts (you can skip down to II if you don’t care, it is genuinely Long and Pointless)

Okay, so first off. I got SO worried like, the day before the new chapter dropped? It hit me that whatever new stuff we got out of this, people would connect back to Undertale, and. Honestly, I really do hate connecting everything back to Chara, because I do think of Kris as their own character and I really like them and don’t want to ignore everything they got going on. But, I am first and foremost a shameless Chara stan and they’re very important to me, so I kinda... did spend a few minutes reeling from all the new DR stuff as its own stuff, and then immediately started thinking about how this would reflect back on Chara in Undertale lol.

But that’s ok for me to do here because this is my All Chara, Only Chara, All The Time blog, so I am gonna only really talk about Deltarune here to talk about them lol.

So yeah, I started getting anxious beforehand worrying about how everyone would take any and all implications and apply it to mean “aha, Chara IS evil!” The fakeout with the pie reveal in the anniversary stream was a big relief, but I still got worried leading up to the release about what could be in it.

Because part of why I’ve always thought that “Chara was genuinely evil from the start” and even “ok maybe not TOTALLY evil, but Chara was still a kinda bad person” were unlikely was, even if you throw out all the other popular Chara-sympathetic theories. To me, both these takes just seemed too below TF’s talent and the way he wrote all his other characters with depth and love; a Chara like the one these theories propose just doesn’t belong in a world created by TF, and the way the Dreemurrs talk about them overall, the way TF made a point of having Chara say they were guided and repeatedly, correctly blame you the player for the destruction in Kill-All, I was sure that he never intended them to ever be as bad as the fandom sometimes tried to make them out to be.

... Like, mostly sure. Like, 80% sure? Because he never ever talks about them, so it’s impossible say for sure, and it is still theoretically possible that “Chara was and is bad” was the cold-ass take he’d intended all along. So yeah, leading up to the release, I started getting antsy that whatever new lore came out of it, either he’d directly confirm “Chara was a villain?” “*cocks gun* Always has been” or there’d be something that’d at least heavily implicate them, or could be twisted to implicate them, as a negative force. More ammo to be used against them in the Chara Debate Circles would be a drag, and outright confirmation of them as a villain would honestly break my heart and I’d be forced to disown Toby Fox, My Beloved Cool Dad.

And, right now? Tell the truth, I’m SO relieved and I am SO happy. And not just because of how much depth and characterization it seems Kris is getting! (imo, because rn I just headcanon them as an unhappy teen desperately trying to keep their new friends going on adventures with them and trying to fight back against the player’s control)

I love how this chapter seems to be TF doing course-correcting based on fandom interpretations. Because Kris just isn’t evil, even if they are a knife teen, even if they are the Knight, they’re just NOT evil and that’s canon, baybeeee; it’s made clear in this chapter and the previous one that they love their family even outside of the player’s control, they care about their new friends even outside of the player’s control, they’re established as a weird creepy kid but no one sees them as scary or evil, they’re just Kris, and even in the Weird Route, TF made a point of hammering in the differences between Kris and the player in the Weird Route: Susie and Ralsei notice how distressed Kris seemed after you have Noelle ice Berdly, Noelle heard a voice that she said wasn’t Kris telling her to kill, and the FUCKING Spamton fight: “Kris called for help... but nobody came” again and again, and then “You whispered Noelle’s name”... you, not Kris.

I know TF has never commented much on fans’ perceptions of Frisk and Chara, or who exactly is pulling strings in different routes. But after all this, and especially after seeing all the little winks and nods to fandom jokes in this chapter (what comes to mind: pulling everyone’s leg by seeming to have Kris attack Toriel with a knife only to reveal that pie theory was right, Susie not liking Ralsei’s real face as much as his shadowed one, Ralsei with a gun getting referenced with the ad, Kris getting a joke fixation with knives after the fans made Chara and Kris have knife obsessions as a joke), and seeing what looks like him try to correct some things (what stuck out to me was doubling down on showing that Kris is loved and valued in their family: lots of fans came away from Chapter 1 thinking that Kris was not valued as much as Asriel, but here we see that Toriel is supportive of Kris’ friendship with Susie, and it’s stated that Asriel is the one who used the crappy controller, not Kris) -

I think while he hasn’t commented directly, while he admitted to being overwhelmed by Undertale’s success, while he tends to be pretty tight-lipped about the lore (whether that’s because it’ll be addressed by future chapters or because he prefers to let fans sleuth it out), this chapter convinced me that Toby does keep tabs on fan reactions in Deltarune, so he probably does with Undertale too and would know about all The Discourse surrounding Little Mx Pink Cheeks (and in turn, popular theories like Narrator Chara... Toby if you integrate Narrator Chara into Deltarune being a borderline creepypasta and have the narrator start talking directly to the characters or to the player or the characters start talking to the narrator I will lose my damn B E A N S).

(Kris and Chara not being demonized and the narrator interacting directly with the characters were the only two things on my wishlist going in, I was fine with literally anything else happening lmao)

I even kinda think he’s going out of his way to separate Kris and the player because we didn’t get it before with Undertale, we still insisted that Frisk or Chara was the one doing it, and he’s even using Kris to show that even if this kid can be scary, maybe even mean, and maybe they’re even the Knight (with their reasons unknown), they’re still not a bad kid, they’re still funny and likable, and they still genuinely love their family and friends - which falls in line with Undertale’s cast of complex but likable people who can be antagonists and make mistakes but still aren’t truly bad people, and imo is a direct response to some people fixating on the idea that Chara was always evil because they seem scary/complicated.

... Which is a long way to say that I came out of Deltarune with my confidence fully restored about TF’s intentions with Chara and Kris. Even if he never comments on Chara directly, now I really don’t think TF thinks they’re evil or ever intended for them to be. Deltarune convinced me more than ever that Chara is meant to be complex, yes, and able to be influenced to do horrible things, but they were never intended to be as malicious or shallow as some fans insist.

TLDR:

Toby Fox read your mean fanfiction where Chara is a bad abusive serial killer no one likes, and he made Deltarune in revenge.

... Hm? Ah, you’d like me to get to the point! Right this way!

II. Undertale, Deltarune, and The Point

While no doubt some will still take the voice Noelle hears to be Chara influencing her to turn her into a murderer (I haven’t gone looking for it yet, but I’m sure it’s already a thing because I know this fandom), since it’s made too clear by the game that they can’t blame Kris for this one, I think at this point that’s just being too stubborn to consider other ideas.

If you believe in the totally made up idea used in so many fanfics that Chara is an evil spirit trying to whisper in Frisk’s ear to kill everyone, literally (for some reason) the embodiment of raising stats, and gets more control over people who have increased LV to take over their body... sure. Could be them, they did talk about moving on to the next world and all. I mean, that wouldn’t really make sense because it’s literally never implied in the actual game that Chara encourages you to kill outside of the Kill-All Run or even wants you to, certainly not as the narrator and we get no hint of them doing this as an unseen, unheard third-party either.

Not to mention they’re NOT literally possessing you because of increased LV; they don’t control you even with high LV in any Undertale route other than arguably the Kill-All, and if you fail the Kill-All and it turns into a high-body count Neutral, Chara suddenly stops using first-person narration and showing up in mirrors entirely even though they were showing themself before, the LV remains the same or even can get raised as high as LV 19, nor do they suddenly take over in any other Neutral runs. We can speculate on why (personally, I’d place this either on Chara’s mindset, such as them sinking into shock from the trauma or becoming more assertive as the player feeds their megalomania, or as a sign of Frisk’s withdrawal, leaving Chara alone in the body to take the reins and act out the player’s orders), but canonically, no, Chara does not take over due to high stats.

In fact, there’s even more evidence against this. First-person narration also exists for fleeing your battles in Undertale, even on Pacifist runs with base stats, 0 EXP, and an LV of 1. Since Chara is established to use first-person narration to refer to themself, is the only one who canonically does so, and is confirmed to be present even in all runs through their name and memories always showing up, it seems pretty likely that Chara can take control to flee battle. That means an increase in stats is not a sign of their presence or control, in Undertale or Deltarune.

The most damning blow to the idea that Chara is the voice corrupting Noelle are the lines in the fight with Spamton I mentioned. Kris called for help, but nobody came. You whispered Noelle’s name. Well hold on. If that’s Chara, shouldn’t it be “I whispered Noelle’s name”? As soon as you’ve officially started the Kill-All in Undertale, Chara starts up their “It’s me, Chara” schtick right away, right there in Toriel’s home in the first area, and if they weren’t the narrator before, they’re beginning to speak through the narration now. If the voice was Chara, surely Toby Fox knows it’d be a way bigger “oh shit” moment if the creepy scary hidden route once again switched into first-person, scaring us the same way he did before when we first saw “It’s me, Chara” and knew something was wrong; unfairly or not, their reputation as a villain is still well established and hinting to Chara’s presence with a simple “I” would drive the menace even further, if he intended for them to simply be a demon that possesses player characters when you grind enough. But it’s still just you. The player.

The Weird Route does even more to help Chara’s case than that. Not only is it made pretty clear that Kris and the player are separate, and the player is the one responsible for corrupting Noelle and making her kill... consider how similar Noelle and Chara are, in the Weird Route and the Kill-All Route.

This “voice” that “guides” them in growing strong, compelling them to kill everyone in order to fight for them, eventually driving them to murder people they know. Chara calls themself “the demon that comes when people call its name”, and you whisper Noelle’s name to have her appear to kill Spamton. Noelle’s conflicting emotions towards Kris and the voice as she is manipulated, as she becomes more violent and sadistic, as she goes into shock; does that not sound like Chara, who flipflops between holding you dear as their partner and wanting to move on to the next world together, to be together forever, and them being disgusted by your refusal to accept consequences and the perverse enjoyment you get in killing everyone again and again? Chara, who clings to their quirky narration for much of the Kill-All, but keeps slipping up, who becomes terrifyingly cold, aggressive, power-hungry, and even sadistic, yet still calls Undyne “the heroine”, still seems to still care about their locket, still has moments where they seem to falter?

Noelle does put up significantly more resistance to the voice’s commands than Chara does, and at least much more visibly shows distress and trauma. I don’t think this is a black mark on Chara’s chara-cter either, or an indication of them being more violent or cruel.

For one, while Noelle is still herself with her own soul, it is heavily implied by Chara, Flowey, and Undertale’s lore that Chara was reincarnated without their own soul, at best perhaps attached to Frisk’s (or yours): as I speculate in one of my currently unfinished theories, while monster souls are made up of love, compassion, and hope and thus Asriel was reincarnated without these qualities, it could well be that human souls are correspondingly made up of their own multiple traits, namely determination, patience, bravery, integrity, perseverance, kindness, and justice; if true, a soulless Chara would be lacking these qualities, which would make them less equipped to resist the player’s commands or to feel as torn up about it.

