#because being studied by an eldritch being that manipulates your life is probably not a great friendship dynamic

[herearedragons]

The Dread One (Solas as an eldritch being)

AO3

Solas.

His is a plain, unassuming appearance, but it's firmly burned into your mind nonetheless.

He knows things. Ancient lore glimpsed from the Fade, but also other things that don't make sense. He tells a story about watching a young mage stand up to a demon, and you realize midway that this is a word-to-word retelling of your Harrowing. But it can't be, right? You were there. It was just you and that demon. He couldn't have seen that.

Right?

Conversations with him are fascinating, but they tend to... spiral. You come to compare notes about Fade rifts and end up staying for hours, listening as he speaks deeply and passionately about topics you'll only hazily remember - or, sometimes, you'll come to and realize that you are the one speaking passionately, telling him about your past or your hopes for the future, with no idea how you got to that topic in the first place.

He seems to enjoy your conversations. He's happy when you come by - eager, almost, but you have a feeling that it's not your company that he enjoys. He seems to be searching for something when you speak; sometimes you catch glimpses of something like hope in his expression, followed, inevitably, by disappointment.

He's in your dreams sometimes. Watching. Searching, there, too?

You see him in places where he doesn't belong. You see his eyes where they shouldn't be. For the longest time, you try to convince yourself that it's nothing, that all of these signs are just a trick of your own mind, but one day you slip.

In your dream, you meet those watching eyes instead of avoiding them, and now he knows that you know.

You know that he's studying you.

You gather the courage to speak with Cassandra. You tell her what's been happening. She frowns, taken aback. She's concerned. She says that this must be looked into.

You wake up. That conversation never happened.

You approach Bull as he's training in the courtyard. You tell him about your dreams. You can see how it makes him physically uncomfortable, and he agrees without hesitation that you need to get rid of Solas.

You wake up. That conversation never happened.

You ask Dorian in the library whether he's ever heard of anything like this. You're not sure why you bother anymore. You've tried so many times, by now.

But this time, Dorian's eyes light up. He leads you to a corner of the library, already rambling off theories, pulls a book off the shelves and begins feverishly leafing through it. He knows something. He's seen something like this before. Your chest fills with hope.

You wake up. That conversation never happened.

You don't try again, after that one. You're not sure how he knows that you're about to approach someone, but he catches you every time.

You don't visit him in the rotunda anymore. You don't take him on missions. It doesn't help. It feels like he's right behind your shoulder at all times.

He's gone from your dreams now, but that only makes things worse. You haven't woken up from what you didn't realize was a dream in a while, but what does that mean? Is what's happening now even real? Was your last mission real? Was your first kiss real? Are you going to wake up again, any minute now?

You decide that your only way out is to finish your task. Kill Corypheus, fulfill the Inquisition's purpose. Then, there will be no reason for Solas to be interested in you anymore, and you will have your life back.

So you do just that, no matter how much blood, fear and difficult decisions you have to get through.

You push your own pain aside. You win. The war is over.

During the celebration, someone informs you that Solas has disappeared from Skyhold. You breathe in relief.

But he comes back.

Two years later, you've gone through a mirror to a place you don't understand, and he's there, waiting for you. The fear is so overwhelming that for a moment you stop feeling the pain in your arm.

"I suspect you have questions," he says.

No. No, you don't. You don't want to ask him questions, you want to run, but the pain from the Anchor kicks back in, rendering you helpless on the ground. You have no choice but to talk.

All you can ask is, why?

And he tells you. He tells you exactly what he is. He tells you how lonely was his thousands-of-years slumber, how much he yearned for a connection, even with a lesser being such as yourself. How he wished to be understood; how he looked through every aspect of your being to find the best way to connect with you.

Unfortunately, he says, it did not work. Your limited mind would never be able to truly comprehend him. But the Anchor gave you a glimpse, a deeper one than most mortals can see.

However, he would like to have it back now. It's for your own good. He promises.

When he tears your arm off, you weep, not with pain, but with the relief of finally knowing the truth, knowing that what you experienced truly happened. Of finally knowing your enemy.

And then you wake up.

[yandere-daydreams]

Hey guess what? I'm just gonna send you a yandere monsterfucker ask because we should probably get even weirder in here!

Imagine a totally effed up, eldritch shape shifter that came out of the void one day and just saw you. Imagine the hijinks, a Monstrosity that loves you so much that it decides to BE you! It studies your mannerisms and routine and every little last detail about you so that it can finally, transform into its most favorite person in the world. Imitating your voice on the phone, quitting your job and saying a few mean comments to your friends and family to distance you, so that when it finally comes to show its true form to you and whisk you away to its realm forever, nobody will be in the way! Isn't that just neat?

tw - disturbing themes, implied non//con, manipulation, and obsessive behavior.

