#(which is EXTREMELY unlikely but a wild idea all the same no?)

[bubbleddisasters]

So I just had this Idea

Malleus, Idia and Che’nya fighting all out.

Ok, before anyone starts glazing on Malleus and saying he’d win: Put who their twisted from into perspective:

Maleficent was the most powerful fae.

Hades is a god. One of the big 3, to be precise.

The Cheshire Cat is canonically the second most powerful being in wonderland, second to only the literal human form of time.

They are all God Tier in their respective lore.

Most people know the other two’s abilities, but incase you may not know :

Cheshire Cats Abilities, include:

Shapeshifting and Vocal/Visual/Physical Manipulation, Invisibility, Long Range Image Projection, Long Distance Teleportation, Flight, Gravity Manipulation on self, Minor Reality Manipulation, Portal creation, Walking through walls, Body and Limb controlled detachment, etc.

Hades abilities include:

General God Abilities, Raising the Dead, Smoke control, access to cursed objects, high heat tolerance, physical size manipulation, pretty much alot of shit, more then I can name since, y’know, god.

Maleficents abilities include:

Plant, Flame, Weather and Lightning manipulation, secondary form (Dragon), fatal long term curses, long distance teleportation, animal communication, long distance location monitoring, flight, eternally serving cunt, etc.

Now, obviously, their twisted versions are different, so what are the twisted versions KNOWN capabilities?

Mal’s strong suit seems to be mostly nature based abilities, Lightning, Fire, Briars, etc and Sleepy time shenanigans. However, he is also capable of turning into a Dragon, which gives him a huge physical buff, but makes him much easier to hit. All fae share the same fatal weakness of Anti-Magic, as Magic is canonically their life source. Thats Idias forte. Che’nya also has a mindset and skillset similar to Lilias, minus the experience and training. He also has rapid fire teleportation and invisibility, plus cat senses, making him extremely hard to strike with lightning.

Out of these 3 however, he definitely has the most durability and Defense.

Idias strong suit is tech, which Mal is most definitely unfamiliar with, but also has access to extremely high tier ANTI MAGIC. Che’nya stands at an advantage of being able to go invisible, teleport, and likely having more creative and efficient methods of blocking vital sensors or heat signatures, but I unfortunately doubt Mal would think of that. Briar Valley is EXTREMELY low tech. Mal does have the intimidation factor on Idia, but if this situation somehow involves Ortho’s safety, that goes straight out the window, as seen in Book 7. We also nearly never see Idia use magic, so we don’t exactly have a good handle of what he’s capable of in that regard.

Unfortunately, Idia is a glass cannon due to his low physical abilities and stamina, leaving him likely needed a heavy defense system to not get tossed.

Che’nya is truly the wild card in this scenario, since unlike the other two, unless they bothered Trey or Riddle for information, the other two don’t know much about his abilities. Like Malleus, considering what we know (I wrote it somewhere on tumblr), he has extreme magical stamina and produces jack shit in blot (no magestone can be seen on his design too) while doing crazy ass shit, and as shown in the manga, since he was a kid too. Comparing that to Roros brother, and the bullshit Che’nya was pulling as a kid while still being alive, he’s most definitely some flavor of overpowered.

Given what we’ve seen and heard about him across the manga and game, this is a portion of what we can assume is in his skillset:

Rapid fire (and long distance) teleportation, Long term Invisibility, flexibility, flight, Gravity Manipulation (making himself near weightless without floating off into oblivion) Cat like senses, Limb and Body part controlled detachment, the ability to slip past NRC’s barrier like its an average Tuesday. The barrier that took several high powered shots from STYX to break. With little to no repercussions from what we’ve seen.

He’s also (likely) a creative and unpredictable fighter. I think mentioned/said somewhere by Riddle or someone else that they doesn’t believe invisibility is Chens UM.

Riddle, I love you babes, you were my first fully spell maxed card, but NO FUCKING SHIT DUDE.

Idias advantage is deadass: Cat knowledge. Is using partially genetic traits a low blow? Yea, but again, this is an All out 1v1 fight. Obviously not laser pointers or basic shit, but things like Sound Pitches. Theres also Heat Sensors and things like that to combat invisibility, but those can also be thwarted.

Mals advantage is experience with Lilia in terms of matching high speeds, and combating against tricks and sneak attacks, Dragon senses + his Defensive capabilities. However, as a more straight forward person, Mal may not think of the more creative strategies Chen (or Idia) may come up with. Even if he traps Chens leg or something in Briar, he could just pop his leg off and keep moving.

Che’nya is more of a high speed self sufficient DPS but with the right weakness targeting he could be taken down.

I didn’t put Leona or Lilia on here because Lilia… Lets be real : Lilia would most definitely whoop all of their asses unless he gets hit with Anti Magic too many times.

The other is I’m sorry Leona, you’re a total badass and an amazing fighter, but you might be a tad out of league on alot of mostly circumstantial situations.

Starting off : Che’nya : He’s also a Cat, and nobody knows your genetic weaknesses like your own kind, plus Sand Blinding is great until bro disappears too.

Considering Leona is a pretty kickass fighter and strategist, plus can actually somewhat hold his own against Malleus, it’s going to be a decently tough fight, but in the end, I think Che’nya might secure the win sheerly due to being able to overcome Leonas UM in a few ways, even from a point blank standpoint.

A limb being turned to sand? Detach that shit, can’t spread further if it’s not attached anymore. He could also fly upwards out of the sandstorm but that ain’t as fun.

I’m just imagining Leona whipping up a sandstorm and going in to ambush Che’nya only for that mf to be GONE. (He’s right behind him bout to FNAF jumpscare this)

Theres a slim chance he may also lose to Idia sheerly because if its an all out scenario (i’m being nice and giving them all whatever requirements if they need it for atleast one use of their UM so its fair) , Idia can quite literally open the gates to hell and unlike the other two, Leona cannot fly without a broom, so uh, enjoy the drop?

Without that though, I do actually fully believe Leona might win, but with an Anti Magic nerf possibility on the field, its not exactly set in stone.

I don’t think I need to explain Malleus. So therefore I won’t.

Again, this is mostly just my thoughts, nothing is canon here, just me wondering about the possibilities! If theres any information that I missed let me know :D

(Leona fans please don’t hurt me I don’t hate him I promise I’m just going of logic from what I know.)

[grumfield]

what do you mean Will is an apex predator? curious about your perspective.

Here i'll just post a meta about it i never put up on tumblr from like, 8 months or so ago about this question...I basically think of him as like a wild animal:

Will is interesting to me because I see a lot of memes/videos/posts about Hannibal being horny/falling for Will etc. (sparkle eyes, turning himself in, etc.) but I realized there wasn’t much of this kind of thing for Will other than his sort of calculated seduction attempts or incidental, vaguely sexual moments like the ladder scene. There is not much casual dialogue online about his internal workings or motivations, or affection. And I was like…huh. And I just had this realization where I looked at him in my head and just felt like…white noise, the way I would if I was trying to understand the thoughts of a wolf or something. I’ve watched this show going on maybe eight times and had never really given much thought to how little I actually knew about him or his motives/desires, and I was just kind of hit with the feeling that this guy is very, very unlike me and exceptionally dangerous.

For a show all about profiling and understanding people, it's interesting how little we are allowed into our main character’s inner thoughts. Hannibal as a show is thought of a lot as like, the seduction of Will Graham and the pull between Hannibal and Jack, but really I feel like I’m watching Hannibal and Jack in a bike race while this random beautiful guy stands off to the side and is trying to pick which bike he’d rather put a stick between the spokes of. And you ask him why and he just stares at you with his big blue eyes and you're just kinda like alright whatever you say gorgeous.

We’re given emotional closeups to Jack and Hannibal, but Will, much like he is with other people, is kind of kept at arms’ length. We don’t need an exposé on who Hannibal is because of the mythology around him. We know who he is, but the first stated theme of the show (which Will says in S1E1) is “Tell me who you are”. 

We know Hannibal, we know Jack. Aside from building off the audience’s knowledge of these characters and their morality, Hannibal’s motivations and emotions have always been apparent in the story. All of them can be sort of summed up as curiosity, eating the rude, loneliness, and love. 

We know a lot about the other killers he profiles. Their motives, their pathologies, their wants. He takes them on, but every time he does, we know less and less about him.

We don’t know who Will Graham is. Alana mentions making an effort to not be alone with him, and we aren’t ever really alone with him either, especially early on: there’s always dogs there, or hallucinations, or actual people to reflect off of. And because his empathy disorder sort of makes him a vessel for the wants, desires, and thoughts of others, we only ever see a construct a person suit that looks person-shaped, potentially caused by being in proximity to other living things.

