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azure-wolf-227 · 3 years ago

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ML AU: Sleeping Beauty (part 1)

Fourth installment of @princess-of-the-corner and my ML/Disney Princesses AUs; unlike the previous two, this one being inspired by Sleeping Beauty with elements from the Maleficent movies. In this AU Marinette is the one with the Princess role instead of Adrien but Lukadrigaminette is still the endgame.

(This Au will be divided in two posts since it’s very long)

It starts with King Tom and Queen Sabine of the Dupain-Cheng Kingdom hosting a party to celebrate the birth of their daughter, Princess Marinette. They invite King Gabriel, Queen Anarka, and Empress Tomoe, the rulers of the three neighboring kingdoms: the Agreste Kingdom, the Couffaine Kingdom, and the Tsurugi Kingdom. The whole engagement thing is more about deciding who get engaged to whom. The different Kingdoms are known for different things, especially their exports to other Kingdoms. This is how @princess-of-the-corner put it:

The Dupain-Cheng’s Kingdom has some real great farmland, exporting plenty of produce that would not thrive as well in the other Kingdom’s lands. They’re also known for having some amazing chefs.

The Couffaine Kingdom is right on the water. They pretty much control the seas and any imports from further away countries.

Naturally the Agreste Kingdom is well known for it’s fabrics and fashions.

The Tsurugi Kingdom is likely known for it’s warriors, but also its weapon smithing.

Obvs all Kingdoms can function independently, but the trade between them is helpful to the others. Which is the entire reason why the Royals would like to merge the Kingdoms.

The joke is they think it’d take an extra generation do do so, having the kids be two couples and then the gen after them being arranged. But these four idiots fall in love and it’s like “well that works too…”

The Kwamis are Faes (like in the Snow White AU) and play the roles of Good Faeries who each give a blessing to little Princess Marinette.

Audrey is in the role of Maleficent, (she looks the live-action version with the horns and wings but her wings are yellow and glittery) the evil Fae who crashes the party cause she and throws a tantrum over not being invited. Granted, she’s an evil bitch and everyone knows that so it’s understandable that they didn’t want her there. Also, Audrey normally would not want to go to some mortal princess’s christening even if she were invited; she’s mostly outraged that the other Faes were invited because she views herself as better than them since she’s a descendant of the Fae Ancestor, the Phoenix.

Anyway, Audrey is offended by not being invited so she casts a curse on Marinette stating that she’d die on her 16th birthday after pricking her finger on a spinning wheel. Since Tikki’s the only one who hasn't given Marinette a blessing yet, she uses her power to change the curse so that, instead of dying, Marinette falls into a deep slumber that with the spell broken by True Love’s Kiss.

The Faes being the ones who raise Marinette is less about preventing the curse and more about her general safety because they fear that Audrey will do something else after they changed the curse. Also, Marinette is made aware that she was cursed as a baby and that’s she’s being raised by Faes, though they don’t tell her that she’s a princess. Note: The Kwamis/Faes don’t change Marinette’s name but that’s not really a problem cause she uses “Mari” as a nickname and, if people learn of her full name, they dismiss it a coincidence.

Meanwhile, Audrey is realizes that the Kwamis changed her curse and quickly finds out where Marinette is. Audrey knows that the Kwamis won’t let her near the princess so she uses her daughter, Chloé, to spy on little Marinette.

Little Chloé at first tries to hide but Marinette quickly realizes she’s there and happily asks her if she wants to play. Chloé is a bit hesitant at first, but gets over it quickly and the two girls become friends. Audrey is pissed cause Chloé was supposed to stay hidden but thinks “this might work better” and let’s Chloé be Marinette’s friend.

The Kwamis don’t realize that Audrey is using Chloé to spy on Marinette for two reasons: 1) Marinette doesn’t tell them about Chloé, at least not enough for them to realize that she's a real person instead of an imaginary friend; 2) Chloé doesn’t really register as a threat to their senses because a) she doesn’t have wings cause Audrey cut them off (telling her that she’d get the back if she’s exceptional) and b) she’s a child being manipulated by their parent and not actually malicious.

Sabrina is in the role of Diaval, though here she’s a wolf pup that Marinette and Chloé found caught in a hunter’s trap and Chloé then uses her powers to turn her into a human. Chloé tells Audrey that Sabrina is her servant, though this is kind of an act to please her mother (she does care for Sabrina as a friend) and Sabrina goes along with it. Sabrina is aware that Chloé is spying on Marinette for Audrey and of Chloé conflicted feelings over eventually betraying Marinette.

The way that Marinette meets Adrien, Kagami, and Luka is a bit like the meeting in the movie but with more chaos. (@princess-of-the-corner came up with most of this part).

Adrien, Luka and Kagami are all traveling through the forest (separately) and hear someone singing. Despite better judgement, they follow it and find Mari singing and dancing with some animal companions. Chloe is watching nearby and sees the three, but decides they mean her no harm. Sabrina is also there, either as one of the animals dancing with Mari or watching alongside Chloé.

One of the three, probably Adrien, can’t help but step into dancing with Mari. Mari has her eyes closed so she assumes it was just Chloé.

Then Kagami probably is like “excuse you if anyone’s going to dance with the cute girl in the woods it’s gonna be me!” And cuts in with a smirk. Adrien is both confused and attracted.

Right as Kagami is thinking “hm. Maybe I should’ve danced with the blonde boy instead”, Luka swoops in and spins both girls, keeping Mari to himself while spinning Kagami to Adrien. The two of them dance their way back and are all kind of like. Half fighting to dance with Mari and confused by each other.

Eventually Mari thinks “wait a minute. There are too many people here.”. She opens her eyes to see Chloé waving from across the clearing and surrounded by three strangers silently fighting over her.

Mari freaks out and screams (because, if you just realized that three strangers have been dancing with you without you noticing, you’d definitely freak out). She punches someone in the face, most likely Adrien; this somehow makes them more into her.

The three apologize for scaring her, just that she looked so beautiful when dancing it was hard to not join in. And her companion didn’t seem to have any problem with it.

Which yeah Chloé was keeping an eye on them and was ready to throw down and run if they tried some shit but they seem innocent enough.

Anyway, they all introduce themselves, though Adrien, Luka, and Kagami don’t mention that they are royalty.

They all spend some time together, getting to know each other but it’s obvious that all three royals are attracted to Mari who is smitten by them as well which Chloé and Sabrina notice.

Adrien, Kagami, and Luka regrettably have to leave but they all make arrangements to see Mari soon. I’m having Marinette’s 16th birthday be in a bit more than a week so that they have more time to know each other more.

Adrien, Luka, and Kagami arrive to the Dupain-Cheng castle, (though separately) and meet up with their parents: King Gabriel, Queen Anarka, and Empress Tomoe. The three royal families present themselves to King Tom and Queen Sabine, which is when the three teens realize that they’re all royalty. After the introductions are done and the royals mingle, the three talk to each other. They know that they are suppose to court Princess Marinette once she returns but they realize that they all have a crush on the peasant girl Mari. The three agree to court Mari and whomever she choses will back off from courting Princess Marinette.

Meanwhile, Chloe informs her mother about the three strangers who Mari meet in the forest and Audrey realizes that they are the heirs of the other kingdoms; this infuriates her since there’s a chance of one of them breaking the curse on Marinette. She orders Chloé to keep an eye on them and possibly try to sabotage their chances of falling in love with Marinette.

Chloe doesn’t really want to do that since she cares about Marinette and, over the years, has somewhat realized that her mother is awful. Though she still goes along with it cause she wants Audrey’s approval and to get her wings back. Fortunately, her efforts are a bit lackluster and actually end up bringing the quartet closer.

(End of part 1)

#miraculoustalesofladybugandchatnoir #miraculous ladybug au #ml sleeping beauty au

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rvziels · 5 years ago

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𝙵𝙸𝙻𝙴 : #ANG3L // STATS » aidan park, ( appears to be ) twenty, cis male, he/him, barista at white wings. ATTRIBUTES » endearing, volatile, empathetic, detached. SEEN » quiet wishes pressed to the bark of trees, handwritten notes on napkins stained by coffee, sleeping with the window open. DO NOT MISTAKE FOR » choi san.

hi hi i’m mar ( she / her ) n i’m rly excited to be here !! aidan’s a new muse/revamp that i’m dying to develop and write ! that said pls bear with me if he deviates a lil from this intro as my muses tend to change once i get writing dhgjkg. anyways, u can read more abt aidan & find some connection ideas under the cut !

* loading… / ANGEL BACKGROUND

TW: death mention

as it says in the dossier, aidan became an angel when his soul was forgotten about in the human world. obv, he doesn’t rmbr/know anything abt that life and jst came to be an angel with the sole purpose of protecting humans

so aidan takes his duty as an angel seriously n does what he can to protect and better the lives of humans. ofc this becomes increasingly difficult as time goes on as he watches humans pass away while he remains. and it breaks his heart that he can do nothing abt the inevitable

seeing generations come and go, he understands the existential despair humans endure -- each generation with their own struggles but ultimately the same questions go unanswered “why am i here? what is my purpose?”. it’s not something he can answer for them bt he empathizes and tries to ease their struggle in any way he can

he kind of came to be with the knowledge of how the world works -- how corruption and injustice will always exist in this world and u can imagine the burden he feels when he can’t right every wrong, so he will go out of his way to try and make it softer here for humans

if anything, observing humans and looking after them has made him reflect on his inner self / the duty of angels. though he was created with a purpose (n only that sole purpose) he has learnt to question things more deeply from humans, and question how he can be a better self

he has def struggled with the temptations to abandon his post esp in dark times in the world, bt he continuously pushes himself to serve with good intentions and love. and it’s a promise he intends to keep

aidan’s angel name is raziel which roughly means ‘angel of mysteries’

* loading… / PERSONALITY

so if it wasn’t clear from above aidan loves humans DHSJKD he thinks they’re special creatures n understands that life comes w both struggles n happiness

v good at concealing his feelings, he’d swallow them before admit anything aloud esp negative ones. he’s just generally a v private, emotional person -- that said, he’s v friendly n chatty n it can make you think u know him bt it’s mostly all that he wants you to see like he will go out o his way to make sure u know he’s all good if u ever bring up concern over him fdhjgg

kind of a control freak ? like he gets rly upset when he loses control over a situation or things don’t go as planned and tends to take on the blame for things which is not . a healthy coping mechanism sgfdg. bears deep feelings of guilt for things he cannot change

quite sensitive n that’s both a flaw and a virtue. has the brightest smile bt quite sad eyes

when he experiences love he lets it consume him,, like he will be in love with u forever

LOVES art in all forms, mostly occupies himself with drawing or painting. wants to learn piano as well. thinks art is a form of healing and rly admires humans for their art

on other supernaturals: he doesn’t rly love or hate them, as long as they aren’t hurting humans... ur in his good books ! DHSJKD

working at the cafe white wings bc he enjoys that atmosphere n he gets to kind of blend in with humans while he observes (n draws !) them

* loading… / EXTRAS

prefers warm days with cool breezes. likes to take naps n ends up falling asleep in obscure places rather than have like an actual sleeping schedule. is fluent in multiple languages. can be rly affectionate or closed off one minute to the next.

* loading… / PLOT IDEAS

i have a pinterest board for him HERE which kind of has more details abt him & also some inspo for dynamics !!

i’m gonna be working on a more cohesive list of connection ideas which u can find on his blog under /wp. bt here are some ideas off the top of my head: old friend, co-workers, platonic soulmates, annoyances, muse, ex lover, confidants, bad/good influences, almost lovers, unlikely friends, love/hate, we can brainstorm,,,, the world is our oyster ! dm me or like this and i’ll come to u alright that’s it for now kith kith !

#luneintro #i tried to type as fast as i can FHDJKF if there are any mistakes... pls Look Away #also: i feel like his pinterest board kinda gets him across better than i did in here so pls check that out hdjkgf

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stilwaterskeeter · 5 years ago

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Rewriting Saints Row IV

Hi this is my absolute least favorite game of the series and I kind of hate it! But here I am regardless putting my time and efforts into making an entire post dedicated to what I like and (in my opinions) how to fix the parts I don’t like...

This is also written to match by SRTT post rather than the base canon for the games! Which literally changes nothing but Johnny is already known to be alive before this game, so yknow...

This is also a HUGE post whoops

And again, this is just for fun. Don’t like it? Don’t interact with it. I’m not forcing you to read this. That being said, I do like discussing this kind of stuff so I totally up if you wanna just talk about alternatives or how you think things would play out and stuff

Plot/Story Specific Changes:

President’s Cabinet:

Fuck Keith David! Get him out of here! Leave sir! Go back to your movies!

