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saintsenara · 4 months ago

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How do you think memory charms work from a brain science perspective, and what might the implications of such technology be? Given the complexities of memory—how it works, its function (e.g., in identity formation, decision making, psychological well-being, etc.)—the fact that these spells are so routinely used on Muggles who witness magic—especially under traumatic circumstances—is so sinister…

thank you very much for the ask, pal! a very interesting question to think about!

as you say, memory is the central part of human experience. it's integral to who we are, why we understand ourselves to be that way, and how we function daily. without the ability to remember things we've learned or which have happened to us in the past, we don't have the ability to understand the present or plan for the future, or apply context to why we behave in or feel certain ways. memory is so important to our understanding of our own existence that many people would say losing it is the thing they fear most...

and i think there's a very credible case for jkr being one of them.

in its understanding of the body, the harry potter series prioritises cognitive function above all things.

physical illnesses, injuries, or disabilities don't upset or frighten it unduly. this is partially because its genre conventions need to take this approach to physical impairment in order for their plots to advance - harry being able to take a bludger to the head and live to tell the tale is the same as john wick being able to fall from the top of a six-storey building, get up, and keep going: they're action heroes, and the person following their exploits wants that action to continue.

but it's also because the series' central theme is choice - and, specifically, the choice between good and evil. this choice - as the books understand it - is something freely and rationally made, with no cognitive impairment preventing it.

[hence - as i've written about elsewhere - voldemort's horcruxes do not - despite common fanon - make him insane.]

as a result, injuries, disabilities, or experiences which lead to a loss of cognitive capacity - thereby making it impossible for choices to be freely made - are presented by the text as uniquely horrifying.

the revelation that frank and alice longbottom can't recognise neville after they're attacked by the lestranges brings a "bitterness harry had never heard there before" into dumbledore's voice.

lupin is primarily ashamed of the loss of rational thought his transformations bring, and the wolfsbane potion works by preventing this loss of rationality:

"As long as I take it in the week preceding the full moon, I keep my mind when I transform... I am able to curl up in my office, a harmless wolf, and wait for the moon to wane again. "Before the Wolfsbane Potion was discovered, however, I became a fully fledged monster once a month."

harry thinks that "bathilda bagshot" [really nagini in disguise] is starting to forget how to perform magic, and equates this loss of function with the dark, dank, foul-smelling house in which she lives.

ariana dumbledore's trauma-induced cognitive disability gradually ruins her family's lives.

harry, our hero, is never, ever affected by the imperius curse.

and, of course, the dementor's kiss - which canon understands as the single most frightening thing which could ever befall somebody - brings about a state where bodily functions continue, but cognitive ones are lost:

"You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you'll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no... anything. There's no chance at all of recovery. You'll just - exist. As an empty shell. And your soul is gone forever... lost."

as a result of this, canon presents memories as things which are straightforward and factual. while they may be interpreted subjectively - harry's horror at snape's worst memory, for example - they are - in and of themselves - objective accounts of events. the memories which harry views in the pensieve, for example, are not "witness statements" - subjective, personal accounts of how an individual experienced an event, which might be contradicted by another person's own subjective recollection - they are fact. what they say happened actually happened. sirius' version of snape's worst memory would be identical to snape's.

and canon understands that memories are - therefore - devoid of things like perception, assumption, imagination, habit, and emotion. indeed, these things are not only irrelevant to the memory... they are detrimental to it.

slughorn's attempt to modify his memory of telling tom riddle about horcruxes is because he wishes to soothe an emotion - shame, at giving riddle the information he needed to commit such evil and then not telling anyone - by presenting an imagined version of events in which he looks better. his attempt to apply these two things to the memory are what curdles it. what dumbledore is asking harry to do, in sending him out to retrieve the unmodified memory from slughorn, is to acquire the objective facts:

"He has tried to rework the memory to show himself in a better light, obliterating those parts which he does not wish me to see. It is, as you will have noticed, very crudely done, and that is all to the good, for it shows that the true memory is still there beneath the alterations."

in saying that slughorn's "true memory" remains accessible, what dumbledore is saying is that slughorn should be judged as having full cognitive capacity. he's compos mentis, he's of sound mind. if the true memory did not remain - if slughorn had managed to corrupt his memory to such an extent that he genuinely believed that his conversation with riddle had never occurred [rather than knowing it did but wishing he'd behaved differently and therefore pretending he had] - then he would, in the eyes of the series, be insane.

now... this - unsurprisingly - is not how human memory actually works. memory is fragile, inconsistent, and subjective. we forget things. we misremember things. we remember things through subjective lenses. we invent false memories.

but we can - nonetheless - use what we know about human memory to uncover a wizarding theory of memory formation which would explain why they think this way.

and why they feel so comfortable tampering with people's memories.

[and why this is horrifying.]

what are memories?

in canon, memories are presented as something tangible - wisps of silvery liquid. and memories actually are physical things - albeit absolutely microscopic ones - which take up physical space in the brain. they're just kept out of the way of our conscious awareness until we need them.

[basically, they're christmas lights in a box in the attic. they physically exist and they're physically present in the house, but they sit - turned off and with no attention being paid to them - until they're needed, when they're brought out of storage and switched on.]

they are made - like almost everything to do with the brain - from neurons, which are a type of cell. neurons work like the wires in a telephone exchange - they transmit chemical and electrical signals across the brain [and, therefore, across the body] in a vast, high-speed, interwoven network:

a digital model of the neural network from a sesame-seed-sized fragment of human brain. there are about 50,000 connections shown. [source]

a neuron receives a signal, which it then interprets. it then sends a response [or action potential] along its stem [axon].

at the end of the axon, there are synapses, which form a bridge to other neurons, linking a chain of communication together.

synapses are generally activated by chemicals called neurotransmitters - such as serotonin, melatonin, adrenaline, dopamine [which are likely to be the ones most people have heard of], and others.

so: neuron x receives a signal, interprets it, and transmits that interpretation as an electrical signal along its axon, causing the release of adrenaline into the synapse linking it to neuron y. this activates the connection between neurons x and y. the signal passes across the synapse into neuron y, which interprets it, and the process continues.

each neuron has thousands of synaptic connections to other neurons. and these connections aren't static - they get stronger or weaker depending on exposure. the more we use the connection, the stronger the connection is.

one way to think of this is to imagine the synaptic connection as a volume dial, which controls how loudly two neurons "talk" to each other. if the connection between neuron x and neuron y is very strong, the synaptic connection allows them to shout at each other, thereby understanding each other clearly. if the connection between neuron x and neuron y is very weak, they're only whispering to each other, are having to strain to hear each other, and will probably only partially hear the communicated information.

the brain will therefore prioritise the information it can "hear" the clearest. this is why, if you learn two pieces of information, and then revise the first piece of information every day for a month and do no revision of the second piece, you will find it much easier to recall the first piece when asked - the brain prioritises the "loudest" voice.

when we learn or experience something we create synaptic connections, linking neurons into circuits in an ever-changing map across the brain.

these circuits are memories.

remembering something is the process of activating a specific neuron cluster, thereby retrieving the information it contains and communicating it as an electrical signal to another part of the brain.

this process of remembering can be unconscious - a smell might prompt us to remember something without us actively intending to; when we write something, we're not consciously thinking about how we learned to write, we just do it - or conscious - we might sniff a particular perfume bottle in order to summon up a specific memory; we might intentionally decide to remember a day we spent writing in a particular place.

what are the different types of memory?

there are two main categories of memory - short-term and long-term.

short-term memory is the brain's capacity to actively hold onto a small amount of information [about four things, on average] for a brief period of time [and by brief we mean around 15 seconds - any memory which can be recalled after that period of time is a long-term one] in order to allow you to do things, like take down a telephone number.

long-term memory, in contrast, is something the brain possesses an infinite capacity for. it can be divided into two subcategories.

the first of these is implicit memory. this refers to recollections which are unconscious, habitual, primed, or conditioned. learned motor skills - things like holding a pen or riding a bike - which you can do without having to think about how [procedural memories] are an example of implicit memories. so are things we are conditioned to do via the association of an action with a stimulus - like pavlov's dogs salivating when they heard the ringing of the bell - and things we are primed to do by general knowledge or contextual experience - like being shown the word "bread" in a word association game and responding "butter" without having to actively think about why that connection exists for us.

the second is explicit memory, which refers to the conscious recollection of a specific thing. explicit memory has two subcategories: episodic memory - the recollection of events or experiences - and semantic memory - the recollection of knowledge or information.

i know that belfast is the capital of northern ireland and paris is the capital of france. these are semantic memories.

i know i went to a restaurant in belfast with my partner last week and that i went to watch the french open in paris with my friend this spring. these are episodic ones.

episodic memory is highly dependent on context and association - you can remember where you parked your car by thinking about the shop you parked next to - some of which is semantic memory in its own right - you can tell that your friend has misremembered a story they're telling about your teenage years because you know you were sixteen when the event took place, your friend is talking about driving, and you possess the semantic knowledge that the legal driving age in the united kingdom is seventeen.

explicit memory is the aspect of memory most clearly affected by conditions like alzheimer's disease, while implicit memories tend to be recalled for much longer.

explicit memory is also the thing most clearly affected in canon by memory charms...

how are explicit memories formed?

at its most basic level, the brain is divided into three parts - the cerebrum, brainstem, and cerebellum. the cerebrum is the thing we’re concerned with today.

its main part - comprising about half of the brain’s weight - is the cortex, which is the wrinkly surface you probably picture when you hear the word “brain”. the cerebral cortex is divided into two hemispheres. each hemisphere has four lobes [so you have eight lobes in total] which relate to specific functions.

[here's a video of a dissection of a real human brain - if you fancy it - which goes into its anatomy in more detail]

nestled in each hemisphere of the cerebrum are several deeper structures.

in the temporal lobe, we find two of these structures - the hippocampus and the amygdala - which are crucial to memory formation. we have one of these in each hemisphere [so two hippocampi and two amygdalae in total] as part of our limbic system - a group of brain structures that regulate things like our sense of smell, emotions, memories, and autonomic behaviours [heart rate, breathing, sweating, etc.].

[here's a dissection of the limbic system, again - fair warning! - using a real human brain]

the hippocampus

when our brain decides it wants to hold onto a piece of information, it's channelled from the prefrontal cortex [in the frontal lobe], which controls short-term memory functions, to the hippocampus, which is then responsible for linking all of the relevant context surrounding the information together - like it's making a patchwork quilt.

let's go back to the example of being asked to take down a phone number. and let's imagine that the person who asks us to take down the phone number is also our fandom-style soulmate. several pieces of information will be created in the brain at once - the memory of being asked to take down the number, the memory of physically doing that, the sensory input of what our soulmate looks, sounds, and smells like, other sensory inputs [what the broader environment looks, sounds, and smells like; the fact we're drinking a coffee; the fact we're wearing a scratchy jumper], the emotion of knowing we've met our soulmate - which are then sewn together by the hippocampus into a coherent, linear account of what occurred.

the hippocampus is selective - it's more likely, even in an episodic memory as emotionally powerful as this one would be, to hold onto information which is comprehensible to it [so, for example, if a song is playing when you meet your soulmate, but its lyrics are in a language you don't understand, it's less likely to retain that as a key part of its account than if it's a song you understand and, especially, a song you already know and like].

it's also inventive - it will fill in gaps in the recollection of an episode. these inventions are often logical and based on both your semantic knowledge and parts of your implicit memory. for example, in the memory of being a child and going to hospital to meet your new baby brother, he is likely to be wearing a blue hat. it is highly unlikely that you actually remember the colour of the hat he was wearing - especially if you were quite young - but your brain settles on blue to fill that gap in your recollection because it knows you were raised in a culture which associates the colour blue with baby boys.

but they're also subjective. you may, for example, have more than one memory of the same event - with each memory's patchwork quilt having a slightly different pattern. to go back to the memory of meeting your soulmate, you might have one version of the memory which was stored by your brain on the day you first met, in which the thing you primarily remember is how nervous and awkward you were and how you were worried your soulmate didn't actually like you. you might then have a second version of the memory which is altered by contextual information you learned after the first version was created - after your soulmate asks you to marry them, for example, you are less likely to dwell on the parts of the first memory which are about worrying they didn't like you.

while the hippocampus is integral for the formation of long-term explicit and implicit memories, it's not the place where these long-term memories are permanently stored. instead, long-term memories appear to migrate [or awaken] from the hippocampus throughout the cerebral cortex, and to become progressively more independent of it over time. when it comes to explicit memories, the older, stronger, or deeper a memory is the more likely its independence from the hippocampus will be.

we know this because of a man called henry molaison, who had most of his hippocampus surgically removed in the 1950s in an effort to treat his epilepsy. following his operation, molaison was only able to form new episodic memories which lasted for less than a minute before they vanished forever from his consciousness, and essentially lived every single day as brand new, with no context surrounding it. the exception to this rule was that he could recall memories relating to significant experiences in his life which he'd formed years - and often decades - before his surgery. he could also recall certain facts - semantic memories - which he'd already known, but he couldn't form new semantic knowledge.