We know things about other people and can kind of construct an idea of him based on what others think about him--fine china Will, wounded bird Will. And when Hannibal goes to his house we learn the same things he does about him: he lives far from society, in the woods, the outdoors, etc. We are privy to the real Will as much as anyone else is, including himself.

A lot of Hannibal’s dialogue with him can be summarized as that. It’s about getting Will to understand what he is outside of the influence of other people. Who are you?

In the way that Hannibal is a fallen angel and makes a lot of choices due to his emotions, I find him to be as human as it gets in a lot of ways. He’s a killer but he’s exceptionally relatable and kind of hosts the most extreme versions of wants and desires--wow, this person sucks, I totally get eating them! Wow, turning yourself in out of love! And if we’re running with that, Will on the other hand, I feel like is the opposite. 

I never once was like “wow, you’re doing x because of y”. He just does things. There’s logic and calculation to them, but especially later, beyond revenge or whatever, I feel like trying to understand their reasoning is a futile effort. It’s a very scorpion/frog parable thing: just as the scorpion stings the frog, so too does Will have the urge to kill. It’s in his nature. Which we hear a lot, but viewing it not as “a deep desire to kill” (because he arguably embodies the desires of others) but as some kind of integral element of his existence is interesting. He even goes outright and says it in Season 2: "I've given up good and evil for behaviorism"

He is extremely inhuman and reminds me more of an apex predator than an actual person. Where Hannibal’s perspective towards killing has a certain level of civilized dialogue to it (ie. people as livestock) Will’s definitely strikes me as something different, and wilder/less cultured, in that he seems to view people more as prey--it’s not that they aren’t equal to him like for Hannibal, but more that they are weaker than him. He hunts/fishes/lures, he uses his hands, his teeth. And Will’s urge to kill seemingly has no true motive other than a primal instinct.  His empathy disorder then started striking me less as a disorder and more as an angler fish’s light—it’s a hunting mechanism.

Another thing I think is interesting that kind of plays into this whole hunter Will is that I never really got the sense he had an explicitly “save people” but rather a “hunt killer” instinct which kind of plays into him being a predator. If he really cared about saving people he would’ve given a shit about the people Hannibal killed. But, like, he liked Beverly but his motivation to proving Hannibal was a killer wasn’t like “I need to stop this man from killing and avenge Beverly”, like it was for Jack (who very explicitly has a save people instinct, it’s kind of reflected with his wife’s cancer) it’s, “I need to give him a taste of his own medicine”. He has a hunting drive like a bloodhound—truly, when the fox hears the rabbits scream, he doesn’t come to help

Like an animal, he brings Hannibal his “prey” to the table (Randall Tier, another person who thought he was a predator and paid the price going up against a real one) the way a cat brings dead animals to the people it’s bonded to. 

It’s why it’s kind of impossible to know what he’s going to do at any given time. I think he makes decisions for himself not really in any conscious logic path (today I will x and y) but kind of the way an animal might: he just does it, because he does it, and everything stopping him is outside influence. Sure, if you muzzle a wolf, it can't bite, but that doesn't mean it's not in its DNA to.

I could never really articulate Will’s feelings towards Hannibal in any way that really felt like it encapsulated his character until I kind of thought of him more like a predator than a person. Hannibal very explicitly loves Will in a recognizable way, and shows moments of sexual desire (feeling paternal?) but Will’s feelings towards him kind of seem abstract and unknowable. He certainly feels something. But it always felt more like some kind of pack bonding thing than explicitly an “I love you”. 

People always kind of poke fun at the whole “is Hannibal in love with me scene” but I actually think the way Bedelia’s frames her response is super interesting for how Will is portrayed. Will knows what Hannibal feels, he’s a profiler, but the actual conversation says a lot.  Bedelia frames love not in the same way she talks to Hannibal about it (with Hannibal she uses the words love and extrapolates on his emotions). When she talks to Will, she presents what he feels not as love the way me and you might say it, but in primal language: hunger, ache. Things that he would understand. Both Bedelia and Hannibal are kind of the only ones to recognize this (Hannibal calling him a mongoose).

Anyways. That’s it.

[irlbop]

Every so often I see a post on here or IG that compares how Terzo and Copia sing the same song but differently. On one hand (and an amazing hand, no less), the fact that there are differences in delivery down to how they growl means we need to give Tobias all the flowers: He’s putting in that extra layer of work to really show that Terzo and Copia, while played by the same guy, are different people with different approaches to how they perform.

But on the other hand, I also like to think of the implications these differences mean. A lot of the time, Terzo’s voice is regarded as smoother, more controlled. Seduction comes easily to him and oozes out of him and into his vocal delivery. Which makes sense: As part of the Emeritus line, it was extremely likely that he was actually properly trained.

Even if Ghost only started with his father and probably was expected to remain dormant, I could imagine the Clergy having Nihil’s progeny vocally trained as a precaution — maybe not necessarily to revive the Ghost Project, but music was proven to be effective in swaying people into joining them.

(That, and I think music probably always was at least somewhat important in the Church: Lucifer was, after all, God’s lead musician. I think it’d make sense to at least have the leader/figurehead of your cause be taught to uphold a certain respect for that sort of thing.)

But I digress, because then we have Copia. Copia, who had no idea of his relation to anyone important, much less the Emeritus line. But nonetheless he was still determined to rise in the ranks. However, I don’t think he was trained. At the very least, he wasn’t trained in the same caliber as was extended to the Emeritus brothers. After all, for all everyone knew, he was just a Cardinal: the likelihood of him ascending to the mitre was extremely unlikely, especially if were meant to take even a fraction of Nihil’s claims of the bloodline seriously.

As such, Copia’s delivery on some notes and songs comes off a bit more wild than his brother’s; slightly rougher. He’s still very capable of delivering seduction, of course, but based off what we see of him, he more likely than not differs greatly compared to Terzo in terms of prowess.

I’m more than willing to bet that Copia probably trained himself in private, singing along to old albums, listening to Opus and Infestissumam on repeat, taking notes, and trying to replicate their voice work both to the best of his ability while also trying to work in his own fingerprints. Hell, he might’ve even forced himself to watch recordings of performances to get down the movements or the vibes each song is meant to portray. (Look, as an autist, this hits home, he needs this research —)

And say he did get training — I think the instructor was mainly only doing this at the request of Sister. And it probably only happened when they were preparing to transfer power from Terzo to Copia. By then, from what admittedly little I understand of voices, Copia’s voice was probably locked in anyway.

All this to say

Idk I just like the idea that Tobes’s ability to cause variations on the same songs lends itself to so much character study and world building. But that’s just me. Juice box? 🧃

[vesemirsexual]

Just thinking about how much the “ witcher gamer” community would HATE Ciri if there was a game with a book accurate version of her, she’s queer, shes fierce, wild and arrogant but becomes ruthless and a murder gremlin due to all her trauma, shes not traditionally attractive, has a huge disfiguring scar on her face

And she is the main character, even if she’s not the player character the entire narrative revolves around her

Oh yeah, it’s a thing on Reddit/FB groups where people often ask if Ciri is “sociopathic”/“psychopathic” or surprised that they find her very unlikable after reading the books, which is always kind of funny to me.

Throughout the series there’s a definite theme of girls/young women who experience a severe trauma and then fall into a hateful cycle, and only sometimes having a redemptive moment of realisation that they’re perpetuating the same cycle that enacted violence of them. I also think that this sometimes makes people extremely uncomfortable, because they really do fall far while in this cycle - Falka!Ciri is vicious and filled with hate and enraged. She’s traumatised, lost her childhood and has become a product of the awful things happening to and around her.

Even past that point in her story, people tend to give feedback that she’s bratty or overconfident or annoying and honestly. The entire series is from the ages of about 8-17 (I may be off by a few years here btw!!) for Ciri. Her entire formative years are marked by horrible and traumatising events. I think a lot of people fall into the idea of “good victims” - people who go through trauma and come out kind and sweet and helpful and that their experiences made them ultimately a better person. Which realistically…is not the case for most people.

I’ve also seen Reddit argue a lot that Ciri isn’t actually a bisexual/queer woman, based on the fact that her relationship with Mistle is abusive and often reads like Stockholm Syndrome. I don’t think Sapkowski has ever officially labelled her sexuality and has left it open to interpretation. For me, this feeds back into the points earlier: Ciri is heavily traumatised and she’s also extremely young when all of this is happening, so I can somewhat agree that a definitive read on her sexuality could be hard. However, despite the fact their relationship is extremely fucked up, Ciri does clearly develop feelings for Mistle, and actively mourns her as a lover and partner. Regardless of the start of that relationship, I think it’s naive to say that Ciri didn’t have very real feelings for her?