Also, the player has a hold on them both as “party members” to the player’s vessels, but it is also possible that the player naming Chara and having them directly attached to Frisk also gives them a stronger connection to Chara they can abuse, similar to how Kris and Frisk (as the player’s direct vessels) have much less autonomy than Kris’ party members.

(Fun observation: We know that when the thing controlling Kris forced Noelle into becoming a killer and using her to kill Berdly, Kris was horrified and shaken-up according to Susie and Ralsei. How do you think Frisk felt watching Chara be used to slaughter the Underground and then erasing the world when they’re totally corrupted?)

And lastly... look, Noelle and Chara are both minors, but Chara is significantly younger - a small child compared to Noelle’s teen. I know it’s fiction and strong wills and determination and anime is real and all, but a traumatized young child who died two violent and awful deaths back-to-back, may have literally experienced being a corpse in their own coffin/grave for who knows how long, and then came back ”confused” only to immediately start hearing a voice relentlessly commanding them to kill everyone?? I can absolutely see a traumatized kid shutting down and just going with it out of fear at first, before the LV sets in.

TLDR:

What you do to Noelle in the Weird Route is the same fucking thing you do to Chara in the Kill-All Route.

[ourmondobongo]

Incredible Numerology Coincidences in AOT and some that aren't

Numbers 139, 13, and 33 (and a few others in between)

Disclaimer: I'm not, by any means, stating that Yams planned every little thing that I'm going to mention, nor that he went as far as I did in terms of numerology research or everything extra I found here! I just wrote this stuff because I found some coincidental things really interesting, and I love digging deep into random stuff!

I explore things in depth for purely for the sake of exploring them in depth LMAO

Number 139

Since last year, the announcement of the end of Attack on Titan brought up an intriguing theory: Isayama would end AOT manga serialization purposefully on chapter number 139 because of its numerology meaning.

For those who don't know about it, I'll resume here:

According to numerology, the number 139 means the end of a cycle and death (but more like rebirth/renovation and not necessarily "bad" death).

Furthermore, in numerology, individual numbers and sums are important.

Then, as we keep breaking down number 139, though and apply directly to AOT world, we also have this:

13 = the maximum number of years of the life of a Titan shifter;

9 = total number of Titan shifters

Nice right?

But we also have this:

The sequence 1 - 3 - 9 can be applied as 1 Founder was eaten by her 3 Children that then generated the 9 Titan Shifters.

139 = 1+3+9 = 4 + 9 = 13

And these numeric coincidences were why AOT Reddit groups predicted that Yams would probably end the manga in 139! Turns out they were right: Attack on Titan really ended in the number 139!

However, there is still some unsolved stuff to look into...

So, driven by the wildest personal observations possible, now I'm taking things to another level - and a little warning ⚠️ for this post will run a little wild with numbers and Math and crazy observations 😜

Let's go crazy with it but don't take it too serious!

Number 13

Interestingly, the number 139 also has a dreadful meaning coming from the first two numbers, aka 13, that has some dark meanings representing bad luck, treason, lawlessness, rebellion, and again, death. The reason why we have as examples people fearing Friday 13, or the 13th card of Tarot, which is named as nothing other than "Death".

Death, The 13th card of Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck.

Curiously, Yams once used a literal Tarot symbol in the manga as he drew Berthold sleeping like the Tarot card 12, The Hanged Man (chapter 97). But back to number 13, coincidentally or not?, Erwin Smith was the 13th Commander of Survey Corps, and he "betrayed" people because his main dream was proving his father's theory, and he is the first character to present us the visual concept of dead comrades watching the ones alive, making a full connection between life, death and afterlife.

Additionally, while I was curiously looking up at the Tarot card above, I would say in the additional frames in the anime on Eren's dream they used the element of Tarot card 13 - the roses in the curtains resemble a simplified form of the rose in the flag in the Death card above, doesn't it? Or is it a coincidence?

Eren's long dream in Episode 01 (2013). Also, say hi to Niccolo, the fallen Masterchef

At the middle right of card 13, there is also the sun halfway down on the horizon, aka sunset. It is referred to as the end of cycles and rebirth mostly, but there are so much more symbols involved! And Yams has made many, many uses of the sun/ sunset/ moon/ night/ stars/ sunrise and their multiple meanings throughout the manga - including the many comic book covers, chapter names, some anime endings like these two, and even in Mikasa's part on the first AOT guidebook. (A more complete "sunny and celestial bodies" analysis has been sleeping in my drafts since March, when I studied some falcon mythologies lol)

Coming back to numbers, though...

...Last year, after 128 months of consistent publication of the manga, AOT had to skip one month of release (chapter 129, on May 9, 2020) due to the COVID pandemic.

This resulted in a curious thing that coincidentally added to the iconic number 139:

Instead of the manga ending on 03/09, chapter 139 was officially published on 04/09.

And 4 + 9 = 13.

Kinda cool, right? Yams just keep stumbling upon number 13 again and again!

BUT it might not be only that...

Well, at this point, we all know Yams changed AOT ending from the first one, which would be like "The Mist" end. So - again - I'm not saying what I will show here is the 1st thought Yams had for everything of the plot or what he planned back in 2009. I'm seeing things that might have a slight root in the past but that ultimately just happened coincidentally or not because of the present circumstances (like, from 2017 - when Yams said he changed the end up to now.)

In his first interviews, Yams stated that, though he didn't flesh things out until he is working on the chapter to be published, he had planned the plot and overall major point to be told in the volumes ahead of his deadlines.

So, if we assume Yams had a small draft or outline of the story up until the final chapter, and think that AOT might have indeed ended on the wrong date due to the chapter delay, we also have these other intriguing number coincidences with the EMA trio:

Armin's painful inner monologue was in chapter 135 - it should have been in his birthday month;

Mikasa's painful inner monologue, shared dream with Eren, and she ultimately killing him were in chapter 138 - it should have been in her birthday month;

Eren's long monologue, "full death" and AOT end were in chapter 139 - it should have been in his birthday month.

In the hypothesis this is true, our 03 main characters might have been meant to get their narrative hurting them the most in a way to represent the death/end of a cycle and rebirth/new beginning in the month of their "birthdays". Interestingly, since chapter 139 was supposed to end the AOT story in the same month as Eren's birthday, this gives off an even heavier feeling that Yams did want to do this "end the AOT cycle" together with Eren, right?

BUT , again, it might not be only that...

I always felt very intrigued by how Yams emphasize the idea of "being born into this world" many times through the manga. But for me, the most unforgettable scene when talking about this topic is when Carla answers Shadis about how Eren (or anyone) didn't have to necessarily do great things in life because being born already meant he was great (chapter 71).

So then, when we remember Yams planned to make Grisha holding baby Eren as the last panel of AOT...

...it kinda feels like this would make a matching call back to that moment in chapter 71. Thus, whatever Yams would write to get here in this point would complement Carla's dialog, or something similar because this is Grisha holding baby (or newborn) Eren and saying "You're free".

Of course, back in 2017, Yams also said that this last panel could change by the end of the story. And yes, it did change at least three times now as he drew Mikasa with the scarf in chapter 139 v.01, but in a recent interview said he had lastly planned to do the EMA kids version running to the tree, and (SPOILER) now we ultimately have the unknown kid, and his dog, and Eren's tree. And also, we all know the original AOT final was changed to one more peaceful because Yams had mentioned in interviews he wanted to be more responsible toward his readers.

However, Yams still made use of Grisha's panel - it's just that he transformed this huge panel into a tiny piece of drawing during Eren's long explanation in chapter 139. Unfortunately, it seems the weight of these ideas of being born and all kind of diminished and got lost because of that. Like, the way things ended up, this panel was placed in a way that seems to say "you know what, there is not much space left in this long explanation that Eren is giving, so better just fit it here and end this..."

In fact, this whole Armin x Eren convo just had way too much stuff to take all in the little space-time of this chapter. So when we get to this specific bit, the Grisha sequence looks like some piece of one last riddle that will have to go down the AOT piece unanswered - together with the unforgettable "only Ymir knows".

Of course, this is one way to view things, as there must be many metas and analyses explaining this scene somewhere. However, this Grisha sequence just kept bugging me to no end, especially because before that Eren justified or explained things with "I don’t know " and "Only Ymir knows" - and heck - that wasn't anywhere near what a curious person waiting so many years to make sense of things would expect to read!!

So I questioned myself many times about this, always trying to somehow dig out anything that could give me more answers as well as add more significance to Grisha's words and Eren's birth scene. And I even looked up again at Eren's name meaning because AOT character names are also food for crazy theory-starving brains like mine. But I overlooked seeking out for possible hidden connection into the second scene...

...because it had never, NEVER occurred to me that - looking beyond the words and more into the drawing context - these panels might have been hinting at a connection with the literal date of birth of Eren.

And when I looked up to numerology, I found some interesting coincidences, or aren't they?.

For better context, according to Numerology, there are three numbers essential to your life, and they all come from your birthday:

Day of Birth Number —the day of the month you were born

Life Purpose Number —the total sum of your full birth date

Destiny Number —the total sum of letters in your birth certificate name

In other words, the number of the day, month, year, and letters in your name are important to determine these 03 things.

Now, I know it will look like I'm just making a mess out of this to fit into the following observations because:

1) I won't consider the characters' year of birth since AOT major reference data number is the Fall of Wall Maria, which definitely must have its own meaning;

2) It doesn't seem the year of birth is much concern to Yams as characters like Erwin, Levi and Hanji don't even have their ages clearly stated; and it looks way too much work to any creator to do this.

3) I won't look into Destiny Number because the way characters names are written vary in at least 03 ways (Like Eren Yeager / エレン·イェーガー/ Eren Yēgā).

However, just testing some crazy and disparate theories is nice, so here we go!

Eren's birthday

Eren's birthday is 03/30;

His birth number is 3 (because 3 + 0 = 3)

Without the year, his life purpose number is 3 + 3 + 0 = 6

But when we experimentally sum his birthday number in a more literal way, we get 3 + 30 = 33

Now, let's break down a bit of this all...

We all know that Eren was a slave to the story. Interestingly, the meanings of number 33 make a nice call back to this:

33 is considered a Master Number, seen as the number of the Cosmic Guardian;

33 is considered a call to divine powers;

33 is the number of vertebrae in our spinal column, which is the backbone of the human body.

Eren has many (or at least 4 major) moments where he wonders about being special, being the salvation and hope of humanity, and he has this "savior" (or I prefer saying destroyer) complex within him that appears near the battle peaks of the manga. He even questions himself about how he hated titans but promptly accepted as his the power of the titans.

And at the end of the story, Eren had 3 extraordinary titan powers: The Founder (The Titan "Number 1"), The Attack Titan (that gained the ability to "travel through time"), and The War Hammer (endless ability to create objects out of imagination). So his character has all attributes of a God of Creation (as well as Destruction).