semantic memory also appears to become progressively independent of the hippocampus over time, much like implicit memories we have acquired through conditioning or priming. for example, the memory of the first time we drank a coffee while tired transforms into the general knowledge that drinking coffee generally helps us with tiredness, bolstered by the semantic knowledge that caffeine is a stimulant.

the amygdala

in the analogy of memory formation as being like creating a patchwork quilt, the amygdala is responsible for one of the most important squares the hippocampus sews together: the emotional significance of the memory.

this is one of the most important bits of context which the hippocampus applies to its account of a memory. the more emotive a memory is, the more likely it is to be remembered.

and this isn't just the case when it comes to specific episodic memories - such as remembering your wedding day, or the time you were in a car accident. it applies to semantic memory - if i tell you that paris is the capital of france and then punch you in the face, you'll remember it - and to implicit conditioned and primed memories.

imagine you are three years old, you're in the park, and you meet a dog. the dog is on a lead, calm, quiet, and well trained. you are asked if you'd like to pet it and you say yes. the dog is happy to be petted - it wags its tail and it licks your hand - and you enjoy the experience and start laughing.

the hippocampus takes care of the "bullet points" of this event - the actions and the order in which they occurred, where they took place, and so on. the amygdala assigns an emotional response to the specific episodic memory - that is, when you recall it later, you will feel happy - and to the implicit memory you have accrued from the experience - that is, the next time you see a dog, even if it's not the dog you petted, your brain will be automatically primed to feel calm, safe, and happy.

and now imagine you are three years old, you're in the park, and you meet a dog. the dog is loose, agitated, barking, and much bigger than you. it bounds up to you while you're playing and knocks you to the ground. it growls and you see its teeth. you're afraid and start crying.

the same process occurs, but with a fear response. the hippocampus remembers what happened and in what order, the amygdala remembers how the specific memory made you feel and extrapolates from this to assign that feeling to your implicit memory. the next time you see a dog, even if the dog is on a lead and behaving perfectly calmly, your brain will be automatically primed to feel afraid.

and this reference to fear is important. as i've said, the brain prioritises remembering emotional memories… but it prioritises remembering stressful and/or frightening emotional memories above all other kinds. and it also tends to really cling on to things we have acquired by fear learning - the process by which we unconsciously associate a stimulus with a frightening event.

to return to the scenario above, if you met the nice dog first and then met the frightening dog later, your brain would prioritise the memory of the frightening dog. if you met the frightening dog first and then met the nice dog later, your brain would still prioritise the memory of the frightening dog. and even if you lose the ability to recall the specific episodic memory of meeting the specific frightening dog, your brain would still remember that it was afraid of dogs in general.

the amygdala plays a major role in this fear learning and fear-based recall. and it does this via channels of communication which don't need to involve the hippocampus - it communicates bi-directionally with the cerebral cortex, both with and without the hippocampus also being part of the conversation.

and this has an enormous implication for our wizarding theory of memory.

and so - at last - we come to...

the neuroscience of memory charms

we know from canon that memory charms focus on the removal of explicit memories - and, specifically, the explicit episodic memories which the series understands as objective snapshots of events.

we also know that short-term memory and implicit memory can experience collateral damage when the explicit memory is removed - especially if the charm is performed poorly. we learn in order of the phoenix, for example, that gilderoy lockhart lost the ability to write [an implicit procedural memory] after his charm backfired, and has had to undergo something akin to physical therapy [the way someone who'd received a head injury would] in order to regain this motor skill:

"I'm very well indeed, thank you!" said Lockhart exuberantly, pulling a rather battered peacock-feather quill from his pocket. "Now, how many autographs would you like? I can do joined-up writing now, you know!"

we also know that the recovery of an implicit behaviour - his fondness for signing autographs, a response based in an unconscious assumption he makes whenever he meets anyone [that they're a fan] - is taken by his healers as a sign that his self-perception is stabilising:

"He was rather well known a few years ago; we very much hope that this liking for giving autographs is a sign that his memory might be coming back a little bit... This is our long-term resident ward... For permanent spell damage, you know. Of course, with intensive remedial potions and charms and a bit of luck, we can produce some improvement... Gilderoy does seem to be getting back some sense of himself."

crucially, we see here no expectation that any specific memories - episodic memories, canon's factual accounts which prove someone to be of sound mind - will return. what the healer means by "his memory might be coming back a little bit" is something general. a memory charm - as the text understands it - affects something discrete.

but lockhart also shows us that the specific episodic memory impacted by a charm isn't deleted from the brain. it remains in storage - and, therefore, retains the potential to be reactivated.

and he also shows us that this potential reactivation is very likely to depend on an emotional stimulus, especially a negative one:

The smile faded slowly from Lockhart’s face. For a few moments he gazed intently at Harry, then he said, "Haven't we met?" "Er... yeah, we have," said Harry. "You used to teach us at Hogwarts, remember?" "Teach?" repeated Lockhart, looking faintly unsettled. "Me? Did I?" And then the smile reappeared upon his face so suddenly it was rather alarming. "Taught you everything you know, I expect, did I? Well, how about those autographs, then? Shall we say a round dozen, you can give them to all your little friends then and nobody will be left out!"

lockhart clearly associates a stimulus - something to do with harry - with a fear response [probably from being frogmarched at wandpoint and forced to jump into a hole]. this emotional context calls out to an episodic memory it has been severed from, but can't get there and falls silent again, drowned out by the louder activity of the implicit memory, telling lockhart to talk about autographs because these are fans.

so lockhart hasn't lost this specific episodic memory - he just can't access it. from this, we can conclude that memory charms block communication across synaptic connections, thereby preventing a memory from being retrieved.

and we can also conclude that - since wizards regard episodic memories as objective, factual accounts of events, which are unaffected by things like perception, assumption, imagination, habit, and emotion - they only understand the formation of these memories as they happen in the hippocampus. and, specifically, that they understand memory formation only as the hippocampus ordering events into a coherent, linear account - which they regard as objectively correct. we can further conclude that they do not understand anything other than this ordering of events as forming part of the episodic memory process, and, therefore, that they do not understand memory charms as needing to affect anything other than these "factual" snapshots.

which means that a memory charm will block the retrieval of the "bullet points" of an episodic memory from the hippocampus - and, therefore, someone whose memory has been modified won't remember the specific order of events surrounding the memory.

but it won't block the other bits of information - other patches of the quilt of the memory - from being retrieved. it will just remove them from their context.

and - right on the canon page - we learn that this failure to remove anything other than the bullet points, even in memory charms which are accurately and skilfully performed, makes the experience of having a modified memory profoundly disorienting to the person affected.

we see this - for example - in the case of morfin gaunt:

"So the Ministry called upon Morfin. They did not need to question him, to use Veritaserum or Legilimency. He admitted to the murder on the spot, giving details only the murderer could know. He was proud, he said, to have killed the Muggles, had been awaiting his chance all these years. He handed over his wand, which was proved at once to have been used to kill the Riddles. And he permitted himself to be led off to Azkaban without a fight. All that disturbed him was the fact that his father's ring had disappeared. 'He'll kill me for losing it,' he told his captors over and over again. 'He'll kill me for losing his ring.' And that, apparently, was all he ever said again. He lived out the remainder of his life in Azkaban, lamenting the loss of Marvolo's last heirloom, and is buried beside the prison, alongside the other poor souls who have expired within its walls."

morfin's verbal tic is a manifestation of a emotional response which now lacks any other context - the fear caused by his nephew visiting him, on the day the riddles were murdered, and incapacitating him [in a way which would allow him to steal his wand] just before the crime took place. in repeating it, what he's saying is "i know i didn't do this, even though i confessed, but i can't explain how i know this, and i am afraid".

and we know that dumbledore is able to use this emotional clue as the end of a line of string, which he can then follow back across deactivated synaptic connections to the suppressed [and, in canon's view, objective] episodic memory of tom riddle meeting his uncle:

"But he had this real memory in him all the time!" "Yes, but it took a great deal of skilled Legilimency to coax it out of him," said Dumbledore, "and why should anybody delve further into Morfin's mind when he had already confessed to the crime? However, I was able to secure a visit to Morfin in the last weeks of his life, by which time I was attempting to discover as much as I could about Voldemort's past. I extracted this memory with difficulty. When I saw what it contained, I attempted to use it to secure Morfin's release from Azkaban. Before the Ministry reached their decision, however, Morfin had died."

we see something similar in voldemort's treatment of bertha jorkins:

"But Wormtail - displaying a presence of mind I would never have expected from him - convinced Bertha Jorkins to accompany him on a nighttime stroll. He overpowered her... he brought her to me. And Bertha Jorkins, who might have ruined all, proved instead to be a gift beyond my wildest dreams... for - with a little persuasion - she became a veritable mine of information. "She told me that the Triwizard Tournament would be played at Hogwarts this year. She told me that she knew of a faithful Death Eater who would be only too willing to help me, if I could only contact him. She told me many things... but the means I used to break the Memory Charm upon her were powerful, and when I had extracted all useful information from her, her mind and body were both damaged beyond repair. She had now served her purpose. I could not possess her. I disposed of her."

something we are told about bertha jorkins across goblet of fire - including by both sirius and dumbledore, characters the doylist narrative of this book trusts to be telling the truth - is that she loved gossip. and this - feeling intrigued in, scandalised by, and excited by a piece of information - is an emotional response.

voldemort - like dumbledore - seizes on this emotional component as the end of a line of string. bertha provides him with a piece of semantic information - the triwizard tournament is to be played - which makes her think of piece of general information - she knows barty crouch sr., who is organising it - which causes an emotional response which places the string in his hand - barty crouch sr. = scandal. voldemort then follows that string across deactivated synaptic connections to the suppressed [and, in canon's view, objective] episodic memory of bertha discovering that barty crouch jr. [about whom she possessed various contextual information, such as the fact that he was found guilty of being a death eater] was alive.

ergo, memory charms block the point-by-point recollection of specific episodic memories, unless someone is determined either to do a lot of careful forensic work or to commit murder.

but they do nothing to block the additional context - above all, the emotional context - which is so important to memory formation and recollection. and this is what makes the casual use of them - especially the casual use of them on muggles - so terrifying. because their efficacy is dramatically reduced in circumstances where a memory has an emotional context.

and witnessing someone performing actual magic would undoubtedly inspire quite a strong emotional response...

the circumstances in which they work well will be those like tom riddle sr.'s run-in with morfin. the ministry response to the incident is speedy, which means the memory hasn't been consolidated for long-term storage beyond the hippocampus. the incident seems to be the first time riddle ever interacts with morfin - meaning that he doesn't retain a conditioned implicit response that morfin is frightening or dangerous. riddle talks about the gaunts in a way that suggests he thinks they're funny and ridiculous, laughs at bob ogden as he's chased from the shack, and is happy riding along the lane where he was attacked, which shows that he didn't develop a fear response to the incident [nor, indeed, any significant emotional response at all]. preventing him from recalling this memory is simple, and it has no repercussions.

[in terms of his brain health, that is. obviously, it has a major repercussion in that it removes any pre-warning he might have given himself about merope…]

but outside of this context - in which the ministry essentially gets incredibly lucky that riddle sr.'s brain reacts in the only way which actually makes them viable - memory charms are clearly nowhere near as effective as wizards seem to think.

because, when it comes to people's strongest, deepest memories, the only thing being removed is the ability to run through the summary of events - to go down a checklist of what happened, and to contextualise an emotional response [for instance] by situating it within the account of the event which triggered it. the emotions these memories provoke, and the way in which they're bound up into the knowledge which helps us understand our place in the world, remain. all that happens is that these feelings can't be situated in a point-by-point context which explains how they might have occurred.

and so, to come to the memory charm the series thinks is noble and benign... what hermione does to her parents is remove the bullet points surrounding the most important memories of their lives from their heads, leaving profound, lingering emotional responses, which respond to stimuli even though the grangers can't understand why...

when she says that they don't know they have a daughter, what she means is that they don't remember the list of events which proved that fact to be true. mrs granger doesn't remember that she took a pregnancy test which was positive, mr granger doesn't remember that he witnessed hermione being born, neither of them remember taking her to the cinema to see the little mermaid, or buying her first school shoes, or taking her to see her grandparents on her sixth birthday.

but the evidence of canon is that the emotions attached to these events - and the unconscious knowledge which emerges from them - would remain.

and this is why hermione's modification of her parents' memories is an example of the series' black-and-white, protagonist-centred morality which i absolutely loathe. not because the watsonian text isn't horrified by it [why would harry know how memory charms work] but because the doylist text handwaves it away as something easily reversed [via jkr saying that hermione immediately restored her parents' memories the second the war was over] which left no adverse effects.

because - sure - i'm not quibbling with the need to think of hermione's decision to wipe her parents' memories as necessary, but it needs to be understood as one of those horrific choices which only become necessary because the alternative is worse.

and this necessity doesn't erase the fact that what hermione does to her parents is meaningfully no different from what bellatrix and company do to the longbottoms. we see that alice longbottom retains the emotional context to a memory - she knows that she loves neville and wants to give him a present - even if she no longer remembers who he is and what his relationship is to her. the same thing will have happened to the grangers.

and so "monica wilkins" might have found herself driving down a street in suburban melbourne one december afternoon when a christmas song came on the radio… and for reasons she doesn't understand, she burst into tears… and she went home and started making dinner… and she'd adapted the recipe she was using so it didn't have any coriander in it… but she doesn't know why, because she likes coriander just fine, and so does her husband… and then "wendall" came in, and she told him about her strange experience… and he said that he turned on the tv and meet me in st louis was showing and he had to change the channel because he thought he was going to cry… and this made them both intensely uneasy… because they've got no reason to behave so strangely… so irrationally... they don't have any memories associated with that song or that film… right?

but that's because they don't remember the facts of how their only daughter - who's got the coriander-tastes-like-soap gene - only lasted two days of a family skiing trip in december 1995, even though they hadn't spent any significant time with her since august 1994, before she swanned off back into a magical world which seemed to be robbing them of her piece by piece.

they can only remember how sad it made them feel.