it really is the ultimate form of flattery, for a being so great and so powerful to carve a piece of themself away and shape it into the form of their most beloved mortal. they can't stand to be apart from you, so they make it so they never have to be - copying your gestures down to the smallest movement of your fingertips, learning your speech patterns and habits, practicing and practicing and practicing until looking at their own reflections brings on the same bubbling spark of joy they catch a glimpse of you. improving your life was always going to be child's play (most things about human life are when you can snap your fingers and change the very fabric over the universe), but they take a special joy in doing things as they think you would; submitting a formal resignation to the job that's always caused you so much stress, moving you out of that cramped apartment and into the property you've always said you'd never be able to afford, 'removing' a few of your old, worn-out friends and making room for the branches of themself they've designed especially for you to slip in. it's gratifying to put in the effort, and they want you to be able to understand what they're doing for you.

that's the form they choose to approach you in, too, when they decide it's time to reap the rewards of all they've done for you - because surely no face will set you more at ease than your own. you do panic more than they'd prefer, but that's alright, they just adore the sounds that slip past your lips when they're on top of you, all of it so breathy, all of it so strained, like you think there's anything about yourself you can keep away from them. they look forward to being able to share themself with you one day, as you've (however unintentionally) shared yourself with them, but you're not quite ready for that, yet.

until then, they'll just have to leave you in the hands of the person they love most <3

[punch-love]

Could you give us some of your fic recs as well? 🙏🏼

I've been waiting for this ask. * is for all time favorites.

Classics/Required Reading:

Between Apollo and Arachne. / He is Soundless From Afar. / Blood Sickness. by elastic honey (infernoconcealed)

I got into this fandom specifically because of this author. I think all of their work is incredible but, these three are my favorites and also the first bookmarks I ever made. I like the ways they explore their dynamic, and they often explore darker scenarios between the two of them with a lot of heart and nuance.

How To Get Physical by Wilt

I like their writing as much as I like their art, but this one in particular is a consistent re-read for me. It's a trans Peter written by a clearly trans writer, and it's soft and kind and good-hearted in a way that really, really sells the history between them.

Up to the Sun (Full Speed Ahead, Mr. Parker) by SleepsWithCoyotes

The first AU I really enjoyed and also one of the best. Eldritch horror Wade that goes from a massive tentacle creature to an off-putting mercenary that gets attached to Spider-Man. It's great. The whole verse is great.

for the wrong reasons by orphan_account

This is one of my favorite Wade character studies of all time. He gets hit with a truth serum and ends up at Peter's apartment. It's sad and complicated and perfect, and I've read it more than a few times.

gunpowder and firewood / steel and flint * by periodically_puzzled

This is forever one of my favorites. It's the best first-person POV in the fandom hands down and is just so fucking good. It's got everything, idenity porn, grindr, complicated explorations of emotional manipulation, bromance, and it's so very funny.

Snake Oil by BunsofHoney

This was so good that my writing group chat temporarily re-named our chat after it. Peter is a preacher and Wade is a possessed snake oil salesman. It's very good, and also you will learn something about the 20s as it is immensely well researched.

Blazed (Smoking Weed is Gay) * by GreendaleHumanBeing

This is one of my all-time favorites. Peter is coping with his midlife crisis by being a huge stoner, and Wade has mellowed out and joins him for long smoke sessions. It's very slice of life, intimate, slow burn friends to lovers. It's one of those reads that just feels really, really good and relatable.

Paradise (spread out with a butter knife) by Sarah_Sandwich

A soulmate/slice of life work that really will make you feel something profound by the end of it. I read this one at four in the morning and didn't sleep until I was finished with it. It made me feel something big.

Dog Years by androgynousdouche

This is the only unfinished work on this list but man, is it a hidden treasure. They really build a foundation for the relationship and the intimacy between these two is so....it's really good. I wish it was finished, but even though it's not, I still think it's worth the read.

Porn:

Tip of the Tongue * by TimidTurnip

I think this is probably the work I go back and re-read the most. It's got everything. Peter Parker's insane oral fixation, his inability to come to terms with his own bi-sexuality, homies who are mean to each other dynamics, and worship based blow jobs. It's great. You should read it.

i could show you and stop (don't stop) by jilliancares

I think this is probably two of the most infamous smut works in the fandom but they both really, really deserve the hype. The first is the eating out fic of all time specifically for me but also for a lot of other people and the second is my favorite situational porn.

Meeting Minutes */ Pitter Patter by WhoopsOK

These are hands down the best watersports fics in the entire fandom. I've read the entire tag, I would know. The first has Peter being hit by a truth serum and telling his fantasies to Wade who intentionally does not sleep with him, and it's hot and good dynamic wise. The second is just a very hot scenario where Peter pisses in Wade's mouth while he works behind the counter. Great stuff.

a luxury few can afford by three-fingered (calciseptine)

I love the way this author writes them so much. It's fun and fresh and so good at building up some good old-fashioned tension. It also has some great character study moments inbetween blow jobs (my beloved)

Fucked Up Shit:

she's not going to die today / Songs for the Zombie Apocalypse / Need You Like A Gun To The Head * by (zerospoons_onlyknives)oprime

I also consider these classics/required reading but they are all very dark and go places that fans of the classic dynamic might be surprised by. SNGTDT is the best and darkest soulmate AU you'll ever read. SftZA is not only an incredible zombie AU but also one of my personal favorite pieces of zombie fiction period. NYLaGttH is one of my favorite smut fics of all time and one I often re-read (the title should be taken literally)

twisted, baby by jilliancares

The Peter "adrenaline kink" Parker work. It's dubious and intimate and exhilarating in a way that never gets old.

tap out whenever by periodically_puzzled

also known as "the fic that triggers me so bad that I've never commented on it despite reading it eight times" this is like. One of the darkest works in the fandom, hands down and if you can relate at all with the content, will put you in some sort of headspace. It's excellent. It's horrifying.

