#I'm sure the lore changes work for some people but they really don't work for me

[tcfactory]

Not quite at the end of Veilguard (just did a fight against two dragons), but I'm a good ways in, so some assorted spoilery thoughts under the cut. Tl;dr.: this is a fun, if kinda mid fantasy game if you aren't really invested in previous DA stories or lore and only care about what this game offers as a standalone. If you liked DA for the gameplay (DAV plays more like a Mass Effect title with a fantasy coat of paint, both in gameplay and I'd argue that also in story structure) or the lore (so, uuuuh. How do you feel about retcons? And past choices not mattering at all) then you might want to give this one a skip. Or only get it on a huge discount.

First off, to be entirely transparent: I did not expect to like this game going in. I bounced off of Inquisition for the most part and I only get to play DAV thanks to the generosity of a friend, so I tried to come in with very low expectations in the hopes that I'd be pleasantly surprised maybe? So far it's a very mixed bag with decent highs and some very low lows.

Also worth mentioning that my special niche interest is qunari (Sten and the Arishok are some of my favorite characters in the entire series) so I expected to just starve on that front, which did not happen, but I'm side-eyeing some of what I got, so.. we will get there.

First off: the first portion of the game has an identity crises where it can't decide who it wants to be for. To get new people oriented there's extensive, tiresome exposition and some horrendously bad tutorializing dialogue - some of the worst offenders are like the ballista introduction, where you shoot the wall and Bellara immediately exclaims "Look! Darkspawn just where you broke the wall!" when I was still looking straight at said darkspawn - that sort of eases off eventually, but having the characters be Captain Obvious for 12 hours before they are allowed to be their own characters again sure was A Choice.

At the same time, the prologue doesn't work if you are not familiar with the old games - it expects you to maybe care about Solas and definitely care about Varric and Harding and have an understanding of wtf is going on, otherwise it loses any and all emotional impact.

It could be a setup to show that the characters can get hurt (I got Harding injured and seeing her heal bit by bit was cool), but if it was then it didn't deliver on that promise.

Still on the topic of things that don't work for me: I think the two 'corrupted ancient elven gods' we got as main villains are boring as all get out. It's not necessary for a game to have an interesting villain to be good - DA:O's main antagonistic force is the Archdemon and Urthemiel is not the height of complexity either - but the blighted gods are only here to illustrate/excuse Solas' hubris. If Idiot McEgg instead accidentally set free some ancient demon from the Fade that then went and turned a slumbering Archdemon into a Super-Mega-Death-Archdemon to make a mega-blight, we would still have essentially the same kind of villain, but maybe with less lore retcon.

Speaking of Solas: I like his character arc - guy who goes along with the wrong decisions despite knowing better starts to triple down on his horrible choices to prove that he's right, he's been right all along!! is a good character concept - but the lore retcons around him genuinely pissed me off (he sucked enough as is! you didn't need to throw out the old lore to make him the reason for everything bad ever!!) and I hate how the game keeps pushing this angle that see, we might not be on the same side completely, but he's giving us invaluable information all the time! So far the only thing he told me that I haven't figured out on my own (I'm sure I never would have thought about getting a Fade-expert and a dragon-slayer when the enemy is meddling with the Fade and attacking with dragons. What a novel idea to call a firefighter when the roof's on fire.) is that I need to kill the Archdemons before I can kill the villains and that entire scene is a trashfire and a half.

On the flipside, I genuinely liked the siege at Weisshaupt. It was one of the highs of the game so far, few and far between as those are. The Cauldron and the fight against the two blighted dragons were also cool.

There are some really atmospheric areas in the game - the Hossberg Wetlands and the Necropolis are the biggest standouts for me - where I sometimes just stop to soak in the creepy-gross / spooky-charming vibes respectively. When we first step into that blighted village in act 1 I was floored how good the atmosphere was - I expected them to use the blight more sparingly, but they make it work. The environmental design is pretty solid overall, my one big complaint is that the Fade areas don't feel like the Fade.

The companions are fine, but come off as a bit bland - not because they don't have interesting internal or inter-group conflicts, but because Rook's main function (other than heavy hitter and makeshift leader) is to be a peacemaker, so we figuratively knock their heads together and tell them to behave before any of the conflicts could get really going. The banter is pretty fun once it gets going, but it seems more interconnected than in previous games - there are long 4-5 occasion long banter chains that come one after the other - so it can take a while to build up. They all have some degree of trope-subversion going on that can be hit or miss, but I generally liked the angles they are going for.

Side note: I'm not certain if it's a bug or not, but until I got all of my companions they all just stood around in their rooms, doing nothing. Even the one-line quips they supposed to say when you approach them didn't play. Once I got everyone, they started wandering around the Lighthouse and interacting with each other.

Also, their personal side-quests are completely missable. I came back between every quest to check if anyone has anything to say and Neve's quest still didn't trigger for me, so she basically hates my guts since act 1 and I'm completely locked out of her quest. Right now I'm trying to see if there are any consequence if I keep antagonizing her, but so far nothing happened.

The most controversial companion, I think, will be Taash. The anti-woke crowd sure loves to lose its shit over the they/thems, but I found it a pretty fitting narrative. It's messy and the writing is pretty weak at parts (but that goes for every companion and the game as a whole anyhow), but I think it works overall - Taash's general arc is about finding their identity, so it's fitting that gender identity might be a part of that.

...It probably doesn't help their case that they are from the Lords of Fortune and not gonna lie, Isabella leading what's basically an ethical treasure hunting operation is the funniest shit I've seen in this game. Girl really learned her lesson from the whole Tome of Koslun business, huh?

On a related note: the qunari both have something very interesting going on (the Antaam ditching Sten and going off to be basically roadside bandits while the few remaining ones got folded under what's essentially the spy corps fits perfectly into the lore and plays into the theory that the whole Tome of Koslun incident was the start of a long con so the Ariqun could either raise a puppet Arishok into position or get rid of the role as a whole and take control of their entire military branch) and some changes that make me go😬. There is a degree of defanging going on - when Taash talks about how you can just leave the Qun... you know. The religion where they reeducate you by force if you strain too hard against the system. Where it's been established that they hunt down Tal-Vashot with extreme prejudice since DA:O. That Qun. - to make it more palatable. But at the same time, the Antaam designs in this game are... somehow we are backsliding into "big angry almost-naked foreign barbarian" territory. Could we not??

Random end notes: combat feels a bit easy, but I'm having fun with it. I do wish the companions didn't have a CD on their abilities, because the whole detonation system really just pigeonholes you into setting off detonations and ignoring the rest of their abilities. There were some challenging champion fights that I enjoyed - the undead generals, at least when they weren't filling the arena with shield-carrying mobs, were pretty fun - but I find it baffling that every longer quest chain I followed to its end (fighting the champions to unlock the gates, collecting the memories, the demon behind the door in the necropolis) ended in a dragon fight. I get that this is dragon age, but can we maybe get something else please...?

I'll see how I feel once I'm at the end and I can see how they stick the landing. Maybe the end will be so good I'll swing back around to liking this game, but the butchery of the established lore is making me angry enough that I find that doubtful.

[primofate]

Genshin Angst Headcanons - Why the two of you broke up

Note: Had an unexpected free day! I haven't written in a while, please excuse the mistakes, if any.

Disclaimer at the end of the post

Warning: Some are pretty predictable. Each of them have their own issues, lore wise, so some are lore heavy. You might not agree with some of them, but its how I see it, so to each their own. Let me know what you think! Some are quite angsty. Some scenes it's you breaking up with him and some are vice versa. Didn't feel like writing Razor, Venti and Xingqiu.

Characters: Aether, Albedo, Alhaitham, Ayato, Baizhu, Bennett, Chongyun, Cyno, Dainsleif, Diluc, Gorou, Heizou, Itto, Kaeya, Kaveh, Kazuha, Lyney, Neuvillette, Scaramouche, Tartaglia, Thoma, Tighnari, Xiao, Zhongli, gn!reader

Personal Favourites in this work: Lyney, Itto, Kazuha

Aether

Sister issues. Enough said.

He realized he didn't have enough time to spare romancing with someone.

Somewhere along the way he felt guilt that he was enjoying his time with you while his sister went through some sort of villain origin story that seemingly turned her bad.

Top off all the adventuring, searching, solving problems for other people that he did...Where did that leave you, exactly?

"...I'm sorry, Y/N... I just... I don't think this is the right time for me to be together with you,"

Albedo

Contrary to popular belief it wouldn't be his lack of time or extreme focus on his alchemical experiments that would break the two of you up. He knows how to manage his time.

It was the RESULTS of experiments and his research that would put him away from you.

The possibility that HE or his world, was way too dangerous for you.

How many "Albedos" did Rhinedottir really create? Was there more than three? Perhaps four, five? And what happens when you come face to face with another Albedo?

"I'm afraid...There are far too many dangers surrounding myself... There are answers that I can't find...and perhaps that's the reason why my answer is to part ways with you,"

Alhaitham

Too much of a nonchalant attitude.

He expressed some kind of interest in you...but it's like... once in a blue moon. 95% of the time you're not sure if he's really into you. It almost seems like he's more into that book he reads all the time.

Simply just not good at expressing himself. Like, at all. Hides behind a "whatever works" and "I don't care about what other people think of me" attitude, unfortunately that seems to include you.

Is so straightforward that sometimes it hurts, but he's really just telling the truth through logical analysis.

will act like the breakup didn't hurt nor affect him at all. In turn it hurts you instead.

"I see. So you've had enough of me... And you only spoke up now? Pointing it out earlier could've diverted us from this path...If that's how you feel already I suggest that we stop seeing each other,"

"That's it? You're not even going to try and work it out with me?"

"What's there to work out? You've made yourself clear. You're not satisfied with the way I treat you, and I'm afraid I'm not going to change the way I act just for your pleasure... It'd be more meaningful for you to find someone who fits your criterias,"

Ayato

entering a relationship with a noble was not as easy as one thought.

It's not just about being together forever and feeling lucky because Ayato is rich and your whole life is set, it's also the not fitting in, the etiquette, the whispers from townfolk that you were too ordinary for him, the work that you needed to do if you were to become his wife.

All that was not really a big problem for you, but Ayato seemed not to know of your struggles, he was extremely busy, and when he wasn't, he seemed to think that everything was well and fine, since you were getting all your basic needs met and even more.

"...So I'm sorry, Ayato. This is just... All too much for me. I'm sorry,"

"...I understand. Forgive me, it seems that I've overlooked a lot of things...Perhaps it is as you say, that it'd be better for us to grow apart rather than grow together,"

Baizhu

because he is a ticking time bomb, no matter which way he looked it's not going to end well for both of you.

He either dies early or lives forever. In both scenarios he anticipates that the two of you are just going to be in a world of hurt.

Besides, he didn't mean to get so attached to someone in the first place, he knew his quest for immortality was long and arduous. You didn't deserve to walk that difficult road too.

While breaking up, will conceal the fact that he's only thinking of you and will possibly hurt you in the process.

"I'm sorry, but it's for the best. I ask that you continue going forward without me, there's no space for you in my... ideal future,"

Bennett

We all know it...it's his bad luck. However, it wasn't YOU who had a problem with it, it was HIM.

You understood that his bad luck was just some extended part of him, plus it's not like it was always bad, there were a lot of good times too. Plenty!

But the guilt ate him up whenever the two of you were stuck in a seemingly impossible scenario and predicament, brought on by his luck. He just had enough of it one day.

"I...I can't keep doing this to you every day! It's not fair..."

will be on the brink of tears before he even starts.

"Maybe it's better if you find someone else to adventure with, Y/N, sorry...!"

runs away before you can even get a word in.

Chongyun

Thinks he's not good enough in every aspect. It's really, seriously not about you. He thinks he's lacking in everything. Strength, maturity, experience, confidence.

So badly wants to stay with you but feels like he's not good enough and thinks that you're better off with someone else.

"D-Don't misunderstand... It's not because I don't like you anymore... I just...Please find someone else!"

Cyno

his bad jokes and TCG addiction. just kidding, you're not that shallow.

A lot of people are intimidated by him being the General Mahamatra because he gives importance to justice. While you, who had seen a bit more of him than other people had, it seemed more of an obsession to uphold the Akademiya's law and integrity.

This was not a big problem to you, you liked how he was serious at work.

Until one day when you were accused of plagiarising one of your papers and Cyno was the one sent to give you a first offense warning. The Akademiya knew of your relationship, that's probably why they sent him, to make it harder on the two of you.

Cyno didn't listen to your explanations on how it was an honest mistake, he still gave you the warning that you "deserved"

From then on it had just been different between the two of you, so it was really a mutual breakup. Or so you thought.

"...After that, I just realized that maybe this isn't the right time for us... We're both working for the Akademiya, we both take our jobs seriously...Unfortunately that seems to just be getting in the way of us...I think it's best if we stop seeing each other,"

"...I see." he pauses for a minute, as if tossing your words in his mind. "I...agree. Parting ways would certainly make work easier for both of us...it's the professional thing to do,"

Dainsleif

Has not moved on from his past.

Sure, everyone has their own baggage to carry, their own history to live through...but Dainsleif has heavier things than that. He seemed to wake up every day thinking of Khaenri'ah and the days long past. Was it regret? Nostalgia? Loneliness? You didn't know. You just knew that he wasn't really completely THERE with you in the present. Part of him still lived in the past.

When you explained that you felt like the two of you were not moving forward together and that it seemed like he wanted to go back to the past instead, he got offended.

"...My past is something that I carry forever, you'd claimed that you understood that," he starts.

"I do! But carrying it with you and letting it drag you backwards are two different things!"

He falters for a moment, only to leave you with his last words before turning away from you forever: "You will never understand, the weight that I carry,"

Diluc

is too guarded. You'd been friends for a long, long, long, long time before he decided he could let you in enough and be more intimate with you.

Even then everything was going at a snail's pace, though you were extremely patient with him.

The biggest problem with Diluc was that the two of you would progress one day, take a step forward, and then the next day it was like the two of you took two steps back.

Example: The two of you went out for a simple stargazing excursion late one night, it was nice and he had been incredibly affectionate. The next day he had trouble even meeting your gaze, and disappeared to do his work. It was also a little awkward during dinnertime. This scenario had happened more than once.

Hint: the closer he got to you the more afraid he became, thinking that he would one day lose you too.

"I...I can't. I love you but I...I've waited far too long. I'm sorry. I'm tired of this endless chase for you!"

He couldn't even say a thing. He'd wanted to ask you to stay, to wait for him a little longer, but he already knew how incredibly selfish that would have been. Instead, he grimaced, and looked away from your gaze, trying to find something worthwhile to say. There was only silence for a few moments.

"Goodbye Diluc," that's when you turned away.

Gorou

worships Kokomi too much and your insecurities just kept circling around in your head.

You know its his job. You know he isn't like that but the problem was YOU and not him.

Simply said you let your insecurity eat up the relationship between the two of you.

You couldn't bring yourself to say that you were jealous of the way he admired Kokomi so you broke up with him with another reason in tow.

Unfortunately, you're not a very good liar face to face so you did a butthole move and actually broke up with him through a letter. You just couldn't face him and tell him why.

All you mentioned in the letter was that you needed time to think and be away from him, and told him not to worry because it was your problem, not his.

Poor Gorou reread that letter over and over, trying to understand what went wrong.

Heizou

is just a natural flirt. You're not sure if he's doing it on purpose or not and you're not sure if he's even aware he's like that.

Anyway you'd seen him getting overly friendly (just another word for flirting) with a few other people a couple of times. You didn't let it get to you the first, fourth or even eighth time but you realized that he KNOWS that you're watching him do that.

So you confront him about it, but he claims that it's just his way of gathering information from others. People like to hear good things and some people are more susceptible to flirtatious comments so he resorts to that for his investigation sometimes.

You didn't really completely buy it and even if you did, it's not like this was healthy for your relationship. You just couldn't make yourself comfortable with it.