Considering Levi spent a full month in the forest with Zeke, and then the catastrophe happened, with the Rumbling going for about 3 days, we could also consider that Eren accomplished his call to fate/choice in 33 days considering he settled that the Rumbling was bound to happen since the night of the Declaration of War.

So, in other words, Eren was ultimately born to do something grand (either horrible or not) but instead of fatefully being prone to become the Great Good, he was "free" to become the Great Evil. As his name says, the "Holy Hunter".

But number 33 is also considered the number of unconditional love and the Selfless Giver. And of course, Eren is the total opposite of it. However, if we break the number like 3 + 3, we get a pair of numbers 3 making it, right?

Now, guess who else has number 3 on their birthdates?

Yes - Mikasa and Armin!

(But it's just another coincidence!)

Mikasa's birthday

Mikasa's birthday is 02/10

Birth number is 1 (1+0 = 1)

And 2 + 1 + 0 = 3

As well as 2 + 10 = 12 (= 3)

In short, Mikasa was the first character Yams drew. Number 12 represents completion and entirety. And who killed Eren and freed Ymir? Yes, our Mikasa!

Armin's birthday

Armin's birthday is 11/03

Like Eren, his date of birth is 3

And 3 + 1 + 1 = 5

As well as 3 + 11 = 14

Coincidentally, number 14 appears on Commander Erwin's birthday (10/14), and is also in the sum of Commander Hanji's birthday (09/05).

Another coincidence: number 5 symbolizes God's grace. Hanji's birth date is 05, and her name also means "God is gracious". And Erwin has number 5 on his birth date sum. Interesting, huh?

A non-coincidence, though, is how Levi sees Armin being so like Hanji and Erwin in chapter 136 while he is talking about the meaning of their devoted hearts.

On the other hand, Armin is the 15th SC Commander. And something that caught my attention was how the Tarot Card Number 15, aka "The Devil", somehow seems to a bit of a recall to this scene:

Interestingly, while the animal in the Devil card is a goat, in the manga (Xsaver's Titan) we have a bighorn sheep, which is very fitting. Because if it was a goat titan, they would mean immediately associated with the real Devil, and make the Eldians ultimate demons. On the other hand, if it was a lamb titan, it would be 100% opposite to the goat/Devil in religious meaning, and since everybody in AOT had "bloody hands" if Yams had used a lamb it would be a representation of holy purity that can't actually be attributed to Xsaver/the Beast Titan itself, nor any other AOT character.

Anyway, here Armin is in his human form in the hands of the Bighorn Sheep Titan that passed to Zeke the plan to euthanize the Eldians, and the BST is being held in the hands of the God of Destruction aka the Colossal Titan, that started all SnK tragedy, together with 02 Attack Titans. So though small, almost incapacitated and in his tiny human form, Armin shows that it's thanks to the humanity within people that humanity will be saved.

Gosh, this panel is really, really full of symbols, much than this, but let's leave it for another day.

Coming back to Mikasa, Armin, and number 33, then, we also have this nice concept pointed out in its meaning as the Selfless Giver: it gives unconditional love.

This is the kind of love that says to anyone who crosses your path, "I accept you and love you no matter what you do or don't do. I will always continue to love you regardless." (Book: The Ultimate Guide to Numerology)

I think at least 90% of AOT readers got shocked seeing Mikasa kissing Eren's decapitated head in chapter 138 and reading Armin thanking Eren in chapter 139. But in sum, Mikasa (and her Life Purpose Number 3) and Armin (with his Date of birth number 3) did exactly what number 33 meant to Eren.

In their different but complementary roles as part of the MCs triad, they formed the number 33 that ultimately ended the cursed path of the first and last holders of the Founder - with Mikasa "releasing" Eren's human/titan body, and Armin, Eren's mind and heart or soul (cof cof if he ever had one xD).

And to finish things, individually, number 3 means trinity.

Three is the first number to which the meaning “all” was given. It is The Triad, being the number of the whole as it contains the beginning, a middle and an end. The power of three is universal and is the tripartide nature of the world as heaven, earth, and waters. It is human as body, soul and spirit.

In the first three numbers, all of the others are synthesized. From the union of oneness and duality (which is its reflection), that is, from triad, proceed all of the other numbers, and from this primordial triangle all figures derive. (x)

OOF--

That's it for some of the crazy coincidences of numbers 139, 13, and 33 in AOT! I humbly thank you for reading up until here!

BUT...

If I hadn't broken your mind with boredom, craziness, or disparate ideas and wild connections, and before I see myself out to an asylum, I gotcha a bonus with the characters I love the most in AOT: Hanji Zoë and Levi Ackerman.

Other interesting points that the chapter delay might have possibly affected:

Bonus 01: Hanji's farewell and death literally and figuratively representing the last flight of the "Wings of Freedom". It was in the chapter of this same name and number 132 - that ultimately marked 11 years of AOT being published. And due to the delay, it also ended up being published in her birthday month.

However, if the chapter had been posted on 08/09, it would have made a nice coincidental number parallel sum with AOT 1st chapter: the Colossus Titan destroyed Wall Maria in 845 = 8 + 9 = 17. Which also becomes 1+7 = 8.

Number 8 is a vertical version of the infinite symbol ( ∞ ). According to the book "The Ultimate Guide to Numerology", number 8 can be seen "as two windows", where the circle above means the spiritual and the bottom the material. Number 8 is also the number of the letter H, and to numerology, the shape of the letter H symbolizes the two worlds or plans (above and below) connecting.

Coincidentally or not, Hanji died and met the other Survey Corps dead members right in this chapter, making a FULL connection between the realm of the living and the dead. They were really watching them.

Additionally,

"the symbol of infinity is also reflected in the balance of justice and honor that 8 people represent. They have a very advanced sense of what is ethical and true, representing honor, impartiality, and dignity in everything they say and do" [Ibid].

I think it's easy to see how Hans beautifully and sadly embodied all these qualities, especially in chapter 127 when she was stating genocide was wrong and how none of their SC fallen comrades would have supported that crime. Not coincidentally, Hans is the center of the cover of volume 32 (and now I suspect it is also related to Tarot Card number 17), and even though all these crazy number things most probably have nothing to do with it, it ends up particularly nice reinforcing why Hans is the only SC member (now Alliance) wearing the green-winged cloak. She embodied the full meaning of the Survey Corps and the "Dedicate your hearts" battle cry motto.

Also - still in the hypothesis that the chapters wouldn't have changed after the delay - chapter 133, "Sinners" would be published on the anniversary of AOT. Chapter 1 is called "To you, 2,000 years from now". Just by putting these two titles side by side, I can already draw so much stuff to write about. For brevity here, I won't. But just think about it as if the chapters were literally talking to each other... (starting by "To you, sinners, 2,000 years from now".)

Bonus 2: Levi's painful inner monologue was in chapter 136, "Devote your hearts" - it should have been in his birthday month;

Everybody knows what is celebrated on Levi's birthday: the ultimate sacrifice, devotion, and hope for a better world - to put it simply. Things that Levi wonders with his heart broken, and his ultimate pain as he remembers his SC fallen comrades.

And in this chapter, Levi represented the last SC vet alive while also clearly giving the ultimate signs the SC had lost their wings as he was almost incapacitated to keep fighting with his bad leg and other injuries. (I would like to write a lot more here, but I'm saving it to my chapter 136 analysis, so that's it).

Bonus 3: in AOT last comic book cover, we have 3 interesting numbers on display:

This is volume 34, we have the 3 kids on one side and 9 on the other. They are all running toward the tree where everything began and ended. That is, except for Eren, who is already there...

Number 34 can be reduced to 3+4 = 7, considered the number of perfection mostly because is the number of days within God completed all Earth creation. (But no, I'm not saying Yams is a god lol)

There is 3 + 9 = 12. As we have seen in Mikasa's part, 12 represents completion and entirety. But here, this number also hints that since the kids didn't get to the cursed number 13, they are safe. Also, there is no Wall on the horizon, so they are in a world free from titans too.

That is really bittersweet and kinda sad considering what happened to our EMA trio, Sasha, Marco, and - beyond the kids on the cover-, to many, many dear characters like Levi and Hanji.

Ah, and this brings us to the non-existence of an AOT chapter number 140.

This number relates to actual freedom, and it also stands for new life, happiness, and love. What actually are things we can't wholeheartedly say all the AOT characters had - especially the most beloved ones, aka Levi and Mikasa Ackerman. In fact, they are the ones who ended up suffering the most in their own ways.

"May you Rest in Peace, oh mighty Happiness of AOT."

Lastly, especially for those who absolutely loathed everything about the end of AOT, Math offers you this:

There is 1 tree for 12 kids.

1 + 3 + 9 = 13

Volume 34 has 5 chapters.

34 + 5 = 39.

39 is 13 + 13 + 13.

13 x 3 = 3x more unlucky LOL

See you in the asylum!

[straighttohellbuddy]

World building is the best tbh. I’m forever world building and now I have several worlds to play in and my neurodivergent brain cannot stay still enough to focus on one lmao. SLOWBURN ROMANCES ARE MY LITERAL JAM LIKE PLS!!! I LOVE THEM!! Also!!!! Concepts!!!! Pls share!!!! I love learning about the worlds of my fave fics and I can hands down say right now that this fic will literally shoot to the top of my list of favourites which means you’ll occupy the top three spots. Sorry to hear that ur feeling rough, so am sending u the biggest hug. I’m not okay but I’m taking care of myself today so that I will be 🧡-🐈‍⬛

alsjfsldkjf i have too many worlds TBH, literally one of the best parts of my 2020 was writing for the classic rock fandom and writing one of my good friend’s ocs alongside mine, like there’s so many different worlds that our two characters have now, i’m like 26k deep into a high school au that i need to get back to at some point, and then i wrote a oneshot abt the high school au but they’re adults, and then there’s also the original timeline, and then there’s the present day in the original timeline where they have kids and i probably care too much about people who aren’t real...... hahaha

OKAY OKAY OKAY HERE WE GO I’LL GIVE KIND OF AN OVERVIEW OF THE ALBUMS AND A FEW SONGS BUT IF U WANT ME TO GO IN DEPTH ON ANY OTHER SONG JUST ASK!!!

yes i have a playlist for each, if you wanna hear how i interpret the vibes of the songs. if you interpret them differently, thats awesome!! i’d love to hear y’all’s opinions on them!!

testing one two - the first ep they release, the song titles are mostly themed (fast forward, press play, pause, rewind), but are mostly things y/n has been working on for a while but never got around to finishing, things they are rather proud of. i see you shiver with... is the first song they wrote specifically for the album, and it’s the last song on the EP because it’s a Rocky Horror reference; i see you shiver with...

a n t i c i p a t i o n - first full album!! the vibe is Hopeful But Hesitant it has all the songs from the ep, plus some new ones!! collabs with youtube musicians troye and dodie, and y/n’s label sets up a collab that turns into a genuine friendship. the breakout dance hit is what else is there to say ft. Troye Sivan, which is about not knowing what to make content about when it feels like you’ve already told the world everything. it featured the prechorus and hook

You, know, ev-ery-thing about me / gave it all for free / my life in HD / So, let’s dance, let me see your hips sway / we’re gonna be okay / what else is there to say?