Johnny Gat is our new Vice President because we know regardless of his skill at the matter, The Boss would make him his VP

This also gives Ben King a lot more reason to hold it against The Boss that he isn’t the VP, because at least before Keith David was a likable actor and had his own skillset for the role. Now it’s Johnny fucking Gat who has all the diplomatic and political tact of a shoe

The Boss’ dream isn’t some stupid 50s sitcom, that was so dumb, hardehar 50s is so nice and polite my ass

I think shit like meeting Julius, the boat explosion, Dex’s attempt to kill them, Magarac Statue blowing up even if they tried to go there, Johnny bleeding out after the fight with Jyunichi, and probably much more are better suited pieces to a much larger much more intimidating and genuine nightmare sim that would have broken The Boss inevitably

All the times they almost died because they weren’t quick enough, all the times they just barely saved their friends? A lot scarier than “oh noes I cawn’t kiww anybodwy uwu” crap

Zinyak doesn't really destroy the Earth

First of all: I don’t think he’d waste so many potential assets over the folly of one idiot

Second of all: The man’s supposed to be like a genius of sorts? So I find it ridiculous that he doesn’t have the ability to hide the fact that Earth is Actually Totally Fine from an idiot like The Boss

Third of all: To avoid Kinzie being oh so smart and debunking Zinyak’s scheme- She’s absolutely distraught when the Earth blew up and surprisingly caught up in her emotions, a pretty new thing for her. So I think it’s plausible she would bee too caught up in the moment to do much and afterwards is too caught up trying to help The Boss find and rescue what they believe is the last hopes for humanity

Kinzie doesn’t save anyone before The Boss, she goes straight for The Boss and before trying to go to Earth, they rescue Johnny Gat

Kinzie was prepared prior to saving The Boss with a few locations already in mind that she found as she was looking for them

One of which obvs ended up being Johnny

Another of which is a Surprise Prison that will help us later

All she knows is that it’s definitely based from Stilwater in ye olden days (first game, not actually ye olden days lmao) so she was assuming it was definitely either The Boss or Johnny

(Spoiler it’s Lin)

Additionally: The sim we do activities and hang out in isn’t Steelport. It should have been Stilwater and you know it.

After the Earth is “destroyed” and The Boss needs to go back into the sim and start recruiting people, Johnny steps in a lot when discussing who to save next

Sorry Matt, your rescue is getting pushed back a little

Johnny’s very adamant about not saving Matt first, “We are not saving that little goth punk whatever kid before we save our girl and Pierce. I don’t give a fuck that you’re president, I’m impeaching you, we’re saving Shaundi next. Not Matt.”

Shaundi’s nightmare sim stays relatively the same, but maybe polish up the writing better

I like her nightmare and the angle, but the writing just felt very,,,awkward to me?

She was supposed to be hung up on feeling helpless and the fact that she felt that because she was always “the damsel” and in need of protection, that Johnny was gone

But the writing kind of just skimmed over that

Then they save Pierce because, yeah, they give him a lot of shit, but he’s one of Johnny and The Boss and Shaundi’s closest friends and Johnny’s already made it clear they’re not saving anyone else until they got both Shaundi and Pierce back

Then you have the 3 rescues that you pick the order for

Asha

Ben

Matt

Then comes the replacement for Johnny’s canon rescue; It’s Lin’s Rescue Now

Kinzie isn’t sure who it really could be because they already have The Boss and Johnny, and they’ve already identified which sim is Ben’s

She asks Pierce and Shaundi for help trying to identify the sim while Johnny and The Boss are fuckin around in the sim

Neither of them have a clue who it could be

But both of them recognize the invading gang members in the sim as Westside Rollerz members so they recommend asking Johnny and The Boss about it

Johnny and The Boss have a moment of “Holy fucking shit, there’s no way” “It couldn’t be her, could it?” all the while the rest of the crew is just like “Any day now, who couldn’t it be?”

Lin’s nightmare sim is the events following up to her kidnapping and then the moments before Zinyak got her when she was in the process of drowing

A street race where some shithead Roller sabotaged Lin’s car so she had to forfeit midrace and then some guys kidnap her

I was figuring you’d be racing to catch up to her and then the race ends for you when she has to pullover

And then a brief cutscene of her trying to fight of some Rollerz goons while The Boss is locked in their car and can’t get out no matter how hard they try to break the window or bust it open

Then a followup cutscene Lin and Sharp arguing about The Playa not arriving to her rescue

“It appears to me like your little friend won’t be joining us. Oh well, we’ll take care of them soon enough. For now, just you will have to do.”

“Could your head be any further up your ass? Get on with it already, I’m getting bored here.”

And a short line from The Boss like, “What an asshole, jokes on him I wasted that son of a bitch years ago. And I’m not leaving without Lin this time.”

The last part is a timed boss battle with Sharp

Kinzie’s trying to do her tech thing and find a workaround to save Lin from drowning while The Boss fends off Sharp and miscellaneous goons

After Lin’s rescued and Sharp is dead, she steals the gun from The Boss in a cutscene and empties it into Sharp

“I have been waiting too fucking long to do that.”

There’s a brief reunion scene between her and The Boss

“Man, you don’t know how glad I am to see you.”

“Oh. My. God. You can fucking talk, that’s almost as crazy as the fact I’ve been living in this hellhole for years....You look good, did you do something to your hair?”

“You have no idea, Lin. You’ve missed a lot.”

“Nothing we can’t talk about over a beer after we get out of here. Speaking of, you got a plan for that or-?”

Kinzie chimes in, “I do.”

Kinzie isn’t the one who defends Matt when he says the mission is a bad idea because that was dumb and out of character, agree with him maybe, but not defend him

Instead of Keith’s betrayal/loyalty mission/whatever; We get Lin going into the simulation on her own to try and save Donnie after having Matt find his sim for her when The Boss pushes off saving Donnie as something to do later since Donnie’s not exactly useful in a mission like saving the universe and destroying Zinyak

“How do you even know he’s not dead? What makes you think Zinyak even abducted him?”

“Because I know he’s still alive, and Matt found him.”

“Look, we’ll take care of this after we end Zinyak. There’s no cars for him to rig or information to leak to us with these guys.”

“There’s gotta be a fucking reason he got abducted, playa. He’s worth saving.”

Johnny chimes in, “We’re not saving your stupid boyfriend right now, Lin. We have bigger fucking problems to deal with.”

It just progresses into a whole fight and the others are kind of just like....”Holy shit....there’s three of them now.” until Ben King steps in and tells them to all shut the fuck up

“Listen, Lin. We’re going to get your boy, but we aren’t doing it now. It’ll be the first thing after we kick Zinyak’s ass.”

The Boss chimes in, “Who said anything about the f-”

“I said...it’ll be the first thing we do, got it?”

Donnie’s nightmare sim is The Boss attacking his garage but Lin never shows up and instead he gets “killed” and then it’s The Boss harassing him and attacking him to get him to rig the Brotherhood vehicles and for the location of Carlos and Maero threatening him and ultimately “killing” him as well and then repeat

Bet The Boss kind of feels a little bad about always picking on him now, huh

Lin is at least, she feels guilty about setting up the raid on Donnie’s garage in SR1 and then just feels really pissed off about The Boss going after him more in SR2

Eventually The Boss shows up to help and with some hacking skills(TM) is given their superpowers and Lin is given powers as well to save Donnie

Obviously he can’t believe Lin is fucking ALIVE let alone just SAVED his ass

“Y-You’re alive? But Mr.Sharp killed you! A-And I let him! They found your body in the river and-....where the hell have you been for so long?”

“Listen, Donnie, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Are you sure? Because Earth got invaded by aliens and I’ve been dying repeatedly everyday since.”

“Shit, yeah. That son of a bitch, Zinyak, saved my ass from drowning back in Stilwater. This asshole over her saved me from that.”

“I bet their to blame for all this! It’s always their fault! Ultor, STAG, Gangstas in Space, Cyrus Temple, they’re the fucking president now can you believe that?”

The Boss chimes in, “I’m standing right fucking here! And for your information, I happen to be an excellent president!”

“Now’s really not the time, playa.”

And also that The Boss also SAVED him

“I thought you fucking hated me, I can’t believe you just did that.”

“Yeah, well, don’t get your panties in a twist, I’m only here for Lin.”

“Oh.”

Okay I lied, Zinyak DOES destroy the Earth for realsies

But only towards the end of the game, like following up to the boss battle

He reveals like

“Oh, it seems you haven’t learned your lesson then. I suppose I’ll have to really blow up your pitiful little planet then? Such a shame really, humanity could have been quite useful to the Zin Empire, but one must cut’s one’s losses sometimes. Their certainly not worth the trouble your putting me through here.”

This gives him time however to have abducted more people, including like Oleg, Viola, Donnie, etc etc etc

Fuck the Enter the Dominatrix DLC

Yeah it’s funny and all but like, where’s something actually interesting and additional to the game?

Replace it with DLC where you rescue like Viola and Oleg and stuff instead

Viola’s nightmare obviously would have to do with being stuck working for Killbane and probably have a boss battle where you fight simbane after he tries to kill Viola as well after having killed her sister

Oleg has a few options I think but the most appealing idea to me is a nightmare about him trying (and failing repeatedly) to escape the KGB

Character Specific Changes:

There really isn’t much to be put here shockingly

Maybe I’m the only one who thinks this but I think they should have expanded on the jokey romances more

I’m not talkin’ like full on bioware romances, just yknow maybe a little more than a single repeatable scene that varies from being shockingly indepth (Johnny) to just a fucking joke (Kinzie)

Maybe like add in a decision for a difference between just like casual sex or an actual romance with the characters

If you pick an actual romance then there’s random little banter lines about it when you have homies and maybe a few lines in some cutscenes or smth, nothing huge

Like say, you have Pierce and Shaundi as homies with you:

Romance Shaundi:

P: It’s about damn time someone did something

S: What are you talking about?

P: Uh, you and The Boss? Duh

S: Oh my god, shut up

P: Took ya’ long enough...y'all only been eye fucking each other as long as I can remember

S: Shut up, Pierce!

P: Chill! I’m happy for you, girl! Don’t attack me!

Romance Pierce:

S: So...you and The Boss, huh?

P: I already don’t like where this is going

S: I’m just surprised is all, you’ve been into them since like day one

P: No. I haven’t.

S: [snorts] Yeah, right. You used to get so upset when-

P: Shut up! They’re standing right there!

Or uh Pierce and Johnny:

Romance Pierce:

J: Hey, man, I’m proud of you for finally tellin’ The Boss how you feel

P: Wh- I didn’t- I’m not the one who-

J: But if you ever even think about hurting them [cocks gun] I won’t hesitate to put a cap in your ass

P: Man, calm down. I ain’t gonna do shit, jesus

J: [laughs] I’m just messin’ with you, Pierce. I’m not gonna shoot you.....Unless...

P: This is why I don’t tell you things, Gat! What the hell, man?!

Romance Johnny:

P: I can’t believe you and The Boss weren’t already fucking

J: Me neither

P: Didn’t you ever...yknow...like wonder? You never even thought about it?

J: Oh, no. I thought about it plenty. I wasn’t about to be the one to say somethin’ though

P: Did we finally find something Johnny Gat is scared of?

J: Fuck no, man, just after what happened with Eesh-

P: So...you were scared?”

J: No!

Lin getting to know everyone is a very big thing, like she’s suddenly surrounded by new people and everyone but Johnny and The Boss from before her abduction are dead

She gets along really well with Shaundi, Johnny (duh), Ben King, Asha, and Donnie (duh)

She gets along pretty damn well with Pierce too but it’s a pretty similar teasing relationship as Shaundi and Pierce and she gives him a hard time a lot

He gripes about how he has to deal with 2 Shaundis and Lin now a lot

She and Asha are pretty different but also pretty similar, they’re both really stubborn and dedicated to what they deem their “duties” but Lin still likes to let loose and have fun a lot more than Asha

A lot of their interactions consist of Lin trying to convince Asha to just let loose “a little” and have some fun

Asha for the most part wouldn’t ever really admit that she likes Lin but if pushed she’d definitely say something like “I definitely respect her. Maybe the Saints wouldn’t be as ridiculous and out of control if she was never taken from them before.”

Also because again you can pry wlw Lin from my cold dead hands we get this exchange:

“You know...you remind me a lot of one of my exes.”

“That’s...nice.”

“Stubborn, pretty, law-abiding, all work no play-”

“Is there a point to this?”

“Not really, I just keep thinking about it.”

“I see...and what happened to them?”

“She broke up with me for some prick named Blake...[laughs] So I broke his nose next time I saw him. Detention for a month, but definitely worth it to see her face.”

“No wonder The President likes you...”

She also gets along with Matt pretty well, having gone to him to find Donnie instead of Kinzie, although that was simply because she figured Matt would keep quiet about it and not tell The Boss, as well as Kinzie was already doing 101 things for The Boss at the time

She really doesn’t understand the whole Nyteblade thing but vampires are kind of cool she guesses and also it’s not like there’s a ton of shows or books left to entertain herself with, at least with Nyteblade, Matt’s got the memory of an elephant and probably totally recreates a ton of the episodes and key scenes because he is Absolutely That Guy first of all

She ends up getting pretty into it but if you ask about it she’ll shrug it off as simply because it’s “the only show left to watch”

Lin also remarks with Shaundi how she reminds her a lot of herself

“You know, I used to be some fun loving party girl myself.”

“Really? What happened?”

“Los Carnales and Julius fucking Little. Couldn’t go five feet out of my house without some assholes doing a drive-by or starting gang wars.”

“Oh...”

“Had to step up if I wanted it to stop, we see how well that turned out.”

“...Yeah....”