#asks answered #asenora meta #real special interest hours who's up?

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l0vem41l · 7 months ago

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something's wrong with the morning.

「 tws + notes: no tws, unedited 2 the max, potentially ooc but WHO GAF (me. igaf), he misreads tone over text and it's totally not me projecting, bros just a little anxious and its totally not me projecting, richard "acts of service" grayson in the real, pretty heavily romantic implied but it can be interpreted as platonic becuz we fw that here!!!!! 」

「 gn!reader, can be platonic or romantic <3 」

↳ ft. richard "dick" grayson/nightwing

author's note: yes i am uh. doing More dc stuff. guys im really sorry but its literally leeching off my brain like a parasite i fear. enjoy!!!!!!! ♪(´▽｀) <3 the lyric below is what i based this off of but as usual, GENDER NEUTRAL READER!!!

"and how something's wrong with the morning / when he doesn't phone to say he loves me"

dick has been staring at the text since the minute he received it.

“gm.”

you sent two letters. and a period at the end.

immediately, there's a weird feeling he gets— a pit forming in the depths of his stomach as he reads it over and over again, as if he expects it to magically change in front of his eyes.

you usually send something… more in the morning. you greet him happily and use a silly nickname, he greets you and uses a silly nickname back. it's sort of tradition for the two of you, mainly built on the fact that him being a vigilante leaves very little time for the two of you.

so what the hell happened to that tradition? where’s his “good morning pookie!” or “hope you slept well, sunshine :]” that he's grown so accustomed to?

of course, he has to go on with his day like usual. at least, he's trying his best. to his credit, he does pretty well. after all, dick grayson is a performer at heart! even if it secretly feels like a part of his world just collapsed in on itself, he does not sulk about it.

but to the observant, there's obviously been a shift.

the slightly irritable mood he’s been in? definitely normal. the fact that he’s been swiping away every notification with disinterest if it’s not you? totally nothing.

more astute criminals in blüdhaven are a little off put by the fact that nightwing is still at full quip capacity while hitting just a little harder and being just a teeny bit more bitchy.

there nervous speculation going around that next week he'll be in the discowing fit

nightwing notices that his mask is slipping a bit. but does he care? well... not really. what's more important to him is what's going on inside his head. and he's been thinking— hardcore reflecting on every single recent previous interaction with you, looking back to everything that must’ve made things go wrong.

maybe he should’ve let you win that one argument last monday, even though he’d been pretty certain he was right because you really aren't supposed to stack cards in uno that way.

or maybe “anything’s fine” as a response to you asking what he wanted for dinner was the wrong move— he knew you hated when he didn’t help your indecisiveness.

was it the movie he picked for movie night on your hangout? fuck, that might've been it, you totally hate the main actor. how could he have forgotten?

either way, he’s dead set on the fact he did something to piss you off and now you won’t even greet him good morning.

later in the afternoon, you find a cute little basket on your doorstep containing your favorite flowers, your favorite snacks… and an apology note??

“dick,” you message, “what’s going on?”

he doesn’t reply back. instead, he calls you.

before you can even greet him, his voice chimes in with a whole spiel you didn't expect to be hit with.

“i messed up. i know i did and i should've done better. and i’m so sorry, i wanna make this work and i just— from the bottom of my heart— i really, truly apologize—”

you blink several times at your phone before interrupting. “oookay, woah, woah, woah. let's slow down. the fuck are you apologizing for?”

“...your message this morning.” he mumbles out, barely audible. you can hear the pout in his voice somehow.

“what? the one i typed up while rushing to work?” it’s hard to stifle your laughter. “dude, i just woke up a little late. i promise i still love you.”

he doesn't know whether to feel more relieved that you're not actually upset with him or embarrassed about the drastic, immediate measures he took to make things right. things being absolutely nothing, because obviously you weren't gonna be petty over uno rules, nondecisions, or movies.

"you should come over. we can share the snacks if you get here in time." click.

he'll be at your door the minute patrol is done. not for the snacks though it is a nice bonus but to see you. lord knows you need the time together.

— reblogs always appreciated!

#dc #dc comics #dc x reader #dc x you #nightwing #dick grayson #nightwing x reader #dick grayson x reader #richard grayson #i love this song #also i have a bruce ver. in my drafts??? y'all fw worried bruce??? might drop it even though itz shorter #anyways this shit unedited to balls and back

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obesogen · 1 year ago

Text

You introduce yourself to someone

"Hi, so-and-so, I'm ..." and you think that you say your name,

but your plump hands, slightly sweaty,

and your swollen forearms, encroaching on small wrists,

your upper arms role-poly like the Michelin man,

and your wide, sloppy, drooping gut,

which is in theory fully covered by a shirt

barely tho;

your deep, wide belly button visible through thin fabric, stretched taut, 12x getting too small,

and let's not forget your double chin,

your soft pillowy neck roll,

your dewlap, a perfectly closed collar of squishy fat that

your tiny features sink into–

these things say

hi so-and-so,

i'm super obese, morbidly obese, obese class III,

i'm permanently disabled by how fat i have become

i'm the fattest person you have ever had to speak to

i'm the fattest person you have ever seen in person

and not on the tv freak show

hi so and so, i'm severely mentally ill

hi so and so, i'm traumatized

hi so and so, i am addicted to food

hi so and so, i have no impulse control

hi so and so, i'm ... what's your name again?

you are no one, nothing,

all you are and all you can ever be is gloriously obese beyond the frenzied imaginings of our starving ancestors who carved the venus of willendorf

you are stuffed to the point of near-bursting; even the backs of your neck rolls are frosted with stretch marks. the body always finds somewhere to store fat, and with all the usual spots so filled to the brim, you notice eventually even your forehead is fat; a deposit of soft tissue that furrows above your brows, like a sharpei.

Not long after you got a second mobility aid for out in public, a powerchair with a capaciity of 1100 pounds and hydraulic suspension and tread on its 8 tires like a tank, you started using your old one around the house, always on the verge of breaking down under the additional 200 pounds you carry beyond its rated 500 pound capacity. Not long after, unthinkingly, you just stopped walking, out of sheer bone-idleness. You couldn't say when your last day on your feet was, you surrendered sooner than that day came, comfortably dependent.

Months later, you dimly attempt to recall when you last moved, standing, from one point in space to another. Until the last month, you could still, barely, haul yourself up using a bar to support and balance yourself. From being pushed up out of your powerchair with a forward lift, to the belly gathering momentum and sliding down, to you standing shakily and taking one shuffling step to reposition your body so you can transfer from one big chair to another big chair, and from one big chair to the big motorized bariatric hospital bed.

Now, just 20 pounds later, you can't move your blob body hardly at all below your greedy mouth with its greasy, parted, mouthbreathing lips and beyond your wriggling sausage link fingers. You cannot move any other part of your body without needing help. You are not to your knowledge paralyzed really in any way, you just shamelessly became too fat to lift your own arms, you press a button on a remote that must be attached to your fat hand since if you drop it you couldn't even retrieve it with a string, you are just that weak– so thoroughly inhabiting how obese you are through the total abdication of all decisions.

Once the support bar began to gather dust and was eventually packed away- you become adjusted to transfering from place to place using motorized cranes and winches, your fat slab form filling huge slings with tough straps, prone and helpless, drowning beneath countless rolls, lovingly oiled machinery creaking as it hefts your megafat body.

Your muscles are so weak and your limbs are so heavy. You still have the urge to to struggle and sweat to lift another treat to your bottomless pit of a stomach. You are estimated to be able to hold several gallons in there before feeling sick from fullness.

Most days you simply lie expectantly and grunt with your mouth open, eating everything you are given by any of your staff or acolytes, and sucking melted ice cream sludge from one tube, or chugging diet coke or (regular) mountain dew from 2 different (fountain) tubes.

Turns out there's more than irony to research suggesting artificial sweeteners like aspartame provoke intense cravings for actual sugar.

You are fat beyond reason. Only the most depraved massive, disabling, immobilizing obesity fetishists could find your tremendous doughy body, with a belly so outsized you must be buckled into powerchairs and scooters and even the shower chair. If you don't endure the humiliation of being buckled into the modern day litter which drags your fat around, your unwieldy pannus threatens to upset your vehicle, tipping you forward and pulling you down– you know you would be left on the floor gasping, unable to even sit up, defenseless, amorphous.

And besides,

you forgot your name anyway

years ago,

dont you remember? my

pitiful

swollen

hog.

#obesogen blog: stimulant fueled obesity gooning #death feedee #death feederism #extremely obese #obese piggy #death feedist #glorify obesity #wg text

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yermes · 23 days ago

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Soft girl magic 🌷

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Pick a meme

123

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Disclaimer: please take what I say with a grain of salt and not as the gospel. I just want to share some ideas of practicing and giving advice using the medium as often as I can with school, work, and my own personal studies and practice. But I am working on sharing my notes soon so that will be exciting! Liking and sharing does a lot ��

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Socials: My Socials **☾**

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The cards

The Magus 🎪

Self realization and to manifest. The world is your oyster and its whatever you make of it. People who go out with a tyrannical and demanding spirit sullenly get their way. You don’t have to follow people with all bark and no bite. People with no bite have no individuality and only the mirror of those like you. People follow your lead have no lead of their own. You must not let them distract you. Their world may be cold and barren but your reality is anything but. Your path is full of warmth and gold which shines when the slightest light touches it. Do not fall to the despair of others who may not forge their own path while you can.

Abundance ☀️

What can you say! You’re a beautiful and pleasant person and people want to hang out with you. You are emotionally open and have the abundance to give to your circle and I guess finally in a reading I can say the circle deserves it. You are more emotionally viable and you are able to actually reach out and help. You can use your emotional tools and intelligence which you used and learned over a long period of time. But all the fruits have payed off. You found your people and your tribe, you can now dedicate your emotional resources to those who actually give a flying fuck about you in return. Remember, if they do not add they only take away.

Defeat 🎱

Babes I know your open and vulnerable and open to other people and their opinions but they cannot take over your mental capacity. Its okay to give, its okay to see those who mentally struggle and want to give a hand. But don’t exploit your natural resources. Do not exploit yourself. You are to valuable. You need to focus on yourself, you need to focus on yourself and forging your path. You cannot stoop to other peoples level. I would focus doing small things, breath work, note keeping, readings. Dream journal + focus. Stay in your own lane and stay vigilant.

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Extras: 🎪

Story/vent:

Im drunk off my tits rn

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suzukiblu · 6 months ago

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WIP excerpt: “Match is technically also a Luthor”. (( chrono || non-chrono ))

Match slants his eyes back to Luthor, who still just looks indulgently amused and does not seem inclined to correct his . . . whatever Lena is. She called him “Father”, but since Luthor’s also referred to himself as both Superboy’s and his father, that isn’t necessarily trustworthy intel.

Also, if nothing else, Lena clearly doesn’t know his assignment or understand his purpose here any better than he does, so that also implies her to be a poor source of intel.

“Am I her replacement bodyguard?” he asks Luthor skeptically, because admitting he doesn’t know something is better than making a mistake.

Probably.

“Right now, you’re her babysitter,” Luthor replies dryly, then pauses and amends, “Or she’s yours. I’m still unclear on your capacity for long-term independent function, to be honest, and I wouldn’t trust the opinions of the idiots who plagiarized you even if I had bothered to read them. We’ll fit in some independent cognitive tests at some point this week, I suppose.”

“. . . ‘cognitive’ tests,” Match repeats blankly. “Cognitive” is the last thing the Agenda ever cared about testing him on, because he isn’t supposed to be–he isn’t thinking about anything. Obviously.

Physical tests would make sense. Combat assessments, physical readings, DNA scans; that kind of thing.

. . . then again, he supposes Luthor already knows everything that’s in his DNA, doesn’t he.

Assuming the Agenda “plagiarized” him well enough, anyway.

“To start, yes,” Luthor says. “For now, if anything goes wrong, the security system will alert me. Don’t let her eat too much sugar. Or eat too much sugar yourself.”

“. . . I have no idea what ‘too much’ sugar is for either of our metabolisms,” Match says.

“I’m sure you can google something,” Luthor says, giving him a wry look.

“I have no idea what that is either,” Match says. He doesn’t like admitting not knowing things, for obvious reasons, but also there is no possible way that Lex Luthor can’t pronounce “googol” correctly, and also he can’t imagine how a googol would even be relevant to whatever the hell Luthor is saying anyway.