Also yeah, I can’t ever see Ciri being what is considered “traditionally” attractive. The scar across her face repeatedly is linked to being a giant ugly symbol of the loss of her innocence and childhood, and considering the timeline of care it receives, I don’t ever see it being a small thing even as she gets older. She also spends again, a considerable amount of her youth on the run, under extreme stress and in undesirable conditions, which isn’t exactly conducive to what most people consider attractiveness. Additionally, considering how she’s reduced repeatedly to a sexual object and objectified, I really can’t see Ciri running around with her chest out as per games.

Ciri is honestly such a fascinating and complex character and I do think it’s sad that you can’t really get all of that from the games due to the perspective + difficulties in portraying that through the given platform. I do always hope that more people read the books for Ciri alone, because I’m always excited for content that fleshes her out with that level of development ❤️

[writergirl2011]

9 and 26 for the writer ask!

Asks! Yay! From this post:

#9: Thoughts on cliffhangers.

In other words, am I eeeeevil? Or just a little evil?

I go with "just a little evil." I'll use a cliffhanger on occasion if I want to draw out a little bit of suspense--like in the Regency story, when I ended a chapter with Jaime at Brienne's bedroom door (although I was probably a little more evil there since the following chapter went back in time instead of picking up right after that). But I don't think a story should go overboard with cliffhangers--I try not to use more than one unless the story is very long.

#26: What would you describe as OOC?

Oooooh....this one's tricky, because everyone has their own idea of what constitutes OOC. Some people have a problem with a Jaime who's bisexual. Some think a sexually confident Brienne is wrong. (I've written both, and in the same fic, so obviously I have no issue with them, lol.)

I don't know how well I write Jaime and Brienne from an authenticity standpoint. Sometimes, I think I do well, especially with Brienne. She's complex and stubborn and judgmental and yet underneath it, soft and yearning for someone to love her. And when she loves someone, she can't hide it to save her life. That's not always the easiest to write, but it's fun. Jaime's trickier because he's something of a dick while having that vulnerability that he doesn't want the world to see, which he hides by being more of a dick. If I write him the wrong way, he's either too much of an asshole and unlikeable--or he's too soft and woobified. If I say "fuck it, I'm writing him however I want," then I try my best to give him some characteristics that at least make him recognizable as Jaime Lannister--someone who, when he falls in love, does so with everything he has in him and will go to extremes. (Not "throw a kid out of a tower window" extremes, but I've had him do some pretty wild things to prove how much he loves Brienne. Like dancing in a Valyrian maid costume while lip syncing to "Umbrella.")

I guess my answer to the question is that a character is OOC to me when they're not recognizable at all.

Thank you!!!

And anyone else who wants to ask me something, please do so!! 🥰

[alys0r]

A small analysis of the Moonvale characters.

I must say right away that the characters from Moonvale seem to me more realistic and lively, even despite the disgusting avatars with artificial intelligence. These are clearly more or less the same types of characters from Duskwood, but somewhat modified. Initially, I thought that I would be extremely disappointed if everything in Moonvale was exactly the same as in the previous Everbyte game, but no. It seems that everything repeats itself, but it repeats extremely well. This is not a copy, but a parallel. Moreover, there are still differences. But about everything in order.

ADAM

Our missing waif. And yet we interact with him directly. We're connected somehow, and it's not just about the envelope with our name on it. Was Adam on his way to give us the envelope? I doubt it very much, considering that the main character is obviously not privy to this. Is it all related to Duskwood? I'm pretty sure I'm not, and if I am, it's obviously not with Hannah. To be honest, I haven't looked at the theory of this game yet, and I don't know if anyone has voiced such a thought, but the cave is clearly similar to the mine where Jake and Richie were. Especially considering that, as Jake said, if I'm not mistaken, the mine stretches for many kilometers, and the actions of the current game take place not so far from Duskwood. Soooooo, returning to Adam, this whole situation with him is clearly very different from the situation with Hannah, which is good news. I can't get a good look at Adam himself, given that there is no clear information about him

ERIC

Eric is probably one of my favorites (apart from Jake, of course, heh) among all those created by Everbyte. He is a lively and interesting character. Of all the people I'm dealing with today, it's the hardest for me to compare Eric to anyone in particular. Maybe with Thomas, because it's the first time we've talked to him, but that's all. Eric clearly has some kind of sin in the past, as can be understood from his correspondence with Ash, and it seems to me that this will play an important role in the plot (it is not surprising that such attention is paid to this). He is completely calm even in a tense situation and knows how to think clearly enough. The fact that he went into the forest alone, strangely, is still explained by the fact that he is well-versed in the wild. Eric is proactive, but he still thinks first and then acts, thanks to him for that (although this may change in the next chapters). And, apart from Adam, this is the only character whose face we've seen. Separately, I want to note that the idea that Eric could have done something bad on the night of the Festival (given that people from nearby cities come to Duskwood during the festival) is quite interesting.

ASH

Lily, with her combative nature, is clearly visible here. But Ash is clearly more sarcastic. And she doesn't throw accusations right and left, preferring to find out at least something first (but not personal data (I still love Lily)). Unfortunately, it is difficult to say anything else about this, given that this is only the first chapter. But Ash is already making a positive impression.

CHARLIE

Richie is No. 2, but not the kidnapper. Charlie seems to be much more free and open than Richie, but we all know why Richie himself couldn't be like that. Charlie is clearly more active and impressionable. One of those people who can't sit still and like to get involved in something. And unlike Eric, he acts first. It still seems to me that something unpleasant will be revealed about Charlie (although perhaps this applies to everyone in general). But he is a very nice person.

VIOLET

It reminds me of Jesse, but it's hard to say for sure yet. I think, like Jesse, he will play a big role specifically for the main character.

ANONYMOUS

I think, like me, you also thought at first that it was Jake. I'm not going to build theories about personality yet, but chel clearly knows us as well as Adam. Whether he will play the same role as Jake is difficult to say. (It will certainly be very funny if they also make him a romantic interest, deciding to stupidly copy Jake….)

That's all for now. I'm wondering which of the Duskwood characters will still make themselves felt (except Jake, I think he will obviously still show up). Maybe it will be Allan. Although it seems to me that in any case it will be someone little expected by us. And maybe I will have correspondence with the main guys of Duskwood, but literally something one-time.

I'm sorry for the mistakes, I don't know English very well and I use a translator

[honourablejester]

I’m watching Pathfinder lore videos, because I just enjoy looking at other people’s worldbuilding, and a tiny little nugget stuck with me. I was watching this video on the demon lords of the Abyss, and it came to Angazhan, the great ape demon of jungles, apes and tyranny. And it just mentions that his realm, Ahvoth-Kor, is formed in a great ravine in the Abyss, with jungles on either wall, but gravity pulls towards the walls, so as you stand on the ‘ground’ in one jungle on one wall, you can see the other above you. Trees and rope bridges cross the gap, which must be fascinating as you cross the halfway point and gravity abruptly reverses itself. And I just. I mean, Angazhan doesn’t do much for me as himself, but his realm caught my attention the most in the entire video, just for that one detail. Because it’s so cool. He lives in a folded realm. You can climb a pillar to the sky and then fall up the top half of it to the ground on the far side.

And it just made me realise that I love the Abyss, or rather the potential of the Abyss, in both its D&D and Pathfinder incarnations. Because chaos gets all the cool world states. Because chaos feels free to break the rules and get weird, and therefore give you fantastic landscapes like Ahvoth-Kor. Which is actually quite normal, aside from the fact that it’s folded double on itself. You could go so much weirder.

But, at the same time, I also hate the Abyss, just slightly. Because you can’t get weird, apparently, without also getting evil. Because, while I have seen the chaotic good and chaotic neutral planes mentioned, they don’t get anywhere near as much attention. How many people even know the names of the good-aligned chaotic planes? And, yes, Limbo and the Maelstrom are more of a thing, and the Maelstrom at least is fantastically cool, but they’re not focused on really either. Because they don’t have cool themed villains hanging out in them. Which is, granted, another excellent selling point of the Abyss. Demon lords are a lot more idiosyncratic than archdevils, more, again, weird and wonderful. On the D&D side, which I’m more familiar with, I do adore Juiblex, Zuggtmoy and Fraz-Urb’luu. When you are shaping your realm out of raw chaos to match your personality, it gives you a degree of wild customisation that more lawful, rigid planes just don’t allow. The demon lords are exciting, in a way archdevils just aren’t for me.