So say that you love me, say that you love me, say that you love me / let’s die hand in hand. / I’ll tell you I love you, tell you I love you, tell you I love you / supply and demand. 

personally, i also conceptually enjoy srs bsns which is a really upbeat song about how they don’t care if people don’t take them seriously because they know in their heart that what they’re doing is good

hyperfocus - 2nd EP, a pretty substantial departure from their usual style, but also happens to quietly be Corpse’s favourite, and is actually y/n’s most polarising, because it has both the Grammy award winning HEARTBURN and the o brother where art thou which was written partially as a joke to capture a fond moment of them and 5SOS dicking around together in a hotel. written while on tour wit 5SOS, im writing the reader as having ADHD (because I have ADHD and i can do what i want), and the backstory is that they’d changed the medication/dosage they were taking, and as it’s their first full tour, they were under a lot of stress and were in a weird place mentally and emotionally, and hyperfocus is the result of that. i’m going through some stuff has HUGE agoraphobic vibes. 

HEARTBURN has the same vibes as Florence + The Machines’ Howl. It’s about being a demon without saying that or directly implying that unless you know demons real well. This is when the pressure for them to confirm their identity got real bad, and it was their way of working through those emotions.

tear in existence in the shape of a person / when i’m seeing clearly i can’t see myself / world can’t swallow what it can’t get it’s teeth into / got everything i wanted but i ain’t got my health

Got heart-burn--- / I’ll tear me apart / I’ll tear you apart / I’ll tear me apart. 

SCREAM gets rereleased as a remixed single featuring Fall Out Boy the following year. It won the MTV music award for best collaboration in 2018. 

In the time between hyperfocus and working on it, Y/N releases several singles, including a cover of Tell Him by The Exciters to be featured in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. They also take time to sort out their health, do a little bit more YT stuff, and travel internationally to do festivals. 

working on it - is kind of a middle ground between their original stuff, and hyperfocus, like pop-punk meets horror-pop meets whatever you’d classify halsey as. the first three songs were mostly written before the fic starts, so before they’re getting back to YT, but the last three, nightmare scenario, designed to hurt (touch me), and not scared were all written after they’d started hanging out with sykkuno and corpse. 

in-universe, imposter syndrome was originally something else, along the same lines of tired that they’re hiding that they’re a demon, but after meeting corpse nd sykkuno and having people who know, and lowkey being influenced by corpse’s music, the song changes directions, and YO OKAY YO::

I literally am so fucking flattered, my darling friend @bingusmode​ wrote lyrics for imposter syndrome and I’ve been yELLING about them ever since i’ve read them!! (also bunnie is fantastic and lovely in general 10/10)

if you thought you saw me 

i’d think about it twice

cuz while i know i’m naughty

everybody thinks i’m nice

cutest giggles get me

places that i long to be

but it’s not long before

everybody hates me

when you figure out i’m fucked up

you’ll probably think that can’t be right

but babe my image runs to save me

cuz i’m ugly day and night

nothing good about me

not the angel that i seem

cuz i’m a piece of shit

and i’ll ruin your fuckin dreams

i’m an impostor babe

you better run for your life

cuz there’s a bloodlust runnin through me

and you’re dripping off my knife

there’s no one here to save you

cuz you ate up all my lies

so beg me while you can

and draft up all your goodbyes 

if any of y’all are inspired by anything i put out, feel free to take it and run!! you have my blessing!! i am so overwhelmingly flattered by people who like my stuff enough to create because of it, directly or indirectly! lyrics, art, songs, anything!! legit! I love you!!

okay so designed to hurt (touch me) has big House of Memories by Panic! At The Disco vibes, and YES it’s about Corpse. YES it sends mixed messages. YES it has greek myth imagery and YES that imagery is confusing. not sure if any of these sets of lyrics actually go after each other but also idk??

will my fall from grace be graceful / as each move i see you make? / propped up on pedestals side by side / beneath our feet they shake / i’m the only one to hear you ask  / “What have they done to me?” / My boy, your wax throne is sun-drenched / you’ll fall in the name of your legacy.

eyes like yours watched rome burn / while hands like mine lit the pyre / we both heard me say we’d go down in flames / now you’re turning me into a liar / since you smile like that, like you can’t feel the sting / and we both know i can’t feel the fire

been telling myself i’m designed to hurt / but, baby, aren’t we a sight? /

check your reflection, your angles, apollo / you’re icarus in the right light /

we’re on the edge, i’m not scared to fall / we’ll take refuge in the night /

been telling yourself you’re designed to hurt / but, baby, doesn’t this feel right?

also, albumtouralbumtour is a reference to Bohemian Rhapsody.

OKAY AND FINALLY

n o s t a l g i a - the album the reader’s working on during the fic.

literally as i was writing this, bunnie sent through some FIRE lyrics for how the light gets in, (@bingusmode) i am going to be thinking about these on REPEAT for the next MONTH BRUV

little bit of darkness, treat me like a toy 

i got my hopes up and got them destroyed

bitter taste of regret sitting heavy on my tongue

can’t believe i let you convince me that you were the one

sitting here in silence, fabric running thin

petals burning in my lungs and stealing oxygen

embers from a cigarette falling to the floor

god i can’t take anymore

so i stumble to the window and pull the shades

and the moon pours in like you threw a grenade

i can’t understand why

i keep trying

cuz i never seem to win

but having any hope is how the light gets in 

from there, moment before impact ft. Billie Eilish is a club anthem along the lines of bad guy or COPYCAT, bass heavy with a drop that’s out of this world.

powdered pain, i’m in your veins / i’m the sting, the drip, the thing / you’re craving, but you hate to see me misbehaving / i heard my breakdown got you high / it’s true, but baby i can’t lie / i never got that rush, that burn / that makes you feel alive, i had to learn / to pick the slippery slope down which i fell / plan my pitstops on the way to hell / to pick my padding before i spiral / so if i break it’ll be in style

watch my misdirect, now freeze, / notice you can’t see the forest for the trees / you’re so desperate for my demise / but baby, i’ll make you watch me rise.

this is the moment before impact

controlled chaos, crash land / take a breath, trust the plan / i know you hope i’m not okay / you get off on my audio misery

controlled chaos, crash land / take a breath, trust the plan / i need you to know i want it this way / my breakdown won me a grammy

and this is the moment before impact

ur my favourite - interlude ft. sykkuno is probably one of my favourites, it’s just really soft, just a snippet of a conversation between the reader and sykkuno, maybe one of them told a joke and they both just sound real happy and sweet. its nice. it’s a nice moment.

means something is also for sykkuno!! it’s about how good-strange it is to be open and honest with friends, and how they usually aren’t but they’re glad they can be open and honest with him!!

meanwhile, i don’t think about u - interlude ft. CORPSE is a phonecall between corpse & the reader right after they announce they’re going to feature on acting like that, where corpse asks if they do this sort of thing to spite him, to which the reader responds ‘do i consider you when i’m making decisions about my career? no, corpse, actually i don’t think about you at all’ which then directly contrasts the song that ends the album, which is (how it feels to be) beautiful fireworks, which is essentially ‘i know how hard it is to exist like this, to be the centre of attention, to give off light and bring people joy, even when you’re in pain. i’m here for you. i love you.’

okay, i swear im done now, i’ll get back to writing the fic! (also i cannot BELIVE i managed to figure out how to embed those playlists but im so happy) edit: it didn’t actually work when i posted the ask, so anyways im sorry but y’all are abt to be spammed with playlists because i care too much abt this fic

[discocritic]

putting this under a cut because this bitch got long. 

first, let me welcome you to the fandom. since we’re a pretty small one, it’s always exciting to hear more people are joining! 

my advice for you is just basically what i wish i knew when first joining the fandom a couple years ago. the danger days album, comics, and twitters are the three main pieces of media that the universe is made up of, and some of those can be a challenge to navigate (because i was sure as hell confused when i started trying to figure everything out), so i'll outline some things you might want to know!

i'm assuming you've listened to the main danger days: true lives of the fabulous killjoys album, but there are a couple of bonus songs such as "zero percent" and "we don't need another song about california." those aren't on spotify, as far as i know, but you can find multiple audio/lyric videos on youtube.

there's also a 3-track EP called the mad gear and missile kid that includes the songs "f.t.w.w.w.," "mastas of ravenkroft," and "black dragon fighting society." tmgamk is described in an interview by mcr as a band that the killjoys would listen to. these are also not on spotify but, like the other songs, can be found on youtube.

if you don't want to buy the comics but still want to read them, i know of two (legal) ways to do that. this youtube playlist has videos that show each page of the comics, and this post has pictures of each page.

there are two danger days wikis (with comic spoilers! so beware), but one of them is way more useful and people don't tamper with the information in it.

there's also another little extra comic thing called "dead satellites" that was released for free comic book day a few years ago. it doesn't really have anything to do with the main storyline of the actual comics, but it does offer a glimpse of battery city life and zone bands, which is cool.

there are character twitter accounts for dr. death-defying, party poison, dj hot chimp, newsagogo, agent cherri cola, and gary levko (i may be missing some; i don’t really pay attention to the twitters lmao). here’s a link to dr. d’s and you should be able to find links to the rest through his tweets. 

i would also suggest checking out the danger days side of tumblr! (although you sent this ask to me so i'm assuming you've started this step already.) starting a danger days blog is a great way to get to know other members in the fandom while creating content of your own, and if you send asks to any of the blogs i'm about to mention, i'm sure they'll be glad to interact with you!

@killjoyhistory is a goddamn lifesaver. everything you could ever want to know about the danger days world is collected and archived at this blog, whether it's behind-the-scenes content from the music videos to interviews with the band where they mention danger days to forgotten concepts from the first drafts of the comics!

@graffitibible writes the most in-depth danger days fics with the best characterization and plots i have ever read. and they've come up with some super cool explanations for things in the DD universe. definitely check them out. 

@neon-rat posts tons of great headcanons and has an ongoing fic series called How To Navigate and Contemplate (and i'm promo-ing this because i cannot fucking wait for the next chapter to come out!). Although you should probably read her first fic, How Time Decides, on ao3 for the current one to make sense!

speaking of fics, @enby-partypoison has multiple different DD AUs! with everything from superheroes to ghosts to modern-day, aer ao3 will have something for you! i also had the privilege of working with aer to organize a holiday gift exchange the past december, so ae gets bonus points for that :)

if it's worldbuilding you want, @ruination-formation has tons of headcanons about places and people in both the zones and the city. she also writes tons of fics on her ao3 that you should check out as well.