*You just chalked it up to the two of you being incompatible.

"I'm just not comfortable with that...I don't think I have to say sorry for how I feel but...I'm sorry anyway because I know you're just doing your job... It's probably best if we part ways here..."

"Is there any way to change your mind?" he genuinely asks.

You only give a lopsided smile. "You're a detective, I think you already know the answer to that,"

Yet he didn't stop you from walking away.

Itto

Kept breaking promises because he was too airheaded or too occupied doing something "stupid" with the kids or with his gang.

Pretty soon it just felt like you were an afterthought while everyone else in his life took precedent.

Got a ramen date? Oops, sorry! Got caught up looking for a strong onikabuto in the forest!

Needed his help to move some things? Gah, he was vandalising the bulletin boards, so he's running a bit late!

What's more you didn't actually mind that carefree, airheaded side of him...but it really got to you when he couldn't even seem to make you a priority. Not once.

He only realized that when he came running, late again, and stood face to face with a crying you.

"Hey sorry Y/N, I was just--...Why are you crying?!" is completely dumbfounded and clueless, mostly because when he came late, you had always shrugged it off with a smile on your face, or so he thought. This time you had a completely different reaction.

"I hate you...*hic* I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!"

Shocked beyond belief. It wasn't like you to just blow up like that, but he couldn't do anything except watch you turn and run away from him after that exclamation.

Kaeya

Sometimes you're not sure if he takes you seriously.

Recently, he's not where he says he is, you don't know why he doesn't just tell you where he is.

He said he'd be working late, but then you find out he's at Angel's Share.

He said he'll be at Angel's Share, but then you catch word from Jean that he's out on a late mission.

He said he's escorting a caravan to Mondstadt but he's actually on assignment in Liyue.

It came to the point where you altogether just stopped looking for him cause half of the time you couldn't find him. It's like he's avoiding you or something, which, actually, seems just about right since he's been so busy with "work"

It reached a breaking point when, for a week, you were unable to bring him the lunch you prepared...because he was not where he said he was going to be. It was starting to get annoying.

"I don't understand why you're lying to me! Why do you have to tell me you'll be at Angel's Share this afternoon when you're not? Do you realize you make me walk all the way there only to come all the way back with nothing achieved?"

"I'm sorry snowflake, that wasn't my intention," though he still chuckles despite knowing full well that you were about to turn away.

"You know what, let me know when you're ready to stop making jokes. Until then, don't bother contacting me,"

He just didn't expect you to actually walk away from him.

Kaveh

Entertains everyone and anyone. Naturally kind at heart, will stop for anyone in trouble...even that flirtatious man/woman who is clearly just pining for his attention.

No he doesn't quite realize this.

The same person had asked for his help at least 4 times now and all 4 times he had been happy to offer a helping hand.

The last straw was when he was invited into the stranger's house, they had apparently needed someone to help them move and re-arrange furniture and he did, working till almost dinner time.

You'd caught him right by the person's door, because Kaveh was actually honest and told you he'd be helping them today, but the person was clearly eyeing Kaveh rather flirtatiously.

"Come again next time," you heard the person say rather happily. Kaveh only replies with "If I have nothing else to do, I suppose,"

"Kaveh, they're coming onto you and you keep letting it happen!"

"I'm not certain what you're talking about...They just needed some help around their house, nothing suspicious happened at all. Even if there was, I won't let anything happen between me and a stranger!"

"Then STOP helping them!"

"There isn't anything wrong with lending a hand...It was a quick move of things, that's all,"

"How would YOU feel if I just went into someone's house and kept helping them "move" things?"

"...I would think that's nice of you,"

You actually threw your hands up. "Oh, forget it! You know what, for someone who LOVES helping others, you're not doing such a great job of helping ME," then walked away and never came back. "Good riddance,"

Kazuha

He's a wandering samurai. You knew what you were getting into but you didn't expect dating him to be so hard.

He was gone for weeks on end, and you were not getting on that boat with him. In essence the two of you were just not ready to follow each other to the end's of the Earth, and that was fair. The two of you were young.

Kazuha kind of saw it coming, whenever he visited you, you seemed less spirited and he had an inkling as to why. The time apart was just too much for you.

It was a rather clean break actually. A real mutual breakup that the two of you agreed on.

"...You could say it's just not the right time for us," you even managed to laugh under your breath and he did the same, though it was barely audible.

"...Mm. There are matters that you need to attend to here...and there are things that I need to do out there," he slowly stood up from his sitting position next to you and still gazed at you rather lovingly. "...Perhaps, in another world, you and I are bound together,"

You gazed back forlornly, "...Just not in this one, it looks like,"

Lyney

because he will always choose his siblings over you. Always.

Though that's not a bad thing because you also think that family is important...somewhere along the way you realized that family is the ONLY thing he had and saw.

Example: Lynette and you had gotten ill at the same time one winter morning. Perhaps it was the cold that was passing around Fontaine. Lyney had been so worried about Lynette, that he seemed to have forgotten about you for the next few days. In fact, Lyney didn't even realize that you caught the cold too. You had only heard from Freminet, who you happened to cross paths with, that Lynette was also ill.

You thought that incident was the end of it, but really it seemed that whenever Lyney wanted to hang out with you, Lynette had to be there too. You tried to understand...after all there's still that mystery of disappearing women in Fontaine.

The breakup was induced when Lyney completely forgot about your birthday, because Freminet's was around the same time as yours. You helped Lyney prepare everything for Freminet, and said nothing about your own.

You realized that there was nothing wrong with choosing family over everything else...but the problem here was that Lyney didn't even have space for you in the first place.

So you left without saying anything. You figured he'd get over it quick. You had even gone so far as to move away from the main city of Fontaine and out into another island, because what would you say if he found you? That you were jealous of his siblings? You weren't going to ruin a family like that and it wasn't right to make him choose...so you just left without a word.

Neuvillette

Had a whole brainrot for this man:

Part 1

Part 2

Scaramouche

surprisingly it's not his anger issues.

It's the way he wouldn't acknowledge your relationship. You wonder how you even got into one with him.

There's no public show of affection, but even behind closed doors it rarely happened.

You knew that he was going to be like that, and so you didn't mind it all that much.

It was getting a bit much though when, out in public, he would walk further in front of you and refused to walk next to you. When he pretended like he didn't even know you. When he didn't stop to help you even when another man had shown interest in you, bordering on uncomfortable.

The more time passed the more you simply felt unloved...but for some reason you still blamed yourself.

"...I...don't know. Maybe you find me undesirable, or just...unappealing. Maybe you're embarrassed of me or...or..." maybe you just didn't care in the first place, you thought to yourself.

There was a long silence. Of you turning your gaze away, of him still piercing into yours. And then...

"Tsk...don't waste my time...Leave if you want to leave, door's open,"

Tartaglia

This one is simple. It's his obsession for fighting plus his complete disregard for himself. It's a constant heart attack for you. At some point the anxiety is just too much for you to handle.

Imagine living every day just wondering if he's safe at the same time knowing that he just loves to look for trouble.

The foul legacy that you know of, he uses it with disregard as well, despite knowing that it wasn't good for him.

And there are even days where you know he was heavily wounded but didn't go to you, in an attempt to shield you from worry.

It's a constant battle trying to stay sane and unworried, until one day it all just becomes too much.

"...Nothing I say will change anything, Tartaglia. This is who you are...This is who you need to be..." you whisper while bandaging his knuckles. He lets out a short hum.

It was silent all up until you finished with his hand, you squeeze it gently. "...I love you but...I can't keep doing this to myself, I'm tired...more so than I have ever been before,"

He lets your hand slip away from his knuckles, and that was the last he saw of you.

Thoma

This one is also simple. He was always taking care of others and running errands for others that he sometimes just couldn't catch a break.

Just a classic case of not enough time for you since he had a job to do for the Kamisato Clan.

He knows it, and feels awful about it. So he's the one who makes the move.

"It hurts that I can't give you what you deserve, Y/N. This isn't it... You deserve more than this but I can't give you that and I'm sorry. Please look for the love that you deserve,"

Tighnari

Remembers everything. Can be critical of things you've done, specially if he thinks there's a better way to do it.

Simply said you just feel stupid in front of him sometimes.

He doesn't mean to, but he sometimes forgets to appreciate or give praise to the things that you do well and even if he does, it tends to be short lived compared to his constructive criticisms.

Pretty soon you felt like he only looks at the bad things you do, and never the good. Though he was really only trying to teach and guide you as an equal.

He in fact feels that you are one of the few people who can keep up educational conversations with him.

The problem is he kind of forgets that you're his lover, and that you would enjoy his praise and affection from time to time.

"Do you... Do you ever have anything nice to say other than 'good work' or 'great observation'?" the words were out of your mouth before you could hold yourself back. Sometimes it was tiring to feel like you weren't good enough.

There's a flash of surprise that crosses Tighnari's expression for a split second, before he recovers. "...Had I not been praising your work enough lately? My apologies... It has a lot of merits, I just thought that you wanted my opinion on how to make it better,"

You opened your mouth to say something, but closed it again right after to ponder on his words. Somehow even that had managed to make you feel embarrassed. It was here you knew that the problem also lied within yourself.

"...Sorry, Tighnari...I think I'll need some time alone,"

He obliges quickly and asks. "That's reasonable. When would you like me to come back?"

"...Let me rephrase that... I need some time away. From us."

Xiao

Unfortunately there's a lot of things wrong here... his lack of affection. His aloof personality. His dedication to his yaksha duties. Despite that he does actually try to be gentlemanly or respectful of you.

The worst of it is that he didn't know how to be in a relationship, in other words he just wasn't ready for one, or perhaps he would never be ready for one.

He didn't understand that humans craved companionship and sometimes touch. He didn't understand that meant having to favour you over others, sometimes even putting you first over his yaksha duties.

Worst of it all was when he shut himself off from you, sometimes for days on end, when his karmic debt was too high. He only really did it to protect you, but never realized how isolated that made you feel.

When you confronted him about it, he felt attacked. Hiding away was the only way he knew how to cope...why couldn't you understand that?

"Let me help you, Xiao,"

"I don't need your help!" his tone would make you wince and just like that he disappears into a billow of smoke.

You never returned to Wangshu Inn after that. If he couldn't let you in, there was no use trying to knock on his heart. Xiao being Xiao, never sought you ought again either.

Zhongli

He had experienced so many things and you had listened to many a tales from him.

This is what caused you to realize that you hadn't even experienced life at all, and yet here you were willing to tie yourself down to him.

It just didn't feel like it added up. Here he was with all this knowledge of the world and here you were who had never even stepped outside of Liyue. By no means were you stupid, but you felt that you could be better not only for him, but for yourself if you learned more.

There was just such a huge gap in life experiences, and though you never expected to get to his level (he was a God who had lived for a long time, you would never catch up to him) you at least wanted to see what was out there with your own eyes instead of through his stories.

He understood that wholeheartedly, and had no qualms in letting you go.

"You will always have a place with me, Y/N. No amount of lifetimes will change that,"

I’ve published The Ruthless Prince (Reader x Scaramouche) on paperback. Click here.

Consider supporting me to read some exclusive fics:

Ko-Fi

buymeacoffee

Here's the Masterlist

Disclaimer: Relationships will always have some sort of problem along the way, maybe big, maybe small but I just want to reiterate that breaking up is not always the solution. Communicating is very important. So to those of you who like taking fanfiction too seriously, let it be known that this is just a work of fiction. I don't actually suggest breaking up with someone as soon as there is the slight indication of a problem (Just saw someone commenting on a similar themed post for Haikyuu that this wouldn't happen in the real world if both parties were mature... I mean, sure, but, idk, you must be fun in parties... it's called fiction for a reason...)

[graciousdragon]

ok so that meeting actually went pretty well. should i tell my dad that both my advisors think i should be tested for adhd or should i not start that argument today

you're telling me i gotta plan my schedule for next semester?? girl i'm barely gonna make it through this one I CAN'T DO THIS AGAIN

[ataleofcrowns]

Chapter 12 Progress [08/APR]

Hey gang, I've started posting updates on my Patreon now that I'm actually making some damn progress on this chapter, so I figured to cross-post the latest update here as well. These are usually for members only but it's been sooo long, the ones I'm posting in April are all going to be for free 🙏🏼

This progress report focuses on a specific section of what I'm working on regarding CH12 and, more specifically, Kham.

About Kham

This one is turning out to be a bigger branching route than I expected. For those not in the know, I described in my dev sneak peek from last month how the opening scene of CH12 will involve the Crown dealing (or not dealing?) with Kham. It will be a bit of a culmination of all the choices you've made regarding Kham so far: did you inform her of the assassins in CH5, did you decide to trust her/were you honest with her in CH6, and did you choose to ask her to mediate for you in CH10?

Particularly that last decision will lead to the biggest difference in scenery: if you asked for Kham's help, you will get a scene at the palace involving her and the peri trader. If you decided not to ask her, however, the story will instead see you investigating the peri trader personally.

Initially, these were both two very clear branching paths with two very clear-cut consequences, but I decided it made more sense to offer additional variation. Choosing not to ask for her help with the peri trader will NOT lock you out of being able to ally with her... but the circumstances of it will be quite different compared to a player who has trusted Kham from the start and asked for her help.

You can, of course, decide not to ally with her on either branch as well, if you don't think she can be trusted. In which case, you should be prepared to make an enemy out of her: there's no fence-sitting on this one, and there won't be any chances to make an ally of her later on in the story. Similarly, if she turns out to be untrustworthy, and you make an ally out of her now, there won't be any takebacksies later... so you might end up stabbed in the back.

This is your one and only shot, so choose wisely.

About D and X

I'm currently working on the branch of the Crown dealing with the peri trader without Kham's involvement, and it's a pretty fun variation. There are some undercover detective vibes going on, and it's nice to write a scene set in the city as opposed to the palace for some variety. Though I've also dabbled in the route with Kham's help, and the Crown really flexes their royal authority in that one. Can go no wrong with either option in terms of entertainment, imo!

What's also been fun to explore further is how the main LI's subplot is starting to affect things in the story. I do have to note that for the branching sequence with the Kham choice, there's a bit of a spotlight on D and X since those two were gone for a whole chapter, so they get to spend some special time with the Crown in the first half of CH12. But R and A will be back for the rest of it!

I'll give you some D and X route crumbs this week since I've been chipping away at that one first, and hopefully I'll also have some on R and A next time:

For people who aren't on D's route, they'll get to find out something special about D that D romancers became privy to in CH11. It doesn't change much for the Crown on those routes, just some D lore you may enjoy and an opportunity to grow your friendship further.

As for D romancers, you all may or may not get a potentially devastating sequence depending on how your Crown handled their little court scene in CH11. If you managed to protect D, then all the better, but if you couldn't stamp out the court's protests... well, let's just say your Crown is going to have to be the one to inform D of any bad news.

Plus there's that damned letter to worry about. I'm sure that won't become any kind of problem at all.

For people who aren't on X's route, things are peachy! Honestly, all of the drama that happens for X romancers is not a big deal for everyone else, since X's romance with the Crown is the thing that causes them to act out. X friendship players are coasting in that regard, you just enjoy seeing X get to be their usual menace self.

For people who are romancing X, people on their low route might start noticing something different about them. Their actions in the high and low romances will be the exact same, but the vibes on the low route will be off, to say the least. You can still recover to a high route! But it will require having to pierce through that mask X is so fond of wearing...

High romancers: kick back, relax, and enjoy your upcoming romance content guilt-free LMAO

That was it for this week!! I wish I could give you an estimated release window, but I've been wrestling with this chapter, and I'm frankly deeply afraid I won't be able to finish it before summer rolls in 💀

Please keep your local struggling writer in your thoughts and prayers, and as always thank you for your patience and support 🙏🏼

[aaroleswapau]

Do you have any swap!franziska art? Wanna see more of her design

i unfortunately don't have any polished art of her bc i think when i drew this, my swap au hyperfixation was starting to wane, whoops! these are just some very quick sketches of what i wanted her new thing in the swap au to be.