Because You're Mine *- WaterMe

I absolutely love this one. It's a sex-pollen turned non-con work that is very dark (mind the tags) but if you want to go there, this is the place to go. I always come back to it and find something new to appreciate. Also the only second person work I've ever enjoyed/felt affected by in the way I think second person is supposed to do. (honorary mention by this author: their Arbor day fic)

Sinking by coveryourheads

This one is hard to describe, but if you're interested in some really nuanced work on sexuality, this one will sit with you for a while. Peter and Wade are in an intense D/s relationship that is both abstract and personal in ways I've never really read about before.

[monsterlovinghours]

What about the Dons in DnD world? 🤔

I'm sure some are really easy but fell free to do an in depth analysis on their role and backstory. (The easiest one would definitely be Scarabee 👀)

Ooooohh. Since I'm on my phone and typing out long things is hard I prooooobably won't go too in-depth but I invite y'all to reblog with your own thoughts and opinions!

-A while back @realmonsterboyhours drew Bajo as a tiefling and now I can't see him as anything else. He's also bard coded, he's definitely got the charisma for it--he also plays that sexy flamenco guitar.

-You're absolutely right though, Scarabee is a no-brainer. Obviously a warlock, he's got a patron already part of his lore. Has just about every spell or potion ingredient you could think of up in his attic. As for race, I could see a half-elf. Like, there's something of the fey about him, but he's been human or at least knows what being human is like.

-Zhuk is an orc and I'll die on this hill. He's big, he's beefy, he's large and in charge. I'm also going with barbarian, based solely again on art drawn by @realmonsterboyhours of him holding a sledgehammer. Imagine big-ass swords in those meathooks of his. Or a giant axe. Or just picture him saying "fuck it" and beating someone to death with his bare hands. Look at me and tell me he wouldn't do it. Not because he isn't civilized or intelligent but because someone's gotta do the dirty work.

-Cia is an elf druid. I mean, *look at him.* Mans is about as fey coded as you can get and looks like he didn't see something that wasn't a tree until he hit triple digits. If you took the daddy energy out of Halsin, you'd be left with Ciaróg. Also, he helps his tiefling husband with his rose gardens and how cute is that??

-Gio is an enigma. He's absolutely an eldritch horror, but just for funsies, I think he'd take the form of a drow. After a couple of centuries he might change his form, but drow is his favorite. He has a lot of arcane knowledge, things that beings of this plane shouldn't know, so he just tells everyone he's a wizard. Did a lot of studying, you know.

-Saft a half-orc artificer. He's a bit of a big boi, sturdy and thick, but despite his size and his brutish heritage, he can tinker with the most delicate mechanisms. Mostly uses his knowledge to make explosives and weapons; incendiary devices are his favorite. Has built so many guns.

-Bjalla is a vampire. "hhhh but what's his race" LISTEN HERE I'M NOT CHANGING WHAT'S ALREADY PERFECT. Of course he's a fucking vampire, what else would he be? And yes, I believe he would be a rogue. No, I am not saying this because I'm also madly in love with Astarion. There will be no further questions. He's canonically an assassin, you can't tell me he wouldn't be a rogue. Yes, I have a type, leave me alone dammit.

-Mozzie gives me dwarf energy, though his size doesn't quite gel with that idea. Maybe an earth genasi? Something earthy idk. He also gives ranger vibes, someone who travels a bunch. Though in this realm of high fantasy, since internet isn't a thing, he deals in information. He can gather intel, spread rumors, manipulate the flow of knowledge from one person or place to another.

-Lag is a firbolg. He's big, he's fluffy, he's a big ol sweetheart who couldn't hurt a soul if he tried. Also probably a druid, though he's less concerned with plant life and more with animals. He's the fauna to Cia's flora.

-Devlin is a shifter. Like, it's obvious, right? Clearly he's a shifter, he's werewolf coded. And honestly, I think he's our cleric, just because I had the idea that the deity he worships is so ancient and he's been cursed so many times, he's actually forgotten its name. But also how funny would it be to have a cleric that bestows blessings and makes things holy by literally absorbing the curses and evil magic. It's fine, he's fine, it doesn't hurt! Not anymore, anyway.

