#I’m questioning the world mechanics fr

[rewordthis]

I just went through the horror of realising that the word epithet is also used in English as a nickname and not a last name……. 👀🙃

[grandwitchbird]

So let’s talk about Veilguard as an intentional subversion of the heroic power fantasy in RPGs. This is messy because I’m still thinking about it.

Generally we’ve got two approaches to crafting subversive narratives: utilizing the conventions of genre and medium to subvert expectation, and/or writing from the margins and against hegemonic interests.

Note that the audience is presumed to be informed. There’s no sense in trying to subvert uninformed expectations.

Veilguard puts the power of writing from the margins at least partly in the player’s hands. Are you a former galley slave turned pirate? Are you a cursed warden doomed to die in a world that will pay lip service to ideals it doesn’t really believe in? Maybe you’re just trans in a world that only barely even has words for what that means. It’s a collaborative narrative after all. And you can be the hero if you want! The game does not take that from you. It’s just that there are consequences to your choices, and heroes don’t get to escape their stories.*

Relationships & Characters

The subversions are there at the micro level, in archetypes and arcs turned on their heads. The noir detective is a woman. The necromancer fears death. The big damn hero guy is happier and more fulfilled as a cat dad. Most importantly though, the player cannot solve these character’s problems. We can only stay beside them while they struggle. And we’re meant to struggle too. There’s no incentive to people please to game approval. Trying to game a romance system for kisses and content isn’t even possible here. Our only motivation can be genuine interest and investment in these characters as-written, something that has finally allowed BioWare to shake off the spectre of player-sexual gamified romance arcs.**

The Narrator

Varric’s (explicitly illusory) attempts to frame the story as a schlocky hero’s journey are constantly undermined. We already know he’s spinning stories because that’s what he’s done for 3 games now. His advice to go solve your team’s problems is canned and doesn’t really help for reasons that become painfully apparent later in the game. This Varric is just whatever perception-filtered memory Rook/Solas has of the real Varric. Varric’s absence as a character then haunts every corner of the story and calls every narrative frame into question: heroes of the Veilguard as a game mechanic, Neve as folk hero or criminal collaborator to the same ends, Rook only calling themselves a hero when playing storyteller themselves, even Rook’s moniker takes on a new shade after Solas pulls his castling maneuver and the illusion is broken.

Varric being an absent narrator pushing us along the hero’s journey allows that big reveal to free us even as it frees him from the role of narrator. It also challenges us because it gives us undeniable reasons to want personal revenge against Solas. The real Varric was just a guy who did his best and was often wrong. He made his choices and can rest now. But Solas made his choices too, even if the outcome wasn’t what he intended. And now we’re free to choose between their paths. We haven’t actually fixed anything because this world is much bigger than us. We can open doors, offer a shoulder, provide backup. We can trust and be trusted. We can make mistakes. We can punch a god and die a hero. But we don’t have to be the hero.

The Hero

Solas, the dreadwolf, god of lies (depending on the story) is of course the walking narrative key to all of this. It’s a retread of his own story we escape if we refuse to play the hero. But it should be noted that the heroic path is interesting in its own right! The dreadwolf rises also in us. Sacrifice the pawns, damn the consequences. It’s a story that’s tragic and brutal and unapologetic in its classic structure. We get caught by the story and become the very hero we’ve been fighting this whole time.

It’s just at least equally interesting that we don’t have to be the hero. And it’s deeply subversive that the path to freedom is gained at the cost of the power fantasy. We can be part of a team that is more than pawns in a game. Some other guy can kill a god, and that’s actually his win, not just a step on our path. Somebody else can die for the cause, and that’s their choice more than ours. Our romances are represented by flowers because they’re alive and growing and not just beats in a story. Even the tragic hero himself can change. And that’s only possible if we let go of the power fantasy completely. Rook stops being Rook at the end of that path. It’s why we’re not in the mural. We get to escape the story.

* We’re going to get into heroes and stories and why heroes can’t escape their stories next if I don’t run out of steam.

** Or just Shepherd-sexual in Mass Effect. I want to write more about romance separately because this is a whole thing.

[mysteriouslyjovialcolor]

Britain 2019

-Why was there a whole movie trailer played before this race??

-Charles and Max second row>>

-Red Bull working overtime to fix the car end plates a minute before the formation lap??

-“Somehow they all have managed to be pointing in the right direction. Side by side as they were through the first few corners”

-Those first few corners were actually so speedy. Especially the first one

-Daniel and Lando wheel to wheel!!

-Not the Haas falling all the way to the bottom

-“Already they’re coming round to lap Kevin Magnussen” it’s lap 3 😭

-Woah!! Lewis and Valterri!! Ohmygodd they’re just exchanging the lead one turn after the other

-“As we say goodbye to Kevin Magnussen” Nooo

-“Verstappen trying to overtake Leclerc? What could possibly go wrong?” Haha

-Poor Max stuck in a Ferrari sandwich

-No fr, those Ferrari’s are really playing with him. Charles pushing him back, Sebastian forcing him ahead

-Oh Pierre! Let’s go!!

-Now both Red Bulls are stuck in a Ferrari sandwich

-Oh come on why’d Pierre pit?? That undercut better work

-“Ricciardo has pulled the trigger on his fight with Lando Norris” Daniel also trying the undercut

-Oh both Max and Charles pitting at the same time??

-Aaaah the pit crew celebrating!!

-Ohmygod they’re wheel to wheel!!

-Charlesss

-Ooh Daniel’s undercut worked

-Charles and Max really do make racing look like a choreographed dance

-Love how them squabbling opened up a gap for Valterri to pit

-Ah they’re both going for it so hard. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen

-Oh no, safety car!

-Lewis in the lead!

-How is Sebastian suddenly p3?!

-Daniel came into change his tires again and dropped down places and theoretically this is better in the long run, but I don’t trust Renault

-“How the hell did we lost the position?” Well Charles, Ferrari may have made a questionable call

-Still not the worst place to be for him though, he could easily make up places

-“Be careful with any overtakes on Gasly” “And other way around” Haha

-“Not shy these new kids in Formula 1” Let’s go 2019 rookies!

-Charles pulling Max’s Austria move here. I love it

-Can’t believe Nico and Checo made contact and dropped down

-Yellow flags again?

-After watching Charles defend from Max like crazy it feels very weird seeing him try and fail to pass someone else

-Finally Charles!

-Sebastian’s race came around huh (I mean unless Max gets past him)

-Let’s go Max!! Oh shitttt oh shit oh shit

-“The man who won 4 world championships for Red Bull has run into a Red Bull”

-I can’t believe this, he had p3!

-That Red Bull mechanic in the pit lane cheering and then instantly holding his head in shock is me rn

-Sebastian might get a penalty but he doesn’t really need one, he’s p17 (last)

-I’m still in shock and a little annoyed, but oh well

-“Hulkenburg’s got a problem. Hulkenburg has got an issue” And this all just got worse

-Lewis pitting? Not pitting?

-What is Mercedes doing? Why are they so confused about whether Lewis needs to pit or not?

-“Where’s Lewis? How much in front and what’s his lap time?” Charles? He’s like 26s ahead?

-Oh yay! Nico’s back in points!

-Winning your home race 6 times (and more now) is insane behavior

-“Get in there Lewis! That’s a home win mate!”

-That scene of him flying his flag after the win>>>

[mad-c1oud]

FROM THE FOG I RISE WE HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH AN IMMI CHAPTER!!!

IT'S LOVELY! It's got yummy Etoiles' emotions and feeeeelings!

Your mc mechanics interpretations are top tier fr, bc holy shit waystones using emotions? subconscious feeling? intent? will? instict? of the person is SO COOL

AAAAAAAA Teleportation magic being this old abstract force of will with its sole focus on connecting people AAAAA its magical flow being natural to this world

It makes me think of all the waystones being connected through a network, or smth like mycelium

Funny question tho, how would teleporting work for some of the ADHD folk who can't for the life of them focus on a singular destination?

And how do u think the magic would deal with a person that desperately wanted to teleport somewhere familiar, but that waystone and the place was destroyed beyond repair?

Anyway, tysm for the chapter, I wish u well for any irl stuff and writing endeavors!

Starcicle prevails 😌 🌟🦠(<- lol it kinda looks like slime if you believe)

YEHAHHHHH WERE BACK. I missed the goobers terribly

I’m so happy everyone has been loving the waystone thoughts. It’s something mentioned in most fics where they teleport, but I’ve never felt like elaborating becuase at those points, the characters already knew how it worked. So this moment of introspection from someone as analytical as Étoiles has been real fun.

I’m gonna blab about it more below the cut so click for insane word rambles if you want<3

So.

The inspiration came from the fact that if given the choice of what superpower I would choose, I would go with teleportation. Always been that way. I would always think about how it would work too becuase I was obsessed with MHA for a few years and they’re take on powers and quirks was just too much fun. So I thought about how teleporting would work, if it was sight based or maybe you had to have physically been somewhere to teleport there, etc. i liked the idea of needing to be familiar with a place before you could teleport there, or having some connection to it. Intent, knowing.

When I saw the waystones in the qsmp, and actually used them myself in minecraft, I just started automatically pushing those general teleportation thoughts onto the mechanic. They naturally generate in the world, these old pillars with ancient scribble on them (lke the enchantment tables). In order to use a waystone, you have to “activate” or click it. I just… went with it.

I didn’t realize I was using the idea until a few chapters into twaho and starting fingers. When. I did, I developed it a little more but still, I like to be vague about it. I like magic you don’t fully understand, especially when it’s ancient. Also I feel like over explaining it ruins it in some cases and while Étoiles is the po to over explain mechanics, I like shoving him at something he can’t fully pick apart.

Gah sorry you asked for none of that but I like talk sorry. On to your queries…

Warping for those with ADHD or just overall scattered thoughts— tricky. Since I like to think of these waystones as almost alive (at least the magic), they’re interrupting the “information” from the person touching the stone. Like Étoiles on the beach of Eggxile right after upsetting Charlie, trying to warp to his base but all he could think about was his mistake. All he could think about was Charlie. So the waystone kept him there, where he clearly needed to be, until Étoiles could focus and put more intent into his warp. It’s real easy for people to end up at the wrong waystone simply because they’re distracted or panicking, their minds a jumbled mess. A funny irl example would be anyone wanting to go to one waystone but out of habit they clicked the wrong one, muscle memory. Silly stuff like that. I could talk about it all day tbh

And for the other q… ouch. While I don’t want to over explain the warpstones, but I will say this: the magic is contained in the stone pillars or the warpstones, so when they are moved, it moves the magic. However— the longer a pillar is left somewhere, the more attachment the magic has to an area. Magically and literally. Same for waystones that are frequently used by several people.