(i will be putting old art of her old design if you want to see it under read more pftt [unfortunately not a lot of them bc i wasn't vibing with the old role i gave her so i wasn't drawing her a lot 😔])

oki doks, now time for a lore dump!!!!! (copy-pasting what i wrote on the bird app a long time ago):

ok, so the thing is, i gave a bit of redd white's role to mvk. my reasoning for that is since he's the one who killed gregory (who has mia's role), he'd have to take on that role too. when characters don't have any like, "exact" foils for their roles to be swapped with, i either make them stay the same or hobble some roles together. mvk's case was the latter.

so mvk runs a private eye that's connected to the prosecutor's office (he's corrupt bc have you seen that guy) and franziska happens to be working there.

mvk also happens to be one the people responsible for covering up the details about mia's death.

i wanted to change franziska's job from my first version of her bc she doesn't really have a connection to the supernatural, so i just gave her a job that works closely in the covering crimes too.

but yeah, fran has to meet gregory, and then she gets framed by redd white

and she's furious about it, of course! that fool works under her father, how dare he put the blame on her!

with how fran is supposedly cooperating with gregory, i think mvk would've really wanted her to catch the fall even with how much he cares about his daughter. he's an 'end justifies the means' kind of guy.

i don't think fran realizes until swap!jfa that it was her father who purposely tried to frame her and the one who ordered to kill gregory.

i think she'd feel really torn by that and the guilt with how miles defended her before knowing all that would've ate her up (the fact that gregory is dead, no spirit channeling or anything makes this more fucked up for them i think agfhhjh)

however, i still haven't figured out why franziska would agree to talk to gregory if he's investigating mia's death, and i'm not quite sure why gregory would've been investigating mia's death in the first place bc unlike mia in the regular verse, he'd have no connections to her case at least

(that would probably require some aai duology knowledge that i do not have right now ASKSKS)

my brain isn't fully working right now so i can't fully ramble on about her design, but i did think it was important to make her dress eccentric; and i know that everyone dresses eccentric in aa, but particularly that one point in turnabout sisters where april may should've remembered maya bc she dressed weird? i wanted the same for franziska ASKSKS roast her old-timey gothic looking ass!!!!!

and from my recent drawing of her, i think if i were to draw like, a polished ref for her, i would like to show the fact that her make-up is severe. again, 'eccentric' or whatever pftt

i originally had her be like a witch, some sort of seer who could communicate with the dead through her crystal ball. scrapped that and changed it bc it was just not digging my dudes asdghd a shame tho bc i'm rather fond of her big-ass veil witch hat thingy

[tsukii0002]

So, i like to think that Adam was jacked and reaaaally handsome, like...A LITERAL ANGEL FELL FOR HIM quite literally lol, and for the sake of my delulu let's say that most of the humans that the brothers met where taller and stronger that the humans nowdays (since Adam and Lilith met some centuries ago)

So since the brothers only met humans that were more strong than the nowdays humans, so when they see the mc for the first time (let's imagine that mc is pretty short like...around 5ft/1,50) they are like "??" they knew that humans are fragile and weak but they did not know that now humans are THIS weak and fragile, this was a shock to them.

BESIDES i'm pretty sure that i literally have no canon sorce for that the brothers actually changed their heigths i mean they were angels and now are demons, can't demons shapeshift?? because it's more usefull to them be that heigth, so when they see someone naturally short—Mc—they are a bit shocket specially when they still think that the humans still tall

I guess this apply to all the alredy born demons (i forgot like...the entire lore 😭 so forgive me)

How you think they will individualy react? What will they say? I guess that Beel and Belp will be more shocked since they watched the humans with Lilith while they were tall and strong so i imagine that the two youngests will be like "what lore did i miss?😦" Or "why you are like that 🤨"

Ignore my grammar mistakes 🙈

I really like the concept of changing the appearance, and "the more demonic real form of the brothers" . Also this kind of situation would be: what you asked for by catalogue vs what you get 😂😂. I don't know if I can capture your idea well, but here goes. And as always, thanks for the suggestions 🩷

How the demons react to an actual human (much smaller than they remembered).

Lucifer

Oh father why? As if he didn't have enough to keep a normal human alive, now he has to keep this creature alive? Like are they an average human? In his time humans were more… more.

Lucifer would keep his distance and be stressed constantly, he would feel like Mc was a balloon in a needle shop. He would worry about absurd things like they falling into any crack or hole. But what would really make him lose sleep is the thought of someone so small having so much power over his family, you know, pride.

Lucifer: Mc! Where are you?

Mc: *behind him* here?

Lucifer: One of these days you're going to give me a heart attack.

Mc: It's your fucking fault, not mine, you being a giant is not my problem.

Lucifer: You, little shit.

Mammon

Why so small??!! Are you putting him in charge of something so small? Of all the demons? He's looked after guinea pigs before for work and it's never worked out well, shouldn't you think again?

Mammon would be one of the quickest to forget about it, I mean they are small but they're his human. That is until he hugs or pushes them, because he'll think he's killed Mc and start crying. He has lost Mc countless times. Mammon's the type that gets a heart attack when Mc interacts with any demon, too overprotective.

Mammon: I knew people would pay to pet your head.

Mc: I'm glad business went well, now give me the 90% you owe me.

Mammon: What? That's not- don't give me that face!!!

Mc: It's just that, Mammon, this little face doesn't hold itself… now give me my share or I'll tell Lucifer that you've done business with my size.

Levi

Have they always been like that? Not that he's ever been interested in humans but… Are not they too cartoonist? . I mean in his real form he could pick them up as one of his figures… Does they bite? Small bugs tend to bite the most…

Honestly it makes he a little bit excited because Mc looks like the characters of his animes, that is to say they have the perfect size to be a magical girl. He'd also adapt pretty quickly although he'd be far from forgetting and he'd always be careful because oh god they're so small. Their condition makes it easier to strike up a conversation with them.

Mc: Have you handmade all these cosplays?

Levi: Yep…

Mc: They are for me right?

Levi: Yep.

Mc: Okey…. but I'm not going to wear the goldfish one.

Satan

… Well nice to meet you, don't come near me again. He had read about the great kings, the mighty heroes, the fearsome witches… he wasn't expecting a miniature human. It would be impossible to keep them alive, so he wants to get out of the way.

He has read a lot about humans, but he wasn't prepared for that. It never ceases to amaze him how little Mc's conscience is, anything can kill them! Why do them throw themself headlong into danger? He would start to interact with them very slowly, and even then he would be extremely careful, he wouldn't start to act more calmly until the fourth pact with Asmo.

Satan: *watching two KO demons with Mc on top of them* How?

Mc: I'm like a fiddler spider, tiny but lethal.

Satan: … Cool

Asmodeus

Oh my gosh, they're the size of a pocket dog, (Devildom's pocket dogs are six feet tall) . They don't look like any of the epic heroes or one with Solomon's power. So many things could happen to them, so many things could hurt them, he could do so many things to them… Is this a new fetish?

The one that best adapts his strength without giving up physical contact. At first he thought that Mc must belong to a small group of short humans. When he found out they weren't, he rethought a lot of things. Tempting humans nowadays would be complicated, and even more so if he showed his true form. But for some reason he was now more interested in actual humans.

Asmo: What is it about you that makes you so irresistible?

Mc: Ummm, do you really think something like that?

Asmo: Yes, you are so amazing and beautiful and charming… no human has ever made me feel like that before!!!

Mc: Well, you know what they say… *holds his chin from above* The best scents come in small bottles *smiling*

Asmo: *choked scream*

Beel

This can't be a human… Diavolo has been tricked, he could eat Mc in one bite, normal humans could be eaten in 5 or 6 bites… And why aren't they afraid? Don't they know the real size of a demon? Doesn't natural selection work in the human world?

Beel: *with mc sitting on his shoulders*

He would be super careful, as if Mc was made of porcelain. At first he would be reluctant to get too close, what if he broke something by touching it? But then he'd take on the role of guardian, and if anyone got more than five metres away from the little human, it'd end up as Beel's lunch.

Lucifer: Why is Mc on your shoulders?

Beel: They like to be tall.

Mc: actually it's because when he's hungry I run the risk of him crushing me without realising it.

Belphie

I've seen many humans and this can't be a human 2.0 how is something so small going to help him get out of the attic? He guess it's been too long since he've been down to the human world… if humans had been like that Lilith wouldn't have fallen in love with one…

Belphie: You're warm *placing them on his lap in class*

He fidn't expect anything from the human, however he was the one who took to them the quickest seeing what they achieved in such a short time, it seems that for a human to do great things it doesn't matter if they're small. They are also the perfect size to cuddle and sleep next to. And it's the perfect little warmth bag, as he can carry them at any time.

Mc: I think we can go home now Belphie.

Belphie: *getting up carrying Mcall the way* Cool, let's go sleep in the attic.

Mc: Do I have a choice?

Belphie: *fritting his cheek against Mc* No.

.

.

College is killing me again so sorry for the wait, I'm in a creative block so it's hard for me to write so if you've made it this far thank you very much 😌

[bones-of-a-rabbit]

the babbit masterpost

HELLO welcome to the Babbit's Blog masterpost!!! On this post you'll find some fun facts about yours allegedly (me <33), some ref's for my different 'sona's, and a couple links to my fics and whatnot! Are you ready? No?? Excellent neither am i let's do this

Meet the Babbits!: the self-inserts/personas

the first ref is for my general/most commonly used persona, Babbit! They aren't really an anthro/furry as much as they are a humanoid with the head of a rabbit. I like to think of this one as the 'me' that's in my head- the purest form of my thoughts and feelings, but not the solid real-life me. The second ref is my self-insert persona, Rabbit, the one i picture using most often when i'm reading a fic or imagining a self-insert scenario lol. This one is like the me that people see and meet and speak to in real actual life, if that makes sense. It's the way I come across to people and all of the things I wish I could iron out of my crumpled up real-self <3 The third is a much more specific 'sona, Hazel, who started off as a FNaF:SB animatronic self-insert. She does have a backstory and lore now, which i think makes her more of an OC than a self-insert, but a lot of her is still me and a lot of what she experiences in her backstory is from my life/instills the same feelings that were taken away from things that happened to me, so I think she kinda counts enough to put a ref for her here sdkjfsdhfj (Why the different names?: makes things a little easier, and they hold meaning to me symbolically, I guess!)

Content!: Here's a short list of my various fics that will get updated as I create more! (it was, in reality, not fine.): FNaF Sun/Moon x Reader fanfic, gender neutral, for general audiences, fluff-fest, idiots to lovers "You're the new tech/repairman at the Fazbear Mega Pizzaplex, unfortunately. Your first task? To make the Daycare Attendant into two separate animatronics. It's an amazing opportunity, really, and there is nothing you love more than getting a chance to really work with such tech! The only bad part is that you don't know how to tell anyone that you just might be in over your head. (You are extremely in over your head.)" After Everything Was Fixed (but you were still broken): AU FNaF Sun/Moon x (Animatronic) Reader, gender neutral, read with caution, angst, harm to sentient robots, traumatized main character, hurt/comfort slow burn, romance slow burn "The virus was gone. Everyone was fixed. You had been put back together. It's a time for a new beginning, to do things right this time, to wash away the past and paint a better future. Their memories of the infection had- mercifully- been taken away from them. Yours had not. He doesn't understand why you try to avoid him. Even if you could tell him, you're not sure you would. You want to be his friend, but it's difficult; every time you see him, you remember the hundreds of times he killed you." A fic where you are a repairman-themed STAFFbot, taking place post-virus. In the past, Moon, infected by the virus, took delight in attacking and dismantling the reader during the night. Now, in the present, you find yourself burdened by the memories of the past while everyone around you has no recollection of the events. It gets more complicated as Sun and Moon, both now cleared of the virus, grow curious of you. This fic will follow a series of arcs, presently on arc one. For anyone curious, feel free to send an ask about the arcs in 'After Everything Was Fixed'! The Sun, the Moon, and the Blazing Comet (title subject to change): AU FNaF Sun/Moon/Eclipse x Reader, gender neutral, teen and up audiences, travel/journey, betrayal, hurt/comfort slowburn, reconciling, themes of breaking the mold, found family (TBA) Hold My Broken Hands (title subject to change): AU FNaF Sun/Moon x Reader, gender neutral, mature audiences, dark romance, dark comedy, severe bodily harm, mutilation, murder, obsessive behavior, possessive behavior, lovesick (TBA)

My AU's!: i'm going to make a Babbit-AUs-Masterpost and then put the link here i swear, i just have so many im sorry jdfhsjdfhs (like more than twenty)

Fandoms!: I enjoy, have been in, made or make content for: Pokemon Undertale FNaF Creepypasta (YEAH I KNOW LET ME LIVE OKAY) My Little Pony (I KNOW OKAY LEAVE ME ALONE) Steven Universe Star Trek Warrior Cats i'm sure theres more but i just forgot everything i have ever liked wheeeeeze

Whomst the hell?: HI I'm Rabbit! Or Bones! Or Babbit! Or Avarice/Ava, if you want to go for a more legitimate-sounding name. I'm 24 years old, prefer to use they/them pronouns, and so, so incredibly ace. I've been drawing as long as I've had the ability to hold a pen, writing since I was in grade school, and being a plague to the ones around me since the beginning of time! If you've seen my art, its probably from the absolute mountain of fluffy-wuffy love-dovey (y/n) x Sundrop/Moondrop/Eclipse doodles I've been sharing for several years now sdfjhsdj. If you've heard of my fics, it was probably the one I made just for fun that's now turned into an actual fanfiction that I enjoy writing, the silly-lovey-fluff incarnate (it was, in reality, not fine.) !

Likes n Dislikes!: I'm a sucker for sap, fluff, and lots and lots of love-dovey bullshit! I also like stories about finding oneself and monsters being befriended or loved. I like space, aliens, robots, the odd and strange, injecting humanity into things not human, monsters, creatures, animals, the fae, concepts of spirits and karma and the afterlife, and more! I dislike 'fanservice', most anime tbh LOL it's not personal I just don't enjoy it im srry, FLY BABIES i know they have an actual name but i hate that word too pls just dont i will scream, sexually aggressive/forceful content/characters, being made to feel small, dumb, or trapped,

Other!: I have a pretty high gross-out tolerance! I also have a pretty high 'wow that's messed up huh' tolerance, in that sometimes I will just say stuff that's super grim or dark or messed up and not realize it lmao. I am full of random facts and anecdotes, especially weird or gross ones! sometimes i get on tangents that can go for actual hours so pls forgive that lol

WARNINGS: THIS BLOG MAY FEATURE CONTENT BASED ON/RELATED TO THEMES OF GUILT, CHILDHOOD LOSS, GRIEF, SELF HATRED, DISCONNECTION FROM REALITY/SELF, TRAUMA, AND SEVERE DEPRESSION/ANXIETY. YES I AM GETTING HELP. YES I AM OKAY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE AND UNDERSTANDING.

bonus persona: crybaby

[thefirstknife]

The Thread Unfurls Against the Clocks: Saint-14 and how we saved him

Hello. It's time. I already did one summary of how we saved Saint, but I want to go even more in-depth because I later realised that so much of this is unavailable and also happened so long ago that most people don't even know where to look for it and what to look for. I also want to address all the adjacent lore like the stuff about the Sundial and also how it all relates to the current plot.

Finally, I want this to serve as an explanation that there's something very weird going on and that the Saint we have is the real Saint. I've seen people already super resigned after this week's story, simply accepting that there was a reveal that he is truly the "wrong" Saint. I want to analyse all we have on Saint in-depth and focus on how we saved him to show the level of detail involved because I think it's important to understand things in the episode.

Obviously, really compelling lore changes can happen and work out, but in this case I'm just not feeling it, for various reasons. We'll see, but I still think this is worth putting together and that we have plenty of indications that we saved him "correctly" so to speak.