Alternatively to the nightmare sim swap I listed earlier...Johnny Gat would be The Boss’ husband in the 50s nightmare sim for sure

Kinzie definitely brings that up to Johnny if they’re both homies, especially if you romanced Johnny

Matt Miller and Donnie friendship when-

Turns out Donnie’s also a fan of Nyteblade

And Matt liked the Feed Dogs’ admittedly short lived time of activity

They both geek out of dumb shit and also talk about how fuckin scary The Boss can be and how lucky they are as some of the few remaining living members of gangs that The Boss fucking demolished

CID gets a lil more establishment

aka I mean he gets like a lil hologram of what he used to look like before becoming an AI in the zin system when he’s in the sim so he can hold guns and run around with you as a homie

also cut the whole thing of him trying to bargain with The Boss for “a woman” because that entire segment was weird and uncomfortable

#saints row #saints row 4 #johnny gat #matt miller #pierce washington #asha odekar #shaundi #zinyak #benjamin king #kinzie kensington #saints row lin #saints row donnie #stop talkin playa #rewriting saints row

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janiedean · 5 years ago

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Since we're in topic, do you have some advices for writers? Where do you begin when you write original stories and characters? The plot, the concept, the description of characters?

spewell considering that you’re talking to ‘oh hey I have the original idea that might work but I’ve been figuring it out for a whole year and a half’ take them with the necessary skepticism but since I did come up with some decent ocs in fic apparently my advice is probably not entirely shitty lol so with the premise that writing is Not A Science and other than reading a lot no advice is 100% foulproof especially if it doesn’t work for you...

I’d start with the concept, ie: what do you want your story to be about or what message do you want it to be about or what do you want to do with it. do you want to scare people? do you want to make people happy with quality entertainment but without writing a Serious Novel? do you want to write a sad thing to make a point? like, you need to know where you’re going with it in general;

when you have your concept, whichever it is - for one, without going in-depth let’s just say that my original novel concept that I’ve been trying to figure out for good is ‘blade runner meets high fidelity’ (don’t worry IT MAKES SENSE) -, you need to work at once both on main setting and protagonist. I mean, idk let’s just discuss a thing I wanted to write last year when I was thinking of sending original writing to this scifi anthology and then never managed because time and drama and real life happened and I couldn’t commit to it;

so, the theme of that anthology was ‘alternate peace’ ie write a short story where a situation that in history ended up in a fight/war/bloodbath is solved peacefully and write the alternate universe coming from it. so: I had to come up with the idea first because otherwise I wouldn’t have known where to start, then the worldbuilding, then the characters - ngl I think that if you have the worldbuild the characters come a lot easier but that’s me. so: I was like ‘what if I wrote something where the ludlow massacre never happens?’ (the ludlow massacre was tldr a strike in colorado which ended up with the strikers being mass killed by the national guard and in turned caused enough scandal to get unions/unionized labor a lot of traction in the US at least until maccarthysm.) then I didn’t, but in order I went like:a) if what happened is that it had repercussions on the history of unionized work in the US, if I did it so that the workers accepted a plea or smth and the rockfellers won without no one dying, those repercussions would Not Have Happened, nor it’d have created all the left-leaning literature/politics/thinking that came out of it, john reed wouldn’t have written about it etc, so I had elaborated an entire situation post-wwii where unions had all died long before, people were pretty much without any single social lifesaver and could get fired at will and it was basically dystopian hell with mccarthy being president or smth;b) at that point I was like, who do I put in this, and at that point I didn’t manage to go much forward but I had a feeling I should have some young person who was born after the not-massacre who had no idea of what went on talking to an older one that had actually been there and wished they hadn’t taken the deal;c) young dude would have been more or less cynical/not really much of a politics person, old dude would have been old school leftist who still wishes there could have been a better world and wishes the new generation would put two and two together and talk to their elders;d) young dude wouldn’t have known how to read/write because he wouldn’t have needed it for factory work, old dude would have etc;at that point I could have probably gone and gave them families (or not), or a friend (or not), and my general idea was having them discuss politics for the main part of the story, then old guy dies or smth like that and young guy actually gets the message and idk I basically wanted you to read it and feel like I felt when I listened to the ghost of tom joad, that was the general idea;that said, the characters were the last part i came up with because I needed the worldbuilding to know what character I wanted in it, which is why I’d say worldbuld first if you’re writing that kinda thing ie scifi, alternate history etc;

now, obv. if you’re writing the coffee shop au just in novel format or if you’re writing something lighter where the setting doesn’t matter, you need good characters first. I mean, if you write the coffee shop setting just to have a good love story you might want people to pick yours and not the umpteenth version of it with the same dynamic (same with the YAs with the sixteen year-old girl who thinks she’s ugly falling for the hot dude with abs and a bad attitude), so in that case I’d go for the characters. for one, if I had to write a YA, I’d make it with a girl who is actually ugly and has hobbies other than just reading and maybe plays in the school band or has some peculiar post-school job or idk can repair cars but is not good at everything she does and the guy would be moderately hot though not THE SPIT COPY OF DAMON SALVATORE JUST WITH GREEN EYES, he wouldn’t have a license and he wouldn’t think that it’s sexy to tell your girlfriend that you own her, and while I’m nowhere near interested in writing YAs, that would differentiate it from 99,9% of the YAs around from what I see, and so at that point I’d make sure I got the main two down and then I’d work on the friends and family and make them less stereotypical as possible so my YA is different from everyone else’s YA, and if any of them is a supernatural creature they suck at it and hate having supernatural magic and the likes. I mean, you want your characters to have a personality, but if you have a good worldbuilding behind them it might come after, if you don’t gaf about the worldbuilding and just want the standard setting work on the characters and try to give them depth before you plan anything else;

figure out where do you want your story to go before writing it - ie: the only reason I haven’t written the original yet is that idk what kind of spin I want the ending to have and I’m not 100% convinced so I’m not doing it yet, but if you don’t have the backbone of it planned then you’re going to lose steam or the plot will fuck you over (in my experience). like, try to have at least clear what happens in the main arc so that you know how to get from beginning to ending without needing to figure shit out as you go along, then you start, and if you change your mind while you do go with it, but try to start it knowing where you’re headed because it makes it easier imvho;

if you go for complicated shit like time travel figure that shit out before you start writing it including every possible repercussion because you’ll hate yourself if you don’t;

don’t try to re-do what others did obviously. I mean, if I wanted to write rep for non standard attractive cishet women I would not try to re-write brienne of tarth just changing the hair color. I would try to take the same tropes he’s using, change the setting and go with it, but it shows if you read a book and your character is the exact same as your favorite writer’s. like, if you read ian tregillis’s milkweed tryptich it’s going to be obvious that one of the main characters is the same tropes as jaime but that guy has enough personality differences and an enough different background and circumstances of upbringing that while you can see it has the same basics (generally nice guy forced to do horrid things who wants to redeem himself, live without his overbearing sister who wants to control him and has a generally straight moral compass), you don’t think ‘oh ian tregillis who is grrm’s friend has copied from him and put jaime lannister in a wwii alternate history trilogy’. like, we all have our tropes and our favorite writers and it’s good to take inspiration and homage them, but try to give your spin on those tropes you’re using, because otherwise it’ll just look lazy;

do whatever the fuck you want with your plot. don’t think about what others would want to read - it’s your story and you should tell it the way you want to. then please listen to criticism and find people who’ll provide it for you without tearing down your work but telling you what works and what doesn’t, but like... if you want to touch some themes or write characters from a different background or whatever do it;

also, do your research. I mean, I could have written the ludlow massacre story because:a) I read all of john reed’s articles pertaining to that specific happening and those articles include interviews with the people who were there, a description of who they were, an extremely detailed reconstruction of the facts and so on;b) there’s folk songs, two novels and one opera on ludlow not including history books, so it’s not only easily readable upon, but you also can see the impact it had in media/the american culture.so, even if I’m not american, having read all of that, I could have probably gone for it and done a decent job, find someone with a history degree to veto it and go for it. but like, again, unless you’re writing the coffee shop au or the ya or the kind of novel that does not require an established setting or you are making the entire worldbuilding up from scratch with no influences from the real world, you can’t not do at least some basic research. and when reading something, it does show if the author has at least done basic research or if they’re winging it. then they might be good enough that you don’t care they’re winging it, but still, research XD because research also gives you a lot more ideas that you might not have taken previously into account and might save you a plot detail or so;

I also would advice not to write what you know - because that’s easy and it doesn’t let you go out of your comfort zone and at some point what you know will finish -, but: write something you know. as in, my blade runner + high fidelity au should be scifi and touch stuff idk shit about, but since it’s a high fidelity au half of it is supposed to be set in a (pseudo) record shop and the protagonist miiiiiight have a thing or a hundred for springsteen. now: who has spent half of her life in record shops and is into bruce? yes, me. now, the character in question has zero in common with yours truly except for that, but let me tell you that if there is one thing I know how to write that you can’t convince me I couldn’t write is someone into springsteen who hangs around record shops. I know my people and I know why someone would be into springsteen. like, when making up characters and you want to make them relatable or you want to relate to them more, give them one thing you can relate to even if it’s dumb - idk you like strawberries? that character also likes strawberries and so on - because that will get you closer to them and your reader will feel it. it’s a thing I do with fanfic all the time - like if I have to try and write someone IC I try to relate to one thing they have if I can, because that makes the characters more relatable and it’s easier. ie when I was like ‘how do I crack the jaime pov’ the answer was ‘ALL THE BAD SELF-DEPRECATING HUMOR YOU DO ALL THE TIME GO DOWN ON IT’ bc that’s what I relate to jaime for and so on. idk that is a thing that’s always helped me when coming up with any character so I guess it might be useful advice? *shrug*

(obv: if you’re writing a 100% bad guy that you don’t empathize with then you don’t have to, I mean grrm did say he had to take a shower after writing chapters from A Certain POV because it’s horrible being in their head so like.... you can feel disgust at what you’re writing esp. if it’s the POV of a terrible person, but That Character resonated with people and felt relatable to some of them because to them they had... RELATABLE moments/humane moments too so if you’re writing bad guys but try to not make them cardboard cuts/TOO HORRIBLE it will make them stronger as *bad guys*. mvho.)

but mostly: read a lot of stuff, try to put your spin on things and don’t gaf about what people think until you finished it. then you can worry about concrit xD

#janie writes #long post for ts #writing advice #i guess #Anonymous #ask post

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infinitelytheheartexpands · 5 years ago

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Les Huguenots obv, Don Carlo, Trovatore, Eugene Onegin, Simon Boccanegra, Cav/Pag?

Alright, here we go:

Les Huguenots:

Setting-wise, I’m thinking either full-on period drama or modern present-day. (I mean, have you seen social media? People nowadays are often straight-up vicious.)

Also, little to no cuts, and I would play it straight (as in “no overarching external concept” straight, not “heterosexual” straight because there are definitely some characters who are not straight in the slightest) but I think there’s more than enough in the libretto to keep any director busy.

Lots of action, lots of spectacle, but at the same time going for an intimate focus on the principals, their relationships with each other, and where they stand in terms of society. No wonder this one’s so hard to pull off.

Another thing that’s hard is pulling off the “this massacre is pretty much inevitable” thing in the early acts, because there are little signs everywhere hidden within the ostensibly happy stuff that serious trouble is brewing. It’s necessary, though.

Finally, for Pete’s sake, Nevers will die onstage.

(Addendum that’s not super-related: apparently there was a production somewhere in Germany a few years back where Nevers was an artist and everyone else were either characters in his paintings or people commissioning his work. IIRC [I only read reviews, I couldn’t find any video] instead of dying, Nevers was just kinda there the whole last act and towards the end he started dumping red paint everywhere and the result was a painting of the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.)

Okay, after I wrote all that, I found out that apparently people are doing their modern-day cast picks, so mine are: John Osborn or Yosep Kang as Raoul, Rachel Willis-Sørensen as Valentine, Lisette Oropesa or Erin Morley as Marguerite, Nicolas Testé or Michele Pertusi as Marcel, Artur Rucinski as Nevers, Ying Fang or Karine Deshayes as Urbain, and Christian van Horn as Saint-Bris.

Don Carlo:

First things first: I couldn’t care less about whether it’s in French or Italian (both work fine IMO), but including the whole Fontainebleau act and the Lacrimosa is a must. (I’d also include the Eboli/Elisabetta mask switchoff scene.)

I would absolutely go period drama with it, but for sets and costumes, I’d take a little simpler and less elaborate/more abstract approach. Also definitely dark and moody (except for the first part of the courtyard at San Yuste scene).

EXTREMELY GAY IN ALL THE WAYS. That is all.

The more people in the chorus, the better, not just because grand opéra, but also because then it feels more overwhelming. The production should be overwhelming in just about every way, like getting-hit-by-a-wind-tunnel overwhelming.

The ending: just leave the ending alone. As much as I understand wanting it to be a more closed-off ending, I actually really like how cliffhanger-y the ending is. (I’d be willing to play the Fontainebleau act as a flashback Carlo’s having before Act II.)

Cast: Fabiano or Kaufmann, Harteros or Yoncheva, Furlanetto or Abdrazakov, Tezier or Keenlyside, Garanca or A-Rach, and Halfvarson because he’s the classic Grand Inquisitor.