[pokemon-ash-aus]

Heyo it's person who was gon make a glitch trainer, I've yet to draw her still but my god I'm rotating her in my mind giving her so much backstory lore and problems because I can't make a normal person apparently. She's now developed into, well I suppose another cautionary tale about cloning this time the they won't necessarily be the same person anymore cautionary tale that they might look the same but they might not be the same and she's not the same to the original the professor/her mother was hoping to bring back. So baggage there for her to deal with the whole individualism how she's perceived by peers who knew the version before her the original, not to mention the whole actual glitch problems on top of that as I've kinda taken the concept of missingno jumbled shaked stirred flambéd and sizzled it into lmao what I want so it's somewhere between a real just virus and probably to some degree an incomplete diety pokemon where only parts of it can access the world and unfortunately these small particles make pokemon sick until it managed to cross species into the original character so she became infected unfortunately the infection ended up killing her, (and honestly the trauma of losing ur kid and probably having to ya know study what is happening to determine if this could happen again probably resulted in a lot of issues for the professor hence then deciding to just clone a new daughter likely out of this isn't fair she deserves her life and to not remember their child for the experiments they had to run) when the dna from her was extracted to clone some of the virus strains of this being were taken too and fused during the cloning growth process kinda combining the human and this otherworldly unknown creature. Luckily human passing but now she has extra problems of these powers that result in 'glitches'; teleportation, item duplication, terrain manipulation/altering, probably a level of autonomy instability so her arm might be too long in the morning but go back to normal general me lightly knocking on the sv games. Also to some degree she could theoretically destroy the whole world being missingno was a game corrupting glitch there's probably a reason it's not meant to be in their world but now in a way it is and she could bend reality to her whim with branching arms of unown floating around just behind a veil ready to enter this world. Mainly cause when she snaps the mental imagery of the unown either in taunt or warning floating into the phrases "Run" "get away" "flee" is just mwah. Basically she is an eldritch horror waiting to happen yall are lucky she has so much anxiety and would find doing that mean. Unfortunately though school is stressful, being sent away from home to another region because your mother can't even look at you because she can't stand you is stressful and wow that's a whole load of trauma, students being bullies and probably puberty have caused her powers to start manifesting hence ya know only happening in Paldea she's got a lot going on on her plate.

Again I can't make normal characters she's just trauma and problems incarnate apparently

Hdjejen thats a mood

[blackosprey]

Gods as a positive emotion parasite is honestly something that I don't think most people who use "gods' power comes from faith" actually think about, at least not when those gods are portrayed as necessary or legitimate pillars of reality. You see it more when the god is cast explicitly as an antagonist and unnecessary for reality to continue.

It does make some intuitive sense. A story that's completely lost effectively never existed at all and cannot influence anyone in the present, and a religion with more followers can do more things in its god's name through those followers. But that only works when you're assuming "gods" are not elemental fixtures of reality, but rather metaphysical concepts locked out of direct influence. A bacterium doesn't need people to know about it or believe it can multiply and cause plague, it simply is. A faith-powered god is an existence less stable and independent than that of a single celled organism.

I mean, really, it's a being a clout chaser. And I think we can all agree being a clout chaser is not a divine existence at all.

___

Although I'm not so depressed by reality, I also have an issue with leaning on this trope too much: it utterly discounts the magic that absolutely still exists and is even enhanced by greater understanding.

I know what clouds are. I understand that water is a molecule formed by hydrogen and oxygen atoms, and what atoms are. I know lightning is enormous static discharges and that rain is vapor condensed in the sky.

None of that changes the enormity of a thunderstorm, the feeling of thunder rattling your core, the explosion of plant and fungal and animal life afterwards. How peaceful it is before, how nice the rain smells during and after.

It's only by our own arrogance and indifference that magic actually fades. That's not caused by "knowledge," but by assuming that we know all there is to know and that none of it is interesting. It's only because of scientific study that we know that our five senses are only an extremely limited way to experience reality, that there are sights and sensations that a human being is simply incapable of experiencing first-hand. We know the universe is bigger than our ancestors could've possibly known, most of it is populated by Dark Matter that we have no way of directly perceiving, that the very building blocks of reality operate on rules and physics that act completely different from what we perceive, and that we aren't privy to a huge chunk of reality that isn't even Dark Matter simply because our five senses aren't attuned to those degrees. Hell, one of the fundamentals of quantum physics is that objective factual knowledge about where a particle actually is an impossibility (because by the mere act of looking at it, you introduce enough force to alter its position). It's probably safe to say that our knowledge has only reinforced the idea that we don't truly know anything!

But that's not really the problem. People don't actually want possibility, they want satisfying answers. The scientific stuff is too granular and removed from your day-to-day perceived experiences to feel relatably understandable, and worse, it exposes the chaos and lack of intent underlying reality. The comfort of myth is that the world is controlled by forces that, despite immense power, can still be understood (and manipulated) like humans, that things are the way they are because they feel and think like you do. The fact that "eldritch horror" is defined by uncaring all-powerful beings that defy all comprehension kinda exposes an assumption that "conventional gods" ARE comprehensible and NOT utterly indifferent to humans.

Well, that, and the power fantasy of breaking the game like no one else can. Even if people gained super strength and speed and flight they'd still think up other ways to be even more special in a way not currently possible. Imagination's endless and people will always find a way to be disappointed with the limits of reality no matter how much we progress.

All this might be just another manifestation of people's tendency to glorify the past Good Old Days too. We lament how much lesser people are since those times, but truth is, the past we glorify very likely felt disappointed and disillusioned with its present and future too. Ancient Greeks complained about how children are rude and that most men only aspire for petty things Unlike The Heroes Of Old. This ain't new and it ain't special. Just people disappointed that their imaginations are cooler than reality (it always will be bc you can always imagine "like now, but better!") and projecting that imagined reality onto the past.