Saint is a unanimously beloved character and one that is so closely linked to our player character as well. The setup for his return was established so long ago and was kept consistent the entire time. I feel like the stuff in Echoes is almost like a culmination of it all, as well as a reminder about what we've done. We'll suffer for a bit for sure but there is no doubt in my mind that Saint will come from this safe and healed. No matter what ends up being revealed, I believe he will be fine.

Contents! Long post under. Spoilers for Echoes Act 2, mostly just in the Echoes section.

Intro

Curse of Osiris quest

Season of Dawn

What's up with the Sundial?

Echoes

Intro

I'm not sure how familiar people are with the full scope of Saint-14, but he's been a character since the beginning. We didn't know much about him at all; the first mention was in vanilla D1 in this grimoire about the Darkness, listing what various characters think about it. Saint's thoughts:

Saint-14's Position argues that the Darkness was an invading armada, an alien force of incredible - but tangible - power. Some adherents believe that this armada sprang from species rejected or discarded by the Traveler for their sins.

All things considered, he wasn't that far off! Really cool detail, but this lore was referenced in TFS, in the lore book Chirality, and especially Saint's bit:

* Saint-14's Position is the most eminently practical of the bunch, no matter how the man himself protests that such an obvious facet of the truth doesn't require a formal philosophical stance to be named for him.

There's 10 years separating these lore pieces! But they're still being referenced because there are some incredible nerds writing this.

This doesn't tell us much about Saint, besides that he's thinking in very practical terms. He views the Darkness as something that can be fought back. Note that at the start we don't know anything else about him, not even if he's a Guardian. In House of Wolves, we get this lore where the author (the Speaker) is going off about Osiris. We get a little piece about Saint; Saint-14 suggested that Osiris should become Vanguard Commander and also vouched for Osiris. This was the first piece of info that these two are familiar with each other. How far we've come since!

After that, we get his helmet as an exotic in The Taken King (though it has no lore other than the flavour text) and a little bit of insight into him with the first proper lore tab that actually features him as a character. It shows his iconic headbutt and ends with him deciding to follow Osiris to Mercury. A few little details are mentioned in flavour text on the following items, mostly quotes about or from Saint: 1, 2, 3, 4. Number 3 is interesting:

"Stand with your back to the Wall, and not even the Darkness itself will move you." —Saint-14

Remember that!

There's a few more in Rise of Iron, again, just flavour text. He's really funny here, and being his usual heroic self here. That's it for his stuff in D1. Saint-14 was some sort of historic figure, he was a Titan, he fought in historic battles, he fought against the Eliksni and he had some sort of connection with the Speaker and Osiris. He was a practical man, a warrior and a protector.

He wasn't really a full character or anything and only had a few quotes and one lore tab where he actually does something. But the stage was set! He was clearly a character they wanted to explore and they did, in Curse of Osiris.

Curse of Osiris quest

Curse of Osiris returned his helmet as an exotic item and immediately gave us hints about the expansion of Saint-14's character and where they're leading him. The lore tab on the exotic is a conversation between Cayde-6 and Lord Shaxx where Cayde-6 insists that Saint is not dead, while Shaxx is just kind of resigned to it. Cayde also notes that Saint was a "weirdo:"

C6: No one ever put down a Kell faster than he could. But man, he was a real weirdo. SX: Eccentricity was his strength. C6: Talking about the Speaker like you're related to him is eccentric. Claiming he's seen the future, that he fought Six Fronts fueled on the idea that some Guardian savior is coming? That's insane.

Wait a minute. Saint-14 claimed he's seen the future and that he believed in "some Guardian savior"? What's that about? Wink wink. Nudge nudge. To make things even more obvious, the remaining conversation is... about the Young Wolf:

SX: Belief is a hell of a thing. C6: Sure, yeah. One Guardian's going to fix everything. Kick Crota off the Moon. Make it look like us Vanguard know our head from our hindquarters. Hey, where are you going? SX: One of the new recruits from Old Russia I've had my eye on—entering the Crucible for the first time. C6: Hey, maybe they're the one. We'll call 'em Crota's End.

Maybe Cayde should've started making prophecies too! But yeah. This was the first proper hint about what they cooked up for Saint's story. Saint has apparently seen the future and believed in a "Guardian savior" and he fought for the City fuelled by this belief. Very interesting! To make things weirder, there's Saint-14's Gray Pigeon which also features some strange lore at the end where Saint addresses an unknown person:

To my inspiration. Your final gift to me I now send back to you. It will be good to see you again.

This was wild to read at the time because it clearly references something that we don't know about, but that's incredibly important to Saint. The theory was that he might be talking to us, the Young Wolf, but how?

That's where the quest comes in. Curse famously didn't have a lot of content, but it did have the post-campaign quest with Lost Prophecies. They were a set of quests where we essentially had to collect items to transform "prophecy tablets" into weapons in the Infinite Forge which was a sort of interactable area in the Lighthouse on Mercury:

There were a total of 11 of these, with the final one being to acquire the Perfect Paradox. Each weapon came with a prophecy in the flavour text and a lore tab. The final one however, Perfect Paradox, triggered a whole separate quest in two parts. In part one, we discover an old Vanguard comm signal coming from the Forest which we follow and analyse to discover that the signal is from Saint-14.

Detecting traces of familiar Light up here. Wait… Saint-14? He's been missing for decades. Saint was one of the greatest Titans who ever lived. Hero of Six Fronts. All that power and he just… vanished. The City's still looking for him.

This quest also features this conversation from Osiris and Sagira:

Osiris: If Saint-14 is lost in the Infinite Forest, it's because he came here to find us. Sagira: You can't blame yourself for every missing Guardian, Osiris. Osiris: For him I can.

If you're lucky (or unlucky, depending on how many emotions this gives you), you can hear this line from Sagira in Presage. This is where it comes from!

The quest is kinda set up in a way to make you think we'll actually be saving Saint here. We finally found his comm signal and it's leading us into the Forest. He's clearly affected the Vex and the Forest with his Light and he's fighting back. Osiris gets involved and urges us to find him. The whole thing feels like we're doing what we usually do; find a problem and fix it.

Part two of the quest continues in a similar vein. The quest is called "Not even the Darkness," btw. Remember that quote from Saint from The Taken King? Yeah. Anyway, we go back to following the trace leading us to Saint, into the Infinite Forest, this time into a simulated future. There, the Vex get alerted and summon a big Minotaur; Hagios, Reverent Mind (whose name means "sacred" in Greek, so essentially... Saint). We kill the Minotaur and then the area behind it opens; it appears to have been guarding it.

When it opens, we're treated to a bittersweet sight:

The area is beautiful, but it's a tomb. Saint-14's body is laid out like this in a pillar of light, surrounded by piles and piles of dead Vex. The Vex fought him for an unknown amount of time and they ended up respecting him; enough to create a tomb and seal his body and set a whole Vex mind to guard it, and apparently, revere it. Despite how hopeful we've been about saving him, he is dead.

As we approach his body, we take the remains of his personal weapon. Back at the Lighthouse, we use these remains and the prophecy to craft the weapon as it was; Perfect Paradox shotgun. The prophecy attached to it:

A tale that's different from the rest: the thread unfurls against the clocks. The one the Speaker loved the best must have a perfect paradox.

The prophecy is from Osiris, of course, which means that at some point when he was making them, he already knew about the strange fate of Saint-14. Not that he is dead; Osiris hoped to find him in the Forest. But his prophecy talks about time travel and a paradox. In the lore tab itself, Saint attached a letter to the gun in which he once again addresses a mysterious person. This person is now definitively identified as us:

All I have left is this weapon. The Cryptarchs say you crafted it yourself, built it out of scraps and Light and sheer will, inside the Infinite Forge. I'll make sure it finds its way back to you.

Well that's correct. We crafted the weapon in the Infinite Forge. But we only did so after recovering its remains from Saint's body, so how could he have had the gun in the first place? Almost like... there's some sort of a time travel paradox involved. This was naturally bizarre at the time; we had nothing else on Saint or any of this during this quest, just these vague baffling hints that there's more to the story. Especially since it involves our character; Saint repeatedly talks as if he had already met us. He says so in the letter as well:

I mourn that I will never reach the heights you have. To me, you represent everything a Guardian can become. Yours is a thriving City. So different from mine. My whole fourteenth life I fought to make my City yours. I never finished.

He knows that our City is thriving and that we are "everything a Guardian can become." But we've never seen him before. This was really confusing and there was also not even a promise that it would be resolved. But it felt like something that they cared about deeply.

It would take 3 years until we got the resolution.

Season of Dawn

This is a big one in general because they really wanted to be as attentive to all details as possible. Even before the season started, they released several weblore pieces to remind us of Saint and bring up some important information.

The first one was The Accolade, about Saint's past and heroic deeds revolving around saving people. The weblore focuses on explaining what his "accolades" are; aka his purple ribbons on his armour and ship. They're gifts from people he saved; tokens of appreciation that turned into a type of a ritual with Saint. If you're saved by Saint, you have to give him something purple and he will wear it with him and remember your name. It ends with Osiris shortly after we found Saint's grave. Osiris went to see it for himself, to check, to make sure. He also laments that he never asked about the ribbons.

The next one is a glimpse into the past, a conversation between Osiris and Saint as Saint hands him the Vanguard Commander title. It's a good look into how that all happened, as well as the differences in approach and beliefs between Osiris and Saint.

And then they released The Sundial weblore (TW for suicide if you're reading the full weblore. One of his Echoes does not have a good time). Osiris is found on Mercury with a machine he built, putting finishing touches on it. It's called the Sundial. Osiris built it in response to Saint being dead, the implication very much being that he intends to use some form of time travel or some other time shenanigans to change the outcome and save him. Osiris never recovered from learning that he's dead and from seeing his dead body in the tomb. The design is Sagira's, and he's also helped by Drifter, who shows up to check the math. I'll go more into the Sundial later.

Osiris wraps up his work on it and turns it on. He splits into his Echoes and enters the machine to start searching through Saint's timeline on Mercury with the intent to find the right moment with the right Saint to save him; he is specifically looking for the moment when they drain his Light.

Osiris’s Echoes scour Saint-14’s timeline on Mercury. But the corridors of time refuse to give way to the moment they need: Saint and the Martyr Mind in the depths of the Infinite Forest. The Echoes work tirelessly for weeks, then months in the space between moments. In desperation, he splits the dozen copies into many thousands more as the work continues fruitlessly.

Osiris experiences what the kids these days call "epic fail."

None of the Echoes ever approaches a Saint. They never find the right one.

Despite all the work put into this machine and all of his knowledge and skill, Osiris doesn't manage to use the Sundial successfully. He never finds the right moment and he never saves him. It's worth noting that when Osiris used thousands of his Echoes, he experienced the time and life of every single one. But for Osiris outside the Sundial, it's only been a few moments. In those few moments, he essentially lived thousands of lifetimes. And died thousands of times. I need people to understand the amount of effort he put into this and what kind of an emotional toll it had.

Completely defeated, he gives up and hides the Sundial. He moves on with his life, doing what he always does, until stuff suddenly changes, which is explored in the next weblore: Actions of Mutual Friends. Us killing the Undying Mind in the season before Dawn changed everything, for the Vex and everyone else. We essentially created a point of divergence. The Vex suddenly had to change their projections of the future; Osiris noticed this and got very concerned.

While he wasn't looking, his Sundial was found, by Psion sisters. They figure out the potential of the Sundial and work to reactivate it, which they succeed in. The Red Legion descends on Mercury, looking to use the Sundial to essentially rewrite the course of the Red War and win.

Osiris finds out and goes to Ikora, to the City, to ask for help. This is the topic of the next weblore: Desperate Times. Osiris defends his choice to make the Sundial to save Saint, despite everybody else basically trying to explain to him that the universe might implode because of it.

This is a lot of setup, but it's necessary. It all leads into what happens in the season and what the season revolves around; saving Saint. It wasn't even a secret, as they very clearly showed it right away in the trailer (best trailer they've ever done). The seasonal gameplay revolved around us using the Sundial to defeat the Red Legion and stop them from trying to figure out how to essentially change the course of history. We had to fight three different Psion bosses, one of each of the sisters, until the end, when the three of them joined together into a single Psion entity for us to defeat.

As we were using the Sundial for this, Osiris also told us about what he made it for originally. He explains a little bit about it and about his failure to succeed, then warns us against using it for ourselves, but doesn't stop us.

I told you before - I tried to save Saint-14. I bent the rules of time using a prototype of the Sundial. It allowed me to walk the corridors of time here on Mercury. But I failed. I never found Saint's final moment against the Vex. I encountered younger versions from his first mission to Mercury, among others. But none were the right Saint. The prototype Sundial still exists, accessible off the main deck. And it can still travel through Saint's personal timeline on this planet. But venture there at your own peril. He cannot be saved. I have walked every permutation of those corridors with a hundred thousand of my Echoes and found nothing. Saint-14 is lost.

Despite this, we make the attempt and then the first part of the quest starts. When we use it, the Sundial reacts. It reacts specifically to the Perfect Paradox:

The Shotgun you crafted in the Infinite Forge is reacting to the Sundial! An onboard transponder is broadcasting coordinates: a path through the Sundial, crossing two time periods. The prophecy blueprint you used to create the Perfect Paradox must have included this broadcast. If you can open up the initial chamber, I can align us to the first time period the broadcast is referencing.

The two time periods are two points in time where it's relevant that we meed with Saint. The first one is in the Dark Age, when he came to Mercury with civilians in an attempt to reclaim the planet and help the struggling population of Earth with resources and possibly old Golden Age technologies. We connect to Saint via comms. He is devastated and demoralised. He failed to protect his people and he's also under siege by the Eliksni and is more or less resigned to dying. Lucky for him, we get there in time to help him out of this situation.

After the battle, we talk to him. Our Ghost hesitates a little but then decides to do it anyway; he shows Saint the projection of the Last City from the future, to prove to him that the everything will be fine if he continues to fight and stays hopeful. We also give him the Perfect Paradox, to help him fight. The loop is set! This gun was crafted in the future and was brought to the past. In time, Saint will die with it and we will pick up its remains from his body, allowing us to craft it in the first place.

Saint-14: What is this? Ghost: The Perfect Paradox. Built by my Guardian out of spare parts and Light and sheer will to aid you.

More importantly, this is the moment that Saint spoke of to other people that made him seem crazy. As we've seen in lore from years before, Saint kept saying that he saw a thriving City and that there's some sort of Guardian savior coming and that he's seen this future. He also wrote in that letter how we gave him the shotgun and how we saved him. This part of the quest is constructed around this lore. This moment is what Saint remembered and talked about. We saved him and invigorated his will to keep going. This is why he is the way he is.

We part ways and leave the Sundial. Ghost immediately goes to check if we messed anything up and to let us know that there's one more point in time to go to:

Okay, let's check the Tower databases to make sure we didn't just wreck the entire timeline. Queuing "Saint-14"… Records state he was a former Commander of the Tower. He vanished on a final mission to Mercury in search of the exiled Warlock Osiris. Well, those are the big beats. Timeline intact. Good job, Saint. But our trip's not over. That broadcast I picked off the Perfect Paradox marked one more set of coordinates within the Sundial.

The second part of the quest started a bit later, but it doesn't waste any time once it does. We're immediately linked up to the other point in time that Perfect Paradox reacted to and we're back in simulated future, in the same area where back in Curse we fought Hagios who guarded the entry to Saint's tomb. Except now, we find Saint who has just had his Light drained from him by another Vex mind; Agioktis, Martyr Mind (note that the name is more or less in the same vein as "hagios," aka "sacred," dedicated to Saint). This is the moment Osiris was looking for, but couldn't find it, because he didn't have the Perfect Paradox.