Il trovatore:

Ooh, I really liked the McVicar idea of setting it during the Peninsular War, although I’d also love to hightail the plot to Italy and set it during the Risorgimento.

Manrico is the least interesting lead in the entire thing IMO, but I would find a way to make him interesting, not just the “oh he’s the tenor and the title role so we have to focus on him” deal.

I’d put a lot more focus onto both di Luna and Azucena, especially Azucena (there’s a reason why Verdi wanted her to be the title character). Maybe the production should progressively get more bizarre as it’s clear she’s more and more traumatized/insane by everything that’s happened.

I’d have Manrico die onstage, too.

Cast: not completely sure, maybe Lee, Radvanovsky, A-Rach, and Tezier or Rucinski (considering my first choice is no longer here...)

Simon Boccanegra:

Setting: Either keep it in very over-the-top period or (for a slightly more original idea) start the opera at the end of the Risorgimento movement and end it 25 years later.

Go big or go home on the sets and costumes with this one.

I’d like to stage the Prologue as Simon’s flashback, but otherwise play it completely straight. Also, cranking up the energy on the Simon/Amelia dynamic is a must.

(A very interesting not-playing-it-straight concept I’ve toyed with that could potentially go with the end-of-the-Risorgimento setting: make Simon Boccanegra a parallel to Verdi. That would also be incredibly sad, given that Verdi’s two kids died very young.)

Cast: Tezier (really my go-to current Verdi baritone), Rebeka or Yoncheva, Fabiano, Belosselskiy

Eugene Onegin:

Setting can be summed up as “Pushkin or Chekhov, take your pick.”

I’m envisioning a set that’s half “looks like a charcoal drawing or muted oil painting” and half minimalist, and really beautiful period costumes. Also, snow everywhere in Acts II and III (the current Met production setting the final scene in a snowstorm? Genius. However, I’d probably have the snow raging outside and the two leads raging inside. Related: huge windows for the final scene to see said snowstorm.)

Eugene Onegin is definitely bi and horribly regrets the duel.

I would make this production have a huge emphasis on writing: Onegin is the brooding author/hero, Tatyana is a writer of course, Lensky’s a poet... maybe they’re all writing their own part of the story?

Also, it’s cruel but I think it would make sense for Onegin to commit suicide at the end.

Cast: Kweicken, Mattei, or Rucinski; Corinne Winters; Michael Fabiano; Alexander Vinogradov

Cav/Pag:

I know one’s technically set in Sicily and one in Calabria, but because I tend to like multiple-bills more if there’s a dramatic throughline, I’d set both in the same place and try to connect the two operas’ characters somehow.

To me, both operas are about the personas people project versus who they really are- and God forbid that women don’t fit the perfect public persona and are instead genuine. As a result, I’d try to add a little theater to Cav and for the reverse effect (since Pag does take place on the Feast of the Assumption), a little bit of Catholic ritual (and guilt) to Pag.

I don’t think the aesthetic for the two operas should be so different: we’re talking the course of one day for both operas, except Pag both starts and ends later in the day (IIRC Cav starts at sunrise).

Cast: not really sure tbh, although I heard the Dutch National Opera apparently had a really nice cast for it recently (A-Rach and Ailyn Perez!)

To end: this is probably a good time to share my hot take that I like Cav more than Pag.

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gizkasparadise · 7 years ago

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Crossroads, obvs! :D

LOL oh boy well.

the death of kylo ren, aka it was only a prompt fill how did it end up like this:

the death of kylo ren was originally going to be like. 10 chapters max, and had a toooootally different plotline: aalto ren was going to be a plant by snoke and die within a chapter or two of his introduction (lol), rey was going to have to use the bond to kill kylo (hence the title, @ignitesthestars convinced me to make it more figurative), and it was going to end with rey being a sort of exile 2.0 from the kotor games (a wound in the force, essentially) following an ambiguously romantic chaste love story (i was trying to do something along the lines of V and Evey from the movie version of V for Vendetta)

i also…didnt think anyone would read it??? like, it was going to be my ~trippy, ~experimental art fic that would maybe get 100 hits and my itch would be scratched but then i was like oh fuck people are reading this and rooting for them lmfao iiiiiiiiiiiiii better change it

that’s why there’s kind of a big style shift from chapters ¾ to 5/6ish if you were wondering (esp re: aalto’s characterization)

so i was like okay this is going to actually have them live. UM. and from there i started kind of sketching out this trajectory of what was going to happen. i drew a lot of inspiration from the kotor games (obviously), but i also wanted to be clear that i wasn’t going for bastila/revan 2.0 (because i don’t like that ship, oops). so rey kind of became a revan/exile/bastila hybrid figure in terms of narrative, and kylo had revan elements mixed with malak

i also was kind of dying to do something with a tripped out timeline, so i made aalto an expy of leoben conoy from battlestar galactica and i added some KOTOR framing and the narrative just sort of took itself where it needed to go

UNTIL CHAPTER 12. when i was finishing chapter 11 i was like hmmmm there could be more to this if i wanted. so i asked some friends, and they were like duh do it, so i started laying out the groundwork for a sequel. i knew i wanted to continue with the flowwalking/time travel plotline, so i laid down some key foreshadowing moments in chapters 12 + 13 (the warehouse scene from stars don’t come down, the inclusion of the revan force vision, aalto telling rey the order of planets she’d visit/the order of the planets as they appear in the series, aalto’s death scene, etc.).

chapter 13 was also luke’s death, and i debated having him die for real (so i could write some force ghost luke because hell yeah) or not. i Thought about it, and decided it would be cool if his soul, for lack of a better word, got taken out of the regular timeline and hidden somewhere else. i then drafted some bits, not really knowing where they were going, and i got stuck on the imagery of the lightsaber colors– silver, red, green. and i was kind of like WHAT IF I MADE THIS A TWIST, so that’s when i outlined in rey’s duo-colored lightsaber and her eventual time travel back to this scene. i remember getting a lot of WAIT HOW DID LUKE DIE comments and i was like :B the whole time

i am a fan of parallels/bookends, so the story ends where it started in a couple ways. the last “before” story is what leads to the first “now” story, and ben is waiting for something/looking at engine lights just like rey was in the beginning– i liked the engine lights theme and decided the origin of it was rey watching her parents fly away – something i eventually got around to writing in…uh…the second to last chapter of the whole damn series WELP

stars don’t come down aka this isn’t kill bill but it is a little

i knew from the get-go that i wanted this to have a cast of knights of ren. most of my prelim outlining was pulling my favorite kotor villains (the sith lords of kotor 2 ft. malak) and figuring out how to translate them into new people. i developed janara and soran, and then @ignitesthestars and i developed dolari and orin together (fei actually wrote dolari first in her story making waves in the sand)

i also knew that i didnt want snoke in it that much. he kind of had to be in it, but i dont like him as a character / don’t find him interesting, so i wrote the plot around him but not with him

i knew i wanted kylo to be on a team with kes (because i wanted to play on chapter 12 of TDoKR, when he calls out ‘dameron’) and finn, because finn’s the best. initial outlines of the fic had wedge and maz playing way larger roles than what they ended up doing, but oh well

initial outlines of the fic also had rey and kylo leaving the war for a looong time (like, a couple years) and coming back at the end, but i decided that it fit better as the ending to the series (i like open endings, oops)

i wanted this fic to be about meeting in the middle, thematically. that’s why i ended up going with the two POVs this round instead of the before/now split. also as i was writing it, i realized this fic was about intersecting moments where TDoKR was about being separated. i decided to make that the Big Theme Arc of the series, with a planned final installment about them being together/united.

meeting in the middle also had to do with kylo + rey’s character development. kylo is ben, and becomes a little bit more Light side throughout his travels. meanwhile, rey’s alone and she gets more and more like Aalto the more she chases after him / uses flow walking

i also really wanted to practice fight scenes, so i took liberties there. obviously this is the fic with just. all the fight scenes

i wanted to use this fic to build on kylo’s relationships outside of rey / the relationships he lost when he turned on luke and the temple

i knew the ending of this fic around chapter 8 and wanted to get to it so bad but the middle parts ended up taking longer than i thought lol (it was supposed to be about the same length as TDoKR)

and i’m here aka all the foreshadowing shows up

because i had the fic outlined as much as i did / because i had set up the conclusion with all the time travel stuff, the actual plot for this was pretty much insta-written by the time i finished SDCD. which is why it got completed in like, a month lol

these were all the scenes i had wanted to write since like, midway through TDoKR but had to hold out on doing so

writing time travel fics sucks for this specific reason. I WAITED FOREVER TO WRITE REY SLICING A DESTROYER OPEN WITH A LIGHTSABER AND KYLO RIPPING IT IN HALF FROM THE GROUND

continuing the homage to KOTOR, this fic is basically a mashup of The Leviathan and Rakata Prime stages from the first game

the chapter “fire, fire” was my favorite chapter ever to write out of all the fic i’ve ever written

“and i’m here, home with you” is probably the best chapter in the series imo

all the chapter titles are song lyrics from playlist songs for the series

i really, really enjoyed getting to write out the full circle stuff i set up from the first fic – rey’s memories of engine lights and counting stars one by one by one, kylo’s are you it/ are you?, it’s just another step, etc. i wanted the fic to feel like lots of echoes to kind of riff on kotor 2′s premise

the ending is left open for Reasons. one day i hope to get to write them :’D

#long post #asks!#fanfic #series: crossroads #crossroads #cataclyzmic #meme

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jamiedodgerart · 7 years ago

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the fade is a liar sometimes

aka, a really long post about how mal hawke survived dragon age inquisition. warning for big but kinda vague spoilers for dai and mentions of alcoholism

ok full disclosure i dont know how he survived the fade. but im thinking the nightmare like. didnt wake back up in time to block the way through the portal, and so never caused the Do I Kill The Warden Or Hawke dilemma. cos. that was kiiiiiiiinda bullshit.

i had to pick between alistair and mal. and i really didnt want mal to be actually really dead bc at the time of here lies the abyss he’d be in a really shitty place, mentally, and i didnt want him to just! die! without resolving that! so i gave canon the finger and concocted a convoluted plan to give mal a better ending

background, after the events of da2, he ended up leaving kirkwall and fuckin’ around in the woods for a bit. i imagine he was helping refugees get out for a little while, until anders showed up and convinced him to help groups of renegade mages/circles on the verge of winning their independence. at this point he was pretty sick of the world at large, didn’t know what he wanted or where he was going to go next, and let himself be (guided? directed? pushed around?) by anders, drinking himself into oblivion and generally feeling like garbage. he fell out of contact with most of his remaining friends and began convincing himself that he was guilty for the explosion, by trusting anders (he’d suspected something was wrong with the ingredients anders was asking for and confronted him about it, but trusted him and helped him by distracting the grand cleric)

i rambled about this on my private twitter but mal and anders... ended up not being a great fit for one another and past me said it better than present me can

eventually, the inquisition came into being and grew in power. anders, still being a wanted man and mal too by association, avoided the inquisition’s patrols pretty easily. but stories started to spread about the inquisitor and his... particularly creative justice. see, pica really likes choices that have some poetic irony to them that also focus on rebuilding (he had alexius work for the mages, stuff like that), generally avoids executions, and is pretty chill with mages. the inquisition is also independent of any government, really, and is about as impartial as you can get in thedas. so when mal gets word from varric that corypheus is back, a problem, and something they need mal’s help with (that is also, in his professional opinion, his fault), he gets an idea.

he heads to skyhold, meets pica (who read the tale of the champion, asks varric questions about it constantly, was expecting a hero, and was not expecting the hero to be a depressed alcoholic) and iunno here lies the abyss happens with the aforementioned edit of no one important dying (i guess i could kill alistair and preserve a kind of important turning point in pica’s character with an added bonus of giving mal another thing to have survivor’s guilt about but i dont think i could go through with it. imagine the emotional toll. pica could get that change some other way anyway) mal by this point has gotten to know pica fairly well and has found what he’s heard to be true, and gives him a proposition

(i would like to add now that while ive read asunder, until i looked it up just now i didn’t remember where it sits in the timeline relative to da2, and it wasnt super clear to me just how much each of the two events affected the mage/templar war. so some text in sketches might be inaccurate, historically)

so you can imagine that anders is Pissed Off by this development, but justice is kinda like

cos like. pica Is a real actual authority figure. who is down to dispense some quality justice esp re mages. and is coming at it from a “yo i know you meant well and you did kinda have a point but you also killed a lot of people so there does have to be Some kind of consequence of that”

(but neither of them are at all happy with mal turning them in)

anyway the trial ends up including a full investigation of the events in kirkwall, as well as the events at the spire (cole, rhys, and evangeline all give their testimony) and it’s more a straightening out of what was up with the whole start of this shitshow anyway, cos the confusion and misinformation about it is probably the worst part.

pica finds anders guilty and sentences him to community service, which a lot of people disagreed with. pica thinks it was a GREAT IDEA though because that community service comes in the form of anders teaching the inquisition mages about healing magic!! something that anders is good at, loves doing, and can actually help people with!! why are we still fuckin about with herbs when there’s magic!!!!! this also has the added bonus of making mages less scary to the general populace- chuckin’ fireballs is a lot more alien and intimidating than healing up a broken arm, yknow? it can help mages seem more human and good for society than they were, separated from the public in towers.

anders is still a prisoner, though, which hes super not happy about, and part of his sentence is also that dagna gets to study him. he and samson are in grudging solidarity in the face of tolerating her extreme cheerfulness. and maybe he gets a cat too. i wonder if he and samson could talk about how shitty the chantry is re: lyrium addiction in templars? its obvs not on the scale of mage shittiness but it could be an interesting discussion

see in the grand scheme of things mal really didnt do all that much. he was duped by a lover into doing something he 100% would not have done if hed known what was actually going on. i feel like the most anyone could bust him on was aiding and abetting. and maybe helping hide an apostate. mal was found, as pica informally put it while distracted by looking at a transcript of a kirkwall templar’s testimony, “kinda guilty? just like. if ur asked to help blow up a chantry dont do it again” but cassandra elbowed him really hard and he said “look ok your sentence is, fuck, i dunno, work for the inquisition. what do you wanna do”

that was not what mal was expecting and he didnt have an answer. and pica looked at him and said “ill give you some time to figure it out, ok. just. take care of yourself, man. u look like shit” which got him another elbow, which he returned to cass with equal force

anyway. mal is now officially Not Guilty in the court of the law. which fuckin sucks bc that assessment does absolutely NOTHING to stop his shit brain from keeping being guilty about everything. so he tries to quit drinking, fails, and just has a rough time in general, while also sometimes visiting anders in prison. which probably really doesn’t help.