When stories set their worlds in Decline

Where to start?

I am not sure how to start this or really frame it so I will just ramble about it. I'm not even sure if I put the right tags for this since Fate put the thought in my brain but many stories aside Fate do similar.

I'm not sure if it is even a trope but the thought on my mind lately is an irk I've developed when stories set their world amongst a decline.

Whether it's the slow death of gods, magic, or both.

The entire Fate series, for those not aware, is such a story. The magic wielded by fan fans like Rin Tohsaka is really second hand magic referred to as "magecraft". Within Fate a true magician is someone who has a power that fundamentally breaks the rules.

In a sense, magecraft is a type of science in it's own right while true magic will let you do crazy shit like how the mage Aoko can manipulate time.

Or there is the "second magic" wielded by Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg which lets him see and visit alternative timelines. However, this "true magic" isn't easily obtained and even the knockoff magecraft is a slowly dwindling system.

Within Fate the "age of gods" ended and magic nearly vanished. As humans understand more of their world, the less mysterious it becomes, and since magic/magecraft rely on mystery that means it's dying slowly.

In essence, as humans grow the mystery and magic it offers dies. Within Fates "age of man" the gods and nearly every magical creature has done retreated from it. In time humans will progress beyond their Earth leaving it all behind.

Faith as a Fuel?

Another aspect of the series is how "gods" are designated by faith. When enough humans believe in something the planet will grant that entity "authority" and make them what humans view as gods.

The oldest were nature spirits, some were even of ET origin, while later gods were men whose legends grew well beyond their breadth.

And, like mentioned, Fate isn't the only story with these ideals. Using faith as a fuel source is prominent in many throw away manga, stories, or even western movies like both versions of the film 'Clash of the Titans'.

Hell, even something like God of War initially had this premise. The creator of the series initially planned for Kratos to kill all the gods which would then lead to monotheism. You'll even see abandoned hints for this in something like God of War 1 with it's mural of the magi following the star.

And while I am thankful that God of war has seemingly abandoned this idea traces of it remain which add to some inconsistency. Granted, the classic games have a few plot holes and more than one inconsistent moment if you pick it apart but they're more glaring in the new Norse titles due to it's heavier story focus.

Like the idea that magic is "tied to the land". Their excuse for Kratos loss of powers is him literally murdering Greece yet he -somehow- is cursed to have his Blades of Chaos follow him. They even retain their magical properties which the dwarf Brok notices instantly referring to it as "foreign magic".

And I wont even get into the idea of Kratos being a god when he explicitly lost his godhood in the second game. A born demigod sure but the Norse pantheon treat him like a full/true god even if of another land.

Never explain the magic

Now I know all of this seems disjointed but they do share a common trend that I have issue with. The root of what's annoying me lately with such stories.

They're explaining the magic

Rather, it's adjacent to explaining the magic. It's the idea that a world loses it's luster as you learn more about it. The idea that knowing what a god is or how magic works makes it less potent.

Sure, it's less mystical, but I do not like this idea that it's less wonderful. I can't take the gods of your world seriously when they need human faith to function. That undermines the whole point to me.

There's nothing godly about what boils down to a being that leeches off positive thoughts. There's nothing magical about a world that is not only less so as science progress but also dying because of it.

Imagine how much interest I lost when I learned that Fate's Earth is slowly dying. Magic barely appears and the mana used to do magecraft or other supernatural feats is a finite resource. It's a whole other meaning to the idea that humans are slowly killing the world they inhabit.

And I know this is a fully subjective problem. I wont make the mistake as considering this an objective issue. It is something I have misgivings about because when I seek stories I seek something fantastical.

I live in the real world, I keep a very hard line between that and anything else, so I do not wish to be reminded of the real world in a story. I'm seeking an escape from my boring reality not a reminder of how it got here.

I'll stop now

I guess the blunt way to put this is that it ruins the joy of a world. It's related but a specific, grander, issue than "explaining the magic". After all, at minimum, to explain something can be meh or annoying at the most. It's a minor problem.

But to take that idea on a grander scale to make a world more realistic, a god more human, or explain how someone can do the impossible? No. That's not impressing me that's depressing me.

This may be why I rarely find Final Fantasy or Shin Megami Tensei games that I can enjoy because most boil down to killing god or some stand in for a false god.

I'm not very invested nor do I feel like something grand took place when a world is "left in human hands". I live in a world ran by human hands, I'm not impressed with what I see.

A GoW:Ragnarok review I watched the other day said it best- no. More like he said something that just aligned heavily with my issues on it all.

While I love Kratos story of learning to be a decent father and less violent god I do, like that reviewer, find it silly to seek humanizing gods or supernatural beings.

For storytelling purposes, yes, some level of comprehension is needed. This is the whole reason why "nobodies" from Kingdom Hearts act so human despite lacking the core "heart" needed to feeling.

But that doesn't mean I want them to be human. I'd totally buy something fundamentally not human doing or planning something in a way that makes no sense to me.

