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eruden-writes · 4 months

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ooooh, for the smoochin' roulette- how about a gargoyle platter with a side of #41 (kiss out of spite)

For anyone interested in sending a monster + prompt, the list is here.

So, uh, gargoyle platter x human.

tw for mentions of cheating and sexually charged commentary

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Gargoyle's Gambit

Unlocking her front door, Brisa pushed her way into her darkened and quiet home. For a second, she stood, thinking of how the effort of getting ready had been wasted and how the delight for the evening had withered. The black dress that was classy, but sexy. The makeup she had agonized over. The jewelry carefully chosen. The excitement and delight when Lars’s parents had looked her over approvingly.

She didn’t understand why her supposed-to-be in-laws wanted to host so many soirees, but tonight just made such events taste even bitterer in her mouth.

Unceremoniously, she dropped her purse to the floor and kicked off her heels, rubbing her cheeks woefully. The dried tears, mixed with eyeliner and mascara, scraped against her fingers.

In the dark, she trudged toward her bedroom. After a wave of her hand, the lights bled on and all semblance of quiet and isolation shattered.

“Oi, oi, oi, what’re you cryin’ about now.” From the far wall, Emerick shouted. Brisa winced but ignored the gargoyle platter that hung on her bedroom wall as she went into her ensuite bathroom to scrub her face. If she’d had her choice, he’d be hanging in the living room at all times.

However, the last time he was permanently in the living room, she was woken up at all hours by midnight singing or him bemoaning his inability to use a television. Very loudly.

Not to mention, he often insulted or offended her guests. Again, very loudly.

Undeterred by Brisa’s cold shoulder, Emerick continued, “What’d that sod you call a fiancée do? Run screamin’ when he saw you without makeup ‘cause he didn’t recognize you?”

“I don’t feel up for this tonight, Emerick,” Brisa sighed as she made her way back into the bedroom. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she peeled off her stockings and considered changing for bed. Rubbing at her cheek again, she sighed. A shower was probably in order.

“What’d I do? What’d I do?” As always, Emerick continued on, a motorboat for someone made of stone. Every so often, the platter would vibrate against the wall as he waved his clawed hands. Brisa shot a glare his way, watching as his large round eyes widen in faux innocence. “Just makin’ conversation, all polite-like.”

Not for the first time, Brisa wondered what the point of a gargoyle platter had been. She’d asked Emerick and he always came up with a different answer.

Scaring off rats – or ants, or pill bugs, or any number of pests – from the kitchen.

Scaring off thieves from the pantry or the silverware.

Scaring off unworthy suitors for a family.

Though Brisa understood the whole “scary ugly gargoyles frighten off bad vibes” belief, it never seemed like the whole story. Emerick was certainly… unconventional to her human standards.

A wide face that reminded her of a bulldog, with a snub nose and two rows of sharp teeth. Large ears, like that of a bat, almost hid the little nubs of horns right behind them. The more Emerick moved, the more of a body was shown, though Brisa never saw too far below his torso. Carved muscles rounded the slow of his shoulders and his chest was bare. Behind him, wings flicked, though – if he had been an actual creature – she doubted their size could carry him.

In truth, he wasn’t terrible to look at. It was just what came out of his mouth that made him a pain to be around.

Flopping back against her bed, Brisa snorted, “The last thing you are is polite, you dinner tray.”

“Oi! That’s slander! Never once has dinner been served on my face.” Emerick’s chest puffed with indignation, but a sly grin slid over his craggy lips. “But if you want to set some cake on my face, I ain’t gonna complain.”

“Ugh, you’re so gross.” Brisa rolled onto her side, facing the wall with the platter as she wrinkled her nose in distaste.

“I didn’t say it had to be your cake. Your friend, wasshername, the one with the short red hair that’s spiky in the back—” Emerick made a motion with his large hand, swiping it over his own spiky bits that Brisa thought was supposed to be short, cropped hair.