Think of the warpstone hub near spawn. That area is like… it’s almost like a beating heart, veins branching out to other communal places like the Favela or France or Phil’s. The traffic and the thought going into those waystones… the magic loves to share the world and loves when people share with it.

I haven’t put too much thought into what would happen if someone tries warping somewhere a stone has been destroyed or removed, but I think it boils down to a few things: how strong those feelings/memories are, and how desperate someone is to return. It’s going to vary from person to person depending on their own connections. I think it will also not be pleasant. You are trying to use magic that is no longer contained, that might not even be present in the location you are going, relying on a signal warpstone or waystone to get you there. Think like a cut wire: it’s contiained until the metal becomes exposed, with no grounding after. Chances of you actually getting there are slim, but maybe the right spark with find it’s way. I don’t know, my metaphors are awful. The idea ties into the share stones. Someone going to a warpstone without having ever been there is impossible unless they have someone else on the other end, connecting those points. Providing the memories and feelings and thoughts for others

Spawn point and beds and shit are al whole other thing that I have yet to chew on, but I think they are separate for the most part.

Okay I’ll stop talking i could go on for everrrrrr about this stuff and what it means for different hybrids, different situations, restrictions, hiccups… I love over explaining minecraft mechanics. It’s so much fun.

Come yell at me with questions or ideas on anything!! Now you guys can go back and reread some of my fics with a little extra context haha.

[shiftingdiariesofophelia]

little update for you guys:

so i’ve had literally no time for shifting recently 💀 I haven’t even attempted in a month or so.

and i know everyone’s like “make time!” or “shifting is easy just do ___!” girl i’m telling you i’m up at 6 in the morning and my day isn’t over until 11, then i need to go to sleep and do it all again the next day. having responsibilities sucks ass.

BUT- in the meantime, I’ve been exploring potential DRs and making pinterest boards and cute little spotify playlists and basically it’s the main way i’m attached to shifting right now. My living situation has changed (positive) but that’s a whole other mess and basically Ophelia has NO time ❌

So updates might be slow until i move into my dorm in August, but anyway here’s a new list of some of my drs in case anyone is looking for a new place to shift:

So, I have my Hogwarts DR right? But honestly, it’s not really my main focus at the moment. i’m really just trying to get to my waiting room before i decide where the hell i’m going. this dr is cute and adorable and feels very homey to me. i’ve actually considered permashifting there tbh. it’s the world i’ve scripted the most for and what ignited my shifting journey.

Then, I have a Fame dr. kind of obligatory at first but the more i was getting into it, the more shit i’ve added and i actually love it now. it’s a mid-2010s and onward fame dr, so it’s like 2015 where i’m shifting. i’ve scripted to start out on broadway (OBC for katherine pulitzer in newsies), eventually working my way to the acting industry and then the music industry. i’ve got at least three albums planned and I even have an idea for a directorial debut limited series. I’ve also scripted myself into movies and shows that don’t exist in my cr so i’m excited to see how that goes!

I have some ideas for a marvel/Avengers dr. I’m a Greek demi-goddess with questionable parentage, but I insert myself into Tony’s life right around the first Iron Man. With weird time mechanics and whatever I just want to be besties with peter parker and train with strange and bucky tbh. extended found family is what i live for

I’m working on an Avatar: The Last Airbender dr lmao. i wanna be a fire bender so bad it’s unreal. I’m also adding separate countries under the same nation. like yes, there’s the earth kingdom and fire kingdom, but they have separate designations sort of like the southern and northern water tribes.

I’m thinking of a pjo/camp-half-blood dr because that would be cool as hell. going on quests with the gang and having powers?? i’d probably script some stuff in or out but the idea is really cool to me and i was always a percy jackson kid

lost in space dr !!! if you don’t know what i’m talking about there’s an original series from years ago or there’s a netflix reboot but basically this is a found family dr that takes place in space/alien planets and there’s a robot. maureen and john robinson are so mother and father coded it’s unreal.

hawkins, indiana dr but not “really” a stranger things dr because i don’t want to traumatize these kids or be traumatized myself lmao i’m basically just living in hawkins but all the friend groups are the same. also i’m dustin’s older sister because he’s adorable.

youtuber dr where i’m in weird/conspiracy core youtube and make those sorts of videos. i wanna make content with some of my more niche weird faves like wendigoon, nexpo, etc. this is really niche for a dr but i think it’s gonna be fun as hell.

bridgerton dr, y’all fr need to get in on this. new pretty dresses every day, men competing for my hand in marriage, elitist politics, orchestral music, flowers everywhere- it’s just going to be a good time i know it.

The 100 but specifically seasons 1-2 (MAYBE 3). Less death and more fun but with some scripting i think the idea of a society run by delinquent teenagers from space who are also fighting barbaric remnants of a destroyed civilization sounds cool as HELL bro. But i finished the show and the plot after the time jump isn’t what I want so i’m gonna script the hell out of the actual plot to make it fit what i want.

Trap House dr ! (another youtuber dr, shockingly) with the trap house circa the late 2010s. ghost hunting with sam and colby, talking shit with jake and corey, doing stupid shit and partying and just having a good time bro. i’m also scripting out Elton 🙈

narnia dr but specifically from LWW through the golden era of narnia. ruling over a mythological land with the pevensies, exploring the lands as far as they go, learning the lore with the other places in the world narnia exists in (where the telmarines come from and the other nations), i just think it’d be cool as hell.

and i want to figure out how to make like a zombie (potentially TWD or TLOU) dr without it being traumatizing 😭😭 stay tuned for how that works out lmaooo

[i-did]

hi hello i couldn't sleep last night so i was scrolling thru all ur asks and stuff and ur opinions and analyses are so interesting!!! and then afterwards i was thinking about what u were saying about mlm smut and i'd also been thinking about such things a little bit recently bc like.....at a certain point it becomes quite clear that the vast majority of smut-writing is just imitation. like there's the sex noise verb list and all and the whole general mechanics of the sex and those things just .... replicate over and over. and the whole thing w people writing mlm vs wlw smut regardless of their own sexual orientation..... like i feel like a big part of that is just a self-perpetuating thing. like if u have not had sex and u r getting all ur (pleasure-related) sex ed from fandom (even if u do watch porn, that doesn't rlly tell u how to describe stuff? idk) regardless of What fandom , the majority is going to be mlm smut. which is itself majority imitation of other mlm smut, imitating and imitating back to whoever knows what the first smut fanfic was etc. there's just way More to mimic than there is on the women side of things. which then becomes a self-perpetuating thing, bc the mimicry continues and generates more and more. and---if there are fundamental misunderstandings of anatomy involved---those self-perpetuate as well. and maybe even exaggerate. and yeah. does this all make sense? idk i was just thinking about it. like all the stereotypes and stuff continue bc writers are getting their inspo from other writers rather than their own brains. or something. idk!!!!! it's just all... divorced from reality? bc words. or something!! i hope u get what i'm trying to say. just thoughts i've been thinking. anyway i think ur thoughts are cool. and ur writing. ok bye have a good day!!

Okay yeah this is kinda messy but hope u see this, uhh yeah I think you're right about the echo chamber effect fr about stuff. I think it's a mix of projecting too sometimes. talk more under the cut and also link to a video essay since I love video essays.

Here’s a video that sort of touches on this topic: 

“Gay fanfiction” by Sarah Z. (has CC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8E_C00dKwI

This video begins to talk about fetishization at the end, but also��� not really. The words “gay fanfiction” is used as a catchall, when really gay fanfiction is largely mlm written by non-mlm.

Fandom is a largely women's space dominated by the female gaze in a media industry world that is dominated by men and the male gaze. I'm really glad women have this space to explore creativity and queerness, and I don't expect the female gaze to go away, but I am still ultimately bummed out I can’t read most fanfic or interact with most fandom spaces without having fetishization in my face. 

So about 80% of fandom is women, and most of those women aren't straight, but 90% of those women prefer mlm ships. Why don’t they prefer wlw ships? Well definitely part of it is the fact that queerbaiting is centered around white straight men, and then there is also the fact that women tend not to be written as well charcter wise. But the fact still remains that you get jerjean getting priority over Layla and Alvarez who are in canon just as much and are a canon wlw couple who actually interact as well as Alvarez could likely be a woc because of her Hispanic last name. Korasami doesn’t get nearly as much hype as zuko and saka, despite the fact that they are 2 fully dimensional characters who canonly kiss and hold hands, something the creators fought for and ended up having to sacrifice another reboot for. 

I do believe the fandom echo-chamber is largely responsible for… a lot of things, like you're saying. But what's interesting is that the complaints I've heard about visual porn from non mlm in the fandom space is that they can’t get off to it because its for the male gaze and misogynistic usually. But they also don't seem to notice how the mlm smut circles has the female gaze and is also… almost always mlm. If it was a pure anatomical not knowing thing, I get that, but I also think that leads to the question of “then why the male body for porn, and not your own? The one you know and are familiar with?” 

I know some people want to get outside of their own body for porn and don’t want to think of their own anatomy at all, but overall I'm still uncomfortable. If an anglo said “well I watch porn of only Mexicans so I don't self insert” I'm gonna be like … hhhh in a similar way. I understand people “like what they like” but I wish they also noticed said patterns in the first place. I understand the t4t tumblr porn circle, and how it's different from cis people who only watch trans porn. 

I actually wished that instead of fandom focusing on mlm ships where some asshole guy hits on bottom troupe charcter for top troupe character to save, was instead… a wlw character experiencing said shitty getting hit on and other wlw swooping in. what's interesting is fandom writes a lot about misogynistic experiences without often realizing it. Ive read fanfic where guys get called sluts for sleeping with people or called bitch for speaking their mind, these arent things men usually experience, but rather women. Fandom has a lot of internalized misogyny and also queerphobia imo. Women characters often get pushed to the sidelines and men become the canvas for female fans to project onto. 