“Hm,” Luthor says, his eyes narrowing slightly. Match does not let his hackles raise. “I should’ve murdered more people in that lab, apparently.”

“Google Search is a web-based service operated by the American multinational corporation Google LLC as the most popular search engine globally and most-visited website in the world,” Lena informs him promptly, ineffectively pulling at his hands again and using her full weight in a entirely fruitless attempt to get him to move. “It has a share of ninety-two percent of the search engine market and its parent company’s current net worth is valued at 1.97 trillion dollars.”

. . . that seems like something that should’ve been covered in his uploads, yes, Match thinks, eyeing her warily. Assuming she’s actually correct, anyway, which–again, she’s been a poor source of intel so far.

. . . is that even normal information for a kindergarten-aged child to have, either way? Especially one who’s not even intelligent enough to realize how futile trying to drag a telekinetic metaweapon twice her size around without any enhancements of her own is? Match has no idea.

#dc match #lex luthor #lena luthor ii #wip: match is technically also a luthor #superfamily #you know like arguably lol #superfamily RELEVANT at least?

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hot-claws-420 · 2 months ago

Text

[AFTER ACTION REPORT]

[UPLOAD DELAYED BY: {29}DAYS]

[NOTIFYING COMMAND OF OPERATION: @albatross-lancer]

[GREETINGS. I AM OMA, ONBOARD MEDICAL ASSISTANT TO CALLISIGN {SINGED WHISKERS}. WHILE DOING ROUTINE MAINTENANCE, I HAVE PARTIALLY RECOVERED {1} FILES DAMAGED BY REACTOR STRESS DURING OPERATION {SIEGE OF ERDAF}. DESPITE THE DELAY, I AM REQUIRED BY MY DIRECTIVE TO RELAY THIS REPORT TO COMMAND {ALBATROSS}. NOTE, INFORMATION ON PILOT AND MECH STATUS IS OUT OF DATE AS OF NOW. PLEASE STAND BY FOR FILE UPLOAD...]

[CALLSIGN: SINGED WHISKERS; STATUS: ALIVE]

[MECH DESIGNATION: SLAG KITTY, ENKIDU UNIT; STATUS: DAMAGED, STRUCTURE FULL, REACTOR STRESSED {1} TIMES, SINCE STABILIZED]

...<UPLOADING MISSION RECORDING>

[An ever growing view of the side of Pirate Vessel "Direption." Its hull has been punctured by some manner of breach charge. More and more debris floating around the massive hole becomes clear as the mech rapidly moves closer. SLAG KITTY appears to be carried by another, mounted mech, boosting to build speed.]

Callsign Photon: Releasing you in T-15 seconds. Ready?

[RELEASING COMBAT STIMS DOSE ONE]

Callsign SINGED WHISKERS: HHRRRHMMMM fucking KILL!!!

Callsign Photon: That... sounds like a yes. Dropping. Slowing myself and covering your six. The rest are just behind us.

[CALCULATING TIME TO IMPACT...]

[10 SECONDS...]

[5...]

[4...]

[3...]

[2...]

[The vacuum devours the sound of impact. Metal silently bends, rips, tears. SLAG KITTY lands claws first on a pirate chassis with the speed of a missile. With the momentum, SINGED is able to halfway bisect the mech vertically as she crunches it against the ground.]

SINGED: HEY, HEY!!! AHAHAHAHAHEHEHEHE!!!

[A hail of gunfire rains in both directions as Albatross forces begin landing in her wake.]

Photon: Three hostiles pointed your direction, SINGED. Covering ya. Pick 'em off.

[Sparks shower the deck as SLAG KITTY and the remains of the destroyed chassis scrape along and bounce back up in the zero g. The enkidu leaps from the wreckage towards an incoming pirate mech armed with some sort of integrated chainsaw. The weapon is torn from the chassis in seconds as plasma claws rip across the machine's arm.]

SINGED: GRaAAHH!!!

[As the mech's arm is shredded, a war pike streaks past SLAG KITTY'S head, striking one of the remaining two in the shoulder and knocking the aim of its rifle off target from SINGED. She takes the opportunity to latch her claws under the head of the chassis and pull upward, tearing it from the body.]

Photon: Seems we scared them off.

[SLAG KITTY digs its claws into the deck to bring its momentum to a screeching halt and keep from floating off. SINGED turns to see the remaining two attackers fleeing towards a set of hanger doors.]

Photon: I say we pursue. If they call for reinforcements, that pulls guns away from our folks working towards the bridge.

SINGED: Aye aye! HeheHEE!!

[SLAG KITTY grips its claw into the deck of the ship and throws itself, floating in pursuit of the targets. The pair of pirates stop at the doors. An emergency light flashes yellow when the first of the two slams its fist onto the chassis-scale console. The door does not open immediately.]

Photon: It's depressurizing. There'll be two sets of doors. Looks like we have time to pick one of- t---- o-- f-- f-- f

[A pair of antennae atop one of the pirate chassis produce a series of blinks, and the sensors of the SLAG KITTY are occasionally interrupted by static.]

[REACTOR HEAT CAPACITY {16%}.]

SINGED: PPFFFT AHAHAHAHAAHHAHAAHAA!!!! U FUCKIN CALL THAT HEAT??? I BURN MY REACTOR HARDER THAN THAT CUZ ITS FUNNY!!!! WATCH THIS!!!

[SINGED gives a triumphant roar: the only thing audible over coms as there's a single, brief flash from the muzzle of SLAG KITTY. In an instant, the entire middle of the tech mech simply ceases to be, cockpit and all. The legs of the doomed machine begin to drift in either direction, just in time for the door to begin slowly opening behind them.]

[WARNING: REACTOR HEAT CAPACITY {97.8%}. STABILIZATION RECOMMENDED.]

Photon: Nice shot, kid.

SINGED: HEHEHAHA!! BYE BYE!!!

[The remaining pirate flees through the barely open doors, which close behind them. As they do so, SLAG KITTY pursues.]

[ENGAGING RAPID HEAT VENTING...]

[SLAG KITTY reaches the doors as it cools, immediately throwing itself against them and clawing like a caged animal.]

SINGED: Let me IN!! LET ME IIINNNN!!!!

[A Nelson, presumably Callsign Photon's mech, flies into frame on its mount.]

Photon: Kid. You just need to hit the button.

SINGED: Oh.

[Photon does so, and the yellow light begins flashing again. Eventually, they begin to open once more.]

SINGED: Hrrgh... Hmm... HRRGH GRRRR.

Photon: What are you doing?

SINGED: It's too SLOW!! My PREY'S gonna get away!!

Photon: Patience. We want them to get help, remember?

[SINGED growls again but says nothing, the enkidu staring at the doors like a cat staring through a window at a bird. After about twenty seconds, the door opens wide enough for the duo to get through, and SLAG KITTY immediately slams the next button. As the first set of doors seals behind them, SINGED begins clawing at the next set.]

SINGED: OPEN OPEN OPEN OPEN OPEN

Photon: SINGED. The chamber has to depressurize before that'll happen.

SINGED: I CANN MAKE IT GO FASTER!!!

[Before Photon can protest, SLAG KITTY has backed up, and another flash escapes the displacer in its maw. A large circular portion of the doorway is erased. Both mechs stagger backwards as the vacuum rips air from the next corridor into the chamber. With the doors behind the pair sealed, this lasts only a moment.]

SINGED: NO MORE FLOAT!!!

[She quickly scurries through the hole.]

Photon: Well, if it works it w-

...<ERROR. FILE DAMAGED. SCRUBBING VIDEO FILE FOR INTACT FOOTAGE>

[A number of short, disjointed clips follow, ranging on average from 1 to fifteen seconds. They show Photon and SINGED working through the ship, chasing the fleeing pirate, and SINGED subsequently tearing through mechs like a rabid beast. It seems that at some point in the chaos they engaged their second round of stims. Photon's plan was to draw fire from the main team, and the two certainly seem to have succeeded by that measure.]

[Finally, the footage begins to come in longer intact clips again. SLAG KITTY appears to have have just reached the end of a catwalk, before...]

Photon: LOOK OUT!!!

[Photon's mech slams into SLAG KITTY, bringing it out of the line of fire of a shotgun at the last second. There's hardly time to make out the shape of the mech rounding the corner before more gunfire sprays the catwalk from elsewhere.]

Photon: Intercepting long ranged hostile.

[Photon leaps over the side and into flight. More gunfire follows. SINGED's focus returns to the shotgunner. Examining the frame, it appears to be a modified blackbeard.]

SINGED: HeheEE. Get in CLOSE so I ca- AAUGH!!

[The blackbeard obliges, too quickly for the SLAG KITTY to tear into it with Primal Fury. The pirate slams the shotgun into her like a club, sending her flying a great distance backward. She claws into the ground to gain traction and retain her footing.]

SINGED: GRRRRrRR!!!

Blackbeard: Heheh.

[The pirate, looking over the SLAG KITTY, drops his shotgun, pulling from his back a long, two-handed axe.]

SINGED: OHhhh I like u. IM GONNA EA- GAHH!!!

[The pirate's grapple catches SLAG KITTY and reels him in close. AS SINGED takes a step back, caught of guard by the speed, the axe is brought down into the enkidu's shoulder.]

SINGED: AUGH!! GRRRRRAAA!!

[The pirate twists his axe, using the leverage to throw SLAG KITTY to the side and off of the catwalk. SINGED does her best to tuck and roll, but from the crunching sound of the impact, it's clear she isn't able to avoid damage entirely.]

[The blackbeard leaps from the catwalk after her, engaging a jump jet and descending upon her. Seeing an opportunity, her burning claws engage, and like a cat with a bird she latches them into the flying opponent.]

SINGED: GRRR GET DOWN!!!

[The plasma talons rip through the chassis, but aren't enough to stop it from landing atop SLAG KITTY and pinning it to the ground.]

Blackbeard: Time to put ya down, ya feral fuckin dog.

[He swings the axe overhead towards the ground, and SLAG KITTY has just enough time to move its head aside before it can chop through. Instead, it embeds itself in the ground. As the pirate pulls, it's not released immediately.]

[RELEASING COMBAT STIMS DOSE {3}.]

SINGED: I. AM A CAT!!! MRRAAAAAAAAHH!!!!

[SLAG KITTY's maw wraps around the pole of the axe and bites with all its might. Heat builds in the frame's mouth, and metal softens as teeth rend. The axe-head is snapped violently from the pole.]

[WARNING: REACTOR HEAT CAPACITY {86.4%}. STABILIZATION RECOMMENDED.]

SINGED: I DOTN CAREE!!! RAAAAAGH!!!

Blackbeard: Oh fu-

[The jaws' next target is the leg of the frame, and the teeth sink in just as deep, producing even more slag. In short order, the blackbeard is wrestled to the ground, leg mangled to the point of near removal.]

[WARNING: REACTOR HEAT CAPACITY {EXCEEDED}. POWER PLANT DESTABILIZED.]

SINGED: I SAID I DONT CARRRE AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!

[SLAG KITTY's claws rip into the chassis, leaving a wide, molten gash with each strike.]

...<ERROR. FILE DAMAGED. SCRUBBING VIDEO FILE FOR INTACT FOOTAGE>

Blackbeard: FUCK NO NO NO!!!

...<ERROR. FILE DAMAGED. SCRUBBING VIDEO FILE FOR INTACT FOOTAGE>

[The cockpit of the Blackbeard is torn open just enough for SLAG KITTY's head to fit through. SINGED gives a horrific roar, and the pirate inside goes ghostly white.]

...<ERROR. FILE DAMAGED. SCRUBBING VIDEO FILE FOR INTACT FOOTAGE>

SINGED: AHAHAHAHHHAAA

[SLAG KITTY looks over the unmoving wreckage of the blackbeard, then to Photon's side of the battlefield, which has gone quiet. Photon holds his lance trained on the remaining enemy frame, which was disarmed, raising its hands in surrender.]

Photon: Just got word, kid. We've taken the bridge. It's over.

SINGED: Wha? BUt. KILL. KILLLLL!!!!!

[RELEASING POST-COMBAT SEDATIVES]

SINGED: Wha... Wh... hrrn. eepy...

Photon: You did good, you little maniac. Get some rest. You've earned it.

...<RECORDING ENDS>

#ooc WOWIE im glad i could finally get this out! was more relevant nearly a month ago but thats how it is sometimes #also id like to point out that i used a license from the Corsair Gruntworks LCP for the blackbeard #the axe he used was a breidax from the Stamford license and i was also inspied by one of the Stamfords systems #so thanks to Pines! :D #lancer rp #oc rp #oc rp blog #lancer enkidu #sally screaming #OMA updating #tw drugs

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moonstruckme · 1 year ago

Note

Hey, I read your James potter fic where reader is insecure about her acne and I was wondering if you could do a similar one where reader has a big nose? (Kinda like a Roman nose?) totally not self projecting!—yes I am— anyways thank you!

Hi gorgeous, thank you for requesting!