“Sanguine,” she supplied with an unimpressed tone.

“Yeah, yeah, Sanguine’s cake’ll do. Wonder if it’s red velvet, if you know what I mean.” Emerick’s tongue came out in a cheeky grin, his teeth seemingly biting down on the appendage to add to the rascality of his expression.

Brisa groaned and pushed herself off the mattress, heading toward her vanity. Caddy corner to Emerick’s wall, she could still talk to him with ease while sitting before her mirror.

Her home was filled with magical items, ranging from thingamajigs to artefacts. It was part of her own witch path: history, mysteries, studying, cultures. Unveiling unknowns about the past, learning how to use these items whose manuals were lost to time.

It made her very essence vibrate happily.

But she never could understand why her grandmother kept the gargoyle platter around. Granny Nickels kept it out of sight until Brisa turned twenty-two, for stars sakes! That had to be evidence of Emerick’s unwieldly nature. He was better off in a vault or with a university, given a gargoyle platter wasn’t common.

Donating him to another home especially made sense for Brisa, considering he was one reason why her relationship of eight years was now on the rocks.

Well, Lars had a hand in the end of their relationship. Or more correctly had a dick in it.

At that thought, the make-up brush she’d been fiddling with snapped in her hand.

As if summoning a devil themselves, a message inked its way across her mirror: Please, Brisa, let’s just talk this out.

It didn’t need any signature for Brisa to know it was Lars. She could feel his magic in the message, in her own mirror. She frowned at the surface, considering what to do.

“What’d the fucker do,” Emerick needled, but Brisa ignored him.

She was thirty-two and had to be an adult about this. Adults communicated. Well, good adults communicated.

Waving her hand, Brisa accepted the message. Lars’s face soon filled her mirror. She peered closely, trying to find any hint that he weas as torn up, as bone-deep upset as herself. His face looked no different from most other calls, though.

Slim, aggravatingly handsome, tawny features. Purple-tinted eyes, large and bright with no hint of puffy redness from crying. Chestnut brown hair neatly slicked back, so different from how she saw it earlier when he was in bed with Ophelia. His pointed ears didn’t even droop in shame or worry.

“Oh, thank the gods, sweetheart, you picked up,” Lars gasped, a relieved smile tilting at the corners of his lips.

Lowering herself onto the chair in front of her vanity, Brisa crossed her legs under her dress and crossed her arms. “You wanted to talk this out?”

To his credit, Lars looked briefly abashed. Then he began speaking, ruining the effect. “I-It was a moment of weakness. Ophelia makes time for me and actually cares about my work! It’s natural that… that feelings would grow unmanageable.“

Out of the corner of her eye, Brisa caught Emerick’s platter shudder against the wall as he moved. “He did wot now? A fortnight before your matrimonials?”

When her attention shifted back to Lars, all semblance of remorse had washed away. He glared at the gargoyle, lips thin. Brisa braced herself when his gaze turned back to her, knowing what that look in his eyes meant.

“This is part of what I’m talking about, Brisa. Your family foists these magical artefacts on you and you keep them all, studying them at all hours giving us no time together!” Lars motioned toward Emerick with a sharp movement. His lips curled, nose wrinkling as his voice lowered darkly, “Even if they’re not worth keeping.”

“That’s not fair. Emerick is a very intriguing part of magical history we have yet to fully understand.” She should know. She’d been trying to study him for a long time. The markings that decorated the edges of his platter were in a language long gone. Or completely made up by whoever created him.

The point of his existence, his job, what he was meant to do hadn’t yet been determined fully.

Lars’s features darkened, his face turning a ruddy red as his words became louder, “There’s no reason to have an ugly gargoyle tray that constantly harasses you and everyone who enters your apartment!”

“Oi! I ain’t ugly. I’m distinguished.”

“You’re going to end up alone in that apartment, surrounded by dusty relics and with only that damned thing to talk to, y’know.”