But. It means that if you want really cool fantastic landscapes and batshit world states, you have to go to an evil plane where everything is trying to kill slash torture you. The good aligned chaotic planes of the respective ttrpgs, Elysium and Arborea and the Beastlands, are to a large extent just ‘unchecked nature’, the extremely pastoral idea of untouched wilderness. If you want to see truly cool and alien and fantastic things, you have to get tortured for it.

Or, granted, try the Maelstrom in Pathfinder. The Maelstrom is really cool.

Like. If they’re both formed from raw chaos, why can’t good be equally as batshit? Why can’t you have, I don’t know, a chaotic good sea god whose ship sails upside down on the surface of a vast ocean of air, and whose sea sprite petitioners venture down in diving bells to marvel at the stars? (Sidenote: there could also be more good-aligned sea gods, just as a general note). Why isn’t there a heaven for the souls of subterranean travellers and explorers where they get to spend eternity spelunking absolutely mind-boggling and impossible caves that open out into the raw foam of chaos? Why couldn’t the chaotic good plane also be a nested stew of personalised bubble worlds shaped from raw fundament by strong-willed but mildly-to-majorly batshit themed entities, that are just in this case also friendly and unlikely to torture you out of hand?

Why is good so tame? Even at its wildest, it’s so tame compared to how batshit and weird evil gets to be. Like, yes, good means safety, but safe doesn’t have to mean ‘bounded’. It could mean ‘I will touch my grace upon you so we can witness wonders together’. It could mean ‘let me make a place where fire does not burn so I can turn a sun inside out and let you experience the strange geometries of its interior’.

I just. The Abyss is really, really cool, this strange bubble realm of nested psychoses written onto reality by larger than life beings. I do love it. But. You could have that, and not have it built on suffering. Not instead of, but as well. With equal weight.

Let good be weird too. Let chaos in general just be the place where both horrors and wonders beyond imagining are explored.

As another, related complaint, I know it's to do with game balance and player capabilities, but it's also a bummer that the outer planes in general are something most PCs will never experience first hand, owing to being in general fantastically lethal and/or hard to get to. I just wanna wander Zuggtmoy's fungal fields, and climb rope bridges across the gravity line in Ahvoth-Kor!

Anyway. Carry on.

[dolphin1812]

This shouldn’t be as funny as it is:

“Fauchelevent had expected anything but this, that a grave-digger could die. It is true, nevertheless, that grave-diggers do die themselves. By dint of excavating graves for other people, one hollows out one’s own.  [ . . . . ]

“Father Mestienne is the grave-digger.”

“After Napoleon, Louis XVIII. After Mestienne, Gribier. Peasant, my name is Gribier.””

“Grave-diggers can also die” is a wild plot twist, especially since Hugo portrays it as a shocking fact. And Gribier’s matter-of-fact attitude (and his listing of political events, as if all of this is just “natural” turnover) is humorous in a dark way.

Gribier himself is fascinating. The fact that he has to provide for seven children links him to Jean Valjean, who had to care for the same number of children before his imprisonment. His need to work, then, is desperate, as we know just how hard it is to provide for so many. Avoiding drinking is one way of saving money, but it also speaks to the deprivation of small enjoyments for the poor. Drinking isn’t just a pleasure in itself, but a major way of socializing, as Fauchelevent notes here; by not accepting drinks, Gribier is not only dodging an expense, but a chance to get to know his coworker, one of the few people he has a chance at bonding with in a life dominated by work. Of course, this expense isn’t just hard on him. Fauchelevent is also nervous about the idea of paying for drinks, highlighting his own financial struggles. But Gribier is also even worse off, working two jobs and still having this worry. It’s notable that his jobs mean he literally works day and night: he writes by day and digs by night, not having any real time to rest. The extent to which he can keep this up is debatable. He doesn’t complain of the hours, but he does say that digging is ruining his hand, which he needs to write. He’ll ultimately be forced to choose, losing the funds of one job and likely his dream of writing. Work has consumed his life because he has no alternative if he wants to feed seven children, just as it had taken over Valjean’s existence.

Although the parallel to Jean Valjean is more blatantly referenced through the number, Gribier bears an even closer resemblance to an early Fauchelevent. When we first encountered him, Fauchelevent had just fallen on hard times, losing all the relative comfort he’d had as a notary but maintaining a sense of pride and superiority from that status. Gribier is certainly poor if he works all day and all night, but he also specifically came from an educated class (having studied even more than Fauchelevent). He’s fully literate, speaking of the examinations he’s passed; how he was destined for a career in literature; using words Fauchelevent can’t understand; and referencing philosophy in the middle of their conversation. His contempt for Fauchelevent also links to a rural-urban divide, with him addressing him as a “peasant” and a “rustic” to stress the differences between him, an educated Parisian, and the convent gardener from the countryside. His pride is even more extreme than Fauchelevent’s was, although he doesn’t necessarily have a specific target for his bitterness at his loss of status (unlike Fauchelevent with Father Madeleine). Gribier is doubly dangerous, then. On the one hand, his poverty keeps him from building ties with people that could ultimately create a system of support for him and bring him closer to others. On the other, he rejects these ties on the basis of his past status. He can’t feel solidarity for Fauchelevent if he feels superior to him, and while he does address him as “colleague,” he largely seems to look down on him.

This parallel is particularly interesting given that Fauchelevent is depicted the way Valjean typically is in this chapter. We see him as an outsider would, only being told who he is later on. We may know that Fauchelevent actually has quite a bit in common with Gribier, even if they differ because of their origins (city vs countryside) and the extent to which they rose and fell class-wise. But Gribier only sees that image from the beginning of the chapter: an elderly worker limping behind a hearse. 

[bugsbenefit]

also people who say they “always knew there was something off about him”or “never liked him”…. first of all stop lying and second… what made you think that 😐 😐 what about noah schnapps vibes made you think he was a zionist. answer fast

also ive seen people calling him ugly and hideous which is just. blatant antisemitism

yeah absolutely true. the whole shift to not just dropping celebrities but having to kind of retroactively disown them and pretend you could somehow tell they 'were always evil' is so freaky

obviously with Noah specifically you can talk about how some people were wary months ago when he went to israel on birthright and posted about it. but then pretending they knew he would publicly go off the zionist deep end to this extreme and post things like "zionism is sexy" stickers and anyone who thought no one would be that crazy is stupid is wild

especially the appearance thing is so gross to me. just because some public figure has a heinous moral complex doesn't give you the right to suddenly call them and their very much jewish features ugly. same with calling him slurs, there were So many slurs yesterday. seeing how easily people are willing to switch up from liking someone to insulting basic human features and saying "maybe we do need some dead f words", is so disgusting (<- direct quote btw. wanted to be homophobic and couldn't even bring themselves to actually say the slur -.-)

the whole idea that anyone that's a bad person has to have Always been evil. and that they're ugly and stupid etc. is just so so counterproductive. skilled people can suck, average/good looking people can suck. Everyone can be a bad person. pretending like he was somehow always ugly or unlikable to you when that clearly wasn't the case just opens to door for actual homophobes or antisemites to come in and say there was always something off about him (while meaning the gayness or jewishness)

[winns-stuff]

LO RANT:

I’m gonna say this cause I’ve been seeing a lot of Minthe edits and finally understanding more and more of her perspective. Persephone is a homewrecker, absolute homewrecker and if this was anyone else the fans would’ve thrown a tantrum because why is it Persephone can get away with knowingly accepting affection, gifts, money, clothes, and even a phone from Hades but Minthe is shamed for also receiving things such as that.

It’s just so annoying and incredibly incompetent to me how they literally do the same things all the damn time yet everyone loves Persephone. Me personally, I hate her with all of my heart I truly believe that she’s very malicious and self serving at the end of the day. She reminds me of those villains targeting old lonely vulnerable rich men all for their money while trying to mask their behavior behind a sweet innocent character…. Oh wait. She’s literally doing just that, like always she’s doing shit like that. She literally took money out of Hades’ account for an apartment without even asking, yes you can argue that they discussed about Persephone moving out but that doesn’t just give someone the okay to take their money and run with it to buy stuff you want. She’s always being a huge extreme brat and it really makes me feel like Demeter is a victim of her damn behavior (I’ve always thought this but it just gives me more reason for it now) because how the hell are you going to get upset at your mother for coddling you when you accept and even welcome being babied by everyone around you. This whole independency thing falls through the floor when you realize that Persephone doesn’t want any independence, all she wants is to be able to get away with things she does and obviously Demeter was more strict with her (unlike Hades) so she couldn’t necessarily do anything without being watched.