@tapefish, @funkobraofficial, and @ravenxbones make amazing killjoy art! sometimes i just have to sit down and scroll through their art tags because everything they create is absolutely fantastic.

there are so many other amazing blogs i could mention, but these are a few that happened to come to mind when i was typing this out. but seriously, fire an ask towards any blog and i'm sure they'll be more than willing to answer it!

anyway, i’m going to end this now, because most of this was drafted as i sat in a drive-through for half an hour and lost track of its length, but i hope at least some of this has helped! and of course feel free to drop by my inbox again if you have any questions. 

[zombiequincy]

THE MEGA RP PLOTTING SHEET / MEME.

First and foremost, recall that no one is perfect, we all had witnessed some plotting once which did not went too well, be it because of us or our partner. So here have this, which may help for future plotting. It’s a lot! Yes, but perhaps give your partners some insight? Anyway BOLD what fully applies, italicize if only somewhat.

MUN NAME: Hela     AGE: 21       CONTACT: IM

CHARACTER(S): Giselle Gewelle, Yumichika Ayasegawa (inactive)

CURRENT FANDOM(S): Bleach

BLEACH FANDOM(S) YOU HAVE AN AU FOR:  I have gory Bloodborne au but that one just exists in my head on my lonesome.

MY LANGUAGE(S): English and one very specific Middle Eastern dialect.

THEMES I’M INTERESTED IN FOR RP: FANTASY / Science fiction / Horror / WESTERN / ROMANCE / Thriller / MYSTERY / DYSTOPIA / ADVENTURE / MODERN / Erotic / Crime / MYTHOLOGY / Classic / HISTORY / RENAISSANCE / MEDIEVAL / Ancient / WAR / FAMILY / POLITICS / RELIGION / SCHOOL / ADULTHOOD / CHILDHOOD / APOCALYPTIC / GODS / Sport / MUSIC / Science / FIGHTS / ANGST / Smut / DRAMA / etc. 

PREFERRED THREAD LENGTH: one-liner / 1 para / 2 PARA / 3+ / NOVELLA.

ASKS CAN BE SEND BY: MUTUALS / NON-MUTUALS / PERSONALS / ANONS.

CAN ASKS BE CONTINUED?:   YES / NO    only by Mutuals?:  YES / NO.

PREFERRED THREAD TYPE: CRACK / casual nothing too deep / SERIOUS / DEEP AS HECK. (i love it all sorry I am quite the mixed bag lmao)

IS REALISM / RESEARCH IMPORTANT FOR YOU IN CERTAIN THEMES?:   YES / NO. i gotta know what certain human body parts taste like u know

ARE YOU ATM OPEN FOR NEW PLOTS?:  YES / NO / DEPENDS.

DO YOU HANDLE YOUR DRAFT / ASK - COUNT WELL?:  YES / NO / SOMEWHAT. it’s SO BAD FOR ME RN ASGLDKJDJKA i’m very inconsistent i’m so sorry.

HOW LONG DO YOU USUALLY TAKE TO REPLY?: 24H / 1 WEEK / 2 WEEKS / 3+ / months / years. / a lot of it has more to do w my general writing mood and if the thread im writing catches my interest, and rn im writing a TON of really wonderful and fascinating threads so they’re all super captivating for me and i try to reply asap

I’M OKAY WITH INTERACTING: ORIGINAL CHARACTERS / a relative of my character (an oc) / duplicates / MY FANDOM / CROSSOVERS / MULTI-MUSES / self-inserts / people with no AU verse for my fandom / CANON-DIVERGENT PORTRAYALS / AU-VERSIONS.

DO YOU POST MORE IC OR OOC?: IC / OOC. (i have a lot of stupid shit sorry) 

ARE YOU SELECTIVE WITH FOLLOWING OTHERS?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.  

BEST WAYS TO APPROACH YOU FOR RP/PLOTTING: just send me a tumblr instant message, i know it sucks shit but im not comfy releasing my discord w everyone just yet cause i use it for personal use as well. i check tumblr on the daily so if you send me a message chances are i’ll see it and respond!

WHAT EXPECTATIONS DO YOU HOLD TOWARDS YOUR PLOTTING PARTNER:  i guess just be able to put up with my rambling and stopping and starting, a lot of characterisation choices i do go through various stages and its pretty messy so when i communicate that with others it usually ends up equally messy. just be patient with me please.

WHEN YOU NOTICE THE PLOTTING IS RATHER ONE-SIDED, WHAT DO YOU DO?:  i don’t mind! sometimes ppl have more ideas that they want to share first and i’m always super happy to listen to those ideas !! sometimes its nice to have someone with a clear guide or structure and be able to work around that rather than trying to fumble through a plot together.

HOW DO YOU USUALLY PLOT WITH OTHERS, DO YOU GIVE INPUT OR LEAVE MOST WORK TOWARDS YOUR PARTNER?:  i try to map out some basic info abt their characters that i otherwise don’t know from their bio or verses and try to pick out points of confrontation or similarities to expand on with giselle that can be used as points for like a starter to happen. its either that or sometimes i have really stupid ideas i just toss out there like ‘LMAO THEYRE BREAKING SHIT AT DISNEYLAND’ and go buck wild from there if the other person is down. i also always try to warn people or get a gauge for what subjects to avoid and steer clear of considering that giselle is a bit of a Freak(tm) and will say and do bad things.

WHEN A PARTNER DROPS THE THREAD, DO YOU WISH TO KNOW?:   YES / NO / DEPENDS. - And why?: if there’s something giselle did or said that upset you, i would love to know not to repeat it again (since i do still feel pretty new to the rp game, theres still plenty of time for me to make stupid mistakes). if its just a general lack of interest or uncertainty of where the plot should go, then you dont have to tell me i wont take it personally i promise ! 

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY LEAD YOU TO DROP A THREAD?: sometimes i can be made uncomfortable by certain things mentioned... it happens but its rare 

- WILL YOU TELL YOUR PARTNER?:   YES / NO / DEPENDS. i don’t want to upset anyone personally and sometimes explaining the ins and outs of my discomfort make things ten times worse so i just. would rather not.

IS COMMUNICATION IN THE RPC IMPORTANT TO YOU? YES / NO.

- AND WHY?: i am the most nervous person you can meet and my brain is always giving me misinfo abt paranoia and random shit so i having clear concrete communication between two parties abt if something is going wrong or is being received poorly means the world to me.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH ABSOLUTE HONESTY, EVEN IF IT MAY MEANS HEARING SOMETHING NEGA1TIVE ABOUT YOU AND/OR PORTRAYAL?: i need it !! i still feel relatively new to all this and i need to know whats going wrong to improve !! 

DO YOU THINK YOU CAN HANDLE SUCH SITUATION IN A MATURE WAY? YES / NO.

WHY DO YOU RP AGAIN, IS THERE A GOAL?: to help with my confidence in writing! i have v bad anxiety when it comes to sharing my works and i write a lot of other pieces alongside this blog on ao3 and i want to develop my writing skills just in general. when it comes to like the nuts and bolts of why i rp giselle specifically, its mainly to just have fun and have a laugh w my friends who are really awesome quincy writers

WISHLIST, BE IT PLOTS OR SCENARIOS:  OH SO MANY! ive managed to fulfil a lot of my wishlist threads with like, giselle talking to characters she’s already zombified and i love all that angst but i want to do more stupid shit. i want to make it my personal goal to bully every quincy man and woman on sight. although a REAL dream would be if i got to write a thread zombifying a character who managed to escape giselle’s clutches. and more fighting! i want to get better at describing action and fights and i love to write giselle getting beat up and beating people up! more more more!! 

THEMES I WON’T EVER RP / EXPLORE:   hohoho theres a LOT... uh r*pe/dubcon threads for one, even if yeah i know writing it doesnt condone it, it makes me intensely uncomfortable to put my muse in that scenario, i feel like i have an obligation to like, protect her from that shit you know? racism is one i don’t want to transgress, even though i’m a poc, its not really cathartic or groundbreaking to write abt racism in threads its just... really fucking upsetting. also i know the quincy’s have this very close parallel to the whole n*zi imagery and ideology thing going on and i am not about to start even daring to thread that into my writing or bring those allusions and references of real life tragedies into giselle’s threads. i’ve already talked at length abt exploring giselles trans identity in rp and why im not comfortable doing so, so.... yeah! all those i guess.

WHAT TYPE OF STARTERS DO YOU PREFER / DISLIKE, CAN’T WORK WITH?: i like starters where giselle can just immediately get right into being a piece of shit. mise en scene and all that! cut out the build up and just get to the intense horror !! i don’t like starters where its not immediately clear where the characters are standing and what they’re doing and what’s happening around them. those really disorientate me and leave me kinda floundering because i always need some allusion or mention of a setting to ground giselle in a time and place other wise i cant tell what her response should be

WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS CATCH YOUR INTEREST THE MOST?:  EVIL WOMEN EVIL WOMEN EVIL WOMEN. also just characters i can wholeheartedly clown on, or also characters who have hidden depths to them and have a single panel of screentime. honestly it’s just all over the place!

WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS CATCH YOUR INTEREST THE LEAST?:  angry old men GSADJDKSJA i could never rp yhwach for example or yamamoto because idk. theyre just so crummy and boring to me. i also couldnt rp characters who always have an upper hand in battle like aizen. i like my dumbasses and i like them stupid and adaptive not just, ‘yes i know this because i Know this.’

WHAT ARE YOUR STRONG ASPECTS AS RP PARTNER?: i think im nice...? FKSJDKDJSA idk i hate trying to toot my own horn. sometimes i also think i make funny jokes and im pretty chill and laid back

WHAT ARE YOUR WEAK ASPECTS AS RP PARTNER?: my writing style is inconsistent and adapts to whatever i’m reading so sometimes it’ll be really good and i love it and other times it reads like really bad fanfic and i get carried away far too easily and write novella lengths for threads which should be much shorter. i also get shy a lot and dont think i communicate very effectively but HEYO we’re working on it!

DO YOU RP SMUT?:  YES / NO/ DEPENDS. haven’t had anybody brave enough to try yet lol

DO YOU PREFER TO GO INTO DETAIL?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH BLACK CURTAIN?: YES / NO.

- WHEN DO YOU RP SMUT? MORE OUT OF FUN OR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT?: more for fun i’d imagine because that’s just giselles own attitude to sex and relationships where she doesnt want anything deep. it might show character development in one way of just showing how she regards others in a romantic sense to be used rather than actually appreciated as their own person and show how selfish she is but yeah, more out of fun

- ANYTHING YOU WOULD NOT WANT TO RP THERE?:  theres a few kinks and such but i dont think they’d ever really come up. again, just mainly no r*pe/dubcon.

ARE SHIPS IMPORTANT TO YOU?:   YES / NO lets hope this doesn’t make me sound like an asshole, but its more like a fun little side thing than anything important to giselle’s actual development and characterisation. 

WOULD YOU SAY YOUR BLOG IS SHIP-FOCUSED?: YES / NO. again, hardly anyone is brave enough to try to romance this evil cannibal.