Small disclaimer that I imagine James as desi so him also not having a non-euro-centric nose is a part of this :)

James Potter x fem!reader ♡ 753 words

When James walks in on you brushing dark powder onto your nose, you feel caught.

“What the hell is this?” he asks. His tone is more comically curious than accusatory, but your face heats anyway. “Babe, I swear every time I leave you alone, you acquire some new makeup thingy I’ve never seen before. And I lived with Sirius, so I ought to know most of them.”

You do your best to blend the powder, sending James a smile in the mirror. “Sounds like you shouldn’t ever leave me alone,” you say.

“Seems the only solution,” James agrees, bringing his arms around your waist. He sets his chin on your shoulder. “What’s this one?”

“Contour,” you say lightly.

James’ eyes cloud with confusion behind his glasses. He regards you in the mirror. “I guess I have heard of that one before,” he admits. “You’re using it on your nose?”

You clear your throat. “Yeah.”

“What for?”

“Just, like,” you’re trying to sound casual, but you can’t really look at him, “to make it look a bit smaller.”

For a minute, James just watches you. You brush at the powder on your nose, unsure whether you’re trying to use it or make it go away. It seems like it looks bad no matter what you do.

“Why do you want to do that, angel?” James’ voice is tender. It tells you he already knows.

“I’m just trying something new.”

“But why would you want to make it look smaller?”

You sigh, and he kisses your shoulder, comforting you even as he interrogates you. “I don’t always love the way it looks,” you murmur.

He lifts his head from your shoulder. You abandon your efforts with the contour, your eyes sticking to your bathroom counter as he moves to your side. Somehow, voicing the insecurity feels worse than the insecurity itself. You’re awash with shame.

“Sweetheart,” James says. “Hey, look at me.”

You tilt your head up. He’s giving you one of those smiles that seems more for your benefit than his, not at its full capacity but beautiful nonetheless. He taps his nose.

“Think you should put some of that on me too?”

You feel your face contort before you can check it, mouth and forehead pinching. “No.” Your voice comes out incredulous. “Of course not.”

“My nose is about the same size as yours,” he says. It sounds like he’s pleading rather than arguing with you, the way he’s speaking so gently. “Why do yours and not mine?”

“B—because,” you sputter, “it’s not for you.”

“Why not?”

You shake your head. You feel backed into a corner. You don’t know why, you just know the way it is.

“Angel,” James says softly. “Look, I know things are a bit different for you than they are for me. No one tells guys we have the wrong nose. But does it seem fair to you that you should feel like you have to hide yours?” He works his hand behind your ear, thumb stroking at your jaw, and you want to argue that you’re not trying to hide it, that you’re just tweaking it if anything, but you’d be lying. “Your nose is perfect,” he insists. “It’s part of the prettiest face I’ve ever seen. You really want to mess with the prettiest face I’ve ever seen?”

He cocks an eyebrow at you, and you try to fight your smile but it wins out in the end. Your boyfriend’s grin magnifies in response.

“I’m waiting for an answer, sweetheart,” he teases.

You roll your eyes. “No,” you mumble.

“Correct,” he laughs, taking your face between his hands.

He squishes your face together so your lips push out. When he kisses you, his nose slides against your own, big and bumpy and perfect. Part of the prettiest boy you’ve ever seen. His mouth pushes on yours with an ardent sincerity.

You remember the contour too late.

James comes away with a smearing of dark powder on his dusky skin. You lick your thumb, wiping at it. He pays you no mind.

“Are we ready to go? Sirius’ll be all moody if we’re late.”

You laugh. “You did this on purpose,” you accuse.

“What?” He glances past you into the mirror and gives an insouciant shrug. “Is this not the look?”

You roll your eyes again, trying and failing to look vexed. “Come here.”

He steps forward gamely to let you rub makeup remover over the smudges on his nose. When you’re done, you do yours too.

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sassenach77yle · 11 months ago

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May 1, 1771 May Union Camp

I glanced sideways, careful not to move in case he was still asleep. He wasn’t. He was lying quite still, though, utterly relaxed, save for his right hand. He had this raised, and appeared to be examining it closely, turning it to and fro and slowly curling and uncurling his fingers—as well as he could. The fourth finger had a fused joint, and was permanently stiff; the middle finger was slightly twisted, a deep white scar spiraling round the middle joint. His hand was callused and battered by work, and the tiny stigma of a nail-wound still showed, pale-pink, in the middle of his palm. The skin of his hand was deeply bronzed and weathered, freckled with sun-blots and scattered with bleached gold hairs. I thought it remarkably beautiful.

“Happy Birthday,” I said, softly. “Taking stock?”

He let the hand fall on his chest, and turned his head to look at me, smiling.Aye, something of the sort. Though I suppose I’ve a few hours left. I was born at half-six; I willna have lived a full half-century until suppertime.” I laughed and rolled onto my side, kicking the blanket off. The air was still delightfully cool, but it wouldn’t last long. “Do you expect to disintegrate much further before supper?” I asked, teasing. “Oh, I dinna suppose anything is likely to fall off by then,” he said, consideringly. “As to the workings . . . aye, well . . .” He arched his back, stretching, and sank back with a gratified groan as my hand settled on him. “It all seems to be in perfect working order,” I assured him. I gave a brief, experimental tug, making him yelp slightly. “Not loose at all.” “Good,” he said, folding his hand firmly over mine to prevent further unauthorized experiments. “How did ye ken what I was doing? Taking stock, as ye say?” I let him keep hold of the hand, but shifted to set my chin in the center of his chest, where a small depression seemed made for the purpose. “I always do that, when I have a birthday—though I generally do it the night before. More looking back, I think, reflecting a bit on the year that’s just gone. But I do check things over; I think perhaps everyone does. Just to see if you’re the same person as the day before.” “I’m reasonably certain that I am,” he assured me. “Ye dinna see any marked changes, do ye?” I lifted my chin from its resting place and looked him over carefully. It was in fact rather hard to look at him objectively; I was both so used to his features and so fond of them that I tended to notice tiny, dear things about him—the freckle on his earlobe, the lower incisor pushing eagerly forward, just slightly out of line with its fellows—and to respond to the slightest change of his expression—but not really to look at him as an integrated whole. He bore my examination tranquilly, eyelids half-lowered against the growing light. His hair had come loose while he slept and feathered over his shoulders, its ruddy waves framing a face strongly marked by both humor and passion—but which possessed a paradoxical and most remarkable capacity for stillness.

“No,” I said at last, and set my chin down again with a contented sigh. “It’s still you.”

[...]

Jamie’s free hand rested on my back, his thumb idly stroking the edge of my shoulder blade. With his usual capacity for mental discipline, he appeared to have dismissed the uncertainty of the military prospects completely from his mind, and was thinking of something else entirely. “Do ye ever think—” he began, and then broke off. “Think what?” I bent and kissed his chest, arching my back to encourage him to rub it, which he did. “Well . . . I’m no so sure I can explain, but it’s struck me that now I have lived longer than my father did—which is not something I expected to happen,” he added, with faint wryness. “It’s only . . . well, it seems odd, is all. I only wondered, did ye ever think of that, yourself—having lost your mother young, I mean?” “Yes.” My face was buried in his chest, my voice muffled in the folds of his shirt. “I used to—when I was younger. Like going on a journey without a map.” His hand on my back paused for a moment. “Aye, that’s it.” He sounded a little surprised. “I kent more or less what it would be like to be a man of thirty, or of forty—but now what?” His chest moved briefly, with a small noise that might have been a mixture of amusement and puzzlement.

“You invent yourself,” I said softly, to the shadows inside the hair that had fallen over my face. “You look at other women—or men; you try on their lives for size. You take what you can use, and you look inside yourself for what you can’t find elsewhere. And always . . . always . . . you wonder if you’re doing it right.”

His hand was warm and heavy on my back. He felt the tears that ran unexpectedly from the corners of my eyes to dampen his shirt, and his other hand came up to touch my head and smooth my hair. “Aye, that’s it,” he said again, very softly. The camp was beginning to stir outside, with clangings and thumps, and the hoarse sound of sleep-rough voices. Overhead, the grasshopper began to chirp, the sound like someone scratching a nail on a copper pot.

“This is a morning my father never saw,” Jamie said, still so softly that I heard it as much through the walls of his chest, as with my ears.

“The world and each day in it is a gift, mo chridhe—no matter what tomorrow may be.”

I sighed deeply and turned my head, to rest my cheek against his chest. He reached over gently and wiped my nose with a fold of his shirt. “And as for taking stock,” he added practically, “I’ve all my teeth, none of my parts are missing, and my cock still stands up by itself in the morning. It could be worse.”

Cap 58 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU ~the fiery cross

#outlander #outlanderedit #the frasers #outlander starz #jamie fraser #outlander series #outlander fanart #samheughan #jamie&claire #jamie and claire #claire fraser #dr claire randall #claire beauchamp #caitrionabalfe #outlander books #outlander season 5 #outlander 5x07

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iwritenarrativesandstuff · 2 years ago

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The Book: Everything We Know So Far and Possible Connections

The Book's lore is driving me crazy and I had to write this. This isn't meant to be a solid cohesive theory on anything but I wanted to compile everything we know about the Book, some rather disturbing implications of what that might mean, and which characters may or may not have a connection to it, as well as what that connection might be.

This is a long post, so I've bolded the key info. You can skim those if you don't want to go through everything. :)

***Major spoilers for BSD and for Beast!***

Main Series Information:

The first mentions of the Book occur in Chapter 28, when Fitzgerald tells Atsushi that the Guild's goal is to locate it. He tells Atsushi that only one copy of this book exists, and that neither flames nor abilities can damage it.

Fitzgerald claims he knows the Book is there because a prophet ability user foresaw that it had been sealed within Yokohama. When Atsushi asks what the relation is between him and the Book, Fitzgerald says that Atsushi is the guide to the Book.

In Chapter 35, Fitzgerald states that his goal is to use the Book to bring his daughter back to life.

The next mention is in Chapter 46, when Dazai talks to Fyodor in the alley. Dazai mentions that since Fyodor and the Rats don't have the firepower to burn down Yokohama, he instead needs to exterminate Yokohama's ability users to get to the Book, hence the cannibalism strategy.

Dazai says the true Book is a single novel with blank pages where anything written becomes the truth. Fyodor wishes to use it to make a world without the sin of ability users. Dazai says basically "good luck with that dude" lol. (Actually the line is "Give that a go, if you can, that is." which... might be significant?)

Chapter 58: Taneda dumps a lot of info on Ranpo. His assailant, who we know to be Sigma, stole a page from him, a single page removed from the Book in order to study it. The page has exactly the same capacity to make anything written become reality, it just has limited space to write. However, the Book has a restriction: it requires karmic/narrative consistency.

In Chapter 58.5, Mykola's speech about cages and the freedom of birds is ironically dictated word for word by a mysterious author. The translator note on the unofficial version I'm reading says the mysterious author is using imperfect Japanese with lots of katakana - I cannot confirm this myself, but it has interesting implications on our mystery author's identity if true. The page is used to position the Agency as the terrorists in the white hoods and frame them.

Chapter 59: Ranpo believes the Book was not made by an ability user but by something far greater than that. His proof is that unlike Mushitarou's ability, which can also alter reality, the people affected by the Book also have new memories to fit the alteration to the events. The Agency members remember committing the crime, even though they know they didn't.

In Chapter 70, Mushitarou reveals the DoA plans to use the other side of the page to eliminate the country at the next full moon. I am curious as to the significance of the full moon, given the moon's frequent recurrence in the series and Atsushi's ability connection to it. Chapter 74.5 establishes that the Sky Casino, with its 13 year history, was created 8 days ago when the page was written on, as a base for the next stage and also to "repay" Sigma for the use of his ability to retrieve it. In Chapter 75, Fyodor claims that Sigma, too, was written into existence via the Book 3 years ago - he has no memories before this point.

Chapter 77: the page was written with a condition that no police or law enforcement would believe in the Agency's innocence. However, Tachihara broke through that condition by reaffirming his identity as a member of the Mafia, which (metaphorically) tears the page.

Later references don't tell us too much more but I'll summarize them regardless. Kamui/Fukuchi has the page, which Atsushi knows from Sigma's info. Ranpo made an appeal to the police, explaining that the Agency was framed and the page preventing them from seeing the truth, and half the force sees the truth for themselves, breaking through the page's condition. Ranpo believed the direct opposition to the page's restrictions might sway Fukuchi into believing them (unfortunately, we don't know if this was right, as Fukuchi was not affected in the first place, being Kamui himself). And that's what we have so far.

Disturbing Implication #1: The Special Division knows/knew the location of the Book.

Taneda mentions that a page from the Book was taken to study. This implies that at one point, the Special Division had the Book or knew of its location. The higher ups may still know where it is. There are a few potential timelines here: the first is that the page was removed many, many years earlier, perhaps during the war, and the second is that the page was removed and tested 3 years ago, and Sigma resulted from these trials.

Disturbing Implication #2: Ranpo says the Book was created by something greater.

Something greater than ability users. I suspect this may be something outside their world. At this stage, it seems very likely this "greater entity" is an author - the author of the world we read about (it's Asagiri omg). An author, to the world they write, is akin to a god. I'm kind of joking about the Asagiri thing, but the "author" of the Book is likely someone/something that exists beyond the scope of the world of BSD.