“Better me than a tit like you, boy,” Emerick spat back. “I don’t go wetting my dick in egocentric muff.”

“You don’t even have a dick, you plate,” Lars growled, finally addressing the gargoyle directly.

The platter thumped heavily on the wall behind Brisa, as if Emerick had made a sharp and violent movement. “I got one, I just don’t go flashing it around. Take notes, mate!”

Pinching at her nose, Brisa tried to fend off the ache settling deeper into her brain. “Enough, both of you!”

Her words didn’t have the intended desire of quieting the two. Instead, they merely re-centered Lars’s targeting.

“Like I said, you’re going to end up alone with that thing, Brisa.” Though his voice had soften, almost pleadingly, it took on an edge again with his next words. “If you even cared about me, you would have seen how unhappy I— “

His following words turned into a staticky rush in Brisa’s ears. Pain throbbed through her temples and agitation heated her blood. It was her fault. Always her fault. She never paid him enough attention, never cared enough, never read his bloody mind.

She just wanted Lars to leave her alone. Give herself time to process her feelings and recalibrate her life without him. But he wasn’t giving her that.

Faintly, she could hear Emerick retorting to whatever Lars had said. Her eyes flicked to the gargoyle platter, rattling in its stand as the resident inside spat words. Her now-ex-fiancée always had problems with Emerick. Well, honestly, everyone had issues with the gargoyle platter. The creature was not polite, so she couldn’t blame others. The only reason she knew Emerick was tolerable was thanks to being constantly around him. At some point, the gross and aggravating commentary would pause.

Lars, however, seemed to be an endless fount of unwanted comments. “I thought the prospect of an adult life, married and kids, would finally make you choose something important and worthwhile but— “

Something snapped in Brisa. Her body moved before she could even consider where she was going. Getting to her feet and snatching up Emerick – ignoring the gargoyle’s startled yip – Brisa found her own lips pressed to the cool stone tablet.

Unsurprisingly, the platter was cold and hard against her lips.

At first.

What was cold became warm and the platter suddenly felt much larger, much heavier, in her hands. She must have accidentally lifted it from the nail in the wall, she thought.

It wasn’t until a ginger touch traced up both sides of her jaw that Brisa’s eyes snapped open. Emerick stood before her, much larger than the stone tray he had been before. He leaned over her, hands raised – the touch she had felt – blocking out the rest of the room.

Her heart stuttered in her chest, eyes unable to drink in all the details at once.

Besides being much larger and humanoid-ish in shape, there were other differences Brisa realized. His wings, for one, had grown. Now they appeared large enough to heft him in flight. The odd spiky hair atop his skull was obviously hair, now. Shaggy and less likely to draw blood from a simple touch.

He was also much more colorful. The stone platter had been a monotonous grey, much like Emerick’s skin tone. Though his hair was a darker shade of grey and he had lichen green coloring flecked over his face, shoulders, arms, and chest. As Brisa’s gaze dropped, she realized he also wore a loincloth, thanking the universe for the blessing.

The similarity and foreignness of the person before sent a throb of surrealness through Brisa, alighting the migraine at her temples again.

Vaguely, she heard Lars screeching from the mirror. With an owlish blink, she turned her head toward him, listening to him rage. “Have you been cheating on me with that thing! You ungrateful fucking who—”

With a wave of her hand, Brisa dispelled connection. She could only take one exhausting person at a time and Emerick was, currently, right in front of her.

“Well, this is awkward,” she muttered, turning her eyes back toward the gargoyle.

It was only Emerick’s mumbled grunt that made Brisa’s gaze flick back to his face. He seemed unable to look directly at her, shifting back and forth on his feet.

“Stars preserve me,” she gasped, earning a startled look from Emerick. Despite herself, an almost delirious smile spread over her lips. “You have nothing to say. Never thought I’d hear the day.”