ENTER WARDEN-COMMANDER OF FERELDAN, MADRANA “MAD” TABRIS, AND HER PARTNER/GF/ADULT SUPERVISION EMMARIE “EMMY” COUSLAND

(you may also know mads as hester, as i called her in previous playthroughs. hester’s not a really elfy name and shes grown far enough away from her namesake that i felt a change was warranted. also emmy was created by @1500birds. i love her)

thats them (mads then emmy) so mad tabris, legendary fighter, unkillable blight-ender, bather in darkspawn blood, and general bottle covey is looking for a challenge. its been like ten years since shes had an actually hard battle to win and she’s near skyhold, and she’s heard that mal hawke, another legendary fighter, is also in the area. oh and some cadash guy. hes apparently good too. also, she’s looking for some way out of the whole grey warden death sentence thing. shes not keen on dying unless she’s killed, ydig, and apparently skyhold’s doing a lot of groundbreaking research these days

she and emmy swing on in to skyhold and finds that hawke is, well, a mess

important background. mads is not good at dealing with other peoples’ emotions. so shes not really equipped to deal with this. emmy, however, is kind, has nerves of steel, loves to help people, and is Very equipped to deal with this. and so the two of them adopt mal. (even though hes older than both of them.)

theyve got really, really different ways of trying to help mal. emmy is a great listener, and understands survivor’s guilt and the lost-all-my-family brand of trauma pretty well. she helps him sort through all the shit that’s happened to him and offers a lot of support. and hugs. by god shes a hugger. also theyve got a symbiotic cuddling relationship bc emmy is always cold and mal is always warm, so they platonically nap together sometimes. mads is unfortunately too wriggly and pointy to be a good cuddler :’( she squeezes in the mix sometimes anyway though and it’s uncomfortable but nice

mads’s method of helping mal is in her area of expertise: getting out pent-up negative emotion by fighting. for a long time, mal has internalized a lot of shit, and mads is really good at annoying him into either yelling or punching out that shit. shes doing it out of concern for his well-being, she swears, and not because she takes joy in pissing people off. she does but thats not the point. it’s not a perfect strategy but it does help a lot

unfortunately for her, sometimes mal can be downright vindictive when drunk and angry, and can hit on the few things she’s insecure about

(i would really love to make a post about mads sometime, cos she ended up being a lot deeper of a character than i originally intended. i really just wanted a really sharp angry lady who fought with the subtlety of a brick to the face, and ended up getting that plus bravado covering up a whole host of insecurities. i feel like i should finish dao before writing it up though ahah)

(what mal said is also not totally accurate- mads cares very much for emmy. but yknow how when things get heated it doesn’t really matter if they’re really accurate anymore- they just have to be close enough to get a reaction, ydig)

anyway! the two of them together help mal get his life back in order- he cuts down and eventually quits drinking, starts taking better care of himself, and gets more of a handle on life. i guess you’re probably wondering where varric is, right around now. so am i mal pushed away a lot of people close to him after da2, including varric. but varric kept looking out for him (lying to cassandra to protect him, using his network of contacts to keep an eye on where he and anders were operating). when mal comes to skyhold i think he’d try to avoid varric out of guilt- yknow how when it’s been a really long time since you’ve talked to someone, and you know you should have called them back, but you never did, and they kept asking how you were, and you want to be in an actually good place before you call them back, but shit keeps happening, and it’s been like two years since youve said anything to them, and then you see them and do some serious acrobatics trying to stay out of their sight so you don’t have to confront their honest interest in your well-being that they have no right to still have after so long with no word from you, and you have to make it seem like you havent been avoiding them because that would be rude, and really it’s just easier to be constantly vigilant of where they are and make sure youve got plausible reason to be leaving casually yet quickly

well mal did that. emmy had to physically bar his way from escaping a room once when varric came in, and dragged him by the scruff of the neck to talk to him. varric was painfully understanding and ended up hitting it off nicely with emmy

so! someday mal gets a job. specifically, pica gives him one. because he still owes the world some community service. with his experience as a hunter and highwayman, he becomes a scout!

whoaaa color

more specifically, mal becomes a... specialized type of scout. some idiot who shall not be named but whose name sounds a whole lot like pica cadash gave him command of a small squad of scouts, heavier armored and armed than average inquisition scouts but not heavy enough to count as infantry soldiers. their job is to dismantle highwayman and rogue mercenary bands, in whatever way necessary. so! originally this was supposed to mean sneak attacks on their strongholds or whatever, but mal talked with him about his own experiences with crime (mostly that most people in his crew back then were in it out of necessity, and needed money to support family) and the squad kind of became. really heavy recruiters. it became kind of a joke that the inquisition would take anyone- and they would! practically any skillset could be used in an organization as big as the inquisition, and at this point it was still growing

like. barely any exaggeration here

so that’s where he is pre-trespasser! thank u for reading and if youve got questions or want to learn more PLEASE ask i lov my ocs and love talking about them

i want to add that in @1500birds‘s latest playthrough (miranda trevelyan, a pro-chantry mage cullenmancer) mal rags on cullen endlessly

that was supposed to be the playthrough where he survives the fade, but then bran realized that miranda would kinda hate mal and would 100% leave him behind

#dai spoilers #dragon age #mal hawke #madrana tabris

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survivor-kuwait · 5 years ago

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Episode 10 - “I wanna merge” - Thomas

alright just a recap of the round since i was at work all day! i was suuuuper excited that despite being in the warzone i was there with owen and matt my main boiz. also now people don't need to go bitching that i haven't been there yet anymore xoxo bite me cullan u bitch. apparently right when we got to the warzone tommy threw out adrian's name to trace bc he's still pressed about him calling him inactive during the round that nehe left which i mean eyeroll but ok. so as soon as i heard this i told matt, which probably was a mistake on my part but oh well. at that point i still was wanting to go through with what matt had wanted which was an alliance with us, adrian, and maynor. matt tells me last night though that adrian apparently initially brought up wanting to vote myself or owen due to challenge prowess, and i'm assuming the fact that we're winners as well. again, eyeroll. i brush it off and am like well let's sleep on it and see where we're at in the morning. so i tell owen all of this as well and make him promise me not to leak bc this could've potentially been a big round for us depending on what we wanted to do. he agreed with me that adrian even suggesting our names in passing wasn't a cute look and i didn't really wanna stand for that. we talked about it in pms and then again in the paradise hotel chat and it was odd bc then traces' information and actions were always seemingly right behind us. i'm fairly certain matt was leaking all of it to him but ok. i mean i hope he wasn't, but we'll see. trace and adrian got close real fast if they weren't already so that was kind of another point that i was trying to drive home with matt. good ol' matt kept mentioning yk that me and owen are his main people and that he doesn't care if adrian goes and at that point it just felt like ok well put your money where your mouth is. so we push for that and come to the conclusion that we really just need us, tommy and chloe obvs bc she's not gonna vote herself. the group decides to leave trace out of it after i bring up how trace apparently has all of the tea so maybe it wasn't getting leaked to him afterall??? idk shrug. i did let stephen know what was going on a little before tribal, i probably should've confirmed with him earlier but i wasn't sure how much he was willing to trust me with kind of right away like that. everything goes right as planned and adrian leaves 6-2??? happy to be back and out of the warzone, but i miss matt and owen already, but corey is back with me now!!! oh that reminds me apparently matt is wary of both ian and corey so i gotta keep an eye on that moving forwards and plan accordingly. ummmm also trace messaged me and was like hey so what happened?? i decided to tell him that i legit must've misunderstood messages from someone and that he was back to voting adrian. idk i just played dumb so i hope he bought it. he was like yeah as long as it was miscommunication and not me getting fucked over it's cool sdjgksdlg like what am i supposed to say to that.... yes i was trying to fuck u over u right.... got me!!

Genuinely surprised Chloe survived after being a target for so long, makes me suspicious there might be another alliance out there, because most people told me Adrian, they might not trust me yet, hopefully voting with them helped me there.

If I’m being truly honest. This challenge is so weird that i dont think imma be able to like do iy. Might be a warzone trip for me this round and it sucks because I dont want to go. Like Adrian was someone i could have worked with but he left 6-2 and I hope it wasnt Matt who voted Cloe.

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I got the first one in 6 clicks. I hope im able to get the rest pretty quickly but i dont know if i move from kuwait or i start from survivor again.

Part 1. I have emotional motion sickness. Somebody pls roll the windows down. I'm scared to lose Matt or Owen at this tribal. I don't see it happening but it still worries me. Ideally, Thomas leaves. Kait or Stephen leaving aren't the worst case scenarios either. Realistically, I predict Trace or Stephen. Trace.... pls survive. I'll send this confessional in two parts. Will be writing the second part later tonight. Part 2. Well. Adrian left. this is bad for my game. Is it worst case scenario? no. But Trace didn't vote him out; Matt did. Matt betrayed Adrian and Kait basically told me so. I cannot trust Matt as much as I thought I could; but maybe his allegiance is to Owen primarily as Matt sold Adrian out bc Adrian wanted to target Kait/Owen. It's hectic but Adrian was a number for my game, personally. I'll do my espionnage and try to keep tabs on what everyone is thinking. Oh, and attempt to win immunity again!

Well, last night's war zone did NOT go as I expected. I really thought that everyone was on board to vote Chloe, but I was clearly mistaken. The tribal left me a little confused, and genuinely nervous about what my fate would be if I were to return to the war zone in the near future. There are a few things that I did learn from this war zone, however. I really think that matt is kind of calling the shots over there. He seemed to be the sneakiest one, and was the one lie that kind of hurt the most. Kait claims that she thought I knew the vote was Adrian, and that is was a mistake on her part. I don't fucking buy it. Kait is clearly close with Thomas (she literally calls him Tommy), but decided that they couldn't trust me enough to tell me in the end the vote wasn't chloe. I did not appreciate that. I hate being in war zones where people who are inactive get to stay because somehow, someone figured out how to goat them to the end. I am going to do my best to stay out of the war zone this round, but this challenge is confusing so I have no idea if I even have a chance.

Im really nervous for this immunity. I hope i had a quick clicks. If not I hope im with people i can work with and not be voted out. Im anticipating a merge soon but how it works idk.

http://prntscr.com/nu7q5f what kind of false scorpio antics..........

Me? Safe again? Hskshdjd who woulda THOUGHT!!! I’m glad madison is finally safe I feel like the more she goes the more time she has to make connections lmao. I know she rlly wanted to be safe this time for some reason but part of me thought she had been throwing tbh so she could actually play the game which isn’t a bad strategy. I feel really bad for matt going again :( but I think he will be okay. Here’s hoping they send Stephen out please and ty!!!! In other news I still think I’ve never talked to Ian or corey which is funny af because corey could be my number one in this game. I feel like he will be loyal to me once we make it together.... I rlly just hope him and Kait don’t clash, but I’m scared af because Matt was sus about corey getting renee out and I haven’t gotten to tell corey that yet. Hopefully when the time comes I can get corey and Kait to work together and the three of us can go to the end somehow. I’m not gonna turn on Kait. I can’t turn on corey. It’s gonna be messed up if they ever start to target each other bc Kait doesn’t know I’m close with him but he knows I’m close with her nnnn

Kait thinks I'm targeting pairs, huh? Well, yes but actually no. I'm targeting pairs in the since that members of those pairs are people I don't think would work with me, I'm not targeting them for being pairs. I've got a pair in Leo I want to work with, also MY SIGN PARTNER IS STILL IN THE GAME, albeit barely. It has become abuntly clear to me that Matt does not have over lapping interests with me in this game. The man is out there spreading propaganda against me to Kait and Owen, who has never met me might I add so he sees me exactly as I see him. A threat. Kait, I thought you were warming up to me, but please keep thinking Corey is who you should confide in, he's totally not closer to me or anything.