Contradiction: The Book cannot be damaged by flame or ability, but pages can be torn out of it? How?

Beast Information:

Oh boy. Where to even start?

Beast Dazai states that the Book is the origin of the main universe's world, and it contains an infinite number of parallel worlds within it.

"What you write becomes a reality" is actually a misnomer. Writing in the Book calls a parallel world that aligns with what is written directly from the Book. This parallel world will then trade places with the real world.

There is a single physical reality, and infinite possible worlds. The Beast universe exists within the Book, as a possible world.

A version of the Book exists in the Beast universe. However, this Beast version of the Book is more of a weakness. Orders from the real world can overwrite Beast. And anyone who tries to write in Beast's Book will make Beast cease to exist.

Beast Dazai jumps at the end of Beast. This is because if more than 3 people know the truth about the Book, the world will destabilize - it may even disappear without Beast's Book being written in.

Beast Dazai created a singularity using his ability. It's not explained how he did this, but it has something to do with his nullification. He did this to read the memories of real-world/original Dazai - the Dazai who exists outside the Book. (It seems all but given that this is Dazai from the main timeline.)

Though the above conflicts with some of what we know in the main manga, we can take it as fact, I think. The narration is heavy on emphasizing that Beast Dazai is telling no lies in this scene.

Disturbing Implication #3: Any alterations are not inventions but transferrals, which means these events actually occurred in another universe.

This means that the Agency really were the DoA terrorists in a parallel world and they did carry out the plan. They really did take the hostages in this world. Tanizaki really did push the button. This would explain their memories. The caveat of no one in law enforcement believing them might make sense too - they're actually criminals in that world, so they would have no reason to believe them. "Trading places" also implies that the terrorist Agency universe has the terrorists trying to save the hostages like the Agency originally planned to do (potentially).

Sigma is an interesting case. If he really was written into existence from the Book, then he was called from another parallel world - literally displaced from his home. His amnesia likely occurred in that parallel world too.

Disturbing Implication #4: The parallel worlds are more fragile than the main world of BSD.

There is something different about our main universe. The Book that originates here is the real deal. But Beast's (and all the Books from different parallel worlds) leave them vulnerable. These worlds can be destroyed at any time if anyone tries to write in these Books. Only a select number of people can know how it really works before it starts to destabilize. What's more, at any point, someone could write in the real-world's Book and overwrite it entirely, and there would be nothing that any of the people within that world could do about it. And Beast Akutagawa, thinking back on the events of the story, comes to the conclusion that even though his world is "but a shadow", the desires, feelings and actions of the people within it make those people no less real than those in the original.

Beast is a goddamn existential horror.

Character Connections

Now, onto the characters who are known to have some kind of connection to the Book.

Fitzgerald wanted the Book in the Guild arc to bring back his daughter. While this is the first mention of it, given that he got his info from clearly secondhand sources (the prophet ability user or Fyodor, most likely), I don't think he has any sort of deeper understanding of it, nor a more personal connection. Ranpo seems to be figuring out the Book's logistics rather quickly, but I expect nothing less from the greatest detective, and he doesn't have a strong personal connection I can see as of yet. As for Fukuchi, whatever knowledge he gained 36 years ago might be connected... but again, I have nothing else to say on this front, considering we have little else on this (I'm actually more inclined to think it has to do with the war - which may tie in with the Book, but not necessarily). I would also be very surprised if Mori doesn't know something but I have no real evidence for this other than that the man is suspicious as hell. Then again, there's also Tokoyami Island, which "appeared" seemingly out of nowhere and is where Yosano's backstory took place and Fukuchi headed after his argument with Fukuzawa. It seems possible, if not likely, that it was created with the Book. So, let's go over some characters who we actually can expand on a little.

Taneda

Not much to say here other than what kind of research was being done with the Book? Given that Taneda had the page on him, was he the one responsible for the research being conducted on it, or was he just involved?

What kind of research was being done with the page? How were they testing it? The page was blank, so they must not have created anything with it yet. How then, did Taneda know how it worked and that the page would have the same capacities as the full Book?

Taneda doesn't seem to understand the Book completely - he thinks it was created by an ability user, after all, and like everyone else in the main universe he doesn't know the reason the Book requires narrative consistency (that it is pulling from other worlds, not just making anything written come true).

The Special Division likely had the Book at one point, but by the time Fitzgerald comes to retrieve it, it has been "sealed". Did the Special Division seal it? Why and how?

Atsushi

We know he has a lot to do with it. Atsushi and the Book are incredibly intertwined, and the initial conflict was kicked off by a bounty placed on his head for this connection.

He is called the "guide" to the Book. What does that mean? Is he meant to locate it? Unlock the seal? Or is he a guide on how to use it properly?

6 years ago, Shibusawa found Atsushi at the orphanage when he was just a kid and tortured him to extract his ability. He was a researcher who learned about the tiger from Fyodor, who called Atsushi's ability "one that guides the envy of all ability users". And we know Fyodor has been after the Book for a long time, so it's difficult to imagine this does not have something to do with it.

Atsushi is the only character to directly reference a real-life novel in the series and recall reading it. "The head may err but never the blood" and "I only regret what I haven't done" are from the real Nakajima Atsushi's "Light, Wind, and Dreams", a fictionalized autobiography detailing the last few years of the life of Robert Louis Stevenson. While other characters quote their namesakes' fiction on occasion, to my recollection, Atsushi is the only one who explicitly remembers reading the book, but finds himself unable to remember the author's name. Cute reference, or plot significant? You decide.

Atsushi's tiger is heavily associated with the moon, particularly the full moon. For some reason, the other side of the page is to be used at the next full moon and cannot be used sooner. Atsushi's ability crystal, pulled out of him by Shibusawa as a child, is described as "pale and glittering like the moon".

It is entirely unlike the red crystals that form in the Dead Apple separated abilities - including Atsushi's tiger (also red). It is, however, similar to Dazai's, which is white. Atsushi transforms into the tiger to swallow the moon-like crystal - to reiterate, it was outside him when he transformed. What's more, from Beast it's known that this instance was when his ability apparently activated for the first time - how could it do that if it was already removed from him? Later on, Shibusawa tries to take the crystal again and Atsushi's transformation deteriorates, that's true, but bear in mind that Atsushi was convinced that crystal was the tiger, which may have psychologically influenced this. In fact, the moon crystal may not be the tiger at all. It is entirely possible it is something else, and it is likely that which makes Atsushi so sought after. If it is, I refuse to believe this has nothing to do with the Book.

Atsushi's ability is described as the "spark of life that resists all abilities". A reference to his healing factor, perhaps? Or something more meaningful?

He's also referred to as an "angel" by Shibusawa who canonically got his information from Fyodor so... make of that what you will.

Tachihara

This isn't so much about Tachihara having significance in future but more about what his breaking of the page's conditions might mean.

At the crux of this is his split identity - he's a Hunting Dog, but also a mafioso, and his struggle between these identities is his core conflict in the Sky Casino arc.

Eventually, Tachihara, recalling Hirotsu and Gin's words that anyone in the Mafia knows that the Agency is innocent, frantically realizes they have the wrong culprits, thus breaking through the page's caveat that all law enforcement would never believe them, accompanied by a metaphorical tear in the page.

It's intriguing because we don't see this same dramatic depiction later on with the police when Ranpo appeals to them - Tachihara has changed his expected role from police to mafioso. Tachihara is no longer playing the "character" he was meant to play.

He tore out of that restriction in the story. His story line is now on a different path. There are some serious implications of that if a change in character can literally break people free of the Book's reality-altering influence. It is all-powerful so long as everyone plays their expected role in that narrative. Breaking out of that can change the story, even if only minutely.

Sigma

Of course Sigma is connected. He was apparently written into the Book three years ago - which means he came from one of the parallel worlds. (Provided Fyodor is telling the truth about his origins, but I think it would be very strange narratively if this wasn't - at least partially - true.)

I am curious if Sigma will regain some of his memories soon, or if it is even possible for him. If he can regain memories, then they would be from a world within the Book. Or, perhaps his memories don't exist because that world has been overwritten and no longer exists?

Is it possible for Sigma to communicate between worlds using his exchange of information? Maybe this is completely out of left field... I'm just curious what role Sigma is going to play in all this.

It's strange, for someone so obviously connected I... really don't have much to say about him. I just think we don't have enough.

Mykola

There isn't too much to say for certain about him, but I know I was super uncomfortable with his entire speech about birds and cages and freedom being dictated in real-time by the page. That's rough, buddy.

As of this moment, he's supposed to be dead, but somehow defied his fate and is still alive. He decided not to play the role ("character") he was previously meant to, and now he is the cast's biggest wildcard.

Mykola's fixation on freedom at all costs may have some interesting implications for his interactions with the idea of the Book. When his words were written on the page, was the page dictating his speech, or was it merely recording what he was already saying? If the Book is the story, then does the story control the characters, or, as it has been implied by Mykola and Tachihara, can the characters defy the story? When they defy the story, the story changes to accommodate this. Have they really, then, defied anything of significance at all? (For clarity: I don't know if this is where BSD will go with it - in actuality, I'm always confused when people theorize the Book's author is evil and controlling, or that the series will end tragically, given how much BSD loves to emphasize the importance of writing and reading and understanding and living. This is just an example of a few possible questions it may make sense for Mykola to fixate on.)

I don't have a lot to say for certain, but given his need to be free, his connection with Fyodor, and his Dazai-foiling traits, I'd think it very odd if he wasn't involved to some extent.

Dazai

...where to even start.

Dazai clearly knows things about the Book. He appears to know much of what Fyodor does, and it makes me curious as to whether it came up when they first met (whenever that was).

However, main series Dazai doesn't seem to have all the info Beast Dazai does. For one thing, he too echoes that the Book makes all that is written into it become reality. He may know about the parallel worlds within it and could just be lying by omission, but I've seen very little to suggest that this is the case.

Main series Dazai appears to know about certain events long before they occur (not everything though; I need to remind people that he can and has been thrown off/wrong about things before) - notably, most of these planned events revolve around Fyodor. He's been preparing Atsushi and Akutagawa specifically to deal with the upcoming threat posed by Fyodor's pursuit of the Book.

Beast Dazai was somehow able to read the memories of real-world Dazai by creating a singularity with his ability... somehow. It's assumed he must've created it while in contact with the Book (otherwise how else could he have read the memories) but it's actually not elaborated on and we still have little to no details.

If his nullification caused a singularity, then how? Was it a singularity with the Book? Himself? Whatever the Book was sealed with/in? Singularities are still quite mysterious, but they need to involve one of two things - an insurmountable contradiction, or an uncontrollable increase in power with no way to cap it. Given that nullification doesn't lend itself to an increase in anything, it's likely an inherent contradiction.

I think it pretty obvious that Dazai has some special knowledge of the Book; some connection to it. He's been preparing to combat Fyodor for many, many years, and he seems to want to take Fyodor out as quickly as possible. Clearly, his potential use of the Book is a big deal to Dazai and worth putting his full effort into preventing, which is a little odd, honestly, considering he only met him once before the events of Dead Apple. Fyodor must've really made a terrible impression on him.

Where did he come from? There's that post about how Dazai is in everyone else's backstory for some reason, but we don't know his yet. Here's what we do know: He has some kind of connection with the Old Mafia Boss. He wandered around Yokohama for awhile. He's not related to Mori or an orphan he picked up.

While I've seen suggestions that Dazai met Fyodor in the 2 year gap between his leaving the Mafia and joining the ADA, I think there's reason to suggest he may have met Fyodor before he ever joined the Mafia, as a young child. Just bringing it up as a possibility because Beast Dazai's forming of a singularity with it sounded intentional - which means at 16, he would already have known what the Book was. Did he get his knowledge from Fyodor? Someone else?

Why did young Dazai become so listless and unable to find a reason to live? How did he become convinced that he will lose everything he wants so badly to keep when he gets it? Why did he think he could predict everything in advance? Is it just his intelligence and observation? Or is there more to it than that?

While I'm not a huge fan of the "Dazai is the Book" theory (given that it would make him literally inhuman, which I think runs antithetical to his story), on reviewing all this I've come up with a new incredibly deranged and not-at-all-sound theory:

Dazai is the Book's seal. In this essay I will -

Fyodor

First of all, we know hardly anything about him. We don't understand his ability. We don't even know how old he is. He's been with V/the Decay of the Angel for many years apparently... he was involved in Shibusawa's actions... he has some kind of a history with Dazai... he perfected the art of dramatically standing on windy roofs... truly, he's an enigma.

On a more serious note, all we know is that he wants the Book to create a world free of ability users. Free of sin.

This doesn't seem to fully align with Fukuchi's goal. My proof? They have differing concepts of "angels".

Fukuchi's "angels" borrow from the Buddhist concept of Devas and also likely references Mishima Yukio's The Decay of the Angel. Fukuchi tells Tachihara that the angels are the politicians who remain in their lofty seats and send soldiers into war to die. His goal isn't revenge per se, but it does appear to involve dethroning them in a sense. He doesn't mention wiping out ability users nor of having any particular ill-will towards them.