I genuinely feel for Minthe, not her actions but her mental state had to be breaking apart with every single day and those two assholes just made it worse. Persephone was always aware that Minthe and Hades were together yet she still allowed herself to be seen publicly with him, she allowed him to get physical, and she didn’t mind kissing him right after they broke up. She was obviously waiting for them to break up to do more bold moves just to spite Minthe and she didn’t even care about how she would feel. I get that you’re jealous that Hades is giving his money away to someone who wasn’t you but that doesn’t mean that you could basically start seeing him and playing fucking house right in the office that she works in. That’s trifling as fuck and I’d be pissed too because not only are you embarrassing me in front of Persephone by showing her that I’m not worth any dignity or respect but you’re embarrassing me in my own workplace as well, you just know that the assistants and other staff members were spreading it around like wild fire and that had to be so stressful to deal with.

Speaking of that actually, fuck Persephone for that because she keeps whining and crying about how rumors made everyone at her college not want to speak with her yet she’s completely fine with doing things that actively ruin Minthe’s reputation and make her a spectacle for everyone to see. That’s one of the main reasons why I don’t feel any sympathy for her and I don’t see why so many people are so keen on protecting her, she’s really not shit and she’s genuinely a terrible person and we all know that if she were a real person no one would like her at all. At least Minthe had a reason for asking Hades for money, she literally only had him to rely on since he insisted on paying for everything and giving her a job, there was an obvious dependency on Hades that he started his damn self (which I have no idea why he thought trapping Minthe into this relationship she never even wanted in the first place would ensure not only a good relationship but a good marriage as well, like you made her lose her job which was the only thing keeping her from getting evicted and he knew it, his job was the only thing keeping her afloat and knowing Hades I just know he paid for the rent by himself cause that’s just how he is, he did the same with Persephone when they went shopping he insisted on buying things for her and spending money, it’s not insane to think that he did the same thing with Minthe’s apartment and her bills) what’s Persephone’s excuse of sticking around Hades and receiving money and gifts from him? She’s incredibly privileged and the heiress to a whole company if she wanted to actually be independent and get a job of her own she could’ve. She’s not like Minthe, she has lots of powerful connections whereas Minthe only had Hades, so she just enjoys being spoiled and she chooses to use only Hades’ money for the things she wants.

Last thing, but I find it incredibly telling that Hades was never truly there for Minthe emotionally. He only wanted to be there when he wanted something from her, never not once did he stand up for her or show her off half as much as he does with Persephone. He’s loud and open about his relationship with her while we barely even see praise coming from Hades and Minthe, it was almost as if he was embarrassed to be with her similar to what the comic wanted us to think with Minthe’s introduction. He listened to Hera bag on his girlfriend even before Persephone was in the picture for probably centuries and never did he ever say anything about it. He’s fucking friends with her! He’s friends and completely fine with everyone who has ever said something bad about Minthe and he doesn’t even care about all the things they said about her. And you expect me to be on their side? After everything you’ve shown us, I’m supposed to be happy that HxP are the only people getting happy endings and no one else that they screwed over to get there? Absolutely the fuck not.

That’s the end of this rant, I’m tired and incredibly irritated with the main couple they make me want to eat my own scalp. It’s so annoying how everyone lets them get away with anything yet Minthe and her fans are just evil for even having a shred of sympathy for her, like y’all stan a murderer and a slave owner. There’s no right choices.

[ileftherbackhome]

anyways reading that long ass post i forgot to talk about the joe aspect of it all but honestly i was thinking about how everytime something happens in the taylor dating universe, there are like the same 4 types of posts I see being made about taylor swift and honestly its like okay

i feel this getting rambly so like okay the reason people care about taylor's dating life is because taylor uses her dating life to her advantage. Even that famous quote of hers about the different language prescribed to different genders betrays a truth about her business practices that is obvious to anyone who paid attention during 2023 to her dating life and the truth of the matter is, taylor swift has and always will use her dating life to her advantage.

since folklore, starting with seven, taylor has voiced a story arc of her learning to accept her desire for attention. famous people want to be famous for a reason and that reason at its base level is attention or money, usually both. taylor's music pre-pandemic is very good girl era of her and post-pandemic, she has been slowly making music that is more and more disagreeable with the general public. she is more and more willing to portray herself as the villain because after 9 or 10 failed relationships, you have to start doing serious introspection.

it's extremely unlikely that anyone would be the perfect victim whose only problem was that "they loved too earnestly" in every single relationship they've ever been in. and ttpd exposes a lot of what most of the fandom knows to be true but doesn't want to accept for some reason and that is that taylor swift DOES use her dating life to her advantage. i personally dont see anything wrong with that because like duh, so does literally every other famous person out there? so many musicians sing solely about their dating lives and its only a problem when women accept that this is how they stay relevant in the media.

and like a consequence of taylor using her dating life to her advantage is that those people become public discourse. I think there is a reason why she doesnt say much of anything about her relationship with joe on any of these albums but especially ttpd because i do think that although taylor uses her love life to her advantage, she doesnt do so maliciously and has serious conversations with people about how much they care about being private with their love life.

the way she treats the joe relationship has stayed pretty consistent and she has only ever touched upon what in that relationship made her emotionally cheat and then date ratty in ttpd and thats probably all she will ever be comfortable doing because she knows she doesnt have joe's consent for their relationship to be used for her business purposes. i can see part of the reason why we only really get songs about them falling in love on every album is because that's a generic enough type of song that it doesnt say much beyond basic details of how they met and how he made her feel supported.

and so much of this album is taylor trying to come to terms with the fact that SHE chose her life with joe just as much as he did with her, which is why she ends up at "we both did nothing wrong" and "we just didnt know how to love each other correctly" several times on the record because SHE is just as much to blame for choosing to change herself for love. SHE made the decision to change her strategy when it comes to romance to hold onto the idea of what she thought it'd be like to be with joe.

and it's just wild to me to expect the fandom to not have opinions on quotes given to the public from the figures themselves about their feelings on the matter. like, i cannot make it any clearer that if a celebrity doesnt want you to know something, you wouldn't.

[izzylumalee]

FNaF Security Breach: The Daycare Attendant Mistreatment Theory

it's clear from various in-game details and hints that the Daycare Attendant doesn't receive the same treatment as the other characters at the Pizzaplex.

the first thing i noticed is when you're about to switch off the lights in the playground, Sun says this:

"New friend, this- this area is area is off-limits! You’re gonna get us in trouble..." 

notice the "us" here. Sun mentions getting “in trouble” with a tone of dread - as if it’s something that’s happened to him before, and he’s really not looking forward to it again.

“us” might not even mean Sun and Gregory. it might mean Sun and Moon.

this whole exchange implies that Sun (and most likely Moon too) get reprimanded and punished often, even for something as simple as entering an area they're not supposed to. overall, Sun seems extremely anxious and high-strung - which, at the time, is partially because he knows there's something wrong with Moon - but other than that, it seems ingrained into his personality. both Sun and Moon panic when you make a mess, and immediately drop whatever they're doing to frantically clean it up - which could mean they get punished for allowing the Daycare to be messy (or even just not pristine). you could even say that Moon's constant repetition of stuff about punishment (”Bad children must be punished,” “Bad children must be found,” “It’s past your bedtime, you must be punished!”) is some kind of projection, reflecting the punishment and treatment that he and Sun receive. in a similar vein, Sun seems to be obsessed with rules and reprimands you for being a “rule breaker”.

Moon also rarely says “Hidey hide, hide away,” which obviously is meant to make it feel like the dark and scary version of hide-and-seek - but could also imply, if the projection idea is true, that Moon (and maybe Sun too) have tried hiding in fear when they were going to be “punished”. the Daycare Attendant's room is absolute garbage - littered with trash, cobwebs everywhere, and clutter taking up most of the room. both Sun and Moon are impulsive cleaners, so it's highly unlikely that they WANT it to be that way. 

based on the fact that there are S.T.A.F.F. Bot parts, various toys, and a whole arcade machine in their room, it seems like their room is also being used as a storage room - or, more likely, it originally WAS a storage room, and only now doubles as the Daycare Attendant’s room.

this especially makes sense considering how the room is also connected to the theater, it’s small with an odd layout, it’s about as plain and dull as it gets, and it isn’t themed around the characters at all.

now compare that to the vibrantly colorful, character-themed, cushy and comfy rooms the Glamrock characters live in. considering how absolutely fantastic everything in the Pizzaplex is, the Daycare Attendant’s lack of a proper room can only be out of pure neglect.

despite considering every other animatronic character a friend, Freddy refers to the Daycare Attendant as an “it”:

“We are almost out of time. We need to get to a recharge station immediately. Every hour, the power is diverted to the recharge stations. When that happens the lights go out, and when that happens the Daycare Attendant is free to roam the building. It will find you.”