This is the Vex mind they built to destroy Saint and we find him as his Light has already been taken. But Saint is still eager to fight and greets us happily. Unfortunately Saint is then restrained, the Vex doing everything in their power to kill him. However, this time he's not alone. We're there and we fight in his stead. We manage to piss off the Martyr Mind enough for it to now move to restrain us, which frees Saint, returning his Light to him as well. Saint then delivers the final blow to the Martyr Mind which frees us!

Saint-14: It's been a long time, my friends. I've chased your memory for centuries. You should go now. Those who could kill me are dead. You've made sure of that. Ghost: And what if the Vex take your Light again? Saint-14: Impossible. It cost them everything to build the Martyr Mind. When you crushed it, they were doomed. Ghost: You want us to leave you? You'll be stuck here for years. Saint-14: You've both done plenty. Just open the Infinite Forest gate for me. I'll meet you the long way around, at the entrance. Saint-14: What's a few more years of fighting Vex?

Saint decides to stay in the Forest and wait until we open it from the outside for him, in the future. This is how he leaves in the right time, instead of too early for his timeline, so nothing else is really affected. He waits it out and then exits the Forest at the time of Season of Dawn. This gives us one of the shortest but also the best cutscenes ever. As a note, in the cutscene, when Saint leaves, the Forest gate looks new, like from Mercury's past. This is because of the Sundial's effects on the surface of Mercury at the time, splitting the surface through time, so the Forest gate looked like it's from the past, but it's not. It's present day Mercury.

When we report this to Osiris, to say that he's amazed would be an understatement. I often quoted this from him, especially when people were being weird about Osiris and claiming he doesn't like us or whatever:

In his youth, he talked often about the Guardian who inspired him. I should have guessed it would be you.

We've done the impossible. Literally. The quest is called "Impossible Task." Osiris did everything and he couldn't do it and he lost hope that it would be done. But we did it, because we created the time loop; a connection with Saint that allowed us to use the Sundial in a way Osiris could not.

Saint has been saved! After this, he settled in the Tower. He had a series of minor quests and errands, the best one being the quest for the Devil's Ruin exotic which featured a really long and funny conversation between Saint and Shaxx. Another one is obviously the Corridors of Time quest which is genuinely cannot be compared to anything else as it was a community puzzle of epic proportions. An article that showcases just a little bit of how bonkers it was.

The important part of it is that the culmination of the quest featured us finding our own grave and Saint narrating a eulogy for us. This is important to us now for two reasons: 1) on our grave was a sword, a sword we received as an actual item in TFS, directly from the Traveler to fight the Witness 2) it's possibly a different timeline. The second one is unclear because we simply can't know when we die, but the eulogy specifies that the sword was shattered in the final confrontation where we died. Our current sword is chipped, and it wasn't when we originally got it in the campaign. So either this is a different timeline where it didn't shatter or this isn't that confrontation when we die and it will shatter at some other point in the future.

In this post I also noted how the music that plays in our grave scene and the music that played in TFS when we get the sword is the same. A very clear and deliberate choice. This is a very cool link to Season of Dawn that they brought back over 4 years later.

With the Corridors of Time puzzle ending and the Corridors closing, that concluded the Saint stuff. He was finally saved and he could rest in the Tower! And we know everything that has happened since.

Okay. So...

What's up with the Sundial?

We don't know! But I want to get into it because it's one of those things that they made sure to hint about, without fully explaining it so obviously every weird nerd online (me) wants to figure it out.

Back in The Sundial weblore, there are some peculiar and never explained details about the Sundial that have been kinda concerning and just intriguing to think about. There are a few lines essentially saying that whatever is at its core, it's not good. First is Sagira's:

“That work was theoretical! If the Vanguard find out what you did to build it—“

What did he do to build it? No clue. The infamous core is described only as:

He turned to look at the fluctuating glow of the exposed chronometric core.

When the Drifter shows up, he immediately reacts to this, fairly negatively which makes things more ominous since Drifter tangles with a lot of weird and bad stuff himself. So if he's disturbed about this...:

Drifter walked to the central spire and put his ear up against it. “This core…” he said, leaning close. His eyes darted back to Osiris. “It’s whispering.” Osiris’s expression didn’t change; his arms didn’t uncross. “We’ll seal the core away. I understand the ramifications.” “Good luck keeping that contained. Not something I would bargain with, hotshot.”

The core "whispers." Osiris understands the ramifications. They're both so frustratingly vague so the only thing we're left with is this ominous vibe of something bad being at the center of the Sundial.

This whispering, alongside a few other concerning descriptions and implications of the Sundial is mentioned in yet another weblore that I only briefly mentioned earlier because it wasn't relevant to Saint stuff; Sisters. It's about the Psions finding the machine.

The Psions could somehow feel the Sundial. Or perhaps just the effects it had on time on Mercury, even while it was powered down and hidden.

“Small disturbances,” said oldest Ozletc, the wisest. “Little currents in this timeline. Can you see them, sister?” “I can taste them,” said second-born Tazaroc, the hungriest of her sisters. “I can feel the edges.” Third-born Niruul, the quietest among them, reached her hand out to test the air. “As can I,” said she. “And something else. The source is disguised. The technology is Human, but refined. Surprisingly so.”

They also note the whispering, as well as its potential:

A strange device shimmered into existence around them. They looked up the length of an enormous, golden spire. “It whispers,” said Tazaroc. “Then block your ears,” said Ozletc. “Do you see the potential in this?” “Chaos,” said Niruul. “No,” said Ozletc. “Opportunity. See how it tugs at the fabric of our time? Can you see the seams?”

They also make the strange comparison to the OXA:

“It is so clear,” said Niruul, reverent. “An unobstructed glimpse into what was and what will be.” “Not the troubled ramblings of a mad thing, like the OXA,” said Tazaroc.

The Sundial offered something more and better than the OXA ever could, implying, perhaps, that these machines have something in common; possibly something beyond simply Vex technology. My insanity about this has been going on for a long time and also helped with the TFS CE lore. A bit of a tangent, but also possibly related, depending on what the core is.

Furthermore, Osiris refused to tell Saint about details of the Sundial, including remaining vague about its core in this weblore:

[u.2:13] One is a manifestation of Light. The other… reserved for Taken Kings. Better suited for traversing the Sundial because of what lies at its core. [u.1:14] One day you’ll have to tell me exactly what you and the Guardian did to bring me back. [u.2:14] We did what we had to. Trust me.

So what is it? Well, we know:

It whispers (very obvious and easily detected, both by Drifter and the Psions)

It's something bad (Drifter's reaction to it is uncharacteristic for a man who tangles with the Taken for a living and deals with strange dangerous artifacts all the time)

Osiris' Echoes are better suited for the Sundial because of its core, and Echoes are something "reserved for Taken Kings." Bizarre way of saying it to avoid explaining it

Similar to the OXA, and possibly any other time/prediction machines based on Vex tech (because the OXA itself is confirmed to be more or less the same as the FWC Device, for example)

To recharge it, we needed to feed it Light. This is particularly concerning with what Osiris says about it: "The Sundial is my greatest creation and my greatest regret. What I had to do to forge it I can never take back. As a result, it has components that consume Light. And if you're serious about operating it again, you'll need to feed it. Nothing is free. Ever."

What this points to, to me at least, is Darkness. The core is a Darkness artifact of some sort, merged with Vex tech. This only gained more proof to me with all the new lore about the Darkness and how it governs the mind and memory, especially when the Vex are involved. To the Vex, the future is memory. Merging Darkness artifacts with the Vex might be able to create dangerous time travel machines or machines that displace consciousness through time and timelines, like the OXA and the Device, allowing the user to "predict."

To make things even more convoluted (and me more insane), there's an almost perfect explanation for what this artifact might be. So perfect that I feel like it's too good to be true, tbh. It's a Nezarec relic. I will now list everything that connects this:

It would explain the Darkness artifact. Nezarec's relics were full of Darkness and were being used by utilising that Darkness

Drifter's involvement and experience with it. Hell, the Drifter may have even provided this relic to Osiris, since he had one and did not particularly enjoy having it, which was detailed in Lightfall when they showed us how he got it. Plunder was also rich on this, showing us that the Drifter immediately recognised the relics and understood what they were.

Whispering. Darkness in general has a whispering thing; the Veiled statues, the Witness, the old stories about Dredgen Yor, there's a lot of whispering going on here. But it's really super connected to Nezarec. His relics were whispering to us in the H.E.L.M.. The glaive? Nezarec's Whisper. Another disciple also called him a "whispering Nightmare." All of Root of Nightmares armour lore has it as well, with Nezarec tormenting his victims with whispers; for example here, and here, and maybe even here. I could go on. He's the whisper guy. Literally, Nimbus called him Mr. Whispers.

Psions. The Psion sisters found and reactivated the Sundial... Somehow. They especially were able to almost instinctively locate it despite Osiris hiding it well enough. The Psions also needed quite a lot of time to activate it again and admired the complexity of the encryption, despite it being human, so we can't really say that they found it easily because Osiris' did a poor job of hiding it. Were they drawn to it? Were they drawn to it because of its core? Psions are inherently linked to Nezarec. It's been confirmed back in Lightfall, but also curiously mentioned again in TFS with the Lost Ghosts quest (timestamped here). I'm definitely hoping for some Psion content in the future but this is fairly interesting in this context. Season of Dawn was really the only proper Psion-focused storyline.

Osiris' coma. His coma appears to have been somehow paracausal. At least strange! The scans were showing that he has "no residual activity" in his brain, despite us having lore from his POV showing us that he had a very vivid and visceral activity. He was able to feel some external stimuli, but was mostly drifting through strange visions, seemingly hopping between his... Reflections. Or possibly Echoes. His final thoughts here are also of the Sundial; as if his mind was somehow stuck in there, or lost, trying to find his way out of it. This could just be a consequence of his memories constructing something for him to experience so obviously it's just cycling through what he knows, but...

Waking Osiris up from his coma happens with the use of Nezarec's relics. An important point to note here is that this wasn't so much about it being Nezarec's relics; it had more to do with the inherent Darkness they consist of and Darkness can help the mind and consciousness move or awaken. However, given all of this and given his POV from the coma and the possibility that his mind might have been stuck somewhere with his Echoes in the Sundial, if the Sundial's core is a Nezarec relic, then a Nezarec relic had more chance to bring him back. It's such a perfect connection that I feel insane thinking about it and it feels like I'm constructing a fanfic, but also. I think it's worth considering. Cutscene of him waking up + article from Bungie that details on the whole idea of waking him up with Darkness and why that's important for understanding Darkness.

I have to mention the other theory, especially in comparison with all the above to try and illustrate why it never made sense to me and that is the popular theory that the core of the Sundial is an Ahamkara bone and that the Sundial worked on wish magic.

I'm not quite sure why this was even a theory to be honest. Even back in the day of Dawn, this never really resonated with me because it seems that the only reason this was a theory was Drifter saying "not something I would bargain with" and... Possibly whispers? Obviously a lot of things can whisper, and Ahamkara have been also mentioned doing so, but I don't find this significant to Ahamkara enough for identification just through that. I also don't think that one mention of the word "bargain" is enough either. Many have bargained with Darkness too. There's simply an overlap between Darkness and Ahamkara here, but there are also other pieces that are more closely linked to Darkness like eating Light. We could go even further, if we're considering Ahamkara; we could also consider Worm Gods, for example. The point is that several things can fit here, but I feel like there's overall more things pointing at Darkness.

What gets me the most is that they alluded to this in Season of the Wish, in what seems fairly obvious as disproving this theory to me. Riven and Osiris talk:

Riven: Isn’t it unfortunate your City hunted down all of my kind, Osiris? You might have wished for Saint-14’s return from the Forest. Osiris: And have him trade the Vex’s torment for yours? Riven: Perhaps you simply didn’t want him back badly enough to pay the price. Osiris: Save the bait for someone naïve enough to take it.

I talked about this earlier, but there's several layers of why the moment I heard this, it sounded like it's here to disprove Osiris using an Ahamkara. First, Ahamkara wish magic would be felt by Riven. If Osiris put an Ahamkara into the Sundial, then he did use wish magic and she would know about it. In that case she would not have said this; perhaps she would've teased him about using her powers to save Saint, but that would be a completely different sentence.

Second, Osiris is well aware and wary of wish magic. He knows that had he done so, he would've probably put some form of torment (wish magic backfire) on Saint. This, to me, indicates that not only did he not do this, he didn't even consider it as an option.

Third, if Osiris had an Ahamkara bone and was considering to use it, he could've just done so without building the Sundial. Why bother with the machine if you can just instantly make a wish and the wish doing exactly as you want? Obviously with a caveat, but still. It would've worked right away. Perhaps the Sundial was an attempt to contain the backfire, mixing wish magic with Vex tech to try and prevent the whole thing from going backwards, but even then; Osiris knew there are possible consquences.

And fourth, even if he did all that, it just didn't work, which would be quite uncharacteristic for wish magic. It's paracausal; it should override any Vex tech in the Sundial. If he made a wish, he should ask for a refund! The Sundial worked only because of the paracausal loop we created with the Perfect Paradox and it had nothing to do with anyone's wishes; definitely not ours.

One interesting thing for this theory is the way they said how similar wishing and simulations are. It happened in Wish and now again in Echoes. Here's a freebie for the Ahamkara theory enthusiasts.

Personally though, I simply feel like there's much more connecting and sensible explanation with it being a Darkness relic, rather than Ahamkara.

HOWEVER. The truth is that we simply don't know. I am personally more into it being Darkness (and Nezzy specifically), but I could be wrong and the Ahamkara theory could be proven correct somehow. Hell, it could be something completely different. It could also be nothing; as in, we will never know because they won't tell us because it doesn't matter.

And technically, it doesn't! Nothing really changes if this doesn't get answered. I want that to be clear. This isn't some sort of lore breaking detail. But you know. The nerds would love to know. I really wanted to get into this now that we've had a resurgence in interest about Saint and how we saved him.

Echoes

Okay, so why this monster of an essay? Well, because Echoes revolves around Saint and the Conductor trying to convince him that he's the wrong Saint. That Osiris acted out of grief and pulled a random Saint from the timelines, that he's simply satisfied with what he got because he couldn't get his original Saint because that Saint died.

Saint is convinced in this; that he's some sort of an aberration in the timeline, a simulation or a copy or just the wrong Saint from the wrong timeline. Even an error that must be corrected.

And I simply think that people are too quick to jump to the conclusion that this is the story being told, especially because of the radio message this week where we're shown that Saint and Osiris suddenly have different memories. But I feel like people have already forgotten the other radio message, from week 1. You know, the one where Saint and Osiris talk about their memories and the memories match perfectly:

Saint-14: Osiris. Do you remember when we knew? Osiris: Knew what? Saint-14: That we were meant to be together. There was one moment... though, it took us time to get to it. Oh, but our Hunter Vanguard, so smart, Tallulah... she knew before we did. All our little squabbles and bickering. She saw it first. Osiris: it, uh — ah, well, I was — obtuse. Stubborn. I couldn't recognize my own emotions. Then, Tallulah told me to.. "Be serious". Saint-14: Haha! I remember. So yes, she told me later. Was good laugh. Osiris: Well, I'm glad you found it so amusing. Saint-14: Who could not look back and smile? And I remember your smile, then. So knowing, and so full of our future together. Osiris: What brought these memories on? Saint-14: Hmm. I think about others who will have those same moments now that they know they will a future free from the Black Fleet. Now they have a chance to find love and be happy, like us. We can look behind, but also forward. We cannot see what is coming, but we know it is good. Osiris: You're certain? Saint-14: About us? Yes. Since the beginning. Now, and always.

We have this memory as a lore tab as well. I think this was given to us deliberately, to show us that Saint and Osiris have identical memories and that Saint's memories were never in question and that their history is perfectly aligned... Until he got yoked. Something changed when he got yoked, not when he was saved. This is a new development, which tells me that the Conductor did something to him, rather than Osiris saving the wrong Saint. Because until now, this was never a problem. Saint never had discrepancies in his memories before, with anyone he ever interacted with.