There is this natural inclination to mlm. When people are talking about “gay shipping” or “gay books” or “gay feels” or even just “gay” mlm is what’s largely in mind. I honestly am kinda saddened by this because if gay fanfiction was really solely about writing more to feel represented, then you would see a lot of bi and ace and lesbian rep, but this isn't the case. Queer women are seriously underrepresented, and I want to hear their stories and read them in fanfiction as well as published. 50% of lgbt literature is mlm, and of that its largely written by women. Becky Albertalli, Rainbow Rowell, Maggie Stiefvater, are the YA big names and are all women writing mlm. Red white and royal blue is written by Casey McQuiston and Captive prince (which is not YA) is written by C. S. Pacat, who is non-binary, but is also TME and not mlm. These are all the big names in mlm lit, behind them is some gay men, but honestly their stories aren't preferred, they're not the right “flavor” for the consumers usually, who are largely women. In general YA consumers and authors are women, but I wish that they… just wrote about women too. I think there is a certain… snowball effect to the overrepresentation of mlm representing the whole LGBT community that leads to fetishization, as well as misogyny playing a factor in: less women characters being written well to write fanfic on, when they are written well they're taken less seriously or the audience struggles to relate to them, they're less marketable then men. 

Idk I never feel “seen” or “represented” by any of the books above, which don't address boyhood and manhood and queerness intersecting really, and AFTG doesn’t either. I relate to AFTG as a trauma victim who has experienced a lot of what many of the characters go through and have gone through in the EC as well as them just overall being very well written characters, but I don't relate to it as a mlm really. I've never seen like.. gay voice or being straight passing or femphobia or how boyhood can be affected from a young age by those around you sensing you're ‘other’ or if you didn't experience this you feel outside the mlm community. Let alone sub cultures like bear and leather and pup, at most you see the word “he's such a twink” in fandom which... i fr hate non mlm using that word because it's usually used to replace the f-slur essentially, used derogatorily or to call him “such a bottom” and stuff like that. It’s like a joke or an insult.

Long story short, idk mang this was a ramble and I think I'm coning down with something. I wanna see more queer women rep and women authors writing about being a queer woman too. I think it's a complex web of fetishization and a bit of forbidden love yaoi culture (or it used to be in the BOYXBOY days) as well as misogyny on an industry level, creator level, as well as reader/consumer and fandom level. I don’t think it’s inherently wrong to explore other peoples stories and what we read has to be segregated, “only mlm are allowed to read and write mlm, only wlw are allowed to read and write wlw,” but I also think author’s intent and audience and background is telling, as well as overall statistics. Like about an hour ago I was looking for cookbooks in spanish or in english, and I was looking for some mexican food cook books, but I had to look for them using words in spanish because otherwise what came up was a bunch of “fiesta party, easy as uno dos tres authentic cooking!” and I was like… hm. Since I could tell they were marketing to anglos. (also the author’s last names were like michelle smith, james cooper, and this could be for a variety of reasons, but I trust Hispanic names more tbh and deadass would look at the authors pictures and if they had other books in Spanish or what their specialties were.)

anyways. not sure how to end this. uhm if anyone has any book recs (my to read list is like 500 books tho no joke) preferably not YA white mlm written by a white lady, hopefully queer women written by queer woman, LMK, I need more wlw and queer women stories on my list. I have a decent amount but always looking for more. I kinda wanna link my goodreads or my storygraph but I also don't want to get doxxed and it has my legal name on it so.

Also, I'm dyslexic and using spell check but if there's like some wild typos my b.

[littlebookreader]

hermaphroditorum turpis diem

This has two parts: Information and the fic itself. For slightly easier accessibility, I will put both in this post itself.

Some information first:

Summary: Lord Sanger disembarks from the Flying Circus to return something to the Inspector, as Clara concocts a scheme. (For the Thursday prompt ‘Favourite Place/ Setting of the Victoriocity Appreciation Week 2021 and a belated Bi Visibility Day post. Takes place during ‘SMS Brandenburg’, shortly after Keller’s rescue.)

Fandoms: Victoriocity(Podcast)

Rating: General Audiences

Relationships: M/M, Gen

Word count: 749 words

Characters: Lord Sanger/ Inspector Archibald Fleet, Lord Sanger, Inspector Archibald Fleet, Clara Entwhistle, Father Kilburn. 

Additional Tags: Crackship, (belated) Happy Bi Visibility Day everyone!, wanted to post this yesterday, but was way too tired to finish heh, special thanks to @shutupeiffel  for the idea of Flanger being a mechanical part and wholeheartedly agreeing on the whole actor dynamic leaking into every show they’re in as a ship(crack or otherwise), so this is probably Chapyard as well, speaking of, Sanger is a simp, crackship, crack treated seriously(?), can’t really think of much else, author regrets everything(but not the ship itself), no beta we ship like Clara, here you go

@victoriocity-appreciation for the Favourite Place/Setting.

Part 5.5 of Love, Actually.

This was the information. For the rest of the fic, it’s all under the cut.

The world had never before seen such a wonder as the Flying Circus, owned and maintained by one Lord Sanger, who was just as much of a mystery to the circus members (and Fr. Kilburn) as he was to the rest of the world.

“Full of secrets, that one,” the priest lamented. “Almost as much as an enigma as our Lord and Savior, Archibald Fleet. Speaking of, I haven’t really seen any of them, since we took our little trip out to sea…”

The members of the congregation lamented their decisions to even attend the sermon in the first place.

Kilburn rambled on. “Do you think we should try to find out the whereabouts of our mechanical miracle, or should we wait for them to return.”

Someone in the audience, new, most likely, since no one really even wanted to be there in the first place asked: “Hasn’t anyone seen the Great Archibald Fleet?”

“Nonsense, my man, if we had seen him, the people present here today would truly understand what a miracle he is!”

The members present groaned. Another person, a child really, asked, “Weren’t we talking about Mr. Sanger a minute ago?”

“We were!” As he clarified the truth of the statement, the priest remembered something, a little piece of offhand information, that Sanger had shared with him, shortly before disappearing off to…

Kilburn knew exactly where.

_______________________________________________

In the meantime, while the priest rambled about mechanical saviours and mysterious circus men, Lord Sanger disembarked from his cabin, landing up smack in the middle of the park. It was a funny feeling, being on ground, but he was a man on a mission, and that mission was to contact the Inspector.

He didn’t have to look very far. The Inspector and Ms. Entwhistle, atleast from where he was standing, appeared to be almost entirely drenched(in sea water, he’d assumed, since that was where he’d seen her last) waving off a hot air balloon, which after dropping them off, looked like it was headed toward the palace.

He wouldn’t have called himself athletic in the least, though the amount of time he took to reach there was praiseworthy, if he might say so himself.

He waved at them as he ran along. “Inspector, Ms. Entwhistle!”

She waved back with equal enthusiasm, while the Inspector cocked his head, looking slightly puzzled. “Lord Sanger? What are you doing he- on the ground?”

“Oh, I just came here to return something of yours actually.”

He looked even more puzzled, a surprisingly endearing expression, and asked: “Mine?”

“Well, I don’t know much about mechanics here, but I think this is yours.” He held out the strange part he’d just found lying around on the floor of the circus, mostly using it as an intent to talk to the pair. As far as he knew, it could just as easily belong the to the Inspector.

Ms. Entwhistle smiled at the part, and snarked, “I didn’t know you actually went about dropping flangers now, Fleet.”

He wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. Flanger? He blinked. “A flanger?”

Apparently, Fleet was also wondering the same thing, as he asked, with a strained smile, “Clara, what are you doing.”

“Just thanking Lord Sanger for being so kind as to COME ALL THE WAY HERE (it was a strange emphasis, even he had to admit that) to return your flanger.”

“Er. Thank you, Lord Sanger.”

He beamed at the pair. “Not a problem. Well. I suppose my work here is done.” With that, he began to walk back toward the park, not quite sure of this new feeling he had about the Inspector. Sanger knew he admired women, had loved many even. Was it really possible to feel this way about men at the same time?

It was quite the thought, and Sanger shook it away immediately. No, it just wasn’t right. Was it?

He had just about spent a long four seconds deliberating on this, when he heard Ms. Entwhistle call: “Could you wait a minute, please?”

“Yes?”

Maybe it was just in his imagination, but he could have SWORN that Ms. Entwhistle’s smile had grown bigger, even if just by the fraction. “I’m headed in a different direction, Fleet, goodbye!”

The Inspector glared at her, while Sanger chuckled to himself. He wasn’t quite sure what her motivations were, but he wasn’t about to question them any time soon.

“The coffee house, then?”

To his immense surprise, the Inspector smiled at this. “To the coffee house.”

[elizabeth-234]

The Supplejack

Previous Chapter Eighteen: Existing

Chapter Nineteen: A Phone Call 

As the weeks passed, Peter struggled in vain against the extra workload of his sophomore year classes. The balance between work, school, friends, and himself was everchanging, ever in threat of tipping off the edge of the proverbial blade. Though the latter was pushed to the side with increasing frequency and his bed was becoming more of a rare luxury much to his dismay.

The tub of tabouli, hummus, and carrots sat uneaten in front of him while Mike explained again why the discourse surrounding the new Firefly show was important to their group and the larger culture abroad.

“It’s a western in space, guys, how can you not like it? Plus, Nathan Fillion is working it. You know he’s damn charming.” 



“It’s basically a soap opera and you know it.” Midge said, arms crossed in front of them.

Mike sputtered and Ned stepped in before anyone else would get more offended. Still pouting his lips, Mike turned away from them and started shoveling down his lunch. Midge just sighed. Peter shifted in his seat wondering if he should say anything when Ned bumped shoulders with him.

“You okay?”

He forced a smile on his face. Ned waited for an answer, his eyes open and earnest. The expression made something in Peter’s chest ache. This bitter tug nestled down behind his ribs. Ned was dragged along in all of this. What started as befriending a lone boy in an empty classroom had turned into trying to gather intel from two of the biggest corporations in the world. Still, his friend was right there for him, ready and unfailingly patient with a smile.

“Want to hang out this weekend?” Peter asked instead of answering the question.

He wanted to do something. To have fun and get out of the house for once. His work shifts were pretty stacked up but it was worth it to rearrange them. Ned agreed if his answering smile was any indication.

“Yeah, dude. There’s this cool exhibit downtown about brainwashing. Maybe weird but it could be cool.”

“Sounds fun.” He said.

“Yeah, they get all these big companies to put something together. I’m surprised you know who didn’t do it. I hear Oscorp is holding one in the fall.”


Peter rubbed his chest. The cafeteria noise rushed toward him. All the laughter and words and echoes pressed against him, weighing down. His smile felt wobbly to him but hoped it came off as sincere.  