However, Fyodor's concept is closer to the Abrahamic concept of angel, what with the numerous references to original sin, the script for the play in Untold Origins speaking of angels banished by God for their sins, etc. What's interesting is that the play emphasizes ability users as "angels" who have regained some of their prior powers (I find it difficult to believe Fyodor was not involved in the creation of this) - so Fyodor's "sinful angels" are likely ability users. What does this mean for their goals? Are they still aligned? Is the undermining of government necessary for the elimination of ability users? (Also quick note: do not quote me on any religious stuff - I am not religious myself. I do research sometimes but I'm very, very far from an expert ahaha.)

So, now: Cannibalism was part 1 of the DoA's plan, and all the ensuing stages will culminate in the use of the other side of the page.

Firstly, there's the obvious "what will the other side of the page be used for?"

But then there's something else. By the time Cannibalism occurred, the pieces were already in place for the next phase of the plan, where Sigma would steal the page from Taneda. Why then, does Fyodor still claim, on numerous occasions, to be after the Book? The page should be able to accomplish anything the Book can. Either there is something misleading in the information we have been told, or there is something he wants to do with the Book that isn't writing in it. I think the former is more likely but I digress, the latter is still a possibility.

A few more outstanding questions: Why was he spreading info on Atsushi to Shibusawa and presumably Fitzgerald, but not going after Atsushi himself? Wouldn't he want Atsushi as the Book's guide?

What is his connection to the prophet ability user Fitzgerald mentioned - is it him, with his uncanny predictive powers? Is it someone else associated with the DoA? Is it someone in the government? How long ago was this prediction made - was it made long enough ago that this is why V was active in Yokohama?

There's a lot that's very confusing about Fyodor, and I don't think we know nearly enough about him to make proper predictions as to his relation to the Book yet.

Akutagawa

He's only really tangentially related to it through his connection to Atsushi - if any showdown is going to happen involving the Book, you can bet he and Akutagawa will be teaming up for that.

At the same time, Dazai selected Akutagawa as a mentee a long time ago, and he's been planning for them to work together since he met Atsushi, specifically so they can prevent Fyodor from achieving his goals. In Beast, he mentions their abilities form a singularity together - likely that ability to "cut through anything".

I know this may be entirely wild and out of left field but if it can cut through anything... could it damage the impervious Book? Could it even destroy it? Or maybe it could destroy whatever is sealing it? Who knows, but it makes me think they're going to have to destroy something. (Interesting how this runs counter to sskk's need to act as protectors of the Book in Beast... so maybe it will be in defense. It's all so unclear.)

There's also the whole "dragon is the manifestation of the chaos of ability users". Atsushi and Akutagawa are the tiger and the dragon, at odds with each other via rivalry but also in balance. I think it would be very strange if Atsushi's ability were unusual but not Akutagawa's.

In addition to all the above, I am also side-eyeing all the author characters in this series. For one thing, there's very few of them. For another, two of them have died, changing the path of their respective best friends' lives - and in a series that actually... doesn't kill that many named characters off permanently, it's worth taking a look at.

Yokomizo wanted to transcend the boundaries of fiction in his writing to create a mystery that bled into reality - the ultimate mystery. Mushitarou writes to see his friend again, to connect with him through his greatest passion. Poe's ability allows him to take real people and pull them into constructed narratives that can be escaped once they are "solved" - when the story reaches its conclusion. He is also the one who spurs Mushitarou into writing to cope with his loss.

Natsume wrote a few books as well. We don't know completely what they were about (and from my brief research they don't seem to correspond perfectly to his real life novels - might be a reference to Kokoro but the story does not appear to be the same...), but at least one was a series of three novels, with the last featuring an assassin who stopped killing, but Natsume derided these books and said they were not very good. He tore out the last few pages from the third, final book that explained why the assassin changed his path, and gave the book to a young Odasaku with a note "Don't blame me if you regret [reading] it".

Odasaku wanted to complete that novel. It completely changed his perspective on the world and opened his eyes - he re-read it multiple times (if I remember correctly, he also read it over and over to a wounded and exasperated Dazai in TDIPUD lol), and the lack of an ending bothered him immensely, not just because the story was incomplete, but because the scene was necessary to understanding the assassin's character. Odasaku wrote to understand himself and others, because writing novels is writing people. Natsume seemed to think he was uniquely qualified to do so, but Odasaku disagreed, thinking that someone who took lives was in no position to write about them - to understand them.

Odasaku dies. In every universe, and before he gets the chance to write the novel that sits in his mind - except in Beast, where Dazai painstakingly maintained the world to ensure he stayed alive. It seems oddly specific that this one random person should die before having the opportunity to write the story he wished... and I have to wonder if the universe really doesn't want him writing that book for some reason. And if that's the case, then is there any reason (beyond saving Oda from killing) why Natsume encouraged him to do so?

As a bonus, in the anime, Odasaku is the one to title drop "to the stray dogs" as a cheers, which Dazai will later echo. This doesn't happen in the novel... but if you look back at the difference between the anime Book and the manga Book - you'll notice the manga Book's cover is blank. The anime's says "Stray Dogs". Could be something, could be nothing. But it's worth mentioning.

And that's pretty much it for now! As we get more info, I'll continue to update this post. If anything here gives you ideas, please feel free to ramble about it in the tags or comments, or shoot me an ask! I love to read all your thoughts. :)

#this is so long. if you made it through... congratulations! you are probably just as obsessed as i am hgnkvhgvnskf #feel free to add on. these aren't full theories or anything and a lot are just suggestions or open ended questions #i hope this is a helpful reference and at least sparks some interesting thoughts!#bsd #bsd meta #bsd the book #i don't want to tag everyone...#so i won't lol #storyrambles

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vegageshsworld · 7 months ago

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WHAT ARE SUBLIMINALS?

subliminals are audio affirmations hidden under music or sounds of nature, they are aimed at changing internal attitudes, changing internal and external states

there are subliminals aimed at correcting health in all its manifestations (there are "local" subliminals that are aimed at healing a specific organ/state); there are also subliminals aimed at transforming consciousness, any external characteristics and defects, etc.

it is worth saying that there are countless subliminals, it is only important to know which subliminals can be useful!

HOW DO SUBLIMINALS WORK?

passing through our consciousness, which does not perceive voice instructions disguised under various sounds, so positive affirmations get into our subconscious, where they are fixed. our consciousness is a unique mechanism and sometimes it is capable of independently putting up blocks, thereby preventing ordinary affirmations that we ourselves pronounce from being fixed. therefore, we can say that subliminals have the ability to deceive our consciousness

WHAT ARE THE RULES FOR EFFECTIVE LISTENING?

it is worth starting with the fact that there are two main types of subliminals:

subliminals created on the basis of binaural beats (usually, this is indicated in the description of the subliminals), such subliminals are usually listened to either in a calm state or while running/walking and in both headphones;

subliminals created on the basis of ordinary affirmations disguised as music/nature noise. such subliminals can be listened to anywhere and in any way: you can listen without headphones, you can listen while you are doing your own thing (writing, drawing, cooking, washing, etc. - which, by the way, you can’t do when listening to subs based on binaural beats)

you can listen to subs as many times as you like + include listening to them in your list of “daily rituals” - for the desired results to appear faster, consistency and regularity are necessary!

how not to get hung up on the results and how to get maximum results after listening to any sub (in general, I want to combine these two topics, because if you do not get hung up on the results, then, a priori, you get what you want)

───── ⋆⋅♡⋅⋆ ─────

what advice could I give, based on my experience of listening to subs?

work with thinking, first of all! - add subliminals to your playlist that remove internal blocks and limitations; add subs that help your subconscious "earn" at full capacity; add boosters; also, do not underestimate meditation (at one time they really helped me calm down and achieve harmony, from which the subs began to act more effectively)

try to just lag behind yourself. yes, that's right. continue listening to subliminals, but remove all sorts of expectations from your head. the only thoughts you should have are "yes, I know that the results WILL STILL BE", "I just know that EVERYTHING WILL HAPPEN EXACTLY THE WAY I WANT"

stop going to the mirror every second and looking at how your appearance has/hasn't changed, stop waiting for anything, and just believe that everything will happen exactly the way you want. the only thing you can't know is the time frame in which certain changes will happen to you. and there will still be cuts after listening to subs, it's just that for some people they will be more or less pronounced

also, in order not to get hung up on cuts, you can find yourself a certain hobby (my hobby is video editing, where I am very distracted from all sorts of thoughts and listen to subs during it, just like that)

I would advise people who are not very receptive to subs to turn on subs at night and fall asleep with them, because our subconscious is on different frequencies during sleep and functions a little differently, being in a state of rest. therefore, as an option, listening to this can also be a good catalyst for the manifestation of the desired results

healthy sleep is also important (7-8 hours a day)

───── ⋆⋅♡⋅⋆ ─────

YOU WILL BE OKAY, I KNOW IT!! I LOVE YOU!! <3

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edelgarfield · 8 months ago

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I am genuinely so sick of seeing the take that "man's hubris caused the calamity" and that being used as "take that!" against the people of Aeor, who largely were not even alive during the start of the Calamity, & who, regardless of the reason, have had to live in a world ravaged by the gods' conflict.

Avalir and Aeor were far from perfect & the ruling class certainly was full of hubris & elitism, but blaming mortals as a whole for the Calamity is so incredibly fucked up. Avalir as a whole did not collectively decide to invite the Betrayer Gods into the Material Plane. The largest instigators of the Calamity were:

1. Vespin Chloras, who was following in the footsteps laid by the Raven Queen, and

2. Zerxus, who was manipulated by Asmodeus, and

3. Asmodeus, who despises mortals because he blames them for the rift driven between the Prime Deities & Betrayer Gods.

Like I can't speak to Vespin Chloras but I genuinely cannot find it in myself to blame Zerxus, a mortal man, for being manipulated by the God of Manipulation, or for believing in redemption and forgiveness. You can think he was foolish to fall for it, but being gullible or having faith isn't a sin. There's a bunch of arguments that "it's arrogant for a mortal to believe himself deserving of forgiving a god" and I won't argue that Zerxus had some arrogance & self-righteousness. But I just. I do not and will never believe that divine beings are morally superior to mortals.

there's this idea that the pursuit of godhood/power is inherently corrupt, and to an extent I'm inclined to agree (I started a whole rant here abt this, but that's a different post). but hand in hand, there seems to be this idea that the gods themselves are shielded from that same corruption, which I simply don't think is true. whether mortals are capable of wielding the power of a god without being destroyed is a separate issue to its morality. something being inherently risky/unsafe does not automatically mean it's wrong. but I don't understand how people can say it's irresponsible/evil for mortals to pursue godlike power, or that they can't be trusted to wield that power, without applying the same logic to the gods themselves. It doesn't make sense to me that the pursuit of power is wrong, but the ones who actually wield that power, sometimes violently & unfairly, only ever wield it responsibly.

in fact, I think that without any sort of power to resist the violence & will of the gods, the gods are left completely unchecked to use Exandria in whatever capacity they choose to. that's an extremely dangerous thing for anyone living on it, and asking mortals to simply trust that the gods will never act against the people of Exandria is an extremely cruel thing. If people choose to have faith in the gods & their will, that's wonderful. But faith being a requirement just to live peacefully, & deeming anyone without faith sinful & arrogant is unfair.

it's not morally bankrupt to desire freedom from the will of the gods. it's not corrupt to want mortals to carve their own path. it's not evil to question what you've been told about the world.

The idea that "man's/Avalir's hubris caused the Calamity" feels like a fantasy version of "humanity is causing climate change" or "humans are inherently evil," which are extremely unpopular opinions on Tumblr. It's attributing actions taken by one or a small group of people to humanity as a whole. It's blaming humanity for being manipulated by a higher power. It's holding mortals responsible for their own murders.

#cr spoilers #cr3 #cr downfall

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awkward-fink · 2 months ago

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CoD Hybrid AU (1)

„I really think you should consider it, I mean, you inherited the whole thing! And with how you are at the moment, I mean, no disrespect, but really, I- “

“Jasmine, shut up. I already told you; I am not looking for a hybrid! We are here for you and not for me. YOU want a cat or dog hybrid, YOU chose this shelter, YOU dragged me out of my room and over here.” You look at your friend with exasperation, noticing her slightly lopsided smile as she looks at you, her eyes traveling over your body until she meets your eyes again. Thankfully she does not say what she is thinking or else you would have turned around right this instant.

“You needed to come out again, some fresh air, and some new sights will do you good.” She mutters loudly to you, her arm around yours to gently wander along the gravel path towards the entrance to the shelter. A hybrid shelter that had mostly ex-service hybrids on their internet website. But there were also younger ones, which had not served in any capacity and your friend had fell in love at first sight with one of them as she had browsed the website. And naturally she had not wanted to go alone, had taken you along to all the shops to get some initial products like a bed, some toys, a leash and some fluffy blankets and universal snacks that could be eaten by dogs and cats.

And just a few days after the initial shopping trip, you and Jasmine were here, at the shelter, facing a very friendly faced worker, who was singing the praises of every single hybrid cage you trotted past on your way towards the enclosure for the younger hybrids. At least as hybrids felines and canines could be held together in bigger outdoor enclosures instead of the small cages and spots the normal animals had.