That creature, be it god, fae, or otherwise, is not human. It's similar but it isn't human. It may think on a grander scale due to it's immortality or it may not plan at all due to it's mischievous nature.

Bah! I'll stop now. I've ranted enough to feel better. Have a nice day assuming you read this far.

[edge-lorde]

the religion of the galactic horde

“You seem reluctant to help me. But I only wish to use your weapon to bring peace to the darkest corners of the universe. (Glimmer: Peace? If you activate the Heart of Etheria, there will be no one left.) Yes. No war, no pain. Old worlds swept aside, a new beginning for the universe.” --Horde Prime explaining his motivations to Glimmer

the horde in shera was definitely inspired by Christianity and uses a lot of its imagery, the most iconic being the baptism scene. it certainly gives off the vibes of a christian or christian adjacent cult, but what is its actual doctrine? i have some thoughts about that. 

first here are what i consider to be the 3 main differences between real christianity and the horde: 

Their jesus didn't ascend to heaven. He's still with them.

They don't have a larger creator god. They worship horde prime like he is a living god but they don't believe that he created the universe.

They have no focus on the afterlife

this is going to be long.

before i begin heres the sparknotes version of christianity for anyone not familiar. I am not evangelizing this, just think of it as LORE. 

Once upon a time there was a guy named Jesus. He was the son of the one true god, who both created everything in the universe, is everywhere and knows everything, and controls the afterlife. Jesus is god born as a mortal person, sent by god to teach all of humanity the errors of their evil ways so they can repent and go to the good afterlife when they die. There're two afterlives, a good one and a bad one, heaven is the good one and its run by god and his army of angels, which are divine beings that god can send to earth to do things. The bad one is called hell. 

Anyway, in his time on earth jesus was the only person ever to never do anything bad ever (called sin). He tried to teach people how to be good but was Too Good for this Cruel World and was killed. 3 days later he came back from the dead, proving his divinity. Some time after that however, he ascended into heaven without dying, telling his followers to spread the word because hes going to be coming back. Christians today are still awaiting his return. In the meantime, christians follow his teachings left behind in holy texts. 

The crux of christianity is to get to heaven when you die, and this can only be done by following the teachings of jesus christ, believing in god, and believing that jesus was the son of god. Its a given that everyone will do bad things at some point in their lives so you're supposed to pray to god and ask for forgiveness regularly and if you really mean it then god will forgive you. 

thats the basics. 

to my first main point from above, if we posit that horde prime is the jesus equivalent of the horde religion, because hes treated as a living god, his goal is to spread his philosophy throughout the universe, then in the horde religions jesus never ascended into heaven. this would be like if jesus in our world rose from the dead and just picked up where he left off, and never died after that and was alive today. that would be pretty good proof of divinity. 

to my 2nd point, theres nothing in the show that suggests that horde prime thinks that he created the universe. this means that he did not get his divinity from anywhere but inside himself, hes not claiming that hes the rightful ruler of the known universe for any other reason besides his ideas are the best. 

the 3rd point is that the show does show horde prime or the horde caring one bit about the afterlife, save for one line from wrong hordak.

"Brother, I hope you, too, are full of only love for Horde Prime and have no crippling doubt eating at your soul."

meaning that they have the concept of the soul. which is very interesting and ill get to it, but on the whole the hordes focus seems to be on the here and now. this is a huge departure from christianity because chrisitanity is all about getting to the afterlife. that is the reason that christians are supposed to follow christ and recruit as many people as possible to do the same, because if they dont, they or other people will supposedly go to hell when they die. i say supposedly because at funerals, even if the person who died wasnt a believer, in my experience no christian would ever ever ever insinuate that someone went to hell. 

but the difference still stands. following real christian ideology is supposed to have benefits for the individual in the afterlife, while in the horde religion salvation seems to only be found by submitting to prime in this life and being either a tool that he can use to further his goal of purifying the universe or by letting him remove you from it. 

on top of all that, horde prime has the hive mind, which he uses to control the thoughts of all his followers. this means that theres no room for a bible study, no need of a holy text at all in fact, and no room for interpretation. horde prime delivers orders to your brain directly and can tell if you think anything out of line. real Christianity does have the idea that a sin that you just think about doing is as bad as actually doing it, but in the horde these thoughts can be easily discovered and punished. 

the horde religion seems to me to be a strangely secular version of christianity with only the bad parts remaining; the control, the blind faith, the certainty that you are right and everyone else is wrong, the not questioning authority. with none of the good aspects like community, and good deeds. it is a cult in the truest sense of the word, a religion that begins and ends with one person only, that person being horde prime.

so, if you take horde prime out of the equation, what, if anything, would be left? 

i find the plight of the horde clones here to be the most interesting. we know that they do have thoughts about their religion, as it was hordaks belief that he could earn his way back into horde primes god graces that kept him going all those years in despondos, and wrong hordak is distraught when he discovers that horde prime lied about krytis. 

unlike both the chipped people we see in the show and real religious converts, the clones were born into this cult that values blind obedience only, and have no prior ideology or cultural identity to fall back on when they are taken out of it. 

so to answer this question, i must add some conjecture to horde primes backstory and how the clones see themselves in horde primes universe. I already wrote up a brief backstory idea for horde prime/the clones and have it posted on here somewhere. I'm not going to dig it up but you could probably find it in the #horde prime tag on my blog if you dig hard enough. 