Emerick narrowed his eyes – irises black, Brisa noted – and frowned. “You’re taking this disturbingly well.”

Cocking her head, Brisa narrowed her own eyes. There was something different to the gargoyle’s speech, she thought. But another throb of exhaustion made her sigh and drop the thought. “Today has been long and heartrending and I just want to take a shower and go to bed.”

Turning away from him, she gathered her pajamas from the closet and headed toward the bathroom.

“So…” Brisa turned as Emerick spoke, taking a step closer toward her. A suggestive grin tilted at his lips as he nodded toward the bathroom. “Should I join yeh?”

“Absolutely not.” Pursing her lips, she rolled her eyes, noticing a tail whipping behind the gargoyle. A million scholarly questions flooded her brain, but tiredness had a mighty hold on her. Holding her clothes to her chest with one hand, she motioned toward the door with the other. “Go watch the TV in the living room, as you’ve always complained about wanting to do.”

“Aw, but I could help you get into all those little nooks and crannies.” Emerick raised his hands, making squeezy motions.

“I’m sure you could,” Brisa said slowly, trying to level an apathetic expression at him. It was a bit ruined, she thought, as she couldn’t help glancing curiously at his hands. “But I’m more interested in a shower. Now skedaddle.”

Motioning for Emerick to leave, Brisa didn’t wait for the gargoyle to fully exit before ducking into her ensuite bathroom. Though her curiosity was great, her sense of propriety and safety was greater, so she pointedly locked the door behind her.

#exo writing #exophilia #monster lover #monster fucker #gargoyle #gargoyle x human #monster romance #monster x human #I never write just drabbles #oopsie #x_x #x.x

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case-of-traxits · 10 months

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I’m sure you’ve probably talked about this before, but how do you think reeve’s inspire works?

So funny fact here: I've never actually formally meta'd about this publicly. I'm pretty sure. I've talked to a few individuals about it, but never in like, a definitive, "This is definitely how I think it works," sort of way.

Maybe it's time to change that?

First though, let's talk about why I use the Inspire ability at all, because a lot of that leads into how I think it works.

An Argument for Why I Use the Inspire Ability

I would love to start with Reeve's original bio, but of course, as we know, Reeve didn't get a bio in the original game manual. So instead, we're forced to rely on his Ultimania bio:

The head of the Urban Development Department. Involved in the construction of Midgar from the very beginning, he watches over the town’s development like that of a child. By utilizing his special ability, “Inspire”, he is able to cause inorganic things to emit life; his “child”, the “cat”-shaped robot, Cait Sith can be controlled from a great distance. After Meteorfall, he became the director of the World Regenesis Organization (WRO), which is devoted to the purpose of restoring life to the planet.

For what it's worth, Reeve's bio has been shockingly consistent with including his Inspire ability. I go into that a little bit over in my WRO Reeve + Heartbreak meta.

Now, I know a lot of people don't like the Ultimanias. They find them confusing, or contradictory, or whatever the current "I don't use them," reason of the day is. That's fine! Let's take a look at Cait Sith's original bio from the game manual:

Cait Sith rides on the back of a huge stuffed Mog he magically brought to life. Megaphone in hand, he's always shouting orders and creating dopey attacks...

So there you go. Mog and Cait Sith cannot simply be robots, since it's stated quite plainly that Cait Sith brought Mog to life magically.

(As a side note, Cait Sith in the OG comes equipped with the Manipulate materia. This is a fun multi-layered reference, don't you think? Pokes a note at him being a spy and kind of gives you a thing to consider about how he possibly controls Mog.)

(As a second side note, Cait Sith also has one of the highest magic/spirit scores in the OG, so he's clearly meant to be your caster.)

Now, that said, Reeve clearly did build Cait Sith as a robot. His Ultimania profile clearly refers to Cait Sith as a robot, and in BC, Cait Sith has a controller of some kind in his back, and he gets damaged and broken into pieces and the Player Turk has to put him back together.