If we take a look at the whole story of how he was returned, it's beyond clear that Osiris was very fixated on saving his Saint, not a random one, and that we went to great lengths to do just that. We only ever interacted with one Saint, the same one, and we linked each other with the Perfect Paradox. It cannot be any other Saint, even with the existence of other timelines. This Saint and this Perfect Paradox are ours, from our timeline, the originals.

However, other timelines do exist. And some entities can access them. The Vex are obviously first on the list. Characters like Elsie and Osiris have also seen them. And clearly, the Conductor should be capable of this as well. It's beyond clear now that the Conductor is Maya Sundaresh. Maya, who was simulated 227 times by the Vex and had those 227 copies of her wandering the Vex network and different timelines.

If the Conductor knows where to look and how, she could see these timelines, including these other Saints, and she could've fed Saint false information while he was yoked. Implanting memories of other Saints perhaps, or something similar.

I know a lot of people weren't there for Dawn, let alone Curse. There's a lot of information about Saint here and a lot of really interesting clues from the past about what's happening now. It's also really interesting how many little details have been transferred through the story over time, showing that this is a plotline they care about very much and want to make sure doesn't get messed up.

There's probably a lot more stuff we could get into for speculation and explanations because there's still more stuff that plays a role in this. The Infinite Forest is a big one, and I suspect the Perfect Paradox is as well, as we're likely to get it next week or the week after as part of the story. Because it should be relevant to the story! It's an inherent part of Saint's story and why he's with us now in the first place.

So what's really going on? We're not entirely sure yet, but assuming that the Conductor is correct and that her messing with Saint is revealing something about Saint's legitimacy is I believe wrong. I think she's using him as an experiment and that she's messing with him, and by extension, with us as well. There's no way that we've had a "wrong" Saint this whole time and that nobody ever had any issues with him. That nobody had any discrepancies between memories with him. Not Osiris, not Ikora, not Shaxx, not Saladin, not Zavala or anyone else Saint interacted with since he's been back. As I mentioned, literally the first radio message shows us Saint and Osiris with matching memories.

It only started after he was yoked. Which means that the yoke and the Conductor did something to him, possibly shown him some other timelines or fed him false information.

Can't wait to see where this is going. I'm not sure how much this Act will cover and if we'll get a resolution to this right now or if it will stretch to Act 3, though if it doesn't get stretched, then I wonder what will the draw of Act 3 even be. Possibly just dealing with the Conductor? I'm very excited. This episode being so focused on Saint and Osiris and the whole throwbacks to Dawn and other past content has been really good. I'm enjoying it very much, this is my entire jam. I had high hopes for Echoes and so far it's been going great.

I'm super excited to see how they solve this and what comes of it and how much of this information will be relevant. And of course, if it will end up being correct! Because as much as I have my theories and as much as I'm convinced that there's something off here and that our Saint cannot be the wrong Saint, I could still be wrong. Looking forward to finding out!

[sumwan]

I'm not sure how many people know about this, but the entire script for the Green Festival was actually shown in Tommy's DSMP tribute video from last year. It seems to have been written by Dream (it mentions "I" at some point when referring to Dream), and it's pretty interesting to see how they planned out the lore streams and what changed in the actual streams.

Transcription can be found under the cut.

Transcription The festival is happening. Fundy, Tubbo, Quackity, Ranboo, Niki, and anyone else that is generally around lmanburg can attend. Everyone starts streaming early for the festival. Before the festival starts, Quackity Tubbo and Fundy (and ranboo? I'm not sure who was there originally), have a meeting about how they're going to kill Dream.

They talk about how Dream trusts Tubbo so Tubbo is going to have to be the one to do it. That they've become sort of friends since Tommy was exiled. Tubbo agrees, still slightly doubtful that it would work. Tubbo says that Dream agreed to show up with no armor to for the first time ever, honor lmanburgs laws.

The meeting ends and they start the festival, talking about how Dream said he would be a little late.

Tommy and Techno at this point have been planning how they're going to ruin the festival (and get back Tommy's disc from Dream). They know that Dream will show up, but they don't know how they'll fight him without him escaping. (Ranboo finds them on the outskirts of lmanburg and tells them that Dream agreed to show up in no armor? possibly?) That sparks that they can hide around lmanburg and ambush Dream when he's at the festival. Tommy and Techno improv and mess around while trying to build an "ambush spot" (all of this is sort of unimportant to the plot so can be adjusted to make funnier/better streams for those two).

Tommy and Techno start streaming about 30 minutes after the others.

After some festival activities have been done, Dream shows up in full armor, placing obsidian again in a wall formation. Everyone sees him and runs over confused about what's happening.

They hop in a call with dream (techno and tommy join too but tell eachother to be quiet before joining.) Dream starts screaming about what Tommy did and how he really screwed up this time (tommy is kind of afraid and is looking at techno for assurance), and everyone is confused about what Tommy did, especially tubbo. Dream yells about the fact that Tommy destroyed the community house, the longest standing structure on the server, and how he has to pay for it. Quackity and the others don't believe it and decide to go look with Dream. (Techno and Tommy follow stealthily behind (invis), no one should see them).

Sapnap and anyone else from the original Dream SMP can log on now or already be on and come over to see. (Awesam, Callahan, George(probably not), Sapnap, BadBoyHalo, Punz)

They stand in front of the shattered remains and everyone is shocked that Tommy would do this, and upset. Everyone is insisting that Tommy really screwed up and that it's horrible.

Tubbo agrees but insists that he and lmanburg had nothing to do with it. Dream says that as long as Tubbo has one of the discs, he has everything to do with Tommy. Tubbo seems shocked and thinks about what Dream said. All of the Dream SMP original members agree and are talking about how he should give it so they can burn it once and for all. Tubbo is reluctant but seems to agree that Tommy keeps doing things that would put lmanburg in danger, so he doesn't want association.

He seems like he is about to give the disc, so Tommy reveals himself (techno too) and gets into a screaming match with Tubbo about it.

--Tommy and tubbo fill in what happens here, but it's a big argument and fight probably mostly improv-

Eventually after both nearly dying, Tommy realizes that he's fighting his best friend and stops. Tubbo is angry and gives the disc quickly to Dream, saying that it's just a stupid disc. Tommy is hurt by that but realizes that he's been blinded and has lost friends because of it. Tommy realizes that Dream now has both of his discs, and that they're back at square one.

Dream has an evil speech about how Tubbo is an idiot and that he never should have given him the disc. That Tubbo was never the president of L'manburg, but that everyone else had more control than him of his own country, even Dream. That he's the worst president because he was no president at all. Expose Ranboo as a traitor that has been working with Techno and Tommy, and that he can't even keep control of his own people. Give Tubbo the book with proof. That l'manburg is weaker than it's ever been, and that the only thing stopping Dream from completely destroying l'manburg was the fact that Tubbo had the discs and so Dream had to befriend him.

Now there's nothing stopping Dream from completely obliterating l'manburg. Everyone seems shocked and tries to talk Dream down, but Dream screams and tells everyone to shut up. Everyone goes completely silent. Dream asks Techno if he has any withers left. Techno responds basically like "oh do III" because he has so many.

--Techno should add more here so he has more of a role-

Dream announces that tonight is the final night of l'manburg forever. That he and Techno will finish the job that Wilbur started, and that l'manburg will be blown all the way to bedrock at (TIME, the next day). He tells everyone to say their last goodbyes, and to not try and stop him because Techno and him will kill every last one of them.

Dream leaves.

Everyone is left in shock, (maybe techno has some funny monologue here like it's awkward that I just left him there with everyone or something)

No one knows what to say. They realize that Dream has gone completely insane and that he has to be stopped. (techno is gone by now) They realize that Dream made a mistake by telling them the time, and they decide that they will all plan to work together and stop them. If all of the server fights together they can beat Techno and Dream. They get hyped about it and Tommy and Tubbo agree to fight together, despite having 1 canon life, that they're willing to put their lives on the line for l'manburg. They kind of have a reunion.

--Possibly Tommy leaves or ends here?-

Quackity seems blood thirsty and wants to punish Ranboo for conspiring with them and being a traitor. Tubbo disagrees and Quackity and tubbo get into an argument, Quackity insists that he HAS to execute him because he was a traitor. Tubbo gets mad and flips out on Quackity insisting that he's not going to be like Schlatt and execute him next to his own festival decorations (call back), that they need to ALL be together, ALL of them, otherwise they will lose to Techno and Dream. As long as he agrees to fight, he will fight with them. Quackity still seems to disagree, Tubbo puts his foot down and mentions what Dream said. That everyone else always pushed him around, but no HE'S the president, and his word is final, anyone who goes against it is committing treason. Quackity reluctantly agrees, but says that what Tubbo said doesn't mean they can't deal with the traitors after they stop Techno and Dream.

-End of this stream-

Bullet points for Tommy-

Starts Stream a little after Tubbo and the others start.

Plan to go to l'manburg to ruin the festival

Show up at l'manburg, with lots of invis potions, investigate what's happening

Dream shows up, join VC secretly Hear Dream freak out about the community house, seem confused, follow them.

Once Tubbo seems like he's going to give up the disc, tommy interjects

Fight tubbo

Give up on fighting tubbo and realize that you're fighting your best friend

Listen to Dream evil speech

After Dream/Techno leaves, convince everyone to work together. Talk about putting your life on the line for l'manburg.

Bullet points for Techno-

Start Stream a little after Tubbo and the others start.

Plan to go to l'manburg to ruin the festival

Show up at l'manburg, with lots of invis potions, investigate what's happening

Dream shows up, join VC secretly Hear Dream freak out about the community house, seem confused, follow them.

Once Tubbo seems like he's going to give up the disc, tommy interjects

Fight tubbo

Give up on fighting tubbo and realize that you're fighting your best friend

Listen to Dream evil speech

Join in when Dream asks if you have withers, *whatever else you want here*

After Dream leaves, awkwardly leave and head back to your house

Dream is there and Techno & Dream briefly talk about what they're going to do, Techno shows Dream the wither room

Bullet points for l'manburg-

Start Stream a little before the festival

Have meeting with cabinet about killing Dream, how Tubbo should be the one to do it because he's trusted.

Start the festival, Dream said he would show up a little later.

Dream shows up in full armor and is building an obsidian wall.

Realize and run over pissed off. Join his VC (don't see tommy / techno)

Listen to Dream, then go see the community house

Be mad at Tommy

Tubbo fights with Tommy after almost giving up his disc

Fight ends, Tubbo gives the disc to Dream to end war

Listen to Dream evil speech

Ranboo was a traitor for Techno/Tommy

After Dream/Techno leaves, Tubbo and Tommy convince people to work together. They talk about putting their lives on the line for l'manburg.

Quackity wants Ranboo executed

Tubbo puts his foot down and insists that he will not be doing that, that he's president.

Bullet Points for original DreamSMP members:

After l'manburg and dream show up at the community house(it's blown up), show up and seem upset and distressed that it was blown up. That it was the oldest artifact on the server and it had a lot of memories.

Follow Dream's lead, mostly agreeing with what he says.

Once Dream brings up the disc that Tubbo has, insist that it be burned and turned over by Tubbo.

Once Tubbo turns over the disc, Dream gives and evil speech

Realize that Dream is taking it too far and l'manburg's a part of history and is a free country

Follow Tommy/Tubbo's lead, talk about how you guys can stop Dream and Techno if you all work together

[coraniaid]

how about an AU where cordelia stayed in sunnydale?

Oh, that's interesting.

I think that, in reality, if Cordelia hadn't left for Angel, she'd probably have ended up occupying a pretty similar place in the rest of Buffy to the role Anya ends up taking. Maybe not exactly the same one (I don't know if the writers would have had her and Xander get back together, for example, and obviously Cordelia isn't a former vengeance demon), but close enough that I'm not even sure that they'd have made Anya a permanenent member of the cast.

But, ignoring that, and taking Anya's ongoing presence in Sunnydale as given...

I think something has to happen to make Cordelia stay in Sunnydale, right? It's clear from Season 3 that she doesn't want to (see, for example, her reaction to finding out that Buffy got into Northwestern: "great! now you can leave and never come back! [I mean] get out of Sunnydale: that's a good thing"). I guess maybe the lazy option is just to have her trying to save up money to get into drama school somewhere? We already see her working at April Fools in Season 3, maybe she can keep doing that. Or maybe -- remembering Cordelia's role as Buffy's shadow -- her parents split up because of her father's tax issues and she ends up feeling she has to stay in town to help look after her mom? Or maybe put those two ideas together: Buffy's surprised to see that Cordelia's still in town, Cordelia tries as nonchalantly as possible to pretend she's still around for her own reasons and then we learn that she's putting her own ambitions on hold because she has to help her mom look for a new place to stay. And maybe that gives us a chance to explore some of the class issue stuff that Buffy as a show always skirts around but never really touches (how does Cordelia feel about now being in a position more like Xander than Buffy or Willow?).

I've complained about this before (more than once), but I think Cordelia being in Sunnydale is a great excuse to change how the gang react to finding out that Harmony is a vampire. I mean, say what you want about the show's approach to vampire lore, but it's pretty jarring how quickly everyone reacts to finding out that their former classmate died helping fight the Mayor and his minions in the same dismissive "haha, Harmony's always been an idiot" way; as if Harmony had 'decided' to become a vampire in a slightly embarrasing post-school life choice. It feels more in character for Buffy, Giles and Xander to argue that Harmony is dead and That Thing Is Not Her while Cordelia (just as in Disharmony over on Angel a season later) says "no, this is definitely Harmony, she's my friend". (Willow can still react in the same way as canon, sure; it's not out of character for her to dislike Harmony.) And I think it would help the maybe-demons-aren't-all-bad approach that the show obviously wants to go for if Harmony and Cordelia actually were friends this season. Like, Harmony herself still absolutely is evil and will hang around trying to feed on people heading home late from work in the dark -- but when she recognizes her intended victim is Cordelia she immediately drops the vamp face and they cheerfully walk back to Cordelia's place chatting about high school and how much they agree Xander sucks.

I think Cordelia would also help to push Giles out of his mid-life crisis a bit earlier than he manages in canon. Partly in the same way she does for Angel in his show. Sure, she can't fix everything going wrong in her own life but she can stop Giles sitting around feeling sorry for himself in his large house [much larger than some people's houses, she'll point out] and maybe push himself into finding an actual job more quickly. I think that would set up some tension with Anya later (when she gets a job at the shop Giles opens, a little ahead of canon) which I think would be nice to see. (I also think it would be fun to see Anya interact with Cordelia more generally, the way they did in The Wish when Anya was first pretending to be human. They are both pretty blunt speakers, after all, who both see themselves as being outside of the core Scooby Group, and it would be fun to see them commenting on things together. Or to imagine Cordelia's puzzled/disgusted reaction whenever Anya starts talking about how great Xander is and how much she enjoys having sex with him.)

Once we get to Season 5, I'd love to see how Dawn and Cordelia interact. As I think I've said before, I think they'd get on really well (and that this would annoy Buffy a lot). Dawn looks up to Cordelia as somebody a lot like her own sister before she became a Slayer (but infinitely superior because she isn't actually her sister), while Cordelia loves having somebody tell her how great she is and tells Dawn how much cooler she is than Buffy (and not entirely just to annoy Buffy). I think Cordelia might even replace Willow in some contexts (in particular, I think it parallels Cordelia instantly agreeing to drive Buffy home in Helpless if Dawn demands to stay at Cordelia's after Joyce's funeral and Cordelia instantly accepts even though we've already established she doesn't want anyone she knows seeing the reduced circumstances she's living in). Cordelia never interacts with Joyce in canon as much as Buffy's other shadow selves do, but she does seem to admire her [in their very limited exchanges]. Actually, maybe at some point in Season 4 Cordelia quits her retail job to go and work for Joyce at the art gallery? I mean, if Season 4 is (in part) about Buffy losing touch with her mother as she moves away from home, what better way to represent that than by having the character who represents Buffy's younger, pre-Slayer self start spending more time with her?