This Warzone is really stressing me out. I don’t think I have the same allies I’m usually confident with. There’s Devon and Trace and Maynor and Chloe but I only can trust them so much because none of them are working together. I’m hoping to get out timmy or Stephen who I don’t know and don’t trust but I also know that my name certainly could be coming up soon enough because with each tribal I survive I become a bigger and bigger threat. I’m ready for some idol shenanigans if need be but I’d love to save that shit for down the road.

The names being thrown out right now are Cloe, Timmy, and Stephen. I much rather have Timmy stay because we are actually working together in this game rather than against. Stephen even tho we dont talk much there is still that connection through his game he hosted and one we played together. Getting majority on Cloe will be great because she wont get dragged to the f3 and take a spot that could be mine.

This warzone feels different. It’s an odd group and a lot of people who haven’t been together. So it’s somewhat quiet but also contentious since anything could happen at this point. Not sure how tonight will play our, should be fun....

So the vote seems to be Chloe, yet she always gets votes and it’s never her so naturally I’m weary. I think this will be the time though, especially with who is at this tribal. Trace was saying Devon had said Stephen, which I don’t want him going because he would be a good number for me. Trace also said that Matt said my name but I think he’s now on the Chloe train...I’m hoping. Either way I doubt he would have majority. I’m hoping I stay because it’s about to be merge and I think I’ve been doing well so far. I’m proud of how social I have been with people, it’s not the best, but it’s a lot better than I usually am.

youtube

It looks like the vote is locked on Cloe but still very awkwardly quiet. I hope nothing crazy goes down. *knocks on wood*

Don’t mind me just dying and having no idea what’s going on at all hahaha probs gonna be voted out next xoxox

This better be the last Warzone, I wanna merge.

So, with little debate, I think we settled on voting Chloe. Originally, Devon and Matt wanted to vote Stephen, but I had to convince them onto Chloe because I want to make sure we have more people on our tribe than theirs so that I have a chance of winning immunity. Matt told me he heard Timmy's name which is weird. I think he was just trying to scare me. I told Timmy about it, and Timmy was upset, but I really don't think it went anywhere. Chloe came to me and told me that she would vote anyone as long as it wasn't her. I really don't trust Matt even though he keeps telling me that I can trust him, so idk. Maybe I'll flip the script at the last minute and try to get everyone Matt at the last minute, but we shall have to see if that's smart for me... idk

#survivorstarzone #episodes

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gay-disabled-characters-showdown · 4 months ago

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LBGTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 3, Wave 1, Poll 3

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Wei Wuxian-The Untamed / Mo Dao Zu Shi

Qualifications:

Goes through a somewhat unethical organ transplant (in that the person he is giving the organ to doesn't realize that's what's going on) where he gives up his "golden core." This is like his center of power and by giving it up, not only is he not able to do most of the more "magic" things he could do before, but he's also noticeably physically weaker and gets injured much more easily (and takes longer to recover) as well as faints more often (iirc he only faints once pre-golden core removal and that was after sustaining major injuries and going on for a significant time without any healing while also fighting and traveling). Like he finds ways around it and invents new methods so that he can still do some things that he did before, just via a very different method. In the show we don't really see any characters who aren't cultivators, or at least part of that world, so Wei Wuxian is like the only character we really get to see without a golden core.

Also gotta say that this boy is severely depressed. Like "I'm-going-to-ask-my-doctor-friend-to-perform-a-mutliple-day-long-surgery-on-myself-in-which-I-will-be-awake-where-she'll-rip-out-the-core-of-my-being-and-transplant-it-into-my-adopted-brother-who-I'll-make-sure-never-finds-out-what-happened-even-though-he'll-come-to-hate-me" depressed. he has no value for his own life other than what he can give to others, even if it's his own body. like I think some fans unfairly classify him as being insane when he's really just depressed as all hell and having the worst possible things happen to him one after another and every time he breaks down it causes more trouble and usually people end up dying because of him.

Propaganda:

https://youtu.be/swbXAVADjxY ^ok this clip kinda explains the whole thing better (and obvs spoilers)

https://youtu.be/2wO5nsnkSBk ^and this video is just for fun but it's a little thing about Wei Wuxian & Jiang Cheng because their relationship makes me unwell

Additional Qualifications/Propaganda by @transparent-internet-maker

Kinda surprised ADHD!Wei Wuxian isn't included I thought that was a popular hc. There are several signs: He seems to forget a lot of things, but at the same time he clearly remembers other things that happened a long time ago. He invented a. lot. of things. His mind is almost never where he physically is and he's really smart in that thinks-way-too-much-out-of-the-box-in-a-short-time way. (1/2)

Then there is the fact that he's actually knowledgable, more than most of the others at times, but we see him doing whatever else he wants to instead of studying more often than not. The inventions point and this put together hint at him not being focused and having hyperfixations. And the general view of not studious but still smarter than everyone else just clear adhd I think. NOT trying to hate anyone, I thought I'd just mention this since I've seen a lot of adhd wwx.

Wade Wilson / Deadpool-Marvel

Qualifications:

pansexual who has cancer and [has] chronic pain

Propaganda:

Deadpool is all our favourite mutant/mutate merc with a mouth who suffers from chronic pain and makes others suffer by killing them, he is also pansexual and heartmates with Spiderman (they even have a ~genetically engineered evil~ daughter ~clone~ together)

#polls #poll #disability #disabled characters #lgbtq #lgbtq characters #id in alt text #lgbtq dcs round 3 #lgbtq dcs r3 wave 1 #wei wuxian #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #wade wilson #deadpool #marvel #marvel comics #gotta love how this poll has four ‘w’ names #and i dont even think it was intentional

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eksbdan-blog · 5 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://passingbynehushtan.com/2019/10/23/how-sacrifice-sins-of-the-world/

How Can a Person Atone in a Sacrifice for the Sins of the World? Only One Way. Part 1.

Hint about the title. If you are thinking the answer that is God is the person, so he is. But not “God,” only God. It’s really not confusing at all. Ideas like “God” are not our problem. It’s their meaning when it’s not something that we want to hear. Then the idea becomes a problem. Here is the real meaning for “God,” and is perfectly and conservatively Christian, but still not something that you may want to hear.

Sacrifice for the Sins of the World? Why can’t religion be simple?

Well, actually it’s very, very simple. It’s just that kind of simple we don’t want.

When I was growing up and attending church, I increasingly realized the central theological message of Christianity as the sacrifice of the Son of God for the sins of the world. How does belief in this act affect the redemption of the individual? As time went on and I could reflect on a proposition deeper, this seemed harder to accept than presented.

Now the forgiveness of sin comes from more than the belief in Christ’s work on the Cross for your sin. That is a belief about your work, too, namely, that your sin keeps you from God, and if there is not a solution to this, you will die in your sins.

In penal substitutionary atonement, why you repent is that you realize that you can’t save yourself, that God has to do it for you, by offering Himself as your substitute, taking your sin on himself. John McArthur puts it this way:1

“The Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. The Lord God Himself chose the sacrificial Lamb, the Servant, Messiah, the sacrificial Lamb. The Servant Messiah was voluntarily willing to submit Himself to become the vicarious substitute. God caused Him then to pick up all the guilt that belonged to us and take the full fury of divine wrath. Five different ways in Isaiah 53:4-6, five different ways it speaks of the vicarious, substitutionary provision of Jesus Christ, dying in our place. This is the heart of the gospel.”

Now, for those that affirm it, everyone seems very possessive and insistent on a certain formulation of atonement. Still, no one seems eager to explain how faith comes into this, thought essential for salvation no matter to what version you subscribe.

Are your sins the issue? Why, and what is to compel you to think Jesus’s solution is better than anyone else’s version of the operation of transcendence?

Well, obviously it’s about a better miraculous event proving his is a real operation. But not a real one, as I had come to believe, only because of inference from a stand-alone miracle that only God could perform such as the empty tomb. Not better because of the kind of miracle assumed to be manifest because this kind of sacrifice is unique. Real because something else happened that makes it true, but not that it makes more sense and appeals to reason on its own. My thought became that it was better, and perfect, and real, primarily because of a miracle in our mind, triggered by one that God performed in the world, of its description of something in the mind of God.

A miracle is God’s calling card. A miracle is an overt display of God’s existence, nature, and mind, which is so overpowering to the senses that it is accepted as such without meditation. But I think that if this miracle can happen in the outer world, it can also occur inferentially in the subjective world. This miraculous occasion has just as much power coming through spiritual senses and the physical senses. If that is true, then it is also a miracle that Christ hung on a cross for the forgiveness of sin. Although not a miracle in the objective sense, I expect it to be itself the wonder of a divine concept expected to change us once seen for what it is.

Why is this an important consideration? Because no one thinks the Parable of the Sower is a miracle meant for our spiritual awakening and then our salvation, only that of things such as Jesus’s healing ministry and the resurrection. Then, few are as impressed with Isaiah 53 as a miracle to write sermons upon as they are with Jesus’ ethics in the calling the little children for a blessing, or his washing of the disciple’s feet. And then, we look at Jesus on the Cross and think that this represents only what he had to go through to secure our forgiveness, while never so much as having heard of Daniel 9:26. There is a working assumption in our theology and the human heart that what we have of evidence of transcendence that is clear is fake, because it’s too good to be true, and only fit for the naive religionist. What is not so clear, and looks more mundane, but while still being also a product of the agent of transcendence which produced that clear view, is also not worthy of the remarkable either, but only of an uncommon morality. Viola, religion!

What is left, on the one hand, is an evidential sideshow of curious and eyebrow-raising unsolved mysteries of Christian religious literature called apologetics. On the other side, a revival tent of swooning and sweating enthusiasts in which everything that we need to or happen to feel at a given moment is granted the most serious respect as sincere moments of truth-seeking. Still on the other side of the Christain compound is the dimly lit hall of writing and reading desks, over which hover the innumerable bald heads of the scholars, deep in the patristic fathers for the discovery of the 2nd-century kerygma. But with all that brainpower never divinely fired, they never do know how to use that knowledge to bring up a revelation about what really changed from the 1st century. Our Christian experience and expression of faith is a mosh-pit of brains and bodies thrown against each other and never against any other, which is not a body and not in a mosh-pit. We have the truth, but what we really love about it that it allows us to use it and feel good about having it while not having it at all.

What this comes down to in this mediation of Jesus and the Cross is if we are practicing His Christianity or some chimera of our own making. Then, by that, whether we are saved or damned. I think it a pretty important topic.

I think that the teaching of Jesus is supposed to be a transfer of knowledge from the otherwise impossible source of God’s mind. There is not supposed to be in Christ’s action of the raising of Lazarus a disconnection to any other truth that God communicated. Isn’t the acceptance of a greater truth and a greater miracle manifest to our spiritual senses not supposed to be its point? Is not the teaching of Jesus in his words and actions the inducement of such a miracle, to open us up to the understanding of spiritual, otherworldly truth? Arent we saved through the hearing of the Gospel, presumably, as we think of commonly it, not an overt miracle?

Ok then, we know that the function of these external displays of God’s glory is for stopping our selfish mouths and brains from thinking our thoughts and replacing them with God’s. I believe that the real miracle that we have to witness is a miracle of the content of God’s thoughts in ours: an exclusively miraculous content.

If the image of Christ on the Cross will not be one of these, is it no wonder why we think it’s possible, and normal, for a saved person never to have seen or understood it as anything more than and OT act of religion replaced by a universal one? That it does not have any other symbolic theological significance past “propitiatory atonement by sacrifice”? Not a wonder that Christ on the Cross becomes to the unbelieving world a mere creative religious notion intrinsically no more ingenious than those of any other religion? That the suspicion that it has a unique divine intrinsic power, far beyond its ability to inspire a common emotional response to any such scene, like pity and love for someone suffering in our place, is lost? Is it no wonder then if we were to denigrate and dismiss any inference from it that would suggest that its signification denotes a disclosure about a kind of crucial sin to which we are addicted? That we would sell our souls and re-crucify Christ again if its transformative power were to be thought possible of exposure and judgment of us?

Please go to the next page…

May I make a prediction? Before this article ends, you will for the first time in your life of faith become something of the mind of God new to you, if I can successfully convince you that the Cross means is nothing less than your death or your life in a way that is miraculous. You have not heard of this before, because it’s unconsciously a closely guarded secret of the Christian consciousness. In normal consciousness, and even in normal evangelism, its a truth not entertained and uttered openly as an article of faith. You are not supposed to be fed the answer to a question that God wants you to discover on your own, but only by the motivation of your love of truth. Nevertheless, how you handle this truth, whether aware or unaware, whether by agreement in words or practice, will determine your end. How you respond will decide whether or not you are playing around in mundane world religion or a simple manifestation of divine Truth, because this is the very function of the theological significance of the scene of Christ dying on a Cross.

Its the one truth of the faith that you could say is universally hated and actively shunned, but also the one truth about he faith, and about the Bible, that is the least deniable.

I do this because there will come a day, which I believe will come shortly when we will have nothing left to inform our faith than the recollection of this real miracle of theological formation of which I speak. After the withering assaults from more carnally seductive alternatives, we will want to go back to the real fundamentals of our faith, and it’s not what we think they are.

Restating the Obvious

Let me reiterate the preceding in a variety of ways.