(As a side note there— and I swear, I'll stop doing these soon— if I recall correctly, the pieces the Player Turk has to collect are the body, the head, and the crown, implying that Cait Sith's crown is in fact an important part of him, and not just a cute fashion accessory.)

In addition, it is worth noting that Rufus Shinra is well aware of Cait Sith and that Reeve "controls" him, and yet, Reeve is able to directly communicate with AVALANCHE during a board meeting where Scarlet and Heidegger are talking Rufus into loading up No. 26, the rocket from Rocket Town, with huge materia and crashing it into Meteor in an attempt to save the world. Reeve not only does this, but Rufus gives no outward indication that he's aware of it. So however Reeve "controls" Cait Sith, there must not be a visible component to it.

My point is that Cait Sith, from what canon shows us, appears to be a robot that Reeve can control directly, without need for any sort of external control system. And, based on some thoughts that Cait Sith has during BC that cannot reasonably be attributed to Reeve, Cait Sith is still somehow independent of Reeve himself.

So why don't I go with Cait Sith simply being a learning AI of some kind? Well, mostly because of Mog. If we go back to the original bio for Cait Sith, it reads very similarly to Reeve's Ultimania bio. So Reeve grants life to Cait Sith, who can, in turn, grant life to Mog.

Functionally, Cait Sith is a mini-Inspire of his own.

Canon Exploration of the Inspire Ability

Now that I've written out my premise for why I go with Inspire Reeve, let's get to the heart of the original question: How do I think it works?

Well, let's look at what we have to work with:

[Ultimania Bio] Reeve causes inorganic things to "emit" life.

[Ultimania Bio] Reeve sees Cait Sith as a child.

[OG Game Bio] Cait Sith inherits the Inspire ability.

[OG/BC/DoC] Cait Sith is capable of acting autonomously.

[OG/BC/DoC] Cait Sith can be directly controlled (to some extent, at least) via Reeve.

[OG] Reeve can speak through Cait Sith without other people in the room noticing.

[OtWtaS] Multiple Cait Siths can be 'active' at a time.

[DoC] Reeve and Cait Sith can move in sync with one another.

[DoC] Even if Cait Sith 'dies,' he can somehow convey information he learned right up until his death to Reeve/other Cait Siths.

How Does the Ability Actually Work?

So, with all of this in mind, here's how I usually go with Reeve's ability working:

The short answer is that I see it as a low-key, always-on mental connection between Reeve and Cait Sith.

A longer explanation starts with the fact that I see Reeve's Inspire ability as sort of... it has both passive and active modes for me. Basically, in the passive mode, Reeve is always influencing inorganic material around him. It's more noticeable when his emotions are heightened, but things like his phone and his car develop... quirks. His car isn't really conscious, exactly, but it does read his intent, and to some extent, it basically functions as a self-driving vehicle when Reeve is the one behind the wheel.

Now, for my Reeve in particular, this is in no small part because the car was his father's, and he has worked on it extensively over the years. It's a classic car, basically, and it gives him an outlet for fiddly work that's outside and not in a reactor or tied to Shinra. If you're going with a Reeve who doesn't love his car as much, then obviously, that probably would be a bit more odd.

A more common variant on this, I think, would probably be that I usually roll with Reeve having... partially Inspired the reactors. All of them. All of the ones he has access to. And in this case, it's less because he wants them to be alive and more because he wants to have that access to them. He wants to be able to check statuses and know what's going on with a reactor at any given moment, and no matter how advanced the tech is, nothing will be faster for him than a direct mental connection.

Of course, that can have some less than stellar side effects when, say, a reactor explodes. @ladykf-writes wrote me some amazing ficlets that feature my headcanons about this after much rambling with her about them. So I highly recommend checking those out if you're interested in this idea.