When Riley delivers his stupid ultimatum to Buffy in Into The Woods, Xander would still give his ridiculous speech to Buffy about how great Riley is and how this is all Buffy's fault, but Cordelia (who, it turns out, has views of her own on what to do when your boyfriend cheats on you and expects you to forgive him and take him back and indeed about whether you should take Xander Harris seriously about anything) would interupt and point out just how bizarre what Xander was saying was (and probably be the catalyst for him to realize that what he's saying applies far more to his own relationship with Anya). We cut to Riley waiting by his helicopter ready to go and pacify Central America for Christian missionaries [or whatever] when a female figure emerges from the woods ... Riley looks up, hopeful, but it's not Buffy. It's Cordelia ["what," she says, paraphrasing Gunn; "you were expecting somebody else?"]. Cordelia gets to give Riley a piece of her mind and tell him how great Buffy is [something she'd never tell Buffy, of course] and how badly Riley messed things up, and then she cheerfully waves him off as he leaves Sunnydale forever. [And, okay, yes, Buffy will still be upset about their relationship ending and she will still blame herself later when the topic comes up -- that's just who she is and how she approaches all of her romantic relationships. But at least we don't have to humor Joss Whedon's ego by pretending that she was right to do this and that her relationship with Riley was actually great all along.]

[genericpuff]

oh boy rachel's telling on herself a little-

so we noticed that her Twitter name recently changed again, now featuring her bluesky social in her username to obviously advertise to people that she has a Blue Sky.

She's had BlueSky for a while, but it obviously doesn't have as massive of a following because 1.) Blue Sky is still a much smaller platform than Twitter (undoubtedly because it still requires invite codes to join), and 2.) it's really, REALLY hard to move the entirety of your fanbase from one platform to another as many followers are bound to be "dead" (i.e. not active on the platform anymore) and others will naturally fall off because they may have followed ages ago but never bothered to keep up or unfollow from a page that was just on their backburner.

But interestingly enough, this change is very recent and when you check her BlueSky, which she would only post to every once in a while, it's now seeming to be a lot more active with multiple posts over the past couple days. So I think it's very clear at this point that she's trying to actively commit to the migration from Twitter to BlueSky.

BUT HOOO BOY. SOME OF HER POSTS Y'ALL. SHE'S PRACTICALLY DOUBLING DOWN LMAO

You've all seen me dissect the SHIT out of Rachel's art process and y'all can verify it yourself through those posts that never once has she shown herself drawing this way. Never in the process reels, or the time lapse videos, or the single sketch posts she's made. So her claiming that she "likes doing this as well" is just flatout false because she doesn't do this. So I literally don't know who she's trying to fool with this (aside from her own fanbase) but she ain't fooling me LMAO

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rachel Smythe (@usedbandaid)

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A post shared by Rachel Smythe (@usedbandaid)

But that's not even the best thing she's shared, oh no. Because this isn't even the full kit of clown makeup.

Nope, that goes to this repost-

No hate to the person who posted this, I'm sure they're chill and cool, I just think the fact that Rachel of all people reposted this to her BlueSky which she's trying to replace her Twitter with is very telling. We all know this isn't just Rachel sharing something funny for the gag, we know exactly what Rachel likes and portrays in her work that she could see herself in through this post.

And what's even more telling (and hilarious) is that this may as well have been her running away to BlueSky after the "Never apologize for being Sicilian" tweet became the top result when you search "Lore Olympus" on Twitter LMAOOO

I'm not saying that's exactly what's going on here, but the thought of Rachel deciding to fully commit to moving to BlueSky out of sheer embarrassment over this one out-of-context panel from years ago that went viral overnight - and staying at the top of the search result feed because no one's engaging with good faith LO posts anymore - is hilarious, and if it takes this dumbass panel of Hades telling Persephone she should never apologize for being Sicilian to get people talking about how stupid and hilarious LO is, then I say it's about damn time.

[yuri-is-online]

Hey, remember the soulmate au by tiyoin(?) I recently read your post abt idia and Leona reacting to yuu being their mates, but I wanna take it a step further since I saw idias line abt the family curse (this has yandere implications so if it's not your cup of tea please feel free to just ignore, nothing is outright mentioned tho)

What if yuu has a family curse similar to the aishi family in yandere simulator? (It's been years since I touched the game so if the lore changed I'm basing it off of 2018 ish lore, just with my own twist) basically yes, yuu CAN feel emotions, they're just muted and barely there. Given the right conditions (like falling in love or spending time with friends) and/or antidepressants they'll basically be like any other person, without them it's like a less severe version of the aishi women pre-falling in love

So, afab ppl born in yuus family, once falling in love, start losing their sanities and adopt yandere like behavior (stalking, increasing rage and jealousy, willingness to murder, etc) unfortunately this means they usually die young (20s or 30s) how quickly/young they die is based on their willpower (resisting the urges) and when/if they fall in love (so someone falling in love for the first time in their 40s and having insane willpower, caving in 20 years later in their 60s has more luck than a 16 year old falling in love and caving in almost immediately). Unfortunately everyone is a carrier, men carry the gene and can pass it to their daughters, but it only presents in the women/afab ppl, so transfems won't be affected but transmascs will.

What if yuu fell in love already (in their own world) and has just been doing a really REALLY good job at Resisting The Urges™️. Like, sometimes they slip up and cave in to anger or get ridiculously jealous, but they try their hardest to tamp down the feelings. Yuu has sworn off falling in love (again) and has given up their dream of having a big family bc of the curse, they're even distancing themselves from their object of affection in an attempt to "be normal again" at the cost of their own sanity.

So yuu gets transported to twst, and without their darling, they have the chance to be normal again, assuming they can get past the initial panic frenzy. Then the soul bond is revealed and they just go "nope. Not this shit again" and spouts cryptic messages about a family curse and swearing off love. I'm pretty sure most of the boys would feel a bit hurt by that lmao

This is mostly made for idia since his segment is what sparked the idea in the first place, but which characters from most to least likely do you think would try to pursue mc and figure out the truth to leave them alone and try to move on? I personally can't see someone like kalim giving up on both but I think the octatrio would try to look for the truth but be 50/50 on pursuing yuu or dropping them like a hot potato. Idia I think would try to relate to yuu and try to pursue them, but I think he'd probably be a bit put off once yuu starts dropping hints about the curse (he's a weeb so it won't take long for him and maybe Ortho to put 2+2 together and figure out the curse)

tiyon's soulmate au can be found here, their first post inspired some asks, which led to my own soulbound au the rules of which can be found here. Please support tiyon and interact with their soulmate au! They're a very creative blog and deserve the attention~ give them some reblogs!

so. uh. I got this ask when I first woke up and 1) very happy to hear from you Rose, always lovely to get a new ask and 2) yandere? sim? has lore? I did not think people actually played the game? help. i've fallen and misplaced my life alert. As a rule I don't really write for a Yuu who is just x character from y game/anime (it is in my rules) so while I was at work realizing I might be old I was trying to think of a way to do this that wasn't just yan sim (I wanted something properly gn) and I think I've got something? I am currently beating away the desire to info dump on you about the myth of Sigurd and Brunhilde (i could scream about that for hours oh god oh please i have written an actual au for that but efkjbekjrgbjrthnytrh) So here is the basic idea:

Yuu ran afoul of a witch in their world and was appropriately cursed. Given the myth I was inspired by I don't think Yuu did anything bad, but they still made the witch mad so they got cursed to lose all reason should they ever fall in love.

"You will be thine own destruction!" Cackles the witch and Yuu, who is actually normal unlike trey this person takes a deep breath and resigns themselves to researching a way to minimize the effects and maybe break it? They don't know they thought magic was fake until they thought they were just doing a favor for someone but turns out they pissed off Baba fucking Yaga.

They start to isolate themselves since they notice the curse starting to eat at them when they are around anyone the love; they consider going back to the witch and asking for further clarification but they can't seem to find them anywhere so they take some deep breaths and do their best to just be normal.

When they end up in Twisted Wonderland, and start feeling... weird. And it only gets worse when Crowley speculates that they might have been brought to Twisted Wonderland because they posses a soulbond.

And Yuu immediately freaks out because they don't want to kill anyone.

Now as for your question for who would try to pursue Yuu vs just leave them... well I don't really like writing un reciprocated feelings so I hesitate to say any of the cast would drop Yuu. In my au it isn't possible for soulbonds to not be reciprocated, and they are already sort of seen as a curse by mages so this... complication might not be normal but it isn't unexpected if that makes sense. Which would probably make Yuu swearing off love hurt even worse.

Kalim wouldn't want to abandon Yuu. Not ever, no matter how much of a danger they could be to him. Hell, he's willing to forgive people who are trying to poison him on the off chance they might regret it. But he is the heir of House Al-Asim, and I could see his dad paying someone to take Yuu out to keep his son safe. Something Jamil sees coming from a mile away and has to just keep quiet about. Something I can see Jamil feeling bad about, he might not like Kalim but you didn't ask for anything that happened to you. And yet the Asim's took your life from you anyway.

Have to disagree about the octatrio just a bit. Floyd would be into this. And so would Jade. But especially Floyd, oh hee hee ha ha his soul mate wants to kill him? Say less he is on his way to get his ass eat beat with an engagement ring in hand. Both he and Jade would be a little disappointed when the curse is broken and you aren't actively trying to kill him anymore... maybe you could try and poison him huh? Like old times?

I wrote 20 paper pages of soulbond au stuff for Azul so I will try to be brief here but... I don't think this situation would be one that made him try to break the bond. He has... complicated feelings about soulbonds already. If anything I could see him thinking he deserves this.

Now Idia. He's complicated. Pre-overblot he has given up on the concept of breaking his own curse, and I could see him feeling the same way about yours. Ortho on the other hand... even before he gets his soul he wants to help. After the overblot I can see Idia pursuing Yuu determined to find the truth and save them. Not that he wouldn't interact with them before that, he's a bit nihilistic so I can see him just making a bunch of jokes about the situation or promising to let Yuu kill him "after this next round." Or just straight up asking them to when he has to hit pity in one of his gachas. It's just cringe enough that it snaps Yuu out of the curse fog for long enough for the two of them to be normal around each other. And by normal I mean incredibly awkward

Anyway that's all I've got. Thank you for the ask ♡

[cripplecharacters]

Hi there! I've got a fantasy story I've been working on for ages, and one of the characters has a magical "disability" that I've been having doubts about. (content warning for very minor self-injury.) Sorry in advance cause this is kind of a long ask, but I think it's all important context.

My story has a very slice-of-life theme in it, that despite all the grand adventure and amazing magical deeds it also focuses a lot on friendship and fighting to preserve peaceful lives, and most forms of magic are very mundane and help out with daily jobs and hobbies.

This character, part of the main cast, is a person with the common ability to grow a pair of wings and minor other body changes that allow her to fly via magic. In a region of her world where magic is taught and cast verbally, she was originally able to cast magic verbally, before she was cursed to be unable to easily use magic. This curse locked off her ability to cast magic in the standard way, and also to freely transform between her human and winged appearances, though she can still fly and use her wings normally with only some discomfort. Since she's in her winged form permanently, she discovered that if she uses her feathers to write out the words of her spells, in the dirt or on her skin or whatever, she can circumvent the curse and cast spells, though it's not comfortable to her since she's still suffering the effects of the curse and it's not a standard or reliable way to use magic. It causes her discomfort and even pain depending on the strength of the spell, and sometimes she has to pull out a feather if she needs to cast a spell right away and doesn't have any harmlessly shed feathers on hand. (like yanking out some hair, hurts but won't really bleed or cause injury unless she pulls out a big flight-devoted feather.)

Originally, her goal in the story was to find a way to break her curse, and regain both her ability to transform freely as well as speak magic in the usual way, because using her feathers in such a way was damaging her ability to cast magic at all and might have really hurt her soul if she didn't find a solution quickly. Though I've been having trouble getting that plot point to work, and I've also been reading on this blog about how perfect magical healing of disabilities is a cop-out. I've come to the conclusion that this character's condition is definitely a disability in the context of the world. Due to my magic system's development and lore, I've set the magical rule that the longer a curse has been carried by the victim, the harder it is to break by magical healing, and this character's curse has been on her long enough that it's pretty much permanent. I've thought that if I remove the "this curse will kill her if she doesn't break it" part of the plot, and simply reduce her curse to something uncomfortable and unorthodox, but manageable and survivable, I can develop her personality and her magic style around this mostly-unique method of casting magic and keep it as part of her character, instead of having to remake it all fresh once the curse is "broken," and also make it a fantasy disability. I've been doing a bit of research on chronic pain disorders and I think that's a good place to start from to make her ways of dealing with her curse believable?

I've been debating whether I want to give her back the ability to change between appearances or not, and I'm pretty sure I want to keep her in one appearance permanently, partially because while every other winged character has the ability to get rid of their wings when they're in the way, she'll have to keep them and I'll be able to use her to develop more of the culture and inventions around winged people. Her wings still function well, but she can't fly as far or as complex as some other members of the cast.

Does this sound like a reasonable path to take? Is this a good place to start developing a magical disability? I don't want to make her a token disabled-adjacent character so I'm working to expand my world and cast enough to show how real-life disability is accommodated via magic and society (don't worry, disabilities can't and won't all be magicked away by lazy worldbuilding), but I've been thinking about it as I write and I think if I commit to this character actually being disabled in her world, it'll be better for me to write her compellingly and add some realistic references and character traits for her.

If this isn't a good path for me to take with my character and story, I would love hearing any other suggestions you may have for me to treat this character and her curse, and if you have suggestions for me to implement other fantasy-adjacent disabilities instead in the small explanation I've given of my world and magic? And of course if there's any horrible glaring ableist problems you see while reading this, please let me know and I'll do even more research and fix them right away. If this isn't enough information, I can provide more, but this ask has gotten really long and I don't wanna talk endlessly.

Thank you for reading, and thank you in advance for answering! I hope you're all having a good day, and a nice holiday season if you're celebrating anything!!

Hello asker,

No horrible glaring issues jumping out!

I find this pretty interesting, and I do agree with you that this character's condition is a disability in the context of her world. It does seem very adjacent to chronic pain; obviously not a 1:1 but it does track. I think it is in fact a good place to start for believability and research!

Now, on to your other questions.

Whether the curse should be lethal:

I think it would be more interesting and even more impactful if the curse wasn't lethal, and instead is something she has to learn to manage. It makes it more akin to chronic pain conditions in real life, and I really like that her unique casting method will always be a part of her. She could, for example, want to break the curse at first, and later figure it's not a necessity. Or perhaps the curse is originally lethal and it only gets partially broken — like it's been in place too long to fully break, but it stops being lethal or something similar. Or maybe she thinks it's lethal, and figures out it isn't.

It's still possible to make the curse lethal and for her to want to break it, because of course no one wants to die, but it could also definitely lead into the magically curing disabilities trope. The cure trope is, as you know, pretty tired already. It would likely be harder, and require a lot of care, and you'd definitely have to make sure there's other characters with disabilities whose main goal is not to cure them. It could also still be lethal, in the way some disabilities are in real life, and she could live out her life the way she would want to and can until she does die. I am not sure if that's what you want for your story, and it's completely fine if it isn't – I just wanted to present various different options.

Whether to give her the ability to switch during forms:

It seems you want to keep her in one form permanently, and I like that. I like that she keeps her wings even if they're in the way, I like that they aren't the same as some other members of the cast, and I like that they help her with her unique magic.

I think this seems like a very reasonable fantasy disability, and if you'd like to check out similar asks we've answered (including for winged characters), we have a fantasy disabilities tag.

Basically, in summary, it would be really impactful for her to learn to live with her disability and for the narrative to treat this positively despite the challenges.

Hope this helps, and if you have any more specific questions, feel free to send another ask.