Now, I’m jumping into my early twenties in my quest to solve something about Christianity and its message confusing to me. I was not capable of this kind of question early on. Why is it that the act of dying on the Cross is a less powerful revelatory element to faith than the empty tomb when they are both supposed to be supremely revelatory? This question bears not on the initial place and route of the miraculous into the spirit, but the final one. Some of the considerations toward an answer to which I deal will seem pedantic, and I apologize for that. But go with it. It’s necessary because when this subject opens up, it touches upon so much of what and how we think by cultural Christianity that, as powerful as this truth is, that firewall is constructed as its sufficient counter at every turn.

Where do miracles occur? I mean miracles that are demonstrably and rationally exposable and examinable to all. Not only personal subjective experiences. Is there today a change in emphasis from the time of the 1st century? If Christ as a sacrifice for world sin is important, and supremely so, and is the most important miracle, this question we have to confront this hard and early.

Must our most essential and objective demonstration of God for which our spirits are responsible only be in an overt miracle, whether seen or reported? Is a miracle not also an alien knowledge? Do wonders that show an impossible exception to the laws of nature has a more important counterpart in those that only occur in the spirit as a response to divine knowledge? Can’t this abstract miracle, just as examinable and open to scrutiny as to its validity, which occurs in the spirit and processes in the spirit to the spirit, not carry the same epistemic weight as an objective miracle which occurs within the physical world, processed within the spirit and to the spirit? Can you then call it a Christian belief which asks one to believe in a sacrifice for sins which is no more remarkable than any other religious concept? A belief thought not having a miraculous and intrinsically transformative signification for which any sincere seeker would be responsible? Finally, it is not a symbol, which appears not as a miracle but a common act or word, which is hidden by God as to its intended meaning, that which becomes a miraculous instance of God’s power and nature in the spirit after it we know the knowledge it carries? This symbol essentially becoming within that space every bit a theophany of God to the spirit as if God appeared to the eye, which secures a substantive relationship with God that we can profess but can never have otherwise?

Is this subjectivism?

It may seem like I’m saying that experience of faith within your heart and mind is just as valid a proof of God as a miracle within space/time, but this is far from what I’m saying. You will think this because we are trained to think, as I said, of faith as not necessarily grounded in facts and the “spirit” as emotion.

I ask again, must the Christian message not be that there must be an appearance of God to the mind and heart with as much epistemic weight as that which occurs to the five senses? A presentation, in the form of knowledge, which has just as much power to influence the people around you to God’s reality after being reported by you? It would seem that what happens in space/time, brought into the spirit for processing, which is a demonstration of the presence and power of God, will be powerless and puerile until this miracle of its meaning occurs.

I say that Jesus on the Cross is one of them and the greatest of them all. Not that it is a miracle in the material world. An exception to the laws of nature. But a miracle in the spiritual world, through thought, that is every bit as palpable there.

I think we have to keep in mind that if you repent of your sin, your sin first needs representation and a solution by the sacrifice of Jesus before forgiveness. Or else you are repenting for your sin for the same reason a person repents who knows nothing about or does not believe in Messiah’s work on the Cross. And your sin is found, and its cure rendered, not by a creative religious idea for which you believe and repent, or by no spiritual knowledge at all. By a miracle within which is fundamentally a revelation of his Person. An indispensable miraculous predicate. One which all religious ideas are to sign and represent in an inferior but essential capacity, but in an unbreakable relationship. What you believe and the reason you believe it has to be the equal of God’s revelation, and that revelation of Messiah on the Cross should be every bit as much of one as your kind of understanding and belief in it.

Please go to the next page….

Faith and Practice: Words Mean Things

There seems to be a disconnection between Christian faith and practice, but in a way in which those words as defined culturally have lost their meaning in Christian theology. Is “faith” only faith, and is “practice” only practice, to be used thus in the same flattened way that other religions use them? I don’t believe Christian faith should not be “faith” in the world’s estimation, and “practice” should not either.

If Christianity is the religion of miracle and demonstration, and not merely of wish-casting, “faith” needs to be faith in and because of a divine phenomenon that occurs in the spirit and the epistemic equal to any divine phenomena that trigger it that occurs in the mundane. It needs to be a miraculous knowledge and radical. To the natural noetic senses crazy radical, and demonstrably so, to show all those not accepting it are crazy. Following as an effect, “practice” can then essentially only be a personal spiritual demonstration of that faith in reaction to the divine phenomena in which it shares space, which is equal to an outward movement of the body in which are the content of speech and the motivations for actions. If not, it is easy why you can think you can believe Christ atoned for your sins but need not think you must know, understand, or become inspired by a provable miraculous act in the Crucifixion, death, and resurrection. You believe in miraculous Christian conclusions, like talismans, not miraculous Christian predicates.

The one verse that always came back to haunt me, beside and above all these other concerns was

John 8:24: “I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.”

Here is contained the essential religious faith and practice, but to natural sight, it sure does not look that way.

Again, How does Faith Work in Redemption?

Well, it’s a little too early for that. But I will tell you this.

This question was becoming a key, because the identity of Jesus, required for us to confess, is the identification of him as Messiah Savior through his apparent, miraculous acts that stand alone as products of the exclusive power of a God of transcendence. But also those which he performed that are not so plain to see casually, but plain only through honestly, mentally, connecting the act to a prediction that only God could make. If the case, the Atonement must have a far deeper meaning regarding the operation of our salvation than it presents on the surface.

Whether we are speaking of how the atonement works with faith or how faith works with the Gospel, we have the same question: How does Christian faith work in redemption? We will get around to the Gospel. But since, in my view, the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross is such an integral and powerful symbol of what God did to secure our release from the penalty of sin, I could not get it out of my mind when thinking about this.

Now, when I was busy being bewildered over so many questions and with no answers forthcoming, my first thought was that there must be something wrong with me. Maybe I have a spiritual block about spiritual things. Perhaps the whole proposition was a sham, this atonement of a Man-God by sacrifice for the world’s sin. Maybe this Jesus and his followers just invented a novel way of explaining how God’s plan of redemption fulfilled the Law and ended by their chosen religious leader, through which all need to join through them. When the possibility that the Church might not be teaching this correctly came up, I interpreted the word “correctly” here according to one of the choices given by the church and not by the Bible. “Correct” or in “error” according to Protestantism, catholicism, secularism, philosophy. Perhaps its only my Church that is not correct, joining something like, by Catholic perspective, the Protestant heresy of “justification in a moment,” where the real answer lay in adding works to faith in a progressive redemption. Maybe I need to shut my mind up and accept the “Christian” version of the truth, placing my “heart” needs over my “head,” and the church defines them.

In retrospect, although all these alternatives were confronting me in my lack of understanding of the theological formula, and should have weakened my resolve to push through it, I became more determined. Unlike any other religion I knew, Christianity seemed in some strange way to invite this examination, this struggle, deep introspection, just because it did not appear in a hurry to proclaim any more truth than it asked the hearer to admit of himself. It seemed to ask a lot of questions instead of only telling the answer to spiritual matters. This seemed strangely honest. Maybe this Christianity was perhaps more than it appeared above both the pedestrian and scholarly elucidations, and perhaps we are fundamentally ignorant about it.

Sacrifice for the Sins of the World. Christ on the Cross.

Again, asked am I to believe the imputation of Christ’s righteousness defeats that sin that keeps me from God. This result is by the belief of Christ’s sacrifice in my place. How does this operation work?

Knowing Christ’s heavy symbolic strategy of communicating what seemed for the pedestrian senses hard things but also axiomatic truths to those looking for them, was not this symbol of the crucifixion intended to mean something more than “sacrifice” or “death?” Should not the symbol of the crucifixion, knowing Christ’s methods, designed by him as a mirror image of the theology of salvation that he taught? And should not each one, the image and the theology, be as something as unique and surprising as we would expect to have come from transcendence? But here’s the kicker. Should not the kind of faith that he asks us to have then rendered as foreign and unwanted to the Street as his intended meaning of the Cross is known and becomes paramount in his religion?

That suggested that maybe, just maybe, the Street is not them, but it might be us, the professing Church. I had all these images running through my head of the Pope and his priests. A Billy Graham Crusade. My childhood Methodist church, and the vast ocean out there, the over one billion, taken for granted as “Christian” yet are almost to the man saying that God’s makes exceptions for them because of their handling of a faith symbol which need have nothing remarkable and unexpected as a transcendent signification, and which feeds, counterintuitively, what must only be called feelings of false humility and self-importance.

If you don’t like that statement, I think we can agree that if what is being communicated and received by man and not designed to be touchy-feely, especially that which is inherently foreign and only designed to illuminate the spirit’s desire for truth at any cost, is not going to be touchy-feely. If it is touchy-feely, but also miraculous for the benefit of Truth alone, there is something wrong with the way it is explained.

I wanted to give the Bible every opportunity to speak for itself. I knew that it was a very symbolic, parabolic kind of revelation that Christ presented. Was the atonement idea represented there in any other sense than someone dying in our place who must be God? It just did not sit well with me that Christianity, on the one hand, claimed an exclusive and complete revelation of God of things kept secret from the foundation of the world and now known, while this revelation as explained to me seemed to be nothing more than what could come from the mind of a creative and ambitious spiritual man on his own.

Please go to the next page…

Not an inconsequential line of investigation, I hope you agree. Here is not some minor concern that only requires the tweaking of an error in an understanding that came from a Greek word or two.

What I found was that, yes, although I found the Atonement in the Bible, the way it was there I found different from the one they offered me in Church, and, as I said, for a long time, this brought complete terror to me before it became a challenge and a blessing. It changed my life, but not before it daily ground me to the pavement and whispered how miserably hopeless and weak I was, that this was not something that I could have thought up myself. I knew now for sure that my “sin” was not really about doing or not doing something, or about how genuinely I accepted and believed a religious idea, or how deeply I believed in God and willing to give up my life for him. These are, again, asking no more of us than the kinds of things any other religion would ask. The problem was that I knew that what stood between God and me was something supernatural, something alien to the world but a part of it. It represented the only spiritual thing that was most manifest, but also the one thing that we are least willing to accept and integrate into our lives.

Symbolic Preliminaries.

We have someone on a Cross in the process of being executed. There are two essential elements to this picture: the person and the method of torture and execution. In the method, there is this means of nailing, tying, and fixing to that which also raises that person from the ground. What does this mean?

In natural sight, this is a man, and in natural sight, this is a piece of wood and some nails. The man is slowly bled to death and asphyxiated. In that natural sight, that is all it has for you. You can see that this is not a public miracle of the supernatural, although miracles accompanied it. It was a very common sight in a 1st Century Roman province. And, also a natural thought, how easy it would have been for God to have sent an army of his angels from the sky, take him off and fly him to heaven in the sight of all the people. Boy, this would bring many people to examine the doctrine of Jesus, would it?

But, if the fundamental problem of humanity is not that he does not believe what he sees, but that he does not believe what he can spiritually see but does not, then such as act as this expectation of God to casual thought would not be respectful of our personhood, our free will, as a person like God. It would be a deletion of free will since such a supernatural act would remove the choice of whether this is the act itself is from God.

However, the supernatural is what man has a problem with and is what God wants for him to accept to be a spiritually righteous person, not just a physical one, which the fulfillment of Personhood and not only its imitation. If this is not an overt supernatural display, how could it be supernatural in a way that is not the same as the prosaic image of a man dying on a cross to which his natural senses lead him? If this supernatural display supposed to be something like “this was a universal sacrifice for the sins of the world in fulfillment of the tribal one carried out in the Law of Moses,” isn’t that just as well a mere religious and creative mere idea?

A mere religious idea is not tracking with the fact that this Jesus is a man and God, natural and supernatural, and together is something so unique and transcendent it/He should stand as the most unusual and earth-shattering event in human history. Not just a universal symbol, either Jesus or the Atonement, to replace/correct a Jewish Messiah or its old symbol. That would not be only God placing one thing for another, that would be the historical fulfillment of a Jewish symbol, a symbol designed by God to become miraculously fulfilled. A supernatural meaning in fulfillment of a supernatural symbol of a yet unfulfilled part of Jewish law. Yet as the realization of an Old Testament symbol in its meaning, the physical act and a unique theological message can’t be the meaning because this would say that symbols comprehensively carry and are determinative of meaning. That is precisely the opposite of divine revelation, where divine phenomena and appearances are first and our inferior but morally sufficient ideas about it second.

What kind of meaning are we talking about that aligns with the essential definition of meaning, one which is of knowledge impossible without special revelation by God?

Let us remember that a symbol or an idea is a representational device for the carrying of identification and operation of a thing in itself. It is not meaning itself, only a tool for it to appear in the world. Remember that this sacrificial act by someone who claims to be the Son of God is someone that uses miracles not to bind someone up in a decision but to help them. To point them to the gravity and importance of another one which, like the miracle, is not imminent, but spiritual and self-attesting. Jesus is then not just supposed to be the fulfillment of Elijah or Moses. No matter how he satisfies them his mission, his mission is not only to bring their ultimate personal instances into the world. Its to deliver their final transcendent message into the world, which represents the end of a chain of symbolic assignation to render ultimate meaning, not another round of it.