Then he has the active mode of his ability. I've written a ficlet (Heritage and Legacies) about the process of actually Inspiring Cait Sith (and it makes mention of Reeve's first disastrous accidental Inspiration), but in short, it involves more or less willing the inanimate object to life. I usually go with the explanation that Reeve is literally feeding the object a bit of his own personal lifestream (or soul, depending on how you want to talk about it) until it starts circulating it on its own. This gives me a built in explanation for why he doesn't animate hundreds of things at once and such. I do like to have caps on things.

But because it was his personal lifestream that he used, he can basically retain... think of like a narrow, unseen string between Cait Sith and Reeve, no matter how far apart they get. And across this string, they can send thoughts, memories, and sensations. That's how Reeve knew what happened to Cait Sith when Nero ate him with shadows. Cait Sith had immediately connected with Reeve and told him.

Now, I do a few hand-wavey things for my own sanity when writing. I assume that when a Cait Sith dies, all of their memories get imprinted in Reeve's mind, and when he Inspires the next Cait Sith, they get a copy of all of those memories. This can create a bit of a jarring dissonance within the memories for a new Cait Sith, as they might remember being Cait Sith 1 and being Cait Sith 2 in the same conversation. But for the most part, it works.

The other thing I usually do with Cait Sith specifically is that I say that when he was first Inspired, he was very much like a baby or a toddler. He needed to learn a lot of things. I don't have any fics currently up featuring this (I will after the holiday events though), but basically, I go with it having taken Reeve a while to get Cait Sith to talk at all for example, and that he had to learn a lot of things on his own rather than relying on Reeve's memory of the things.

Now, because of the hand-wavey memory thing I already talked about, new Cait Siths don't have that same initial problem. They basically just get imprinted with everything Cait Sith 1 learned before he died.

(And for what it's worth, since Cait Sith's accent is supposed to be based on Reeve's parents, I always go with Cait Sith not speaking at all for a few months after he was Inspired. Reeve tried everything, from toddler help books to reading books to trying to bribe him, and couldn't get a single word out of him. And then, finally, Reeve was on the phone with his mother, trying to discreetly ask her for advice without admitting to his abilities or to what he'd done, and when he hung up the phone, Cait Sith looked up at him and spoke for the first time. In the accent Reeve hadn't realized he'd slipped back into with his mother.)

The other hand-wavey thing I do is that I usually have Reeve and Cait Sith share the ability to communicate mind-to-mind, no outward dialogue needed. I mostly justify this with it being a side-effect of them sharing the same personal lifestream rhythm.

I will say though, something I do that I don't know that I've seen anyone else do (I don't have any fics left up featuring this either, actually) is that I say the control can go both ways. So Reeve can reach for Cait Sith and speak through him, but so can Cait Sith. Now, I usually say that Reeve has to let Cait Sith do this, whereas Reeve can just take control from Cait Sith, but I chalk that up to Reeve being the one who did the initial Inspiring. Following that suit though, it would make sense that Cait Sith could do the same thing with Mog, if he wanted.

Now, I also headcanon that Reeve does his absolute best to let Cait Sith have whatever autonomy he can. My Reeve, in particular, didn't exactly have the happiest of childhoods, and he has spent a lot of time being told exactly what he can do and when, so he tries to give Cait Sith the childhood he never had.

If you read all the way down here, oh my goodness, but thank you. It's... a lot. Like I said earlier, the short answer is that I see it as a low-key, always-on mental connection between Reeve and Cait Sith. And I kind of flex it around, depending on what exactly I'm doing with the fic in question.

#Reeve Tuesti #Cait Sith #FF7 #Final Fantasy VII #I have so many feels about Reeve guys #so many #... I think that's what I tagged my last Reeve meta #And I'm still working on my WRO meta #That's... my metas took a bit of a backseat during the event weeks #And with two coming up #I've got to finish some of the stuff I have started #x.x #WISH ME LUCK #But this was a fun way to procrastinate

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