“Gregory, good news! It is almost 6 o’clock. You will be safe now if you find an exit. But hurry! The Daycare Attendant is loose one last time.”

as if calling the Daycare Attendant an “it” wasn’t enough to show his disdain, Freddy also says “loose” as if he’s talking about a wild animal.

also note that Freddy makes it clear that when the lights go out during the power diversion, aka the last 10 minutes of each hour between 12 AM and 6 AM, is the only time the Daycare Attendant is free to roam the building - meaning that at all other times, they are bound to the Daycare and not allowed to leave, unlike all the other characters who have free roam of the building (well, except maybe DJ Music Man cause... yeah). both Sun and Moon are noticeably very creaky when they move, implying lack of proper maintenance. look at the exposed mechanical parts on their joints and the back(s) of their head(s).

notice how their faces clearly don’t match the much cuter, less uncanny designs shown on their posters and merchandise - for example, in all his merchandise, Sun has pupils instead of pure-white eyes (however, the color of his eyes varies across different representations of him - maybe they were just too lazy to decide on a final design?)

Sun and Moon may have just not been finished, and nothing in the game implies they’re still being worked on. either that, or they deteriorated over time and never received proper repairs - or maybe both.

and on top of all this? i can’t find or think of a single reason that the Daycare Attendant would receive such poor treatment.

i guess it’s just Fazbear Entertainment being Fazbear Entertainment.

...and then, on the other hand, we have DJ Music Man - who, despite Freddy seemingly being good buddies with and calling him "such a nice fellow", has zero merchandise, posters, or promotion to be found anywhere in the Pizzaplex... though i guess that’s probably cause they didn’t wanna spoil his reveal in-game.

[eldrichfuck666]

75% for Ansel please!

Hello! I hope you're having a great time of the day! 💖 I'm really happy to see you in my inbox, it means so much for me! 🥺 I'm glad that you also asked it for Ansel, because it plays a HUGE role in his story. It's going to be long (as always, sorry 😭)...

75%. How did the family that raised your character influence them?

To begin with, a small (relatively) background — Ansel's family is the ruling family of the kingdom of Windenburg (yes, in my game it is a kingdom), his parents are not related to him in a biological sense, although he grew up with the idea that he belonged to the royal bloodline — he was never part of his family, although he was brought up in an illusory love and care, which really was a lot in his life. His family influenced him in every possible way, both extremely negatively and extremely positively. He grew up feeling like a loved child, being surrounded by numerous sisters and brothers, and the relationship between them has always been extremely warm and accepting. They loved him, but more in the way of loving some kind of.. a porcelain doll, as if they realized that he was special in some way — that's why his siblings always were not only extremely sweet to him, but careful, as if they could break him or hurt him, which they really didn't wanted to do. They were scared of even hugging him too much, because he was way too sick and weak. He was almost.. untouchable for them, but in the way that some kind of divine beings are. They gave him all the love they could, all the warmth and care.

He still remembers his caring mother, who always looked at him with special affection and at the same time, with fear in her eyes, she tried to keep her distance and not look into his eyes, always lamenting that one day she would no longer be able to control him. It was as if she was regretting something that hadn't happened yet, but there was no hope to stop it from happening anyway. His father was not afraid of him and never looked at him with any sense of fear - he was always the one who gave him the most affection and love, giving him as much time as he could between running the state and raising his other children. However, Ansel always noticed how the fire in the eyes of both parents faded when he began to ask about what his fate would be and what awaits him in the future, when he even thought about what awaits him when he gets older. In response, they were always silent, as if afraid to utter a word, so as not to say something that he definitely should not have known.

He did not feel like a stranger even though he was completely unlike anyone in his family, which aroused certain suspicions for other people, but not for him. The entire royal family had black hair, and so it was from generation to generation - with the exception of him. He was really different, which is why his parents often emphasized his unusual facial features and genetics as something of a rare gift, they always called him a blessing from gods who was destined to fulfill something extremely important for future generations of the royal family and who would have to carry an incredibly heavy burden because of his true nature. "Your destiny is something you'll never be able to run away from, because it's both a curse and a blessing from Gods. You'll have to take it as it is." - his father always said. Ansel never understood this, but he felt deeply grateful that he was so appreciated, never thinking about this as something like a warning, which it, in fact, was.

He was raised by the royal family and almost always felt like a part of it, despite the fact that almost all family members tried to maintain a certain distance and at some moments wild fear froze on their faces when they looked at him and as if they saw something quite inhuman in him... But in general, he was loved by his family and it is thanks to his simblings that he knows what it is - real care and concern for someone. His parents always instilled in him that when he grew up, he would have no way back; he used to consider himself special, moreover, without even realizing that it was not something great or safe for him. He didn't know that as a teenager, he would be used as a sacrifice for a ritual. He had to be sacrificed for the sake of the eternal rule of his parents, and all this was under the cover of so often seen in royal families, arranged weddings for the sake of an alliance with another kingdom. The man who was to marry him was the one who had to perform the ritual for which Ansel had been prepared since birth. His heavy burden was to blindly give up his life and accept painful death in the name of the eternal life of those who raised him just to kill.

Horrifying betrayal, isn't it?

[dustedmagazine]

Chris Corsano — The Key (Became the Important Thing [and Then Just Faded Away​]​) (Drag City)

Chris Corsano is one of experimental music’s best drummers, an improvisatory powerhouse alongside jazz icons like Paul Flaherty and Joe McPhee and indie rock stars like Thurston Moore and Bjork.  He reacts, in the most fluid and incendiary way, to whatever other musicians throw at him; it’s exciting to watch like a high wire act. 

And yet, while Corsano is definitely a primo improviser, he also has ideas about song structure, riff and even melody.  In a PopMatters interview with the three principals of Rangda in 2012, Ben Chasny remarked “Chris is a master of improvisation, which I always knew, but especially with this last Rangda record, his sense of composition is pretty mind-boggling. He has very good ideas, as opposed to just free playing.”

All of which is a long way of saying that The Key has some monster improvised drumming on it, but it is also extremely musical.  If you’ve been holding off on this one because, you know, solo drumming, you should reconsider.  It is that and a lot more. 

Corsano’s main compositional tool here is a string drum set up, in which he stretches a silicone string over a bridge (like a guitar bridge) on top of a snare drum.  If you find this hard to picture (I did), a video on Facebook illustrates the concept.  Corsano hits the string with a stick, and the string makes a banjo-like tonal sound, while also vibrating against the snare.  The note that emerges then is partly a whack and partly a ping, and its pitch can be altered depending on where along the string the stick strikes. 

You can hear this sound in its purest form in “Low Experience,” a succession of string drum beats interspersed with cymbal.  The string drum notes vibrate, leaving a contrail of shivering sound behind them, and they shift along a continuum from low to higher notes.  There’s not much here besides the string drum, so you get a good chance to focus on it and get comfortable with what it is. 

That cut leads without interruption into the much busier “Unlike an Empty Box,” where the same succession of tones accelerates to blur speed and incorporates wild fills and accents on the other elements of the kit—toms, kick drum and cymbals.  It is a bravura performance, physically demanding and fired by imagination.  You can hear the music bubbling under it, frenetic as it is. 

A couple of tracks bring the melody forward, augmenting Corsano’s dense, free-ranging stick play with rock band arrangements.  “I Don’t Have Missions” grounds complex string drum flurries with a steady cadence of bass drum.  Guitar and bass enter after a little bit, turning a fiery beat into vamping, corruscating blues, in the same general universe as Jonathan Kane’s work.  “The Full-Measure Washdown” comes the closest to a full-band rock song, chaotic guitar stabs jutting out of a sinuous spy-movie groove.   

These two songs build on Corsano’s string drum ideas in a rich and engrossing way, but there’s also something riveting about the purity of the all-drums tracks.  Corsano is working out his art with a variety of tools, but the language is the same, and it speaks powerfully throughout. 

Jennifer Kelly

[dysiver]

The grandma (This has some stuff you guys already know and some new stuff, lemme know if this helps or not)

Adriene

Age: Oldest being alive next to Daxon.

Status: True God of Death.

Family: Dys (son)

Adriene became aware of themselves at the same time as Daxon. The two came to exist in a realm different from the one they created. They weren’t sure how they came to be but they were aware of the fact that no one created them and they manifested as a necessity in the realms. Adriene’s powers manifested at the same time as Daxon’s. The second Daxon created life, Adriene became aware of the fact that they were able to take it and consume it. 