“We’ll have to check the one this weekend out.”

-

Ten hours later, Peter sat at his desk. His head resting in the crux of his arms crossed on the scattered papers and notebooks. He shifted in the chair and tried not to think about the coming week. The to-do list was somewhere in the mess under him. Every bullet point added another reason his headache was growing at an alarming rate.

One of the pages peaked out from under the curve of his elbow. The model car on it was dissected into the median and coronal planes showcasing all the guts. Why was he tinkering with it after all this time? No one would see it now. Red marks, newly etched into the paper some sleepless night would probably never leave this room let alone the top of his desk unless it was carried through the trash.

The thought of acknowledging he was finally abandoning the project left him gripping onto the papers tight in his palms. Even all these months later, Peter found himself tweaking their project and trying to improve upon it. Lee, the head intern, had said she was always available. Maybe he could email it over and then she could send it onto whoever her boss was? The chain of command wasn’t something he was entirely familiar with but eventually it had to land in his hands.

His phone buzzed.

Out of habit, Peter flipped it upside-down without looking to see who it was from. He tapped his finger against the wood until the sound stopped. He only just managed to sigh when the buzzing started again.

Phone calls were the worst. He hated answering the phone, hated talking over people and not seeing their facial expressions, and hated how goodbyes were always awkward. Above all he hated the way he could never talk in a coherent manner. Always felt like he was overstepping or worse in some people’s eyes, being too quiet.

Phone calls from anyone besides May were trouble. His aunt was in the living room so that meant it was bad. He could be expelled from Midtown or one of his friends could be hurt. Ned’s hands bloody. Julia’s heart stopping. Flash’s chest not rising anymore. Peter’s chest throbbed at the images. With sweaty hands he grabbed his phone off the desk and looked at the ID.

It was from an unknown number.

His thumb hovered over the green button as it rang but he didn’t answer.

If he didn’t answer it was easier to pretend nothing was wrong. The worry barely concealed by his expression was better left unfounded. He kept reading through one of his source books on mechanical engineering but the words held no meaning. His eyes kept returning to the flip phone sitting all innocent inches away from his hand.

His fingers twitched and the phone rang again.

Peter breathed in deeply before flipping it over. He read the number over again. Tried to memorize the digits quickly as if they would hold some significance the longer they were in his mind. The ringing continued and continued for what felt like forever.  

His Uncle Ben came to mind. Without letting him linger for too long again, he flipped his phone open and pressed enter. The other side of the call was silent. There was no breathing or anything to indicate someone was there.

“Hello?” The crack in his voice echoed in his ears.

“Am I speaking to Peter?”

The voice was smooth - pristine in its cadence and rhythm. Unlike his own, the words were spoken with no hesitancy or irregular pitch. There never was, either. It was a voice Peter would recognize anywhere. Hearing them say his name now made him realize how much he missed them. It was a strange thought considering. How could he miss a voice so much?

He scowled. It wasn’t fair to minimize Friday to that of just their voice.

“Fr - Friday? I…How did you get this number?”

There was another pause. Peter wished he’d said something else instead of beginning with such a sharp tone. He could’ve asked how they were doing or greeted them with enthusiasm. Instead the panic from earlier manifested in more of a bark. Heat flooded from his neck up to his ears.

“I have scanned through the Stark databases and found this number on Boss’s phone.” He couldn’t help it. Peter laughed throwing a hand over his mouth to muffle the sound. Friday’s silence was enough to confirm they heard but it didn’t dampen his smile.

This was Friday he was talking to. Peter couldn’t believe it and if the smile on his face was wide and almost made his cheeks hurt, he could almost forget about everything else.

“You stole my number from Mr. Stark’s phone?”

“Peter, as I said I scanned...”

“You did! Friday, I can’t believe it. Wait, is everything okay? Did something happen? Is … Mr. Sta- everyone’s okay, right? I mean you don’t have to tell me anything but is everyone…”

“Everyone’s fine. I’m sorry to have made you worry. I would also like to apologize for keeping silent. I called you friend once but haven’t acted in accordance to what constitutes that bond.”

Peter’s neck burned. Friday’s voice sounded as hesitant as Peter felt and he was glad, for once, he wasn’t in the Tower so they couldn’t hear his heartbeat pounding in his chest.

“No need to apologize. I just assumed when I left…”

“That has no bearing on it. There were other factors. Some I can talk about some I can’t.”

“Is, is this why you called? What can you talk about?”

Peter imagined Friday was taking a large breath in from the gap between answer and question. His heart, already beating far too fast for a regular school night, increased its speed.  

“You need to come back to the Tower, Peter.”

His ears filled with cotton inducing a fuzzy ringing. It grew louder and louder until he found himself leaning his forehead against the desk. The phone rested where it fell on the table by his clenched hand. He scooped it up despite the trembling in his digits and brought the phone to his ear again.

“Friday?” He rasped out.

“You need to come back to the Tower. There are matters here that would… benefit from your presence.”

There were too many pauses in the sentence and a million phrases flowing through his mind in response. Following on his immediate responses were a plethora of images of the Tower. He conjured filled hospital beds, condemned signs, and most haunting, empty rooms. The worry gnawed at his stomach not caring about Friday’s reassurances. Something had to be wrong. Why else would Friday contact him? It had been months.

There was nothing more he wanted, but all he managed to say was, “I can’t.”

The pain it would bring was all too easy to think about. He’d had a taste of it at the finale internship presentations. The sheer amount of people buzzing with excitement was enough to dull the awkward hurt but Peter couldn’t forget how hard it was to breath once he was in the Tower again. The familiarity burned at his throat. What was a safe haven reduced to just some place he used to know had hurt more than he was willing to say out loud.

Friday wanted him to go back there after everything. No awards or parties would be there to distract. He would have to walk down the hallways and see the beautiful skyline only glimpsed at that height. He would have to see Mr. Stark.

What would he say? What would he do?

“I can’t work on the project anymore, Peter.”

It was devastating in its simplicity. A twist of the metaphorical knife Peter had never even felt embedded in his side. It was a rope taken away as his head sunk swiftly under water. All the progress he’d made even if he didn’t realize it, was gone in the moment those words were said.

Mr. Stark was clear. Final.

At the time there were a thousand words he’d wanted to say but then and now it didn’t seem right. Now, the sense of betrayal no longer stung because it didn’t matter that Mr. Stark knew all about the Weaver and Oscorp. In the end, no amount of explaining or conversation would fix anything because there was nothing to fix.

The steps he took through the door were some of the hardest in his life. His surreptitious glance back resulted in seeing Mr. Stark bowed and facing away from him. The frightened look crossing over his face before hardly seemed to matter in the face of those words. It told Peter all he needed to know. Peter wasn’t wanted. Who wanted to look after a confused teenager? His time there was over.

Or so, he thought.

Months and months passed and now Friday was on the other end like nothing happened. Was there an option besides declining?

He would have thought Friday didn’t know what happened but that was impossible. They knew basically everything that happened in the Tower. It could be some misplaced urge to help Peter. It didn’t make sense. Despite their reassurances, he couldn’t help but worry something was the matter and despite his caution, Peter was curious.

Still, he repeated the two words again. They sounded more like a plea than a decision.

“What you are saying is you won’t not that you can’t. I know you only have one job and the owner has already given permission. I’m asking with sincerity. I need your help…. We need your help.”

Peter took his time to exhale. He stared at the phone in his hands, tracing Friday’s number with his eyes.

He thought of all the reasons not to go back. But the latest realization barged forward. It was with surprising ease that Peter thought about all the help Mr. Stark had thrown his way. All of the encouragement and kindness he showed without Peter even understanding what was happening.

The question wasn’t if he wanted to go back. He would always want to go back. The Tower in a way had grown to be his home. A safe space he never felt drained from after being there. No one expected anything more than Peter could give and the peace of working there, flexing his mind and being with people who understood him was intoxicating.

He could admit to himself he wanted to say yes without thinking despite every reason to say no. He had to be cautious about this, he decided. Peter had to make sure he wouldn’t get hurt like before. That no one would get hurt.

“Friday, you have to tell me what’s wrong.”

Only when he knew could Peter go back. Only then would Peter step foot in the Tower again.

Enjoy!

Next Chapter Twenty: 

[zoppzoop]

another uquiz binge

what anime character trope you are based on very specific questions about your childhood

literally just evil for no fucking reason

fuck you

let me psychoanalyze you but also be nice

you push everyone away.

it's not that you don't appreciate help, it just feels so wrong. you still have a hard time saying 'i love you' back. but you don't ever have to. tell people you love them by remembering little things they tell you. paying for their lunch the next time you go out. telling them you saw a movie and it reminded you of them. sometimes it's hard to remember that just because you've felt unloved before, it doesn't mean you're unloved now. I love you :-)

what decade do you truly belong in

90's bitch

counter culture, clueless, scream, and flannel. drew barrymore could never and you've probably contemplated plucking your eyebrows Way too thin.

i'll designate you ____ to lovers

Friends

first comes understanding. there's something about them that you just *get*, and they get you. you're soft around each other, extra considerate, allowing this person into the domesticity of your life just because they make the little moments better. because you like to see them happy. they deserve to be happy, after all. you want what's best for them because they're your f... you want them to be more than your friend. you look at them and see someone so completely worth loving, and it kills you not to be able to say that to them - what if you lose what you have? it's enough, you tell yourself, just to be able to love someone so fully. it's enough just to be near them. of course, meanwhile, they are thinking all the same things about you, wondering if your small gestures actually mean something, or if they're reading too much into it. things are so good now, maybe it's not worth upsetting. you live in the torturous pleasure of their orbit, but one day, the truth comes out, and the relief that comes is the sweetest you have ever tasted.

choose songs from my spotify playlists and I'll psychoanalyze you

you let others take advantage of you and you're resentful for it

you're a people pleaser that avoids conflict; you don't know how to stand up for yourself. you've put others before yourself so many times that you can't even identify your own basic self needs. you're the type of person that bottles up their emotions and explodes when it gets to be too much. there's nothing selfish about putting yourself first, and anyone who gets angry about doing so isn't someone worth having in your life anyways. putting yourself first doesn't make you a bad person. needs and boundaries are human and they deserve to be respected :')

  What female character trope are you?