Side note, me personally I love mundane magic and your system sounds neat. :)

– mod sparrow

[according2thelore]

I'm rusty on my supernatural lore,

But what would you imagine Dean [and Sam's] life would have been if Dean stayed and grew up ay Sonnys?

anon!!!! ANON!!!!

WHAT THE FUCKKK!!! this has sent me into an absolute spiral. oh god. let's discuss!!!!!!!

i don't see john winchester leaving dean there permanently, even though he was angry enough to leave him there for a few months, so i'm sure some kind of law enforcement had to be involved, or CPS once they find the repeated knife marks on dean's forearm from shifter tests.

i also can't see dean leaving sam with john by himself, especially since sam is younger. i think if dean was raised by sonny, he'd try to run away a few times, until it's made clear to him that if CPS finds out john has another--even younger--kid with him, sammy'll end up in the system.

dean's life changes pretty drastically. about six months in, he starts getting antsy. he's made efforts to make friends/get prom dates/form a group at this school, but when they stay in his life beyond a certain time, he doesn't really know what to do with himself. he doesn't know how to maintain long-term friendships or relationships outside of sam, and with sam it was effortless. he's not good at purposefully socializing, and breaks a lot of friendships due to unintentional cruelty. it takes him a while to get used to having people that know him, and i imagine the first time his friends celebrate his birthday, dean kind of freaks out, bc his job is to be unknown, a face in the crowd that disappears in a month.

i think dean would be pretty popular in school, even if it's in an infamous way. he doesn't have any qualms about breaking into classrooms after school hours, he fixes a car in shop by hot wiring it, and when michael f.'s ankle gets broken in gym, dean's splinted it before the teacher can run back to the room and call the office.

sonny notices dean getting antsy and jittery, and recommends he join the football team, or the basketball team, or the baseball team. dean is like "woah, no, i'm not built for team activities." but he probably ends up enrolling for a season just to get sonny to shut up. he loves it. he loves the automatic surface-level friendships built in, he loves getting to miss class, and he loves the inherent status that comes with it.

dean's not used to being able to have and afford things, and sonny gets called into the high school because dean's been skipping gym for a week. when sonny's like "hey kid, wtf?" dean shrugs and is a little shit about it, but it turns out his sneakers have completely fallen apart. he tried a mixture of gluing/sewing them back together, and it worked for a month, but now they're irreparable. sonny starts asking dean once a month if he needs anything. he's not wealthy, mind you, but when dean shyly asks for new jeans, he and sonny are in goodwill THAT DAY getting dean jeans he doesn't have to hold up with a belt.

dean does well in english, does well in foreign language (he takes spanish), does REALLY well in shop, but has to get after-school tutoring in math.

dean misses sam more than the air in his lungs. he has nightmares nightly about sam dying, and dean is too far away to help. when he's seventeen, one of the younger kids introduces dean as his older brother to one of his school friends, and dean has a panic attack in the bathroom. he's real sweet on the younger kids, and the only time he gets in trouble for fighting at school is when the smallest one gets his head shoved in a toilet.

dean treats sonny like a coworker instead of an authority figure, which is pretty typical for kids like this. younger kids come to him with problems, and the only reason dean actually goes to after school math tutoring is so he can help the younger ones with their math homework when they ask.

when dean turns eighteen, sonny offers him the chance to stay. dean knows he's gotta find sammy. but while he takes weekend roadtrips to hunt down john and sam, he funds these trips with working at a car wash and takes mechanic trade school classes during the week.

now sammy...his life changes. a lot. john didn't take him on many hunts before, since he had dean to come with him, but now sam is going on almost every hunt, at age twelve.

his childhood was long-since over, but sam gets thrust into full hunting before his voice drops. he tries to run away from john to get to dean monthly. john starts disassembling the door handles at each motel they stay at, until sam learns how to put them back together. sam wants them both to be raised by sonny, because he's catastrophically lonely now.

john doesn't tell him the truth. in S9E7 when we get introduced to sonny, sam has no idea that dean was in a boys' home. i think john tries to lie as long as possible, saying dean's lost on a hunt, then that dean's at bobby's, then finally admitting that dean got in some hot water with the state and is at a boys' home. he never tells sam about the full truth though, with the money and the stealing, and by the time john ended his "punishment" and went to pick him up, the state was involved.

john blames himself for dean being taken away, and even though he knows dean is safer away from them, he's heartbroken he doesn't get to watch his son become an adult.

for the hunts that are too dangerous for sam to accompany john on, sam sits shivering under a motel blanket, terrified out of his mind. if john's dead, sam's completely alone in the world. he has no idea how to drive the car to get to dean. hitch-hiking would get him kidnapped or killed or worse. he doesn't know how to run the credit card scams. every time john comes back alive and mostly in one piece, sam stifles tears into his pillow, relief too big to name.

when john doesn't take him on hunts, sam is up all night researching. he's the primary researcher now, and he needs two cups of coffee to wake up in the morning by the time he's thirteen.

he and john fight. constantly. there's not a mediator anymore, and with puberty making sam a concentrated ball of rage, john has no idea how to handle him. dean was obedient. sam is furious. when they fight, john ends up storming out, sometimes for days on end, because there's not someone to calm him down or tell him sam didn't mean it.

sam writes letters to dean, but doesn't know their address ahead of time enough to let dean write back. when john finds out, he's furious. not only does it risk sam also getting taken, he knows it stresses dean out and risks dean getting surrendered to the state instead of sonny's if he runs away when he hears about the hunts sam gets taken on. he cuts off their communication. that time, sam runs away for two and a half weeks. john finds him in a bus stop in indiana, curled asleep against the wall with a hand-written sign that says rides to new york.

sam's only refuge is at school, and even though he loves his dad, has very little guilt about attending college fairs at sixteen.

when john and sam finally show up to sonny's a few months after dean's eighteenth birthday, sam gets out of the car before it even stops moving and slams with both fists on the front door like he's trying to escape instead of enter the door. sonny opens it, and sam's practically frothing at the mouth to get dean back. some of the younger kids that are out of school for the day are like "what do u want with our brother?? 🤨" and sam loses his SHIT. because what the fuck do you MEAN?

dean comes home from the garage when sonny calls him, and dean shows up breathless and sweaty and streaked in grease because he ran because waiting for the bus would take too long.

sam is only an inch shorter than him now at fourteen, as he hurls himself out of the house and takes dean to the ground. they both cry but pretend they don't. the hug lasts so long, dean petting through sam's hair, and sam's eyes closed tightly, nose buried in dean's sweaty collarbone that everyone looks around awkwardly. i'm talking minutes.

THIS PROMPT MAKES ME CRAZY!!!! ANON!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SENDING IT IN!!!! your mind is so big...so huge...i had SO much fun thinking about it!!!! thank you sm!!! mwah mwah mwah!

-lizzy

[luthinks]

I think a lot of people really need to go back and read all of Rafayel's story if they think he's not fully capable within his own resolve to feel and act that way. I'm not saying he can't be influenced in the segment of the story we see in the trailer by some higher power, but everyone seems to forget be "wants to settle the score" with MC is there are heavy implications all over his story that he believes she did, in fact, betray him. Whether he knows why or how or if she was also influenced by something else is unknown. I just need the fandom to fr stop trying to princess this man who is capable of mass murdering people who have hurt and hunted Lemurians and can both love and resent MC for whatever jumble of memories he holds. The biggest problem this company created was giving Rafayel purely sappy cards to cater to his huge fan base in China. It's made everyone forget he is dark and angry.

Rafayel is definitely fully capable of taking action on his own against the people who have wronged him and his people and he does so many times. But the mass murdering aspect is also kind of exaggerated. The only people he has canonically killed which we as players have seen are, the person in the theater from Siren's song anecdote and possibly Raymond. Other instances we hear are from other characters — like the sea monster murders and stuff — I take that with a grain of salt cuz the people who were murdered, who worked for ever and experimented on lemurians, left ever group before they got murdered. It could also be ever group killing them and landing the blame on Rafayel. We'll never know, it's upto us what to believe. Knowing papergames, it's not going to be this straight forward but we'll just have to see how they expand on it.

And coming to the "he wants to settle score with MC" part, to me, he didn't sound malicious while he was saying that ... The first thing he did after coming back to linkon was to look up information about MC and make sure she's safe. He even confronted one of the raincoats to inquire if MC was on ever's list. In my personal opinion him settling the score with MC here probably refers to her having forgotten him. I don't think he's even going to hold it against her if she ever betrayed him. He has had multiple dialogues that say, even if she's leading him into a trap, he'd willingly walk into it.

He's definitely bitter that she had forgotten him and everything that happened but he doesn't want to harm her. Like in chapter 7 while he was going to fight the big sea monster, he told MC to stay away because he can't ensure her safety otherwise. And when MC invokes the bond and tells him to not go, he's melancholic that she forgot everything but even then she insists.

Tbh I think one of his major fears is MC will come to dislike him when she comes across his changed self (as he mentioned in omnipotent perception).

In my opinion both the extremities, that Rafayel is all sunshine and roses who's just a brat doing his bratty stuff, and that he's a cold blooded killer that despises MC and wouldn't hesitate one bit before killing even her are two ends of a spectrum. How people feel about him lies between that depending on their own interpretations.

While I believe him to be somewhere in the middle, (I'm team "Rafayel is never going to harm MC no matter what it looks like unless he's possessed, but he'll end anyone who tries to harm her or his lemurian subjects no questions asked" 😂) but at the same time I think it's okay for people to have different beliefs on that scale. Some might have liked the innocent care free side of his more which led to a sharp contrast with recent branch PV, so the angst is inevitable... It's okay for them to lament the loss of this sunshine aspect of his character ... While others might be excited about the dark aspects of his character being explored more, that is also fine. It's a game where all of us are playing at a different pace, and also some of the lore locked behind limited cards ends up with different people having different interpretations, even the timeline of how we get all the content is out of order. So it makes sense that, a complex character like Rafayel would generate a spectrum of opinions 😅.

All in all as long as people aren't being rude to other players I think it's fine how they personally interpret Rafayel's character... I personally believe that the sunshine carefree Rafayel and ruthless cold Rafayel are both part of his personality, neither is more real than the other. But my interpretation might not be in line with others, and that's completely fine too.

P.S. I'm very sorry if this came off as preachy or condescending. I'm not very good at expressing myself while writing 😅

[shijjii]

More than feeling rested

So- I've been trying to work on my dungeon meshi character. I've somewhat built a small story for them but the thing is that I am kind of scared that the lore of them might be a little Mary Sue? I hope not, honestly. I'll probably tweak some stuff around as I try to finish drawing them but I don't really have the energy to draw right now so here I am writing! I hope everyone enjoys it! Pairing: GN!Reader x Chilchuck Tims Genre: I guess kind of fluff? It's mostly cuddling. Though, TW because Drinking and Smoking is mentioned in the story (reader is the one smoking). Also some cussing. A bit of OOC from Chilchuck tho Word count: 1,148 words Reader appearance/notes: Tall-man!Reader

The sun was setting the horizon when the party came out of the dungeon. Laios thinking that he wants to go to the market to buy some stuff that they'll need in the next dungeon crawl, Marcille and Falin going to the inns to rest, meanwhile, Chilchuck, Namari and you decide to hit the taverns and release your chaos to it.

Namari was laughing out loud as Chilchuck tells her a story that happened a while back. You were hanging about while contently drinking your pint of beer. "Yeah, it was so shit quality!" Chilchuck exclaims. As you observe how he explains his story, you notice the bags under his eyes. He looks very tired despite his smiling face.

Namari bursted out in tears as they continued on, as she was doing so, the half-foot's attention turned to you "what about you, ____? What's a moment you'll never forget?" He asks you, eyes filled with warmth and amusement after him and Namari talked

"Accidentally tripping down a flight of stairs and dying is something that's stuck to me-" Both Namari and Chilchuck bursted out laughing "is that why you always stick close to the wall???" The dwarf asks, you nod at her question embarrassed. Downing the pint of alcohol you had and pulling out your pack of cigarettes to avoid looking at them.

"it happened once but it traumatized me a lot, okay?" You tell them but they wouldn't stop snickering at it.

"you know, usually, people die because of monsters" Chilchuck started "but somehow, you died because of your own clumsiness?" He teases you, swiftly taking a swig from his own pint as you huff a puff of smoke and groan at his teasing "shut up" you grumble. Carefully taking the ash tray in the middle of the table and removing the excess ash from your cigarette.

"may I?" Chilchuck asks for your cigarette, if he can have a drag out of it too, while Namari gets her stuff "right, I'm leaving you two here. I'm gonna go home and rest" she sleepily tells them. Both you and Chilchuck wave good bye at her as Chilchuck continue to take a drag from your cigarette "hey now, I know I allowed you to have some but don't forget to give it back" You joke, making Chilchuck throw his head back and bark out a laugh

Apologizing, he gives it back to you and both of you continue to talk with each other as the night progressed on. Topics getting deeper and serious as the two of you drink more.

"yeah well, things happen, and no matter how long we've been, it doesn't change the fact that she doesn't want me anymore" He whispers under his breath, talking about his wife always puts him in a solemn mood but he didn't really know who else to talk about it to.

You hum and ponder what he just told you "While ye might think that yer so old now, you still have life ahead of you. I'm sure ye'll still find sumone you can be wiz" you shrug, words slurring a little bit from all the alcohol, and Chilchuck took notice of this

"I think we should head back to our lodging" You look at the sky and then inside the tavern, seeing what time it was on a clock, both of you would take a lot of time getting back at the inn the other party members are in.

"M'house is somewhere here...." You tell him slowly, trying to regain some of your soberness "if ye want, we can just use that instead'f walking all the way back to the inn" Chilchuck hummed to himself before nodding. "That's a good idea actually" He mumbles, both of you paying for your drinks

"lead the way, ____" He calls out. The both of you walked towards your home. Sometimes, eyes looking up at the sky to see the stars on it, making the two of you smile in content. The cold gust of air hitting your faces making you a little bit awake as you two rounded the corner and see a little quaint house.

You slightly fumble with the keys and open the door "make yerself at home" You tell him before going inside and trying to see where you kept your extra bed for him to sleep on. Thirty minutes had passed and you've yet to find it, your head slowly spinning with the world around you and Chilchuck knew it was getting bad for you.

"Right, this what we gonna do" You start, taking a pillow from your bed and putting it in the middle "this is going to be our divider. That side is yours and this side is mine. Good night" not waiting for his response, you kick your shoes off of your feet and laid down on the bed. The last thing you hear from him is an amused scoff before the other side of the bed sinks unto someone's weight.

The next morning, you can hear pitter patter of the rain hitting against the windows, only a small ray of sunshine peaking through the dark clouds. Despite this gloomy weather, you felt incredibly warm. Delving deeper into the blanket and holding the pillow even tighter than before, you just wanted nothing more but to fall asleep once again.... That was until you hear a small peep from something-or well, someone- your eyes open snap to see a half-foot in your arms, red as a tomato

Immediately letting go of him, he coughs through a clenched fist and awkwardly scratches the back of his head "I'm so sorry" you start, not looking at the half-foot.

"Uh" You give him a little glance as he speaks up "don't apologize. That was uh...." He kept looking at you then at the floor "That was the best sleep I got in a while" He admits, a tinge of redness reaching his cheeks and ears.

"It's been a while since I slept that good" You blink at his confession, not sure what to do. A long silence embraced both of you until you reached out to him and pulled him back into bed. "What are you-" He asks flustered

"This doesn't go out of this room..." You tell him with furrowed eyebrows as you cuddle him in bed "It's still early and it's raining... Might as well make the best of it" He hums awkwardly, letting himself melt into your touch "Might as well" He agreed with you, shuffling a bit to make himself comfortable in your hold and put his head against your head "This is more than feeling rested. Feels like heaven" He whispers against his palm as he feels your hand running through his hair gently.

Both of you enjoy the cold morning by cuddling in bed, promising to never talk about this interaction outside of the room.