The more life Daxon created the stronger Adriene became and in return, the more lives Adriene took, the stronger Daxon became, making the two equal in strength and power over living beings. It was how they realized that a fundamental rule needed to be followed if they wanted to continue growing, and that was that all living beings must eventually meet their end, just as they are born they also needed to die. 

Adriene unlike Daxon became quite interested in the creatures Daxon was able to create. While Daxon was indifferent to his creations, Adriene found them quite interesting and cute. It wasn’t long before Adriene started asking Daxon to create beings based on whatever they had in mind, whether it was an animal, a creature, a monster, or even beings that resembled them physically. It wasn’t until Adriene started to ask these things from him that Daxon started to enjoy creation and found it fun to entertain Adriene with whatever they wished to create. 

It was how Adriene started to write stories that Daxon took an interest in and found fun. The wild tales Adriene would write would go from heroes saving a princess to complicated worlds with powerful beings that watched over them. The worlds Adriene wrote were sometimes complicated and sometimes quite simple, but Daxon carefully read every tale. He kept asking for more and as Adriene read the stories to him, Daxon found himself leaning on Adriene to create worlds and life outside what he could imagine. It was unknown to Adriene but the reason why Daxon couldn’t create worlds like Adriene was that Daxon only had eyes for Adriene so death was all he saw and wished for, which made him unable to imagine life even with the power to create it. 

The two of them stayed together for thousands of years, creating universes, multiple realms, and sometimes simple worlds. Through those years of creation, they developed beings that resembled their powers, this was done due to Adriene’s tales and also the need to keep an eye on all the creations they made. They were given the title of Gods, and later on became known as the Original Gods. The Gods they created lived longer lives than any of their other creations, they were pretty much considered immortal even though they weren’t, at least not yet. 

The Original Gods, unlike their creators, experienced more complicated emotions and desires. They were after all made with the idea of conflict in mind and a tale that developed a plot with twists and turns. They were all stories that came from Adriene and those stories were not perfect, at least in Daxon’s and Adriene’s eyes they weren’t, for most of their conflict seemed like petty games for the True creators. 

The Original Gods feeling inferior to their creators, started to fear them. The power they owned was nothing compared to them, on top of it, they were destined to die and meet their end with Adriene once their tale was finished. They didn’t want to die, they didn’t want to disappear and they also didn’t want their tales to come to an end just to be replaced by new ones once Daxon and Adriene got bored with them. 

The Gods plotted against their creators and their target became Daxon. Even though the Gods didn’t speak to him all that much, they were aware of how extremely naive their creator was, almost to a flawed level. Adriene was the one that seemed to understand them the most, which made sense since they were the ones that made them as they were, therefore they could read the Gods easily, like the palm of their hand. What Adriene didn’t anticipate was for the Gods to be crafty enough to even fool them. It was one thing for you to know your creation and for another for your creation to exceed your expectations, and that’s exactly what Daxon and Adriene faced. 

The Gods started to spread fear in their worlds and realms. The fear of decay, death, aging, everything that made life a cycle of enjoyment turned into sorrow, a curse and something to be feared. This created fear in living beings, and eventually, they were starting to be born with that fear from the very beginning. This caught Daxon’s attention, he noticed the shift right away, unlike Adriene. That same fear confused him and made him feel at a loss, for he couldn’t understand why anybody would be afraid of death, of Adriene. 

It was then that Gods started to get closer to Daxon, explaining their issues and fear of Adriene. They blamed Adriene and how life was so much more beautiful than death. Death meant the end, it meant that everything they did, everything they worked so hard to achieve was for nothing. Death was hollow, pointless, and depressing. It was what every living being feared the most, including the Gods. 

It was how the Gods then asked Daxon, what was he going to do when death came for him? When Adriene decided that it was his time to die as well. The thought itself made Daxon laugh, as there was no existence in the world where he could be without Adriene and Adriene couldn’t be without him, yet, he could feel and taste the fear with every new creation. It was a poison that was spreading throughout him even without him noticing it. It became even more evident when Adriene took the life of the Gods that had been with them for so many years. They took those lives without a second thought and a smile. 

Daxon started to become afraid of Adriene and that fear caused him to side with the Original Gods. 

It was peaceful at first, with Daxon simply asking Adriene to stop taking the God’s lives, something that Adriene promptly denied right away, reminding Daxon that the cycle of life needed to be kept in balance, which means everything that is given birth has to die when its time came. But Daxon knew Adriene well and if there was one thing Adriene had always wanted to do was to create something of their own, to give birth to something like Daxon was able to and so Daxon made a trade with Adriene. He would allow Adriene to create something of their own with Daxon’s powers and their own, and in return, Adriene would turn a blind eye towards the Gods. 

At first, Adriene refused but the idea of being able to give birth to someone, to be able to finally call a creation their own was what they always wanted. They eventually agreed and so Adriene was finally able to give birth to a creation of their own, a son. They were so thrilled that they decided to indulge in their own selfishness for once and turn a blind eye towards the gods. They were now Daxon’s responsibility and Adriene, they were far too happy with their own creation to care. It was a small mistake like this that started an avalanche of issues. 

After the Gods were freed from death, they became greedier and unstable. Even though they didn’t have to fear death anymore they still wanted it gone, as if it was a threat that they couldn’t move past and so they started plotting again. The Gods knew that the balance of life and Death was what kept Adriene’s and Daxon’s powers under control. Which meant that if the balance was broken then one would overpower the other. To break this balance, the Gods started wars left and right, in every world, universe, and realm. 

The wars were endless, ruthless, and void of life. Even as the Gods sacrificed all of their people, they didn’t care at all, for it was a means to an end to accomplish their goal. The Gods that were similar to Daxon and were in charge of creating life stopped their tasks, leaving Daxon by himself and forcing him to handle everything on his own. At the same time, Adriene was quickly overwhelmed by the number of deaths and souls that kept happening all around them. They couldn't control the large amount of energy being fed to them by the large toll of victims in these wars. 

Adriene lost control then. They lost control of themselves and their powers, turning them into a void of death that was consuming everything around them. Daxon was called then, informed by the Gods of what was happening. He was the one who intervened and stopped Adriene but the only way he was able to do it was by sealing Adriene away and their powers. The seal ended up binding Adriene’s vision and voice, making them unable to reach anyone or see any of the other realms or worlds. They were locked away in a void with nothing but their task to fill the time and the son they never let go of. 

In the never-ending void, Adriene wasn’t able to do anything. Without the power of creation, they couldn’t make worlds around them, or anything that resembled life, so instead they started to use souls, snatching them away and forcing them to take shape into whatever Adriene wished. Even if they were sealed away, their task as the one True God of Death continued. After their realm started to resemble a shadow of the life they once had, they were able to be somewhat at peace. 

That peace didn’t last long. Even though Adriene was able to bring their son with them, they quickly realized that without Daxon’s direct influence, their son was far too fragile. No, it was more like, their body couldn’t contain their power because they hadn’t reached a point of maturity yet and so, he was dying. The last thing Adriene had that belonged to them was dying, and there was nothing they could do. It shouldn’t make them sad, it shouldn’t make them angry, as the True God of Death they should just accept it, but they couldn't. Adriene shattered their son’s body, leaving only his soul and then forced it to reincarnate right away, leaving Adriene all alone.

For hundreds of thousands of years, Adriene was sealed away, with nothing but the souls that came through their realm to tell them how the world was changing and how things were different. It was also how they kept meeting their son, as once he died his soul would come back and quickly be reincarnated again instead of letting it rest. This was due to the fear Adriene had of Daxon noticing their son’s soul and getting rid of it…although it was greatly damaging Adriene’s son’s soul. 

Every time their son died, he would reincarnate faster and then faster, and faster. Until one day, that son died when he was only a teen, with a rope around his neck. It was then that Adriene couldn’t watch him suffer anymore and instead of reincarnating him, they used souls to create the closest resemble of a body that they could master. Adriene put a piece of their soul as well, sealing it away within her son’s body to keep his body from breaking apart. This time there was no reincarnation, just her son waking up alive again and feeling better. It worked, and maybe this time Adriene could watch him grow old again instead of dying young. 

At least that’s what Adriene wished until Dys was kidnapped by the child of a star. 