DO YOU USE READ MORE?:  YES / NO / SOMETIMES WHEN I WRITE LONG STUFF.

ARE YOU:  MULTI-SHIP / Single-Ship / Dual-Ship  —  MULTIVERSE / Singleverse.

- WHAT DO YOU LOVE TO EXPLORE THE MOST IN YOUR SHIPS?: more how giselle likes to give over her power or dominate in different circumstances depending on who she’s with and what’s being done. BUT AGAIN, not a whole lot to explore yet.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH PRE-ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS?: YES / NO. - i mean im down for p much anything if it vibes w giselle.

► SECTION ABOUT YOUR MUSE.

- WHAT COULD POSSIBLY MAKE YOUR MUSE INTERESTING TOWARDS OTHERS, WHY SHOULD THEY RP WITH THIS PARTICULAR CHARACTER OF YOURS NOW, WHAT POSSIBLE PLOTS DO THEY OFFER?: if you want an evil woman to taunt and mock and hurt your muse, she’s your gal. you want her to zombify and ruin your muse, shes also your gal. you want her to insult and maim and injure, she’s also YOUR GAL. basically, if you want to do anything fucked up or sad or scary, she can help with that.

- WITH WHAT TYPE OF MUSES DO YOU USUALLY STRUGGLE TO RP WITH?:  uh muses who get really angry quickly or don’t rise or respond to her jabs and are just kinda like a flatline. theres only so much pestering and annoying she can do until realises its not working and just wanders off

- WHAT DO THEY DESIRE, IS THEIR GOAL?:  to find a goal worth living for.

- WHAT CATCHES THEIR INTEREST FIRST WHEN MEETING SOMEONE NEW?:  appearance she always takes an interest in girls almost right away. age as well because she judges old people. 

- WHAT DO THEY VALUE IN A PERSON?:  a good set of guts to ruin and strong muscles.

- WHAT THEMES DO THEY LIKE TALKING ABOUT?:  women, gore, murder, herself, music, stupid memes, gossip.

- WHICH THEMES BORE THEM?:  politics, history, quincy ideology, soul reaper ideology, hollow physiology.

- DID THEY EVER WENT THROUGH SOMETHING TRAUMATIC?:  her family tried to force the burden of upholding the quincy lineage onto her shoulders, she was thrown into the wrong prison and held in isolation, then pressured to become an undying monster in service of a god and then was nearly killed by that same man and left wandering without guidance or purpose. so, yeah?

- WHAT COULD LEAD TO AN INSTANT KILL?:  transphobia. even a whiff of it in her direction and she’ll gut you like a fish.

- IS THERE SOMEONE /-THING THEY HATE?:  the twink soul reaper who outted her.

IS YOUR MUSE EASY TO APPROACH?: YES / NO. - Best ways to approach them?:  if you’re smart, you’ll bring a big bone for her to chew on and distract her while you ask whatever you want.

SOMETHING YOU MAY STILL WANT TO POINT OUT ABOUT YOUR MUSE?: i love my evil queen!

CONGRATS!!! You managed it, now tag your mutuals! ♥

Tagged by:  @bazzardburner​ cheers chicken boy !!

Tagging: @hyouketsu​ @blooming5th​ @viciousvizard​ @glacies-tempestatem​ and whoever else wishes to do this!!

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

holy shit okay i was working on my Angel post and I got sucked into the mythology as you do when doing stuff like this, I’ve made 4 separate drafts since then but I can’t keep my mouth shut because guys, I know we’re all focused on the Calypsos, and how Calypso is the child of Atlas, and all that fun stuff

BUT

What if, in the grand scheme of things, Tyreen is Demeter, Troy is Demophon, and Persephone the mystery girl. please, I have wikipedia quotes for all of this. I personally am not an actual believer of this theory, but it was really fun to write, so here you go.

OKAY

Let’s start with Tyreen and Demeter. Yeah, she’s shown us that her power is like... Phasesuck or whatever, where she drains the life force out of people (and Siren powers, apparently), we also see in the art on the wall of the HBC that her and Troy are bringing food (in boxes) to the cultists.

So Demeter is “the goddess of the grain, agriculture, harvest, growth, and nourishment, who presided over grains and the fertility of the earth. Her cult titles include Sito (Σιτώ), "she of the Grain", as the giver of food or grain”. It seems like Demeter is the exact opposite of what we know Tyreen as- right now she steals the life force and strength from people, meanwhile Demeter would nurture them and help them grow and get stronger. In addition: “Though Demeter is often described simply as the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sacred law, and the cycle of life and death.” yeah. yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Bonus, I did a lot of research on Cybele a while ago while I was batshit crazy, and GUESS WHAT

“Demeter was often considered to be the same figure as the Anatolian goddess Cybele”

For Cybele: “Her cults most often were funded privately, rather than by the polis. Her ‘vivid and forceful character’ and association with the wild set her apart from the Olympian gods”. Now I don’t know exactly what the Olympian gods are in the borderlands verse. My first instinct was the corporations? But two of those are named after titans and the rest clearly aren’t greek. So I got nothing.

In addition, Demeter created a cult called “the Mysteries which give the initiates higher hopes in this life and the afterlife”. Sound familiar? Yeah, the Great Vault in BL3 that’s referenced by the Cultists while they’re dying. their exact words are “The Great Vault beckons”. To add to that, the Calypsos are stated as giving their cultists something to believe in so they can believe in themselves. They give them ‘higher hopes in this life’. Quote straight from the Danny Homan interview: “People need something to believe in and they need people to believe in them and that’s kind of what the Calypsos have provided. They’ve kind of gone ‘oh bandits, everyone calls you animals, everyone calls you trash... but we see there’s something, there’s something in you, there’s something we can elevate your murder to. Murder in our name’.”

So why do I think this matches up with Ty? Because I don’t think her power is solely taking power from others. I think she can turn around and distribute it to other things.

Moving on.

This coming bit is mainly why I think Demophon is Troy. Let’s take a looksie:

Weird beginning, but things start to make sense soon, I promise: “While Demeter was searching for her daughter Persephone, having taken the form of an old woman called Doso, she received a hospitable welcome from Celeus, the King of Eleusis in Attica. He asked her to nurse Demophon his son by Metanira.”

“As a gift to Celeus, because of his hospitality, Demeter planned to make Demophon a god, by anointing and coating him with ambrosia... making him immortal by burning his mortal spirit away in the family hearth every night.”

Sadly, she doesn’t succeed in making him immortal and Demophon dies because she was interrupted in her ritual. 

Why do I think this is tied to Troy? Because we know Typhon Deleon found something important. We know De Leon is the name of the legendary dude in our world who found the Fountain of Youth - the key to immortality. It’s also been confirmed that Troy can’t survive without Tyreen helping him (tending to him like Demeter does Demophon). It would make sense that they are trying to figure out a way to immortalize Troy (and, yeah, he probably does end up dying. There’s no other reason to mention he’s sick...) We also are all guessing that Troy’s tattoos have appeared by Ty giving him Lilith’s powers. and what is Lilith’s main element? Fire. 

Since we’re on the topic, let’s talk about Demophon’s brother, Triptolemus. He was considered one of the first priests of the Mysteries and one of his rules was “Honor your Parents”. Sound familiar? Yeah, “Honor the Father” that’s on some of the CoV propaganda posters. To explain: “He flew across the land on a chariot drawn by dragons... his mission of educating the whole of Greece in the art of agriculture. Triptolemus was equally associated with the bestowal of hope for the afterlife associated with the expansion of the Eleusinian Mysteries”. We know now that the ‘art of agriculture’ is Demeter’s domain, and we have likened this to Tyreen’s powers. So, likely, Triptolemus is the priest we see on the cover art. Walking around, chosen by Tyreen, teaching people about the Twin Gods and the cult ‘Children of the Vault’.

Now this is where I get a little stretchy. Because we know nothing of Mystery Girl on the cover.

Persephone. “Plutarch identifies Persephone with the season of spring, and Cicero calls her the seed of the fruits of the fields. In the Eleusinian Mysteries, her return from the underworld each spring is a symbol of immortality”. 

Now I talk about Zeus a bunch in my mythology masterpost that i have yet to post cause i'm always adding to it, and basically I think he’s a representative of the Eridians themselves. Some sort of leader or smth? idk

“Zeus, it is said, permitted Hades to abduct her... Demeter searched for her all over the earth with Hecate's torches. In most versions, [Demeter] forbids the earth to produce, or she neglects the earth and in the depth of her despair she causes nothing to grow. Helios, the sun, who sees everything, eventually told Demeter what had happened and at length she discovered the place of her abode. Finally, Zeus, pressed by the cries of the hungry people and by the other deities who also heard their anguish, forced Hades to return Persephone. Hades indeed complied with the request, but first he tricked her, giving her some pomegranate seeds to eat. Persephone was released by Hermes, who had been sent to retrieve her, but because she had tasted food in the underworld, she was obliged to spend a third of each year there”.

now this is 100% unfounded bullshit im spewing here, but maybe this is why we have yet to actually see Mystery Girl, like, AT ALL. 

We know Tyreen wants to get stronger, she wants to absorb the powers of the Vault Monsters. but why? Just to rule over the galaxy? I mean, sure, why not, but she’s pretty much already getting there just with her cult.

Instead, you know what’d be cool? If she needed all those powers to fight whatever/whoever fucked with mystery girl. If she knew that opening all those Vaults was going to lead to something terrible and didn’t care because it was bad for the Eridians, or whatever that took her sister (?). Like, what if they actually were triplets (Tyreen being the first sister), but the reason Mystery Girl looks so young on the MoM is because she’s been missing since that age? Because they tried to make her immortal like they’re doing for Troy? If they’re all siblings, it’s possible they all have the same sickness. Tyreen can always heal herself because of her Siren powers, but what about Troy? The mystery girl? They’d need someone/something else to heal them. I’m sure Ty can do it for one of them, but both? They’d probably gone looking for a way to heal her, maybe they opened a Vault at some point? (maybe the red vault shown in all the wall art?) And Mystery Girl went missing because of it or smth. idk, im just rambling. i was gonna post my Angel post today but I got toooooootally sidetracked. might still do it if i have the energy. 

This is what my tabs are looking like right now btw lmao

[outpost51]

The 51 Post

This week sucked a whole lot actually (I started this draft on Tuesday, and I haven't touched it until 5pm Sunday) but I read a lot of pretty good shit so I think it balances.

Contents:

Things You Might Have Missed

This Week's Jams

WIP Breakdowns

From the Skwad

Around the 'Blr

Things You Might Have Missed

get on my taglists for WIP updates, 51 post, tag games, and ask events!

BRHP: Chapter 15 posted; Talus is having a Bad Time.

I stabbed Adrien real good

BRHP: Chapter 16 posted; baby's first fight pit, and a family secret is revealed.

Not new, but I dug up Adrift and The Sky, The Stars, and Me so enjoy the spooky space shorts.