Beautiful All Along

Your appearance probably doesn't fit in with what people describe as "normal". You're tired of getting dissaproving glances from the grandparents, or comments of "oh, but your hair looked so much better before!". Honey, I'm here to tell you you are beautiful no matter how you dress and do your makeup, and don't you dare change yourself to look how other people think you should. Seriously. Allison looked so much better before the makeover, and you do too. And don't be afraid to be considered a nerd!! Nerds fucking rock!!!

AOT kin assignment quiz!!

historia reiss

okay gay

tell me what you'd do in difficult situations and i'll tell you something nice

no fr i would fall in love with you

i really would !!!! i swear !! you're just ,, ,,,, amazing in every way and i'd probably have a fat crush on you djfkdjf ? okay ily have a nice day

Which horror villain are you

Final Girl

congratulations, you took a villain quiz and didn't get assigned a villain. you're every sidney prescott, laurie strode, and alice hardy. you're tough and resourceful, and the will to survive burns fiercely in you. god help anyone that tries to harm you.

psychoanalysis with a side of bread

sourdough: full of rage

You’re broken in a specific kind of way, not like Rye, who’s emo. You’re angry, and you want to stay angry because anger blinds you, in that temporarily good way. It clouds your vision of the future, but you like that because then you can’t see your inevitable explosion into something pathetic. And you know, once that anger deflates, the only thing left will be you and your harsh judgement of yourself. You’d rather take out your issues on other people or things than acknowledge them yourself because you find that easier. You probably like to do physical things to distract from sadness; even if it’s just laundry or dishes it drives the problem out of your head for a moment. Doesn’t all that running make you tired?

what the f**k is wrong with you

crippling loneliness

you have approximately zero friends irl and you go insane at the thought of someone holding your hand. i love you but watching bad netflix shows isnt a coping mechanism

curate a kpop playlist and i'll tell you something about you

u like girls

me too :) you're the best kind of person in the entire world. if you're sapphic, take that sentiment and multiply it by fifty million. but please stop asking twitter for a gf. there r apps specifically for that

let me psychoanalyze you based off of my bad mental health

you lash out for attention, negative or positive.

maybe you were neglected. maybe you got too much attention and can't deal with anything less. nonetheless, you will say or do out of pocket things just so you can have some eyes on you. whether that be hurting someone because they forgot to respond to a text or continuously making jokes just so the room can continue laughing. you can't cope with not feeling wanted. you have to accept that attention is not the only thing you have to strive for in life. you have to be okay with just yourself sometimes.

[danieyells]

Thanks for answering my questions! I know it was a lot lmao but I Am Have Questions and very few people informed enough to discuss them with xD

I suppose it is possible they Oniwaka and Co. were being rent from their exceptions and not to Tokyo itself, but I thought the way it worked was that MC rent their connection to Tokyo itself and overwrote it with their own! I hadn't considered your angle before; something to think about haha

If I remember right though, Sitri's wings, and with them his powers, only grew in recently right? Like, a little while before the first Valentine's Event? That's why he had so much trouble controlling them if I recall correctly! But sustaining himself on that energy is one thing that can be explained (though! It's possible that part of Sitri's deep desire for chocolate in general, but valentine's chocolate especially, is the love that gets put into them? Not to say he sustains himself solely on it or anything, but it might explain the strength of his desires ahaha)

Wait. Do those character quests mean that collisions can literally send people into the pasts of other worlds?? Like fr?? And also, does that mean collisions are like, direct overlaps with other worlds and not just illusory versions?

Part of why I'm trying to sort this all out is because I want to write a TAS fic, but I needed a better understanding of how, exactly, the system works, and was basically about to throw my hands in the air and say that actually nobody goes home at all until they've fulfilled their contracts ever and that's that xD I've finished all the story content btw! Including chapter 11 and most of the translated events, except for the Canaan one (gotta get on that, pray I get myself a Dagon 5★)

Does that mean that we contracts are *unfulfillable*? Like MC's connection with Agyo was basically like "I want friend lmao" and then they got their friend, but does that mean that Agyo is trapped in Tokyo until MC decides that they don't want to be friends with him anymore?

Also, do you think that if a Stray Transient does eventually run out of energy to sustain themselves in Tokyo, they get booted back to their world permanently, or do you think they just recover their strength in their home world and then get pulled back over?

Thanks again for answering my questions! I hope that this is proving as interesting to explore to you as it is to me hahaha

I don't mind that it's a lot at all! Lol it was just a surprise. I'm honored to be approached about this kind of thing, and I find it very interesting, yeah! 'u' I love worldbuilding and characterization so thinking about/sharing my thoughts on it for things I like is always a pleasure.

I mean it's possible they're rending their connection to Tokyo, but I feel like that wouldn't take the exception away? Because it came from an interaction they had, not Tokyo itself. I figured they were torn from the exception and the exception and fighting robbed them of all their energy in the proccess of making them a. . .screaming, mindless fighting machine lmao. Like rending a familiar from someone? But that familiar is inside them? If that makes sense? I don't remember if this was explained to begin with let alone how lol I should reread it lol

Sitri's wings did come in pretty recently, and they're implied to be a puberty thing. The problem is that he says they came in "the other day"--which doesn't necessarily mean "two days ago" as convenient as that'd be. The Japanese is even more vague, just saying "When I was taking a bath" without giving a timeframe. But I kinda figured that, until the wings popped in, love from his family was enough to sustain him. Because Bathym doesn't have a family here, really, he has his fans and the guild. But also since his family knew about the wings, saying they were a sign he was growing up, maybe they have a similar power that pops in during puberty and thus were able to feed him others' feelings. But yeah they were new which is why he couldn't control them.

As for the pasts in other worlds. . .time doesn't flow in other worlds the same as it does in Tokyo necessarily. El Dorado isn't even around anymore, time in Shangri-La flows slower than in Tokyo, etc--but these places still participate in the Game despite that. So worlds and timelines aren't entirely stable--after all time's been reset over and over. Also, we have time travelers from Utopia(which is the future???) so if they were forced to conform to a single space-time path that'd be kind of difficult? So, yeah, time and space and memories aren't necessarily stable in collisions. I mean, if a world collided based on memories, who's to say those places are still exactly as remembered? It works for the jungle in Shangri-La because it's a jungle and how much will that change--but the collided oceans are connected to towns in other worlds? Dagon connected islands from various worlds into one, too--those can't all be his own memories or from the same timeframe. Collisions are pretty unstable by definition so it doesn't surprise me that time can get screwed up along the way.

But yeah collisions seem to be actual overlaps of some sort--since Macan remembered that he heard MC's voice that happened in the collision, Xolotl met and saw himself in the collision, etc. And those things had effects that brought them to Tokyo to begin with.

Oh, there's also Nomad's character story where MC was invisible to everyone but Nomad--Nomad could feel them too--because the worlds were unstable under Ikebukuro Coliseum and they reminded Nomad of the prison he was in, causing the Collision.

MC could travel the collision/memory without Nomad around and get accurate information about its layout to help him escape.

If the collision doesn't alter the actual past then there's no way they'd know without Nomad physically with them. . .and there's no way Nomad would know where to go to escape the prison if MC weren't able to get actual information.

Then MC breaks the lights--only Nomad can see them, but they can affect reality/the past in a way that influenced everyone in it. And they're able to escape thanks to information MC gathered about and influence MC had on the world that Nomad would have no means whatsoever of getting/doing on his own.

Then they saw present Nomad who said MC was his, MC tried to reassure past!Nomad that it was okay, they were the same person, and past!Nomad felt betrayed.

Past Nomad sees MC through the transient light and chases after them, bringing him to Tokyo in continued pursuit of revenge.

. . .and present Nomad, now home with Mc and having had resolved the collision, remembered that he'd been chasing MC through the transient light but had travelled to Tokyo to find them--but had not travelled to them. He'd likely forgotten who he was looking for because he was kind of out of his mind at the time and thought he was chasing after his own hallucination to begin with.

Now that he remembers he wanted to kill MC for leaving him but also knows that he's the one who MC left him for, he deems them half a traitor for only betraying the him of the past not the him of the present and lets them off the hook for now.

(nice kabedon--DAMN THE TEN IMAGE LIMIT.)

MC was the one he wanted venegence against when he left Utopia, although he still has to get revenge against the people who turned him into a tiger. But he went to Tokyo to get revenege against MC and made a contract with them without remembering they were the target. He says he won't kill them for now but someday, when his other revenge is done, he'll come after them for betraying him. Until then they're his assistant and they'll be helping him get revenge. If they betray him again--betray him "one and a half times"--they'll become the new priority and he'll kill them first.

But even he said that he thinks that he's crazed for revenge is stupid so MC figured out that he wants them to keep him in check. (He calls them 'traitor' fondly(? He smiles while doing it, I think it's pretty fond) and I wish he kept doing that but it'd probably reveal more to people than Nomad is comfortable revealing lol so he calls you by name instead.)

Also, canonness note, he declares them his detective assistant when he declares them his accomplice--and in the Beach House Andvari he reiterates that's your relationship too. Which means that his character quest is canon across events. And if events are canon--whether through your choices or not(at one point in the story you know Gyobu but you only met him in events until that point???) that means Mc making pacts with everyone could be canon too.

. . .but yeah collisions are just time and space freaking out. Maybe they're past resets of sorts.

And oooh fanfics are exciting 'u' I'll give it a read if you link it! And congrats on reading everything! *U* I've gotta do that myself lol and good luck getting 5★Dagon!! I wanted 5★Tangaroa(someone I have added has him and. . .holy shit he heals himself, he heals allies around him, he's practically invincible) but I ran out of transient stones and I'm poor irl 8'D The Canaan event is fun and also chaotic and will probably give you even MORE questions about how the fuck timelines and collisions work. Because it kinda introduces a new mechanic into the mix. So uh brace yourself?

The problem with "nobody goes home until they've fulfilled their contracts" is that some people just don't have contracts. And their own desires only seem to cause gates to open and take them, not actually bind them--someone from Tokyo(or in Tokyo in MC's case) needs to be their binding agent if they're not like. A World Rep or someone similarly powerful enough to stay on their own(this is a guess--they're probably sustained by being the System and thus stand on the faith of all their people from their world. Alternatively they're bound to Tokyo via MC as the trophy.) Otherwise they wouldn't note that transients disappear eventually if unbound by a contract.