Lets also not forget that a proposition is not Truth, its a symbol of truth. You can and must worship, give ultimate value to Truth, but you cant give it to a mere symbol (“mere” making it the pagan equivalent is the idol). To believe “Jesus saves” is a saving proposition, or that saying and believing the propositions “Jesus saves” or “God is sovereign,” will not save you ay more than bowing down to a carved image of Molech. These are conceptual symbols of a faith container, a placeholder for a Truth, not the God who is Truth. And so emotion does not save you, and reason does not save you, doctrinal propositions do not save you, no matter how important they are in the disgesting and understanding of revelation. Those are also only possible images of a Truth received, understood, and believed, not that truth itself or your moral acts themselves. Christ saves you, but not “Christ,” insofar as this is only a designated name and an idea for something of his which is his abstract equivalent and which is nowhere near a cultural formulation. Christ is an objective Person, and he is a revelation of knowledge. You get to use the symbol of faith “Christ” through his informational entity of miraculous knowledge. You don’t get to use the symbol effectively as if independently imbued with that divine power, which rubs off on you like an idol that you merely hold without your demonstrated spiritual connection to the declared truth it represents.

Continued here: How Can a Man Atone for the Sins of the World By His Own Sacrifice? Only one way. Part 2. The Messianic Secret

Schuurman W. Penal Substitutionary Atonement is the Heart of the Gospel: Who Agrees? | Trinity Bible Chapel. Trinity Bible Chapel. https://trinitybiblechapel.ca/penal-substitutionary-atonement-is-the-heart-of-the-gospel-who-agrees/. Published July 19, 2018. Accessed October 26, 2019. ↩

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nomanicsdak · 6 years ago

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New Post has been published on http://manicdak.com/?p=2405

The Handsomest Man in all of Greece

I Know, I know, It’s Been 84 Years, etc…

Note: I wrote this one well before the holidays and am just now getting to posting, for the record!

What Are You Up To, Kleon?

We’re out to help Kleon today now that they Symposium is over! Let’s see what kind of job he has to offer. Probably not the drunken orgies that Perikles and Co. had for me, but, hey—you never know! Let’s go raid some Spartan camps! (As is Kleon’s wish, if you remember that far back.) That being finished, I go back to Kleon, with a note from a Spartan polemarch about further secret missions for Athens that Kleon is engaging in. Of course, this isn’t the end of his quest for me. I now have to rescue a messenger at a quarry. Come to find out that he is dead, but I do managed to rescue a sea captain who is also in on the plan. They are all being very hush hush about what is on his ship, and that makes me really suspicious. Better I don’t know? I beg to differ!

Well, not only was this guy captured, but so was his entire crew. I have to rescue them and then go defeat some Spartan ships, and maybe I have discovered the reason we parked in some random cove…because my ship is right there for me to swim to! Barnabus lets me know I have a message about a lead on some cultists, which I will check out later, and I make short work of the ship and head on back to see if maybe these dudes will tell me something!

Nope, nobody tells me anything. Maybe I have doomed all of Athens by helping these guys, or doomed somebody else. Who knows? Mayhaps it doesn’t actually matter since most of the time there is just an illusion of choice. Heh. I mean, I can go about raiding all of Athens and it doesn’t seem to affect much in the way of interactions.

In fact, let’s go on a side quest now that I’m done with Kleon. I know I said I was going to Korinth, but you know me. There was never a spot on the map that I ever want to pass up! So, I accidentally run through a restricted area and get chased by some guards all the way to my exclamation point destination. Let’s see who it is!

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Dudes being Bros

Ooo, boy. It is none other than Alkibiades and his bud Sokrates. They are still at it. Sokrates is talking and talking and Alkibiades is flirting and flirting. What kind of shenanigans are they up to? Well, Alkibiades wants me to help his friend become a citizen by sneaking into a place and signing his name to a thing. Alright, seems easy enough, yes? I think my abilities of sneaking have been way over estimated by the game. Quest completed though. I return to Alkibiades and he gets a new exclamation point above his head. Dude. What now???

Well, I have to find a witness, for this citizenship; a “handsome” dude named Peiroos. Neither I nor Ace here can be the witness, because he is a friend and I am not a citizen, but I should be careful not to get too distracted by Peiroos handsomeness. I think I can manage. What I don’t think I can manage is not giving this guy the nickname “Poos”. Hahaha. I am 12. Anyway, I just get some vague directions to find him; the quest isn’t going to lead me directly there this time. I guess I will just look out for the too handsome dude.

And OMG, I keep running into this restricted area. I am not meaning to do this, just there’s these big steps leading up to this temple and regular citizens are just running around there all willy-nilly. Why can’t I? Boo!

I Got This.

But I Was Expecting This

Well, it’s this guy. Lol. Okay, if you say so, Ace. I have a feeling that every person that walks into his eyeline is probably the most attractive person in Greece in that particular moment. Anyway, Peiroos doesn’t want to help. Sophanes, he’s the dude I’m helping with the citizenship and here I am still on this quest so I guess I’ll remember his name for a minute. Anyway, he’s a betrayer who turned on his own troops or something. According to Peiroos he doesn’t deserve citizenship. Great. Now what? Fine, I’ll bribe him…pay for his debt with this huge pile of drachmae I have that I never spend on anything. Surprisingly this bribe works without me having to do any more favors. Ok, I guess I will find out what damaged I’ve wrought later if any.

Reporting my success to Alkibiades, I give him some shit for not telling me all of the deets about Sophanes apparent treachery. At least I can grumble at somebody for it, if I can’t grumble at Kleon. He says he didn’t think I would care, but now he knows. Have I rebuffed Alcibiades too many times now? Who knows, but he believes in second chances. Me too. When he leaves Sokrates and I rap about whether good people can become bad or bad people can become good, and can we predict anything about it. Alexios seems relieved when Sokrates finally bows out of the discussion leaving it for a later date.

I guess the later date is now, because the next exclamation point is leading me to Sokrates who has apparently transported himself all the way across town instantaneously. So, Sokrates is in an argument with some playwright named Aristophanes (Fannies?) about Kleon and another dude name Hermippos. Apparently Hermippos (Hippos obvs.) thinks Kleon is the bees knees and isn’t afraid to shout it from the rooftops, and Aristophanes is done with it. Not sure what Sokrates can do about it, but I’m sure we will find out.

Stop Hippos!

Ok, the short of it is Sokrates is down with freedom of speech. Aristophanes thinks some people should shut-up already. Even Sokrates. Anyway, I’m going to be hired to find Hermippos so Aristophanes can give him the what for.

I get some more vague directions, but I’m pretty sure I already tried to break into his house earlier when I was completing locations. Yep, I did. He does have quite the suspicious amount of guards and huge villa for a playwright. I find a note from Kleon about his play and some huge amounts of money just laying about, and the cherry on top is this Cult of Kosmos mask. *Gasp* Something culty is afoot here after all! And here, I thought Aristophanes was full of shit. Let’s get him! There is another cultist in Athens and my map tells me I will find clues in the quarry, so I’m going to go back there and see what’s up.

My map lies! Ok, well, not quite. I’m supposed to do favors for nearby people and maybe I will stumble upon the clues somehow. Instead, I ignore that little notation and head directly to the quarry to complete the location with much effort and dying and it got me nothing except a check mark and some armor that is a lower level than the armor I already have on. I stayed up way past my bedtime for this? Yay?

I go in search of a maybe helpful quest and take on some bounties that I’m not sure I’ll finish. I get a mission to collect some seals from some Spartan polemarches in some forts and also realize I have a finished quest that hasn’t been completed because I didn’t go back and talk to the dude that gave it to me yet. I think I got distracted by the magical spear upgrady machine. Anyway, I head on back to the beach where I first landed to help my twice not!brother, brother. I cause troubles at some forts to collect my one part of the required goods.

After raiding several more forts I have now realized that they are Athenian, and that is the reason I’m not getting the special quest required polemarch seals. Uuuuuggghhh. Self. C’mon! I am going back to Athens, there’s lots of Spartans in that area.

In search of forts, I do find another human sacrificing faction in a cave. Nothing to do with the Kosmos cult, these guys are Pan fans, they’ve got the sacrificial altar and a pit of blood. I fail at sneaking and basically have to pick them off with my arrows whilst trying running backwards around and around in a circle through the cave tunnels. This tactic somehow manages to work without me being desynchronized once. Phew.

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Old Friend, New Trouble

I do a few more quests and meet up with a former fellow mercenary, Heitor, who is now one of those dudes that runs a weapon store. I still have not managed to procure another polemarch seal, but that is for another day apparently. Anyway, this guy wants me to get his very special sword back for him from this huge, well guarded Athenian fort. Cool. I do that, but in doing so learn that he actually probably sold the sword to the Captain there. He, of course, admits nothing, but whatever. Team Merc.

NOW, he wants me to save his friend who has been captured, which I agree to, but who knows. He probably sold this guy too. Harumph. On the way I run into some lady who gives me a sob story about her play being banned for being just toooo dramatic, you guys. It brought all the soldiers to tears and they stole it so no warrior would ever be overcome with such emotion again, she is just so talented. She doesn’t want me to rescue her play from the sad soldiers, but she does want money, which I give her. I’ll take the easy XPs, whatever. I’m fairly certain this was a con. *shrug*

Anyway, I go through all the trouble of rescuing this guy in less than stealthy fashion and get him down to a boat where Heitor is waiting…to kill him. Uuuuuugh. Why? Because this guy was shackin’ it up with his wife and she ended up dying when she got in between their fighting. A love triangle gone awry.

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Let’s All Just Enjoy the Sunset and Forgive Each Other, Eh?

Guys. Stop. Think it through, my mans. I tell them nothing is going to bring her back and somehow convince them to part ways without bloodshed for once. Yay! Now let’s clear some more locations before we move on. I mean, I haven’t quite forgotten that I’m looking for my mom this time, so I clearly have more busy work to do!

Oh yeah, the Seals guy. I think I finally gave him the seals and now he wants me to find more seals. To be honest, I’ve kind of lost the plot with this guy, but I’ll keep him on mind as I’m going on this next quest to the Silver Islands. I don’t remember where I picked this one up, but I’ve been hired to aid a failing rebellion on Myknonos! Let us be off! I have my crew drop me off away from civilization because I saw a dot in the distance sitting on a beach and I wanted to check it out.

Levitating Bears; Up to No Good!

It is a bear! I don’t really want to kill this bear, because on one hand he is pretty, but on the other hand the beach is littered with dead guys. Clearly, this bear is a trouble maker like me. Once that is done, I explore his cave which doesn’t really yield any good treasure. I do come to the realization as I crest a nearby hill that I am not in fact on Mykanos at all. Ah well, Let’s explore this island while I’m here I guess. I am on the sacred Lands of Artemis on Delos island…part of the Silver islands it turns out. It is a beautiful place with purple flowers all over. This one speaks to me. Maybe I can retire here, but probably not I’m sure someone with a spear is going to chase me away soon enough. (This last sentence in retrospect…oh boy. In my headcannon, My only mercenary retirement plan this Alexios has is this, and the only kids he will be having are the baby voyeur goats that I will be raising with Alkibiades, history be damned! Cute country doctor and Sokrates can come too.)

I move on to the next section called the Birthplace of Apollo where I find more people, a terrace of Lions and a Sacred Lake. Obviously, I must defile the sacred lake, because surely this place must have treasure at the bottom even though it isn’t a marked location. I am right for once when I find a bunch of loot and a sword down there. Haha!

Greetings from Kira

Bless! I am finally on Mykanos where I find out some guy is basically being a dick all over the place. We’ll call him Murdery von Taxation since I forgot his name. I really forget the specifics because all this happened last week So, so, very long ago, and I didn’t write anything down. Does he have a name? Is he a cultist? Perhaps. Perhaps I am just here to help Kira on her quest to bring him down. Anyhow, she has me running around meeting her places and investigating stuff, but I run into a beggar lady first who, as it turns out has some secrets to unload on me.

You see, she was once Kira’s nurse, or something, and Kira’s mother was Murdery’s mistress. When he found out she had a kid, he came around to kill her, and succeeded. The nurse absconded with Kira and didn’t even tell her any of this. So, now I have to tell her that the man she’s vowed to take down is her very own father. I know the feel, girl. My dad threw me off a cliff! I think that’s where I left it.

Okay, so, I have absolutely no idea what happened because I played a little and then went on a long vacation to the heart of it all (Ohio) and yeah. I’m pretty sure I told Kira the secret and tried to console her and then we took down her dad, there’s no guarantee that that is going to do anything to help the situation. Someone higher up the chain might just come and be just as terrible to the townsfolk, but I’m just going to assume my job is done and get on with the questing. (Unless I haven’t, in fact, finished this quest, in which case…I’ll do that!)

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#assassin's creed #odyssey #Assassin's Creed #Games #Miscellaneous #Odyssey

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maygunbun · 8 years ago

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Beauty & the Beast!AU

formerly known as @viktor-nkfrv.

Starring Viktor as the Prince Yuuri as Belle Yuri as the Clock Chris as the Candlestick and other characters as the other household objects. And maybe JJ as Gaston.

There was once a vain prince named Viktor who loved anything beautiful. He especially loved the winter, for everything was pure and white and cold and beautiful.

Viktor’s vanity slowly took up the space in his heart, until kindness and compassion no longer had a place there.