To summarize it though, I have it as horde prime was once a regular (bad) dude who became a cult leader under the premise of preaching peace --> he becomes disillusioned with people and even his own followers because he doesn't actually like people, he likes manipulating them. --> this and the power of being a cult leader go to his head and he starts to think that he is the only person in existence capable of living a moral life and everyone else needs to be saved from themselves, the world would be a better place if he could just make everyone's decisions for them. --> he somehow gets a hold of the technology needed to set up the hive mind, be it by inventing it himself, stealing it, finding it, or being gifted it. 

I'll pause here to address the theory that horde prime was originally an eldritch being that simply possessed a dude who would become the template for the clones. I think there's enough stuff in the show that this is a valid read and might even be canon but i don't really care for it. For me, what makes horde prime a compelling villain is that he's a very human evil, so having him actually be an evil demon thing instead of a really bad but believable dude who got near ultimate power weakens his character. BUT, i’m not going to address it in my comic so i'll leave it open as to whether he's got that going on or not. If he is, the clones don’t know about it and neither they nor the other characters have any way of discovering it. IF he is though, it would happen here. I could see it being a cool idea for him to get the hive mind from the eldritch being that would then possess him and haunt his lineage for time immemorial as a deal with the devil sort of thing, but he has to be a bad person before that.

Anyway he gets the hive mind--> he gets all of his followers to chip themselves --> gets those people to chip everyone else on his home planet --> use his planet wide army to harvest all resources on the planet and build his first space fleet and take to the skies and start his conquest--> realize that if he is to succeed hes going to need to both become immortal and find a steady source of new followers because chipped people die eventually and he doesnt care about people enough to figure out a way to keep a self sufficient population of followers alive, he just wants people around to adore him and do his bidding--> invents his cloning system-->

and heres the big one,

his original body has to die so he can upload his consciousness into a new clone.  

and THAT, to the clones, would be the moment that horde prime becomes a god.

his reliance on the hive mind and vast network of followers are what give him his godly abilities, but just as the horde clones could not exist without being cloned from horde prime, so too could horde prime not exist as he does in the show without them. 

i see it as both a christlike sacrifice and a cyclical system of debt and sacrifice. horde prime dies for our sins, so that he might continue to purify the universe so that there will be no more death and more clones will be born, while the clone hes possessing has to essentially die by giving himself up entirely to become the new prime so all this can happen too, and to repay primes death. not all clones can become the next prime however, but all must be ready to die for him, hence horde prime having clone infantries despite also having robots he could send instead. 

i dont have clear thoughts about what the green goo is, but horde primes words about his brothers lending him their life force go along with this idea. the clones give him theyre life force, so he can give it back to them.

another interesting aspect of this is that prime always portrays himself as a brother to his followers, never a father as christ is portrayed as in christianity. i know this is from hordak and horde prime being actual brothers in the 80s show but ive seen this trope come up a few times in media before, where a man raises a kid but has them call him their brother instead of dad. it seems so deliberate. because a parents job is to take care of you, but a sibling, might take care of you sure, but thats not their job. its like hes deliberately trying to place himself on the same level as his ‘sibling’ so he can demand the same amount of respect you would give to a parent without taking on the responsibility to not... ya know... screw them over in the head? idk it seems very slimy to me. but that says more about prime as a character than how the clones see him.

and we still have the concept of the soul to fit in here somehow, and do they have an afterlife? im going to say no to the afterlife. theres just not enough in the show to go off of and everything that we do know about horde prime points to him only caring about himself in life. HOWEVER, there is nothing more quintessentially christian than the concept of hell and i think that will be of use here. 

since the creation of the clones is tied with the creation of their religion, this would put the clones themselves less as allegories of people who need to be saved and more as the horde version of angels. in my telling here, horde prime views all people who do not submit to his will as net negatives to the universe who have to be removed for peace to exist, so by this view the chipped people are the saved, the people that horde prime kills are the sinners, and his military campaign is one long apocalypse slowly working its way through the universe, with the clones carrying out his righteous judgement. but the afterlife isnt involved in this, so even if some chipped people are left alive, eventually they will all die out, and then it will be just horde prime and is clones in a perfect, peaceful starless sky, and thats what heaven is. 

getting to heaven is the main goal of real christianity and it is the same in horde religion, but heaven isnt a place in the horde cosmology, its a physical goal that has to be created. not all clones will make it to heaven of course, because most will die before they reach total destruction of the universe but the clones arent supposed to think of themselves as individuals anyway. they have to be willing to die for horde prime and die for the cause or be cast out and thats hell. 

i dont see prime as someone who would kill his own followers outright too often even though he could. plus they arent supposed to value their individual lives the same way normal people do anyway it doesnt seem like a real punishment, they need something worse than simple death to fear. so by my view hell for the clones is separation from prime. it can be in life or death. no matter how bad it is in the horde being on the outside of it has to seem worse, and thats where the concept of the soul comes in. when one is a part of the hive mine, their soul is with prime. they are not supposed to have a will or any thoughts beyond love for prime, its essentially the same as not having a soul but they think of it as being at peace. being cast out is to be never at peace and would be told to them as being the worst possible thing that could ever happen to someone because it corrupts the soul. 