The shelter was big, you had to give them that, big rooms for the hybrids, an even bigger mess hall and community center. Most hybrids had a need for socialization. But the friendly woman, Rita you think her name is, leads you through quickly, complimenting that one Dalmatian male for his bravery while also talking about a young ragdoll hybrid beautiful eye. It’s like Rita is racing you both through the center, showing you, the most basic things and Jasmine is eating it all up with a big grin and a nod while dragging you on, holding your weight amazingly well.

And finally, you exited the grey walls and neon lights that would forever be burned into your mind and came to the outside enclosures, grass and sand and even some small water spots all around, trees and balls and scratching posts. And hybrids. And most of them ignored Jasmine and you, their eyes warily turned towards Rita as she pushed you and Jasmine inside.

“This is the so called ‘Mingling Area’, our hybrids can decide if they want to be outside and use this space as a meet up or play area. In this one we have the younger canine and feline hybrids. You can find any sort of hybrid here, some of them served, some of them got abandoned and some found their way to us through other means. But all of them are friendly, just don’t corner them.” Rita smiled, her teeth in full view.

The middle enclosure was more a meeting ground, its sides lined with the outside parts of the different hybrids’ rooms, seating spaces sprinkled around the space as well for visitors to watch the hybrids interact or get to know them. Jasmine nodded to Rita’s explanation, her face alight with pure pleasure and excitement, her eyes already wandering over the forms of the different hybrids around them, most of which were on the playing field or sunning in the warm spots and on blankets.

And those banks were your saving grace. Your knee burned fiercely with every step you took, weight pushing against your kneecap harshly, the ligaments protesting any further step you took. It was hurting you more and more.

“Jasmine, I need to sit down.” You mutter, tugging your friend’s shirt gently. Jasmine hummed lightly, patting your arm and slowly only with much effort wrenching her gaze away from a group of cat hybrids in a grooming circle. “Jasmine.” You repeat yourself, a soft undertone your friend couldn’t ignore twinging in your voice. “Yes, sorry. They are just so... Yeah, lets get you to one of those banks alright?” She hooked your arms and lead you towards a close by bank, in a shaded area, right against the fence of an enclosure on the canine side. Rita waddled right after you both, simmering with a soft voice about this and that, but you were not really listening.

“Most of the hybrids in this side of the mingling area are former service hybrids, some of them from the fire department, some from active service in the police force or the military. They are a bit peculiar in their habits but lovely all the same.” “Ah my friend is not interested in any hybrid; she is with me to help keep me company here.” Jasmine explained softly to Rita, the workers focus, formerly split between your two, now solely focused on your friend.

“Then let me show you some of the more precious and sweet hybrids around here, that will surely be fitting a lifestyle like yours.”

Jasmine looks back at you, but you wave her off with a smile, you were here for her, not because you yourself wanted a hybrid. Not now. One would certainly not fit into your momentary living situation. Quit your office job, inherited a small farmhouse with old fields on the outskirts of town which was a total disaster and in disarray. Right now, the plumbers are pulling apart the walls in your new home to install some modern plumbing. And the local trinket shop had sold you the biggest bed they had in the warehouse, it was set to be delivered in the next week or so.

All in all, no, you certainly had no time or space for a hybrid, even though company would be nice instead of being all alone in an area you didn’t visit since you were a young child running around in your grandfathers’ fields. And certainly not now, when your ligaments were still giving you more problems than they should, the injury you had taken on the job still painful and fresh. You had problems taking care of yourself, you were not able to take care of a hybrid as well.

As much as you may have wanted to.

Your eyes follow Jasmine as she follows Rita back to the grooming circle of cat hybrids. All around you its blessed silence, only birds chirping far off, a soft breeze ruffling your hair and the sweet smell of animals and freshly mown grass were in the air. You could relax again, let your leg rest.

At least until something shifted behind you and a throat was cleared, in the enclosure you thought empty, because the door to the mingling area was open. You inhale sharply but you can’t turn around as your leg cramps fiercely. “Fuck!”

Before you can turn fully to look at what was behind you, a hunched over form peeked from around the open cage door, floppy ears in cream and decorated with reddish brown spots hanging down, clear blue eyes focused on you. And his fur at his ears and down the arm you could see was singed, burned, the skin below red and angry and tight looking. Bandages wound from around his neck and throat down under the airy shirt he was wearing. He looked at you cautiously, holding himself back from view, but his eyes flickered towards the knee you were rubbing, the slight tilt of his brows expressing his caution and worry.

You both stare at each other, none of you moving for a few seconds before he slowly, so very slowly, creeps out of his fenced off area, one step, pause, and then the next step, body tense and posture rigid, as if he was ready to bolt at any second. Closer and ever closer he came, hobbling as if one foot was not working right.

“Hi there.” You finally find your voice, greeting the canine hybrid, an English setter you would guess, with the lowest voice you could muster. The way his ears twitch was adorable. He waves slowly, head tilted, nose above the medical mask moving as if he is sniffing the air, body leaning forwards, towards you. He uses one bandaged arm and hand to gesture to your outstretched leg. As if he wanted to ask what was wrong.

“Nothing big. Just a few injured ligaments.” You assure him, giving him a smile without showing your teeth. He wavers on his spot before coming closer, never once looking away from you. And then he sits, not on the bank, but on the ground, knees up and arms around his legs as he looks at you, his muscles relaxing as if nothing happened.

“Who... who are you?” you ask, the manner in which he was acting more endearing as you want to admit. But the hybrid shakes his head, and instead of answering he fishes out dog tags from beneath his shirt, showing them to you. You lean forward, fingertips digging into the bank beneath you as you try not to reach out, but he would surely scoot back then again. You squint, barely making out some script. But highlighted was the words ‘military’, ‘taskforce’ and ‘Roach’. “Roach? Your name is Roach?”

He perks up, his singe furred ears perking just a bit and behind his back, his flowy fluffy tail starts to gently wag from left to right.

And in this moment, when he comes closer, eyes shining and bright as he settles just a few steps away from you, you lose your heart.

#awkward fink #cod #you #reader #female reader #gary roach sanderson #hybrid au #roach is an english setter #shelter life #reader is injured #brainrot moment #stardew valley meets CoD i guess

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red-riot-unbreakable-heart · 6 months ago

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Shoto's First Kiss Timeline? Idk let's plot it out together

Gif Caption: Me and Shoto sitting together on the train, vibing. 💕

Hi All!!

If you're a fan of the Shoto's First Kiss series, Chapter 5 dropped at like 3:30 am EST this morning because I am an absolute HEATHEN and decided to have a late night/early morning editing session for 3 hours before posting. This was fun because I decided to add the whole Lisa Frank phone background scene for kicks and add a little more build up to the smut scene (I love a slowish burn...what can I say!?).

@brie-is-cheesy had some great questions in the comments of Chapter 5, I'm going to post it below and answer the best I can! I don't have a full answer to everything and I'm taking some ✨creative liberties ✨ here and there but lets see if I can clear some things up for my lovely readers!

Hiiiii, totally loved it; I was wondering when this is set? Like the timeline, I just got confused I'll leave the list of confusing things about the timeline,, I wrote about how much I love this in my reblog cuz this is awesome!! -since bnha is set in the mid to late 2100s I was wondering if the older songs they're listening to will include songs that are relatively new for us as of now? -when does this occur? Like you mentioned they're in their first year, and its after they've moved into the dorms but it's nearing the summer of next year, so is it after the war arc, or after the events of bnha entirely? Just wanted to ask! Thank you for the update!!<3 - brie-is-cheesy

Okay these are FAB questions and honestly I can't give you a straight answer to all of them!

Here's the background: So this story started out as a one shot - this past year, Shoto hasn't been one of my main MHA favorites. When I started the Red Riot Unbreakable Heart blog, my goal was to focus on what I've been calling "My Big Three." This includes Kirishima (lol thus my username), Hakws, and Hitoshi Shinsou (I love me an emo man). I was sprinkling in smutty one shots here and there involving other characters (ex. BakuDeku Smut: Hooking Up At A Pro Hero Gala and Beneath the Bookshelves | BakuDeku ). Shoto was one of those random one offs that I was like, huh why not!? But then I published Shoto's First Kiss (Part One) this one shot about Reader x Shoto totally took off in a way I wasn't expecting. Shoto resonates a lot with you all and the more I started writing for him, the more I grew to love him. He's so complex and in need of love and care. He has so much capacity for love!! I wanted to explore that more and figure out how he would act in his first encounters with intimacy and relationships. So I kept posting chapters, and started plotting out this wild story!

Timeline: When I started writing the one shot, I wanted the story to ambiguously take place in the 2nd or 3rd year when the characters were a little older. I was kind of working it in an AU where the war had vaguely happened and was over but everyone is okay and no one was injured/died/had their quirk impacted by AFO. In the context of Shoto's First Kiss chapter one - the war doesn't matter (at least if you re-read it I hope you don't find any plot holes mentioning the war!?). Also I have tried to say "Class A" instead of "Class 1A" because as I wrote more chapters, I still hadn't figured out what year we are in here.

Now that we're world building and have a more fleshed out story, here's what I'm thinking. Bare with me, we are going to need to suspend some disbelief here and I might need to go back and make some tweaks to previous chapters to keep everything in line with this line of thinking. But let's say this:

Timeline: The timeline takes place in the character's 1st year. I just combed through this timeline of MHA that someone put together on Reddit. I'm thinking this likely takes place at the end of Term 1. Final exams are coming up, and the students have heard a little about the training camp. Most of the MHA events so far are probably cannon in my fic universe, unless otherwise mentioned. The great thing for me is - most of MHA is in the context of Izuku's experiences, so there's a lot of wiggle room in the timeline for what could be happening between Shoto x The Reader. I haven't decided if the current chapters take place before or after Shoto/Izuku/Ida's encounter with Stain, because I can see some interesting plot points coming from that. I'll think about it!! This may change, but for purposes of continuity I think this could work as I move forward with my plotting!

Age: All the characters are at least 16. Let's just roll with that and take some creative liberties here. I'm aging everyone up.

The Dorms: In this fic universe, I pictured the students moving into the dorms at the start of the year. Like the dorms are just part of the normal UA experience - for all intents and purposes it's a boarding school.

The Songs: Okay this is a really interesting idea! I am literally just putting in playlists of music I like right now, I didn't think much about modern music flowing into the story. Lol would Honenuki listen to BRAT!? Maybe. I love him and think of him as a sweet chill cinnamon roll of a dude, though. I think he would be scandalized by Guess Featuring Billie Eilish. Or maybe he'd love it. He'd def love Chappell Roan, though. Dude is a sloot for Red Wine Super Nova and I just know it!

The Vibe: @ all of my beloved readers - I realize that this story means a lot to people, and I love that!! Even though we explore complex and serious subject matter at times, this is still a goofy silly story that I write for fun! Please don't hold me to these ideas that I'm throwing out in a semi-public brainstorm. I am but a simple fanfic writer who churns out most of the Shoto pages at midnight after I work two jobs. Shoto's First Kiss is a project that I write purely for fun and to build community with other adult MHA fans. I'm not like going to publish this as a book or put it on Patr*on behind a paywall or something. So let's keep it light! That being said, I love interacting with everyone so if there are fun questions that you think would be interesting for me to answer in this story, let me know! I'm very open to hearing thoughts and considering new ideas here :)

Update!!! *2/2/25* | Hitoshi Shinsou is in Class A. He was transferred in earlier in the year. Don't question it...just go with it. We love Hitoshi. Hitoshi belongs in Class A. Class A also currently has 22 students because I've decided the war hasn't happened yet in my AU timeline. So students #21 and #22 are Y/N and Hitoshi, respectively.

Okay okay SORRY FOR SO MUCH INFO! Thanks again @brie-is-cheesy for being so thoughtful in your reading and for asking these great questions! This is def going to help me guide the next few chapters of the story as I plot things out and as we get a satisfying next chapter in The Party arc. I'm going to post this reply on my Master List so we can all keep track of it and come back to it easily if needed.

As always, thanks for reading!! Sending good vibes to all ☺️

XOXO,

Red Riot Unbreakable Heart ❤️

Shoto's First Kiss Series:

Part 1: Shoto Todoroki x Reader | First Kiss ❄️🔥💋

Part 2: Shoto Todoroki x Reader | First Kiss ❄️��💋 PART 2

Part 3: Shoto Todoroki x Reader | First Kiss ❄️🔥💋 PART 3

Part 4: Shoto Todoroki x Reader | First Kiss ❄️🔥💋 PART 4

Part 5: Shoto Todoroki x Reader | First Kiss ❄️🔥💋 PART 5

My Master List

Red's Recos: If you're looking for more fun smutty stories from my writing desk, I'll share 3 of my all time favorites from my Master List. These are all fairly long and have a lot of sexual tension/build up with some satisfying smut scenes:

How to Suck Your Best Friend’s D*ck 🍆💋

BakuDeku Smut: Hooking Up At A Pro Hero Gala

A Long, *Hard* Night with Eijiro Kirishima

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