Gullinbursti isn't attached to MC by contract anymore not because MC said "I don't want us to be friends" or anything but because MC refused to make a proper contract with him because he'd misinterpret it. But he's still hanging out, so. It's not immediate. But, yeah, there are probably unfulfillable contracts that can only be broken by death or declaration. Agyo is stuck with MC until MC says he can go lol--I mean they're friends now but it'd defeat the purpose of the pact if they went away as soon as that happened. Because MC wants more and more companions they'll never truly have their desire to have friends fulfilled probably. So anyone summoned that way gets to stay in Tokyo until MC is no longer in it or maybe until MC decides "I don't want people around me anymore/I don't want to see anyone ever again" and truly means it--which will declare their contracts fulfilled and send them home, if they have a home/life to return to.

As for if Stray Transients go back permanently, yes and no. I think they go back and recuperate their energy and they stay home if they don't have an outstanding pact(whether they're aware or not)--however if they were just there because they went into the light and had nothing binding them to the land but that energy/will that brought them, they'd go home without bwing sent back unless they really wanted it again. Thus they can be resummoned, intentionally or otherwise. If MC one day dismisses everyone, regrets it, and says they want their friends back, everyone would come back. But if they didn't ask for everyone to return they'd stay home(disregarding that they'd probably all go NO WE WANNA GO BACK TAKE US TO MC and the transient light would bring them back to Tokyo again lmao.)

So. Yeah, they'll stay home until summoned again, even after they get their energy back, I think. If they don't have a home to go back to maybe they float in the void for a while, kinda like how MC just kinda existed as the Exiles without a home or like how Robinson says they can't stay anywhere forever because they're Wanderers.

(Somewhat related, Shiro mentions in the Apprentice Santa event that it must be hard to import turkey to Tokyo. . .import it from where? Tokyo is closed off on all sides INCLUDING THE OCEAN. That means someone's bringing turkey from other worlds into Tokyo--a business-like summoning contract lol. "Come to Tokyo, bring goods from other worlds, and you can go back until I need more" basically. Using another world like a manufacturing plant lol. . .little things like that make me consider that you can go and come back at the will of a summoner, assuming you donct have an artifact or ability that allows you to traverse worlds as you please.)

Another thing for you to consider if you wanna be a bit more puzzled: remember how much belief plays a part in how things work in Tokyo. Consider. . .if someone claims they're not a stray transient when they actually are and everyone around them believes that they have a contract or guild or something keeping them there even though it's not true. . .are they bound to Tokyo by that belief as long as they're around more people who think they're bound to somebody? Will they disappear if people stop believing them or they're around people who believe they're a stray? Consiquentially if people believe a stray will disappear sooner than later does their timer run out faster? If Ose somehow ran around telling people that transients won't disappear with his ability to make people believe everything he says, do they stop disappearing because no one thinks they will? I suppose he can't lie to nature, but can those beliefs sustain people? I mean belief can cause Oni to be hurt by beans, can cause Behemoth to regain his sense of taste, can cause people from worlds that've been destroyed to become demons because the Angels invading will it to be so. So where does belief's power end and the power of the System kick in? Does the game end if MC puts on Ose's crown and tells the Representaives it's over and they all lost? Or would the alternation of belief on a mass scale cause an Exception by clashing with something more powerful than it? What, since they so value Systems and the Faith that sustains them, to the point that losing Faith in your System causes a full on collapse of the world it holds together(see:Canaan), is more powerful in this game than the power of belief?

[yridenergyridenergy]

Dir en grey’s lyrics have a lot of dark elements, it’s our signature. However, you know, what counts is what comes after all that. We see that the most in the case of live shows, it makes a lot of melancholic emotions come to the surface, some of the most disturbing feelings known to mankind. That’s one of our main concepts, but what comes afterwards can very well be described as a real ray of hope. Something positive, bright, like you said. We are also very mindful of the way our fans react during our shows. We don’t simply play sad songs, only to then let you return home. No. We’re cautious of the reactions, we interpret what we see, the feeling of the people.

Full English Translation: 

Die welcomed the JaME team backstage at the Élysée Montmartre in the moments leading to the law show of Dir en grey’s tour This Way to Self-Destruction

Located between the Sacré-Coeur and the bohemian boulevard de Rochechouart, the Élysée Montmartre is a majestic and romantic building of low height, with a century-old ballroom inside. Die, one of the band’s guitarists, is waiting for us backstage, temperately sat at a canteen table, a hesitant smile on his lips which relaxes along the way. Exhibiting an olympian calmness despite the countdown to the start of a sold out concert, he took the time to speak to JaME of his impressions on the tour, the creative process behind their latest album, the emotions he wishes to transfer to the fans and... his impressions of Paris and France! 

Today, it’s the last date of the European tour This Way to Self-Destruction. Do you want to tell us a bit about that experience? 

Die : So, our last European tour dated back to 2018 already. This year, we started with Russia and tonight is already the last show here in Paris. In each venue, we were received by many, many people, we were really well welcomed, it was a great tour. 

During this tour, you played mainly songs from the latest album, The Insulated World, released in 2018. It’s a heavier album compared to the previous albums, don’t you think? What’s the concept behind it? 

Die : When we started working on The Insulated World, our intention was really to break the rules, to sever the chains, everything that was holding us back before. It isn’t a mechanical process, nor just in terms of sound, it’s more complex than that. Since we began working on the artistic concept, the ideas we wanted to express through this album, our approach was really to put it all aside, in order to proceed in a simple fashion, directly, without thinking too much about it. That being said, I don’t see it as a very heavy album, or at least not really heavier than our previous albums. The heavy sound is intentional though, it isn’t a product of chance. 

On the topic of heavy sonority, Dir en grey is often described as a heavy metal band that expresses very dark themes. The Insulated World really illustrates that tendency well. And yet, your fans seem to find something positive from your compositions. Do you think it’s possible to say that metal has a bright side?

Die :  Of course! Dir en grey’s lyrics have a lot of dark elements, it’s our signature. However, you know, what counts is what comes after all that. We see that the most in the case of live shows, it makes a lot of melancholic emotions come to the surface, some of the most disturbing feelings known in the human condition [known to mankind]. That’s one of our main concepts, but what comes afterwards can very well be described as a real ray of hope. Something positive, bright, like you said. We are also very mindful of the way our fans react during our shows. We don’t simply play sad songs, just to let you return home. No. We’re cautious of the reactions, we interpret what we see, the feeling of the people. 

In this case, do you feel inspired by things that occur in real life? In your daily life, as human beings, in the books you read, the movies you watch... what happens? Where does your creativity come from?

Die : So, inspiration, inspiration... (hesitates) That’s a very tough question. I really struggle to discern some specific sources of inspiration, because in Dir en grey, our main taret is to create things that nobody else has created before. You know, when you listen to a song and that you think: “Oh, that sounds like this or that band?” That’s exactly what we want to avoid. As such, in terms of filters and inspiration, notably, we usually start with something complex, and then the process consists of simplifying. We spend a ton of time rearranging our songs to make them sufficiently accessible before releasing them on CD. It’s slightly the contrary of what many other bands do, I guess, we spend a lot of time simplifying our music in the hope of creating something that is Dir en grey. 

In your free time, do you also listen to dark music? Or other genres of music? 

Die : In fact, I listen to everything that’s new on Apple Music. I like listening to new releases, I like seeing how different bands evolve... You know, there are bands that change a whole lot, while others remain true to themselves, I find that interesting. 

Do you know and appreciate some French heavy metal bands? 

Die : French heavy metal bands... Oh, yes! Dagoba, we played with them in 2015. They are a very powerful and aggressive band. Otherwise, French fans, I’m open to suggestions! 

And surely we’ll advise you on new tunes to add to your playlist! And in conclusion, have you had time to visit Paris? What did you think of it? 

Die: Yes! I already visited before, but this year was the first time I climbed on the Sacré Coeur hill, where I suddenly found myself with this magnificent view of the city, it was awesome. I really love French bread too, the baguettes. It indeed is something simple for you guys, but I find it delicious! 

[ultraintrovertedgryffindor]

The 100 AU

I just read the allegations of one of my favorite actors and I’m (de)pressed. I have no idea if I believe it myself, but if it’s true, then wtf and this dude needs a reality check fr 🙄