See more entries for SSSC 006 below, mine is here: i'll take everything.

Growing Pains: the 6th entry into the Lighthouse in the Fog shorts; our new Keeper is definitely adjusting so well to her new life.

I'm starting to release chapters of Unlikely Adventures on tumblr now!

This Week's Jams

stargazing || power-haus, solarays [spotify/youtube]

up down || boy epic [spotify/youtube]

gasoline || chymes [spotify/youtube]

dangerous || new medicine [spotify/youtube]

she went that way || missy [spotify/youtube]

illuminated || hurts [spotify/youtube]

WIP Breakdowns

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

HI YOU GET TO MEET KADMOS IN CHAPTER 17 AND [SPOILERS] IN CHAPTER 18 I'M REALLY EXCITED

Unlikely Adventures of Bitchface and Go F*ck Yourself

zadimus needs to stop it. that is all

Blinding Neon, Shades of Grey

you know what's fun to write? drug/dream sequences. you know what's even more fun? writing one for a detective in a flashy nightclub with murder on her mind

Stellar Parallax

saren is about to go do a Very Kill and jaen is So Excited About It. also wrex. but mostly violence

Lighthouse in the Fog

7th short will be coming out some time tonight, @thetrashbagswasteland picked some yummy prompt words

In the Works

y'all 🥺💕 thank you i needed a bunch of open-ended prompts to get the brain noodles out so i can hopefully not burn out on the main wips. i've still got the same backlog otherwise lmao

From the Skwad

IMPORTANT @fenrir-kin fell prey to the hellsite shenaniganuke, and is currently @vikingfenharel until it (hopefully) gets sorted.

Surprise Challenge 006 wrapped up with (mine's above): Just Take My Hand by @sparatus, Expanding the Vocabulary by @teamdilf, and The Storm Between Us by @thetrashbagswasteland

@equusgirl is going bananas with Sapphic Summer: i know with me, you'll get a little bit addicted, One Night, and will my hands ever be clean?

@sparatus also dropped chapter 1 & chapter 2 of Make Less the Depth of Grief and were it not for the laws of this land, i would have strangled him (affectionate) but also this tasty oneshot of Nautilea being so hot

@teamdilf HOW. New chapter of Alice's Adventures in Andromeda, another chapter of The In-Laws and the Grandparents, and another chapter in A Man of Many Talents. I'm calling witchcraft

@asher-orion-writes gave us this lovely oneshot set in Cardinal Sins and I'm??? yes

@princess-prawn dropped a new chapter of Next of Kin YESSS

@regalbois is writing his mlm war stories again and i'm vibrating please go read The Earth Abides

@commander-krios wrote more Dash/Leo (thank u for my life) and New Beginnings (thank u for TWO life wow)

Around the 'Blr

Art Claims are still going on for WIP Big Bang!!

@writernopal dropped character profiles for Magdalene and Sartor so this is your hint to get on the taglist for AASOAF 3

@tabswrites posted chapter 3 of Silver Sentinels and gave me life thank you, more please

@vacantgodling wrote this short for Lukewarm Rejection and we have no choice but to stan Trisha

@liv-is blessed writeblr with this snippet from Demigods i am eating it up

@void-botanist gave us this short for Another Ocean's Moon with LORE hidden in the tags hello

have you SEEN The Poster by @artdecosupernova-writing omg

@elshells dropped chapter 12 of Agent Ace YES congrats on the timeline choreography, bud!

wake up babes new Nameless Song short just dropped from @blind-the-winds

︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶

Outpost Updates Taglist: @tabswrites @writernopal @freedominique @asher-orion-writes @liv-is @starknstarwars @captain-kraken

Ask to +/- in the tags, replies, DMs, or HERE!

[hallelujuh]

shay’s favorite tv shows from 2017

this has been in my drafts for.... nine months.... fuck.

Written in December 2017, updates are from September 2018.

Considering how many new, innovative shows are around these days, I didn’t get too adventurous this year, but I’m satisfied with the ones I did watch. I discovered new shows, I was impressed by the shows I’ve been following for years, and I learned to appreciate the work that goes into television more. Here’s my top ten TV shows..

10. Thirteen Reasons Why - In all honestly, this is only here because I haven’t been able to watch Peaky Blinders yet, and it’s probably too late. (UPDATE: Watched it in Jan and it was amazing.) This show received a lot of backlash, and for good reason, although it had its moments. The characters were well-written, the relationships were given depth that is often lacking in other high school-set narratives, and the tone was great. I’ve always loved watching things that make me profoundly sad, and this show did just that. (UPDATE: Season 2 was fucking garbage lmao.)

Standout episode: Tape 1, Side B. It’s a cripplingly depressing show, but this episode stood out as a moment of light in Hannah’s dark reality. Her friendship with Jessica and Alex was nice in the beginning - their banter, them having a spot in the coffee shop. I remember assuming Alex was gay (I believe his actor is, so I wasn’t too off) and thinking that’d be good for Hannah, to have a guy friend who wasn’t interested in her and wouldn’t add relationship drama to her life. Boy, was I wrong. Still, having seen the show at the beginning of the year, this episode is the only one I remember as enjoying, so it gets this spot.

9. A Series of Unfortunate Events - I read the books in elementary school, and they’re one of my favorite series of all time. I’m also a huge fan of the film, though I know most aren’t. So I was very excited for this series, and it didn’t completely disappoint. While I found myself longing for the actors from the 2004 motion picture, and some of the directing decisions weren’t choice, it was cool to see The Miserable Mill finally come to life, and I loved the Baudelaires just as much here as anyone else. I’ll be tuning in to next season, since I’ve very, very excited to see how they handle the next three books. I can’t wait to meet the Quagmire triplets, and Esme, and Jacques! It’ll be awesome. I hope they portray it well, but there’s no film to compare it to from here on out, so maybe it’ll be different.

Standout episode: The Reptile Room: Part One/Two. Like I said, I wasn’t a huge fan of how most of the characters were portrayed in this adaption, but I did love Uncle Monty. He was just as wonderful as he was in the film and books. Watching his interactions with the kids was really nice, and as always, made me wish they could’ve remained with him. Stephano wasn’t as menacing here as he is in the film (that knife scene is the point in the film where you go, “woah, this dude’s for real. he’s scary”), which was a bummer because I still thought Olaf was a laughably bad and incompetent villain by the finale, but I did like Poe’s hysteria, and I really loved the movie theatre scene.

8. Riverdale - Oops I never wrote this dfdsbfjdbfjds.

7. South Park - While we all can agree the last season was a mess, and this one was only a slight improvement, it did have it’s moments. I’ve been a fan for five years now, so at this point, they’ll never disappoint me, tbfh. 

Standout episode: Doubling Down. While Put it Down was wonderful, both satirically and because of Craig and Tweek’s adorable relationship, the eighth episode of the season was my personal favorite (UPDATE: Not sure why ‘cause I didn’t specify then and I’m not sure now.)

6. Dear White People - I didn’t do this one either damn. 

Standout Episode: Chapter V. While the show is a comedic take on racial relations, this episode is an emotional, serious change. The Barry Jenkins-directed episode shows us that the subject is no laughing matter, and it very clearly deserves this spot.

5. Rick and Morty - Yet another show I discovered this year, during the summer. I’d been meaning to watch it for ages, and I finally got around to it. While the fanbase is pretty much poison, the show is pretty damn good. Maybe not what it’s hyped up to be, but great none-the-less. I’m a big fan of adult cartoons, and RaM isn’t entirely satirical like South Park, and it’s not self-aware like BoJack, but it holds up. It’s probably so popular because of how unique it is.

Standout episode: The Ricklantis Mixup. While my personal favorite of Season 3 was The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy, because I adore Jerry, I think we can all agree that the was the best episode of the season, if not the series. Like, really. Holy shit.

4. Gotham - I began watching this show last year, and caught up to season three around halfway through it. It began to drag a bit, admittedly, like it couldn’t carry it’s own weight - but now the show’s on season four, and it gets a little wild sometimes, but it’s holding quite a bit better, I’d say. I was pretty fucking impressed, especially with the Nygmobblepot stuff.

Standout episode: A Dark Knight: Queen Takes Knight. Although Mad City: The Gentle Art of Making Enemies from Season 3 is a close runner-up, for all the loose ends it ties up, and so cleanly, too - the winter finale gets this spot. It had me on the edge of my metaphorical seat (since I was actually curled up in bed) the entire time. While Sophia’s character and her motivations had remained muddy since her introduction, her badassery finally came to the forefront, and it was awesome. The way she tore down Penguin from his throne? Incredible. We know he’ll return, as he has so many times, but really, that was so incredible. Considering he’s my favorite character, I should feel worse. However, Sophia executed her plan so well, I was too awed to hate her. Also, Jerome’s back! I’m extremely excited to see Jerome’s role in the upcoming episodes. (Update: Oh, honey, you got a big storm coming...)

3. BoJack Horseman - I binged the hell out of this show just before season four came out, because it was so creative and thought-provoking and hilariously depressing. The fourth season was notably wonderful in a lot of ways, particularly because of Todd’s sexuality arc (the first out asexual character in a TV show!) and how well it was handled, but also because of the mature themes they took on. Princess Carolyn’s miscarriages, Diane and Mr. PB’s failing marriage, BoJack’s struggle to forgive his mother, Beatrice’s own troubled upbringing, Hollyhock’s eating disorder. I watched the whole season in three days when it was first released, four months ago, and I’m currently considering re-watching it after rereading the summaries of each episode to refresh my memory. I’d forgotten how phenomenal it was. It’s on another level - it really is.

Standout episode: Time’s Arrow. Though there wasn’t a single weak episode this season, this one definitely stood out. Following the tradition of uniquely depressing eleventh episodes, Time’s Arrow focuses on BoJack’s mother and how her turbulent childhood affected her. Gorgeously executed, it makes us pity the woman who made our favorite alcoholic horse the way he is, and it concludes with BoJack making peace with his mother, who he had spent so long resenting. It’s just a gorgeous episode. I think I’m going to rewatch it right now, haha.

2. Mr. Robot - I’ve wanted to watch this show since it came out, but I finally began and finished the first two seasons just weeks before Season 3 came out. Since I’m discussing my favorites of 2017, I won’t be talking about those first two seasons here. I’ll be focusing on Season 3, which has been, in my opinion, incredible. What began as a modern, nerdy take on Fight Club has become so much more; a masterfully dark and suspenseful fictionalized look at the looming political state of our world. We’ve gotten new characters (Irving, who’s a gem), we’ve learned more about older but mysterious characters (poor repressed Dom), we’ve had to say goodbye to old characters (I’m still mad about ******), and best of all, this season has been Tyrell heavy, and we even got to see Elliot make peace with Mr. Robot.