Beel who was seeking a new Death God to use as a vessel for his father, took notice of Dys in another world. He noticed Dys’ odd constitution and confused it for the same characteristics of a newborn Death God. This went along with his plan and so he kidnapped him and tricked him until he finally revealed who they were and forced Dys into a ritual that would strengthen his body to be able to withstand being possessed by Beel’s father. The ritual was a success but unbeknown to Beel, after fortifying Dys’ body with souls, he also caused the connection between Adriene and Dys to grow stronger. This made Adriene able to see the world through Dys’ right eye and be able to control his body if so they wished. 

After Lucifer took control of Dys’ body, he was promptly kicked out by Adriene who fought for control over Dys’ body until they won. Beel not understanding what happened was killed by Adriene possessing Dys’ body, or at least that rendition of him was killed. 

Adriene took Dys’ to another world and returned the curses back to their original state while also returning the hellions to their original form. They took a few of the hellions with them so they could protect Dys while leaving a note for the rest to keep in contact with them. It was after everything was back in order, or at least most of it, that they gave Dys control of his body again. 

It was also how Adriene was able to see the world again and experience new Adventures with Dys and the rest of the hellions, at least until they were forced to face Daxon and Noah together. The memories of what Daxon did to them, and how many years they were left alone and abandoned finally reminded them of how much they had grown to hate him. 

Adriene wanted to get revenge. They wanted Daxon to suffer as much as they did and in their rage and anger, they ended up taking over Dys’ body against his will again, not only that but they ended up using him to harvest souls to fight on equal ground with Noah and even harm Daxon. They just needed to take more souls, they needed to get stronger. They kept fighting and taking lives to get stronger until Dys made them snap out of it. If they kept going like this, not only were they going to destroy Dys’ body, but they were going to continue to kill innocent lives that had nothing to do with the wars between Gods. 

Adriene stopped fighting and Noah took this chance to seal the connection between Dys and Adriene. It was the last time Adriene saw their son, but they knew he was alive, as Adriene kept Dys’ body and soul together through the years of torture and death he faced against Noah. Their connection was only truly re-opened hundreds of years later just for Adriene to realize that Dys had gone berserk and it was too late to stop him. They were gladly absorbed by their son, becoming one with them this time, instead of doing the opposite like so many times before. Adriene with the last of their powers, helped Dys keep his memories and sense of self, in a last attempt to keep him from making the same mistake they did. 

Adriene was later brought back to life by Dys. He was able to do this with the help of a newly reincarnated Narah who became a God of Life in her new world. She took whatever parts of Adriene that were left inside Dys and made a new body for them. 

Adriene is now as powerful as a regular God and can still shapeshift and has control over souls, however, they are not a Death God anymore and are free to roam the world and experience it as a regular person and not as a writer telling tales for creation. 

Personality: Adriene is a bit of an airhead but for the most part it is because they are always distracted and thinking of new plot ideas for new tales. They are, however, very snarky and tend to be extremely sarcastic. They are quick-witted and quick to say whatever is on their mind even if it might hurt someone’s feelings, although they have gotten better at not doing that. They see death as something normal and part of living so they have no sympathy for dead people or for people that might be mourning someone. 

They are the type to kick someone when they are down, but that’s mostly due to their cynical nature. However, that isn’t present when it involves their son as they tend to be friendlier and nicer to them, to the point that they feel like a completely different person. 

Due to Daxon’s betrayal, they have heavy trust issues and are a bit too overprotective of Dys. They are also quite violent and to some point extremely hostile but if they like someone they tend to give them cute nicknames or cheer for them. They are also the type to think with the mentality of the glass being half empty instead of half full.

For the most part, they can be very mature and seem to know what to do at all times, this is because they are the ones who wrote all the tales Dys is living through or at least were the ones to create the original characters, which makes them sort of a walking Wikipedia.  

Random Facts: 

Adriene isn’t fond of animals much, however, they love sea creatures and their realm resembles a fancy large aquarium. 

Being a writer, they tend to get lost in thoughts a lot before being seen scribbling away new ideas or thoughts that they are afraid they might lose. 

They are addicted to technology and social media. Dys has to time their phone time or else he ends up with sore eyes. That is no longer a problem once Adriene gets their own body. 

Adriene loves the hellions and is always dotting on them, much to Dys’ frustration as the hellions developed a thing for snitching on Dys when he doesn’t do what they want him to.

As mature as they are, they tend to be very irresponsible with some things, like leaving glaring plot holes that make some Gods too powerful, or writing creatures that are difficult to deal with.

Their favorite thing to eat is a peanut butter and honey sandwich, but that’s cuz they don’t know how to cook. 

They are addicted to any sort of Dramas, especially the ones with love triangles. 

They want to get better at drawing but cannot draw at all. 

Adriene loves to fangirl over what they like, even getting Dys to buy merch of some shows they are addicted to or cosplay while they control his body. 

One of their dreams is to write a new story and have merch of it, but not merch with religious symbols, they are tired of those. 

They really dislike Baal/Albert. 

After they were reborn they went on adventures on their own and made new friends, but they still came back to visit their son and keep him company. 

If someone is wrong, they'll argue non-stop with them.

They suck at drawing but they make up for it by being an excellent musician.

[hrodvitnon]

Hello again, back on my “what would x kaiju be like in Abraxasverse” bullshit, and I’ve got like, nearly half a dozen so I’m just gonna get right into it.

Ebirah: One of the few earth based kaiju with an extremely fast healing factor (to the point of being able to regrow entire claws within weeks/months), Ebirah is just, well, kind of a little shit. He’s long made the water surrounding Leichi Island his home, but he’s always desperate for a little more territory. While acknowledging Godzilla’s status as the king, he does his best to stay under the radar and try to gain more territory without alerting the “big players”. However, he is nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is, and he’s gotten himself into trouble with Godzilla more than once over his blatant territorial fuckery. He’s also one of the few people on Mothra’s permanent shit list for attempting to attack an island she had long ago called home. When push comes to shove, he’ll help defend earth from threats, but he’s always scheming in the background and he’s not exactly liked or trusted by the other Titans. Hes kind of a “starscream” archetype.

Kumonga: Queen of Solgell Island, Kumonga is ancient and perhaps amongst the crankiest of all the titans. She’s content with her small island home, even if she does somewhat get into conflict with Kamacuras and his brood. However, she’s not very pleasant to be around, basically being the equivalent of a nagging senior to the other titans, constantly complaining and insulting them. She has respect for Goji however, and is more than happy to help him when called upon. Also likes to mess with Ladon, so that he’ll “respect his elders”. Think, “jerk with a heart of gold”.

Kamacurus: a Titan which by pure dumb luck, managed to survive when most of his species died relatively young, as food for other titans. Due to this, he managed to grow much larger than others of his species tended to, and came, like Kumonga, to call Solgell Island his home. He is fairly content with his abode, aside from the occasional spat with Kumonga. However, he absolutely hates humans, and while usually pretty amiable to other titans, he will attempt to outright murder any humans he sees in his territory, leading to conflicts with other titans such as Ladon and Goji. Recently, he’s discovered a small nest of eggs that seem to be others of his kind. He will protect them with his life.

Oodako: “The scavenger” Titan of the sea, Oodako isn’t one to normally engage with other Titans, preferring to sift through what remains after a battle or attack human settlements in remote areas with no fellow Titan presence. Unlike other titans who have more positive or negative ideas about humans, Oodako is indifferent, simply seeing them as a particularly tasty form of sustenance at best. He does his best to avoid the likes of Goji, but did accidentally make an enemy of Kong when he mistakenly wondered into Skull Island’s shores and attempted to devour an Iwi camp. He also has begun to form a rivalry of sorts with Baragon, after thinking the young Titan dead and attempting to devour her. He’s basically a giant coward who knows he’s out of his league and does his best to stay under the radar.

Megaguirus: Queen of the Megnula swarm, she is the ancient enemy of Rodan’s species, much in the same way the MUTO’s were to Godzilla. Cruel, vicious, and utterly deranged, she is a complete and utter wild card in Earth’s Titan ecosystem. She often prefers to have her subjects do most of the “dirty work” for her, with her staying in their hive and only coming out when a particularly appealing opponent presents themselves. Her and Rodan bitterly hate eachother, with her attack on their home being what led to his parents demise centuries ago. While most of Earth’s titans will at the very least reluctantly follow Godzilla and Mothra when push comes to shove, Megaguirus only allegiance is to herself and her brood.

Hope this wasn’t too much rambling, just some thoughts I’ve had and thought I’d share. Hope you’re doing well and having a good 2024 so far!

No worries, these headcanons are fun, and happy 2024! I like the idea that some Titans are just Little Shits, it helps them stand out; plus Rodan and Megaguirus being foes is a neat spin – not everyone can have a grudge match with Godzilla.