Anyway, I just wanted to write something that’ll make me feel better.

~~~~~~~~~~

(not my gif)

The years that went by were peaceful and happy, a big change from having to fight others and protect those that were friends, something Clarke was not used to. Of course, she missed her daughter and the friends she lost along the way to peace, but she was satisfied to know Madi was happy wherever transcendence was. 

Everyone else seemed happy with their decision to stay behind with Clarke, she was thankful for them, and Picasso of course.

Just like “Lexa” said, no one had children, much to the dismay of Murphy and Emori, but they had each other.

Indra was the first to pass away, her being the eldest, but she died holding her daughter’s hand and everyone around her, she died loved. Even more years had to pass for the rest to pass away, Niylah being the first. It was just as painful, knowing they’d never see each other again, but everyone made sure to comfort the Grounder woman just like they did with Indra.

One by one, Clarke’s family left her, some two at a time (even in death, Murphy and Emori followed after one another). The last to leave Clarke was Raven. She noted that even in old age, the feisty mechanic looked beautiful, which she expressed to put a smile on her face one last time.

Clarke’s lip trembled as she felt Raven go stiff in her arms, a content expression on her face as her soul left her body.

There was no point in the “may we meet again’s”, not anymore, knowing that they wouldn’t. Clarke wondered if that how Jasper felt before Praimfaya.

Being an old woman, Clarke didn’t have the strength to give her friend a proper burial, but she still tried, but her frail body didn’t allow her.

Clarke slowly walked back to the beach, where she sat down on the shore to look out at the sky as was tradition after every death, but this time it was silent. She had no one to talk to about the recently passed friend, about different memories that would make her laugh. After Murphy and Emori died, the rest of the night was just conversation about how amazing they were as people, and how Murphy could make jokes at any moment and it would elicit laughter out of anyone.

Clarke looked to her right, where Raven would usually be, and frowned.

Clarke thought it was fitting. She arrived back on Earth first, she’d be the last one to leave. Yeah...it was pretty fitting.

Clarke knew she had a good life, it would end happily.

Clarke laid back on the sand, feeling the soft ground in between her fingers. She felt the Sun on her face, the trees just a few meters away, smelling the scent of wildflowers on the chill breeze. It was so beautiful. The ground, that was her dream, and she got to live her perfect dream to the very end.

“Clarke?”

Clarke opened her eyes, seeing the feisty mechanic that she saw die just moments ago softly smiling down at her. “Raven?”

“I knew you wouldn’t be too far behind.” Her smile grew wider.

Clarke looked her friend over, she looked just like she did in her twenties. “Where are we? Is this transcendence?”

Raven’s smile faltered slightly. “No. But we aren’t in Hell, that much I know.” Raven chuckled at Clarke’s confused face. “We’ve all been waiting for you.”

“Huh?”

Raven reached out her hand. “I’ll show you.”

Clarke stood up with Raven’s help, and she couldn’t help but gasp at the sight. The world around her was indescribable, she knew she could never find the right words to express how beautiful everything was. She never knew something could be more beautiful than Earth.

“Is this Heaven?”

Raven smirked. “It definitely feels that way, doesn’t it? We think it’s more like, the knockoff transcendence.” She chuckled. “I didn’t come up with that expression though, so I can’t take credit for that.”

“We?” The amount of questions Clarke had kept adding up by the second.

“Clarke. Relax.” Raven shook her friend’s shoulders slightly. “Everything’s okay. Now, come on, everyone’s getting impatient.”

Clarke huffed. “I would relax if I knew what the hell was going on.” 

The two girls came up on a mansion, almost resembling Alie’s, but Clarke quickly ignored that thought. 

When Raven opened the door, Clarke was instantly met with the smell of baked goods that made her mouth water instantly. The Latina led her to what she presumed was the kitchen, as the smell increased in intensity.

As soon as the girls walked in, Clarke was met with the booming sound of clapping and cheering. The sight almost made her sob then and there.

There in the middle of the kitchen with a pair of pink oven mitts was Murphy, holding a tray of freshly baked pastries, Emori right beside him wearing excited grins.

Gaia was sitting with her mother at the island opposite of the couple. Hope and Jordan were playing board games at one of the other tables. Niylah was leaning against the wall, she was obviously waiting for their arrival. Miller and Jackson were petting Picasso. Levitt was nowhere to be seen, but in his place next to Octavia was someone Clarke never thought she’d see again. Lincoln.

“There she is!” Murphy shouted much too loudly, causing everyone to laugh.

“How?” Clarke gaped. “How is this possible?”

“Clarke, what did I say? Relax!” Raven grinned, walking over to hug Echo who was just walking into the kitchen.

“Took you long enough.” Echo teased with a smirk playing at the corner of her mouth.

“Hey, princess.”

Clarke froze at the voice from behind her. Thick tears welled in her eyes as she instantly recognized the gruff voice. She didn’t have to turn around to know her best friend was standing behind her. From the look of everyone else’s faces, she knew. Murphy was the first one to shoo everyone out of the kitchen, even the dog. He knew they would need space.

“Clarke.”

Clarke knew she would have to face him eventually, so she forced herself to turn around, but she kept her eyes to the floor.

“Look at me.” He said softly.

Clarke shook her head, the movement forcing her tears to finally fall out of her eyes and landing on her boots. “I can’t...” She cried, the feeling of guilt weighing on her heart.

Clarke felt warm arms wrap around her shoulders, and she let out a shaky breath. “It’s okay.”

Clarke finally dared to look up, seeing his clean shaven face, his dark curly hair framing his face. He looked like the same boy who pulled the level with her at Mount Weather.

“Bellamy...I’m so sorry.” Clarke starting full on sobbing.

Bellamy smiled softly. “You have nothing to apologize for, Clarke.”

“I...I killed you.”

“You had to, to save Madi.”

Clarke shook her head. “I didn’t save her. She ended up dying anyway.” She sobbed.

Bellamy caressed Clarke’s hair, pulling her in for another hug. “You still did the right thing. I was dangerous. I was too brainwashed to think about anything else. If I was in your place...I wouldn’t done the same thing for Octavia.” Bellamy pulled away to wipe the tears from her face. “You don’t have to be sorry for anything. Everything’s okay now. We don’t have to worry about anything anymore.”

Clarke’s sobs finally stopped, and she felt better now that Bellamy was here and didn’t blame her.

Bellamy smiled. “There’s someone else that wants to see you.”

Clarke tilted her head in confusion. “There is?”

“Go on up the stairs and down the hall, second door to the left.” Bellamy instructed, shooing his best friend away.

The house was huge, so Clarke repeated to herself what Bellamy said. Second door to the left...

The door was already slightly ajar. Clarke felt a pit in her stomach. She wondered who could be possibly waiting for her. After seeing Bellamy again, who knows? She thought of her Mom...maybe she would finally see her mother again...or Madi.

The door groaned as it was pushed open, alerting the person inside of Clarke’s presence.

Clarke gasped. Just when she thought she was done crying for the day, the tears welled up once again. She almost didn’t recognize the woman in her casual looking attire, so used to seeing her in her Heda outfit with her typical war paint. But she was just as beautiful as the day she last saw her.

“Hello, Clarke.” Lexa smiled.

~~~~~~~~~~

don’t mind me, just crying my eyes out over what could’ve been. i want dead 😭

[skamamoroma]

You have talked about your own mental health before and how it impacts you and I just was thinking how kind you are with the evens and how much you love them and with Eliott stuff coming up I just wondered maybe how you wanted to see him experience life?

Oh wow what a question!

Aside from all the theories re: cheating going around today...I’m going to ignore that as we know nothing and I am not going to presume and get all angry before the season begins. Is it possible Skam Fr will screw it up and go down as being the remake who wrecked their Evak - absolutely. But I’d like to think they wouldn’t be so stupid and that this stuff today was a way to develop themes from Lucas’ season alongside Arthur. We can hope!

My mental health issues are cyclical. They are relatively predictable timing wise and my condition is very often misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder... so I really do feel like I have an appreciation for the feeling of losing control of your “normal” self, becoming an entirely different person at the flick of a switch, struggling to do normal things because of it, feeling overwhelmed, life stuff being triggers (stress is a huge one for me), struggling to recognise what is your normal brain and what is your poorly brain...

All of that I really do understand. So I’d like to see how Eliott copes. If we join him when he’s struggling, I’d LOVE them to play with cinematography in some way to show the difference he experiences with how he sees life and the world and also what he focuses in on or what he’s able to grasp onto. We know Lucas is enormously important to him and to his feeling of comfort and acceptance so I’d like to see how he views Lucas too. I don’t think Lucas has a clue how important he is.

I’d like to see an element of his treatment. For me, I have treatment but it isn’t a miracle cure and it still causes problems and sometimes it doesn’t work... I’d love to see therapy even if it may seem a little invasive. I’d love to see his coping mechanisms like with art or movies or the urban jungle kind of world that he seems to in love with

There’s a lot to explore there and I really hope we do get to see a little more with focus on his mental illness and how he gets from one day to the next when stuff is difficult.

For me, it’s like I check out of engaging with life for a week or so and go through the motions. That’s the best way I can describe it. I just eat because I know I should and I get up because I should and I work because I know I should and I meet friends because I know I should... but when I’m unwell it’s like a thing I do and normally my brain is elsewhere and I’m vacant. It’s like I pretend my way through life for a week or two while my brain has a melt down and turns me into someone I’m not and then in an instant I’m back and fine... so I’d be interested to see how Eliott feels when he’s up/down and how he experiences the world.

He’s sunshine personified and he’s a gorgeous character... so I just hope they treat him well and with respect. I was thrilled with how they handled him at the end of s3 and the care they took there so I’d like to think they’d honour their own history and not lean into anything lazy and unwarranted for a character already so fascinating 😊

[hungwy]

@ the 2 long fr ask v sorry anon u better read this cuz i typed a lot for u...

full ask:

full disclosure im not really sure where im going with this but i read your wall of text and i’m really curious about your worldbuilding frm a (supposedly, rip) writer perspective !!

you said that you were interested in gods that were more abstract and less anthropomorphic, so perhaps you could expand on that? it sounds like a fascinating concept because often people relate gods to humans somehow (either as all-powerful deities that somehow are capable of human-like reasoning and motivations, deities that can be Understood to a degree by regular human beings, or as concepts that people are already familiar with aka Personified Concept Of Justice or w.e), so it could be interesting to see an exploration of how human beings would relate to supernatural forces they’re not equipped to understand, whose motives and abilities are entirely outside of the scope of current human ideas about the world—humans seem to have a natural tendency to generalize and categorize things down into something they can grasp and work with, so culture evolving around trying to figure out a way to model the world in light of that could naturally breed the divergence between human ideas & Truth About Deities you mentioned.

if you think about it, a lot of things even in our “plain” universe that seemingly obeys scientific laws we’re systematically working on discovering can be pretty awe-inspiring in nature, right?? so many things are so far beyond general understanding that to the uninitiated, they can be pretty close to magic, even if there are ways to dig deeper into them and understand them more (or whatever we consider to be “understanding”). so it’s possible that in your universe the fundamenal forces governing things could be just. different? on a really core level, which naturally sends humans scrambling to make some kind of sense of things. i mean, we already kind of do, with religious explanations stepping in, so perhaps that would be more dramatic in a world where the unknowable is even more fucked and unperceivable to your human societies.

naturally, that might give more power to religion than science, if people have practical experiences that their “science” cannot explain well (maybe because it’s beyond human logic in the first place) & that religion seems to provide some kind of answer for. it might also keep the mysticism; religious belief might require some degree of dedication, which might be a risk in itself if you’re an average person playing with forces no one can properly explain yet. organized science might be struggling to catch up and maintain credibility; but at the core, it could also be that there’s nothing particularly unscientific about the source of what is perceived as magic/“gods”—just that the barrier to perceiving them in a logical and systematical manner with no spiritual aspect to it could be a lot higher, which then tempts people to go with the most accessible explanations. (again, made more tempting if your magic is powerful enough to represent some kind of real danger—framed as “displeasing the gods” or w.e, maybe—or to provide some highly desired abilities, even if their source is misunderstood by human beings thru misframing the entire concept.)

long messy rant aside, very very curious to know more about your ideas !!! do you intend magic to be some kind of old-as-time concept that human beings are slowly developing a relationship with/a deeper understanding of over the ages, where they develop their (possibly flawed) understanding of gods as well?? or is their understanding catalyzed by some specific event, presumably an interaction by said gods with society? do these “gods” have any perception of human society? pls share more if you are inclined to !! :>