Standout episode: S3/EP8, eps3.7_dont-delete-me.ko - The previous episode had already established a gorgeously melancholy setting through the use of Mac Quayle's gorgeous production 2.0_6-madame3xecutioner.oga, which, as a huge fan of film scores, I instantly fell in love with. The song is featured during a scene I watched several times - the scene when Angela repeatedly rewinds the explosion, unable to cope with the reality of it. It left me feeling similar to the way I had after watching American Beauty for the first time - like the world was a different shade. I thought this would be the only moment the show could invoke that response from me, but then the next episode came out. Unlike Ep. 7, Ep. 8 didn’t have a single moment. The whole episode brimmed with pain and sadness. The show’s already sad, but the lonely, isolated feeling is often overwhelmed by the suspense, drama, and excitement. This episode let the characters hurt without interruption, and it was wonderfully emotional.

1. The Get Down - I was so thrilled when I discovered this show in April, literally a few days after Part 2 had aired. I downloaded all the episodes for a road trip, and literally could not put it down the entire tme. It blended all my favorite things - the art of rap, the origin and evolution of hip hop, how battle rapping/deejaying came to be. The music was stellar, the cinematography was breathtaking, the acting was (for the most part) wonderful, and the cast was fantastic. I’ve seen some criticizing it, because of its occasionally choppy narrative and the fact that Baz Luhrmann added his usual whimsical take on something that was historically fairly dark, but I thought it was flawless. It was definitely groundbreaking in its amount of representation, and it was fun and colorful and emotional and, overall, just absolutely wonderful. Like many others, I was pretty devastated when they cancelled it. I understand why, but I wish it could get the Sense 8 treatment and receive a movie. There’s too many loose ends - it’s a real bummer. Still, I’m grateful we were blessed with this gem of a show at all.

Standout episode: S1/EP11, Only from Exile Can We Come Home - The final episode gets this spot for a single scene; the one where it alternates between Mylene singing “I’m my #1″ in the hotel room with Jackie and all the drag queens, and the scene where an unreleased Miguel song is playing while Dizzy & Thor paint on each other, and then Shao calls Dizzy his “alien brother.” That scene was easily one of my favorites I’ve ever seen in any show, in my entire life. If that episode was a film, that scene alone would guarantee it a spot on my favorite films list. It was that good.

[sea-goddess-amphitrite]

WIP Tag

So, while @aphhun didn’t explicitly tag me to do this, they did say if so inclined, and well, I thought, “heck why not” because I do feel so inclined to talk about my WIPs!

For the friends of mine who knew me before I was YoI trash, prepare to be amazed at the level I’ve risen to in this fandom, because this is what I do when I love something this much. I write for it.

Heartbeats

Pairing: Viktuuri Type: Reverse Age AU Length: Multichapter

This literally is probably the one I’m most excited about. Like??? Pretty much the basis is similar to YoI except Viktor and Yuuri’s ages are reversed, so Viktor’s 23 and Yuuri’s 27 when the coaching thing happens. However! I did end up changing a lot of canon stuff to make it work right in this AU. I didn’t really mess with the season most of YoI takes place in, so everyone still skates to their songs, minus Yurio who got a brand new SP to replace On Love: Agape since there...really ended up not being a need for him to skate to it?? Its complicated, but its mostly because the song is really related to the Onsen on Ice competition which doesn’t take place in this AU. Also, random tidbits that I love to share:

1) Yuuko skated until she was 22-23 in the singles division before retiring. She and Yuuri skated together under the same coach during this time period. Since in canon Yuuko had the triplets at ~19, she took a year long break to raise them before coming back to the competitive circle for a few more years.

2) Yuuri’s signature jump in this AU ends up as the quad axel.

3) Yuuri has longish hair. It like, reaches down to his shoulder. This picture set I reblogged is almost spot-on to what I see in my head.

Stay Close to Me

Pairing: Viktuuri Type: Canon divergent Length: Multichapter

This one is kinda sketchy, because I’m wavering back and forth on adding more to the beginning so that is covers more of the months Viktor was in Hasetsu with Yuuri and his family&friends. As it is right now, it starts a little before the Cup of China, but I really can’t say anything since a lot of the story is contingent on a few things about that time in the anime! Random tidbits I can share though:

1) Writing a pining Viktor is fun. Also sad.

2) I’m dying over in a corner because of this one, but also living at the same time if that makes sense.

Demons In The Night

Pairing: Viktuuri Type: Demon Slayer AU Length: Series

This AU...is probably just going to be a collection of one-shots and maybe smaller multichapters tbh. I can never figure out an overlying plot for the whole thing but I love the AU itself, plus I already have Plans™ for it. The basic premise for the demon slayers group is that a lot of figure skaters and ballet dancers are demon slayers (there are probably other sports groups too, but these two were the only ones important to the story). Yuuri is a demon slayer, as are the rest of the Katsuki’s, Yuuko, and Minako (Minako was Yuuko, Mari, and Yuuri’s teacher). Viktor accidentally gets dragged into the whole thing, Yurio stumbles into it while in Hasetsu, there’s appearances of non-demon creatures, there’s demon/demon-like creatures from different cultures, it’s a lot of fun to juggle! Random tidbits for sharing:

1) Someone in this series dies. I won’t say who, when, or how, but someone ends up dead. Possibly multiple someones?

2) JJ’s fiancee Isabella is a former ballerina in this AU, and also a demon slayer. Originally she was tasked to see if JJ would make a good slayer, but for reasons she doesn’t disclose to anyone else, she declares he’s not suitable for the lifestyle. This is back when the first begin to date.

3) The infamous banquet night we all know and love is...very interesting in this AU tbh

The Stars in Your Eyes (working title)

Pairing: Viktuuri, with side pairings possible Type: Royalty AU Length: Multichapter

I love love love royalty AUs. I also have small well of knowledge about some royal etiquette, and I think this might be why I like royalty AUs so much. In this one Viktor is a prince and there’s a ball being held for Viktor to find someone to marry (which has been preceded the entire season by other ones that he’s attended as well with the same purpose) and this one is a bit different because Viktor’s mom sent out invitations to ally kingdoms as well for the children of their nobles (not just the royal family’s kids) to attend the ball as well. Cue an exciting night where Viktor meets a special someone, who promptly disappears after the ball. Viktor tries to find them, and when he does, he’s in for a bit of surprise (eventually followed by some heartbreak as well later on). Random info tidbits:

1) This AU is, in fact, originally the brain child of my friend @kylo-knight-ren and they’re a menace because they come up with too many AUs that I itch to write lmao

2) there’s a chance for some POV switching during a few parts of this fic between Viktor and Yuuri

Dance on the blades (working title)

Pairing: Viktuuri Type: Ice Dancers AU Length: Multichapter

I just, really want to write a ice dancer AU. The basis is that Viktor is a champion ice dancer who’s partner has just decided to retire, and Yuuri’s is on break due to an injury acquired during the beginning of the off season (non-skating related). They end up pairing up for the season, since neither of them want to take the season off just because their partners are gone. Also, there’s a sort of rivalry they have between them, an on-ice one because they’ve been competitors for a number of years at this point. Random tidbits time:

1) One of them ends up having to switch skating federations so they can skate together for the season.

2) The original concept of this AU was pair skating, but I just. I really like ice dancing.

3) Also their rivalry was a lot more serious. It might switch back to being a more serious one when I start drafting it more in depth.

4) Meet another brain child of @kylo-knight-ren.

Beneath Chandeliers and Silk (working title)

Pairing: Viktuuri Type: Dancers AU Length: Multichapter

I love dancing??? I took a social dance class during my second semester at uni and learned the basics of several different ballroom dances (foxtrot, waltz, tango, etc.) and I loved it a lot. This whole AU is just Viktor and Yuuri competing in ballroom dance competitions, using my own knowledge from that semester and my future self watching hours and hours of videos about different dance moves in each style. Random tidbits:

1) Yet another of @kylo-knight-ren’s brain children (can you see why i called them a menace earlier. look at all these good AU ideas).

2) There will be dresses, and I can’t believe my countless hours of looking at dress designs for the different ballroom dances that semester are actually going to be useful.

Unnamed Records Shop AU

Pairing: Viktuuri with side pairings as well Type: Records Shop AU Length: Oneshot series

I was thinking about a records shop AU a while back and drabbled down a few ideas for it, but kind of set it aside because I have more ideas than I can write because there’s only so much I can come up with. And, you know, then YoI staff had to go and release that collab and I got more ideas. Not enough for a big plot, but enough for a short series of cute one shots??? No info tidbits for this one though because there’s not a whole lot to share in the first place!

and that’s it! as you can tell, i have plenty of stuff to be working on, but since Heartbeats is my main focus right now I work on it like 90% of the time when I’m writing. Seriously. This post took two days for me to make because a) i procrastinated on writing it by writing Heartbeats stuff, and b) i procrastinated on more than one occasion for writing Heartbeats with researching for it. But I had fun talking about them because tbh if im talking about my writing 99.9% of the time I guarantee I’m talking about Heartbeats instead of my other writings.

But, uh, feel free to talk to me about them? Send an ask in and ask me questions about them, I’m happy to talk about any of these! :D

[charmingstrangeness]

im super stoked about the oso fairytale zine fic oh man i’m. not gonna be able to post it until after the zine is released (so sometime in february) but we’re allowed to post previews so here’s ~300 words of draft prologue bc i’m dying to post something

bonus points to whoever can tell me what folk tale this is based on lmao

It had been a long, uneventful day at the fishing hole, and Jyushimatsu was on the verge of dozing off. He yawned, felt his shoulders slump forward, and then—

A sudden, sharp tug on the line.

Jyushimatsu jumped off the crate he’d been sitting on as if the fishing line itself had yanked him into a standing position.

Whatever had snagged his hook fought, and it took all of Jyushimatsu’s effort to reel it in, but reel it in he did. Finally, his catch emerged from the water – a large and rather handsome golden koi.

“Oh! Chagoi!” Jyushimatsu gasped. “Good luck! I need to show my brothers.”

“Fisherman, please, let me go,” the koi said.

“Ohhhh! Talking chagoi!” Jyushimatsu gasped again. “Even better luck?!”

“Please, fisherman, I beg you. I’m not an ordinary koi—”

“Of course not,” Jyushimatsu interrupted, “you’re a lucky chagoi koi, and you can talk.”

“I’m an enchanted prince.” The koi pursed its lips in indignation before continuing. “Let me live, please. Put me back in the water. I wouldn’t taste good to you; it will do you no good to take me home to your brothers.”

Jyushimatsu shrugged. “Okay.” Gently, he removed his fishhook and lowered the koi-prince back into the water.

“You’ll let me go, just like that?” The koi-prince sounded incredulous.

Jyushimatsu nodded. “You’re lucky, and you can talk. I don’t mind.”

The koi-prince smiled in relief. “Thank you, fisherman.”

“Goodbye, Chagoi!” Jyushimatsu waved as it dove into the depths of the fishing hole, leaving a thin trail of blood in the clear water.

And then he sat back down and cast his line once more, as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.