(sorry if the rant was overstepping ahh i really got carried away didn’t i)

id like to preface this with i havent slept. PLEASE ask me clarifying questions

i think from a cultural perspective it would make sense for humans to anthropomorphize higher powers in order to relate to it better. even further i think (though i haven't really fleshed out the actual capabilities and motives of gods) gods would have the ability to appear to us as human or human-like. in this essay i typed completely without planning i will construct how.

i first have to consider the form or forms of divinity and how that relates to my -- ideally -- material universe. should i incorporate gods and magic as material phenomena that are observably composed of matter and energy -- or reactions of some sort of transcendent immaterial reality beyond normal human sense and reason? im sort of leaning towards that more spiritual reality. choosing that means id have to explain how incomprehensible, unknowable forces work and interact with comprehensible, study-able forces, which frankly is a lot more complex than just tossing in someone like Zeus.

so the question basically being asked is how does this divine force come to create our world? id basically have to create a whole metaphysical system. maybe i could give credence to panpsychism and say everything has sentience and subjective experience, and some vague actuation by this transcendental force began our universe. this Transcendence that shifts with eternal (but cyclical) change produces some sort of transcendental force which "peaks" as consciousness/sentience/experience (that panpsychism). (the "troughs" of this force are what we'd call other dimensions or planes, and this is where i plan for gods to reside) anyway, this consciousness is our fundamental “thing”, our atom, our quark, our light, whatever; consciousness itself IS the physical world. the shifting of this force means that our universe, too, is in constant (but cyclical) change, and has a regularity that comes with extending from one entity that allows the universe to be systematic and wholly not chaotic. im tempted here to say the Transcendence naturally promotes a balance of consciousness (= material reality) by interfering with those peaks of material reality. now im not claiming to understand the mechanisms of transcendent immaterial reality but certainly i should be able to claim that this universe is a closed system in which exchanges of transcendent force are allowed but exchanges of matter and energy (as we understand them) aren't.

we still have the problem of how we create an entity like a god, and magical forces. Remember that the transcendental force has both peaks and troughs of consciousness and therefore material reality.  Through this dualism of peak and trough (though not really a dualism… ive equated this force to a wave which means that there is GRADUAL change) I can now create two opposing realities: our universe and the antiuniverse. im basically just going to say that the realization of consciousness in the antiuniverse comes in the form of magic (=energy) and gods (=matter). just as with our universe, once you get down far enough the difference between magic/energy and gods/matter isn’t really apparent. it’s all really just a spectrum. Anyway. heres the big big big part: the troughs and peaks connect due to the nature of a wave being gradual. Our world affects theirs, theirs ours, etc. albeit not a whole lot for reasons I don’t care to think about. Matter and energy can travel into the antiuniverse and interact with magic and gods and vice-versa.

SO just gonna throw in here that like humans and rocks some gods will have more animacy than others (more magic) and will be able to purposefully and willfully travel into our universe. when they manifest they must cause some kind of eldritch psychological terror because they are a completely different realization of matter which frankly is probably impossible to comprehend. but more animate gods (more animate than humans) would be able to “correct” their forms into recognizable entities with magic, as id believe if humanity were to transcend their animacy they could rearrange their forms with energy. I think from here we can relatively easily extrapolate what gods are, provide them conscious motivations, create a hierarchy of gods and lesser supernatural entities, explain divine interference, etc etc etc. if you have any questions i can make up more answers!

NOW I can get to your points! youre indeed right that this could be “an exploration of how human beings would relate to supernatural forces they’re not equipped to understand, whose motives and abilities are entirely outside of the scope of current human ideas about the world”. in fact thats exactly underlies what religion will be about. humans wont be aware of another world at all except for a few souls who learned this secret knowledge. humans wont understand theres a massive rift between the strange occurrences that belong to our world and the even stranger occurrences invading it from the antiuniverse. everything is just sort of conflated to gods, ghosts, spirits, monsters. their experience with the physics of magic means that only gods in control of magic can really bestow any magical control to humanity (though id argue everything with consciousness has innate magical potential to some extent).  but here gods could actually be what is the equivalent to displeasement, the unsatisfaction of their intents, the disruption of their motives, etc, and have destructive reactions towards it, just as they can be pleased, satisfied, and complete (though these would just be approximations using human emotion).

[arkus-rhapsode]

This might sound a bit odd to ask, but what is your favorite Fire Emblem game?

That’s a tough question to answer. I guess just putting it bluntly, gun to my head, my favorite FE game is Awakening. It got me into the series and it saved FE.

And I know I’m gonna piss off some elitists by saying that, but let me explain my reasoning. See, I like most FE games, a lot of them are fun and unique. As well as hitting all my marks for a fun fantasy story. However, Awakening feels like it hits the perfect balance of world building, character writing, and themes.

Awakening isn’t an epic tale like Fire Emblem Genealogy of the Holy War. Where everything is so big and it feels like there’s always moving pieces that you don’t want to miss. Ad before you say every FE game tends to be continent spanning, I know, but Genealogy is the only one that really seems to take note of its size and scale. With political intrigue and shifting alliances. And just the fact the maps are massive. 

But Awakening isn’t a small story like Blazing Blade. A lot of the conflict and hook of Blazing Blade tended to be the character journey and their turmoils. And yes, you have to save the world, but the real narrative strength came from the characters and their tales.

Awakening is perfectly in the middle of those two. Make for a large story, but with a lot of intimate and personal elements to it.

I’ve found that I can break down these strengths into two categories: FE games with a good story and world, and FE games with good characters. Now these aren’t categories set in stone. I know ones like FE1 and FE2 were limited in characterization thanks to the hardware at the time. As well as some games that have hard gameplay that makes it hard to enjoy, I’ve heard several people mention how much they hated Shadows of Valentia’s mechanics.

But Awakening finds the right balance between these. I really care about Robin forging bonds and their relationship to Chrom. When Emmeryn dies, I feel it. Because I genuinely felt fr the character, as well as all of her relationships, I’m sad they ended. A lot of the characters were so charming that I never wanted to lose them.

Or the scope of the game. My jaw dropped when we left the continent of Ylisse and then crossed over to Valm. It really felt like the world was expanding before me. That and Valm had a lot of locations that made it feel unique. There’s also a ton of Easter eggs to the Archenea series that made me want to know the story behind them. Like the Deadlords or the Mila shrine.

Yes, I know the waifu wars are common. Yes, I know there are things to be mocked like the phoenix mode and how your choices don’t actually matter. Yes, not all the characters are three dimensional.

But even with all that, Awakening still rises above its faults and results in a great game. Its not hard to see why this was the game that saved the franchise.

[arionwind]

that hatemail made me sad so im gonna give you something to infodump about, which edition of dnd do you like the best? right now i basically only play 3.5 because i heard iffy things about 4 and 5 is so new that its a lot harder to find pdfs for the low low price of piracy compared to 3.5 but if 5th edition has any genuinely good mechanics overhauls comparatively i might consider giving it a try?

I was expecting the hate mail, I am fine. Sorry for upsetting you though! And to other followers who may be upset, the “hate mail” tag catches all the anon hate I publish for my own amusement.

As for the question … That’s a tough one. That also got more bloated than I expected again, so under the cut.

I think 3.5 is a mechanical mess with an accumulation over years of bad and worse ideas and Pathfinder 1e refined the base classes and mechanical assumptions in ways that make the whole thing much more playable. But at the same time, because they could only use OGL content, some of my favourite options had to be omitted. It’s petty, but the lack of the Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, Geometer, Spellfire Adept, and all the hybrid PrCs make it a bit harder for me to have the same kind of fun I did with 3.5.

Even then though, for all I miss those nostalgia options, Pathfinder gives enough options to base classes and enough benefits for taking them all the way to 20 that PrCs are basically unnecessary unless they enable a hyperspecific concept that is worth losing baseline utility for. And while there’s likewise some feat chains from 3.5 that I enjoyed a lot (like tactical feats specifically I miss a lot) there’s enough flexibility in PF1e to satisfy me and a much healthier suite of support materials for running it than 3/3.5 ever had outside of the now-defunct RPGA. In an ideal world I’d rebalance and port over some of my favourite options from 3.5 and just play PF1e for all my D&D needs. I’ve even got half-fleshed out conversions for some of the PrCs and feat chains I love dearly that in all liklihood I’ll never get to use (who is ever going to want to run me through a FR game that allows either Spellfire or the more broken Shadow Magic/Ruathar tricks? No one sane, that’s who.)

As for 5th edition’s mechanical overhauls … it’s gonna depend on what you want from your D&D. If you want a tactical battle sim and are happy roleplaying with minimal dice involvement the more social/exploration-y things, I’d honestly say to use 4e. It got a lot of hate for being a wild departure from 3.5, and it was, but I have yet to see another game do the granular tactical battle-mat fighting tabletop thing more than half as well as 4e did it. The balance was immaculate at every level and rewarded picking and sticking to roles and using teamwork in a way no other edition of D&D has before or since, even counting the spin-offs like Pathfinder.

I’m less familiar with 5e and honestly have no interest in spending money on it as long as Wizards is still pretending Mike Mearls didn’t enable some of the worst actors in the industry. But from what I’ve heard and what little I’ve seen it’s closer to 3.5 than 4e was, but with harshly flattened numeric curves. You’re not going to run into that 3.5 issue where if the warrior doesn’t constantly keep her armor and weapon upgraded to the max she is gonna be a chump, because ACs just don’t hit the 40s like they fairly easily can in 3.5. Spellcasting also seems to be rebalanced some, so while there’s still the issue of a control wizard trivializing encounters with the right tricks you’re not going to have a fifth level wizard putting out as much melee damage as the barbarian with a 1st level spell anymore either.

Whether or not this is a good thing is going to depend on your playstyle and preferences. There’s a lot less overwhelming character options and notably fewer trap builds that seem good at first blush but fall apart in actual play (though there are some). But that also means there’s a lot less room for weird combinations that can enable things like a halfling barbarian dual-wielding two swords the size of ranch houses.

Maybe you want that! I know that if I played Garbanzo (the aforementioned halfling from my 3.5 days) at some tables that wanted a more serious game I’d get kicked out. Personally if I want a grittier down-to-earth and low magic game of D&D I am gonna pitch Iron Heroes instead. But admittedly that may overcorrect and be too low magic, in which case 5e is probably a good fit?

I guess what I am trying to get at is that 5e (and 4e) does what it tries to do well. It just doesn’t try to do all the same things 3.5 did, and depending on what you did or didn’t like about 3.5 it might not be the right fit.