“a lot of unpleasant things happen in the horde so just imagine how terrible it must be outside of it! you cant because i protect you from that. now get in the goo, this is for your own good” - horde prime probably 

this is why outsiders are so resistant to submitting to primes light and also why its ok to kill them, in the hordes view. 

so, to start wrapping thigs up, there is no horde without horde prime. the religion starts and ends with him. because he is supposed to be the only person ever to be able to make true moral and just decisions, without him is followers cant take any actions without worrying that they are going against primes will. since they have no holy text they cant extrapolate and try to figure it out either. its up in the air whether or not they are going to find a way to get the horde to make the jump from cult to regular religion.

its late i got to go to bed now

[dent-de-leon]

Nonagon is a mystery to me as well and I wish we knew more of him. Is it the eyes? The tomb? The blood? If Molly had lived to be chased down by Lucien then where would Nonagon manifest? Would he take control over Molly like Obann did with Yasha? Maybe corrupt him little by little as he leveled up? Or was he always there within Lucien, part of that charismatic cruelty of his? What was his previous goal, before he met his end at Vess' hand? I have so many questions. But I don't think (1/x)

we'll ever get the chance to figure it all out. Breaking the 4th wall for a moment, Nonagon was probably created before Lucien, a part of the deep lore sparkled into reality by a PC's blank backstory. Then Lucien's characterization came from the life Tal gave to Molly: the mannerisms, the accent, the ideals, the hearts broken when he met his fate. I can't tell if Matt took notes when Molly was still alive or if he studied the character during the hiatus, but one thing is clear: (2/x)

He's doing an incredible job at messing with our heads and tugging at our hearts. I want Molly back, for more than just a brief moment. I want to know more about Lucien and his relationship with the TT and the MT. And I want to understand the essence of the Nonagon and how he came into being. And wow, this got a bit longer than I thought it would. I'm sorry for throwing more questions than anything at you. I'm just so fascinated by these characters. I wish I could have them all. (3/3)

oh this is all really interesting!! I enjoyed reading all your asks, there are so many good points here. Throwing this under a cut because I went a bit long.

It’s interesting to think that Matt may have wrote the concept of the Nonagon before Taliesin even started planning Mollymauk. That’d be a really neat coincidence, if Molly just happened to figure perfectly into this grand relic of ancient history Matt was already mapping out. Though I think it’s just as likely Matt could’ve tweaked the Somnovum’s story to suit Molly. One thing’s for sure, and it’s that a lot of this arc of eldritch horror and Lucien’s rise to power was crafted for Taliesin specifically. 

You can see how excited he gets in certain moments with Lucien, how shocked and invested he is when that little shard of Molly bleeds through. Wherever Nonagon’s story ends, I hope Taliesin is happy with it. Similarly, I think a part of why Matt is able to show these little echoes of Molly in Lucien so well is because he knows Taliesin, and ultimately knows where he wanted to go with the character. 

As for whether Molly would’ve ever become the Nonagon himself had he lived, I feel like he was somehow spared from that fate. Partially because I feel his soul is now his own, and so he wasn’t corrupted by the Somnovum the way Lucien was. Partially because Lucien’s death might’ve temporarily severed his body’s connection with the Somnovum. Because, even with all nine Eyes, Molly was never tormented by any of Cognoza’s dreams. He wasn’t tortured by the screaming chorus or all seeing eyes in countless nightmares, didn’t get any strange abilities from the Eyes. For all intents and purposes, they were just...inactive for him. And I’m incredibly grateful he was able to avoid losing himself to this like Lucien. 

After watching the most recent episode, the Nonagon as his own character and as an extension of Lucien and Molly--well, he’s even more of a mystery to me. But I do have some thoughts. 

Something about all the Somnovum and Lucien begging the Nein to join them, to become one with them, to share in their life and power...I don’t know, it feels like an echo of when Molly was empty. Wistful, longing, desperate to hold onto something that feels real. Mollymauk found that: “Joy can fill an awful lot in a person’s life.” But this city can feed and feed, yet it will never be full. It’s cold, dead, all consuming. Empty.

Lucien the Nonagon still longs for the Nein, I think. To be near them and keep them by his side. It’s from Molly’s affection bleeding through, but processed and interpreted through Lucien’s own impressions. A bit warped and twisted by how he tries to rationalize it. “I feel like you all have some part to play still...like you’ve a use to me.” “Because try as I might, a part of me still likes them.” “Yes, that must be it. I needed witnesses...” 

They were merely more pieces to manipulate in this game of his--of course he didn’t kill them, they were useful. Or he needed an audience. Or he had to have witnesses. Time and again Lucien makes excuses for why he lets them live, lets them go, but still selfishly keeps them so close. “I left you alive? Why did I leave you alive?”

Lucien telling the Nein to join him, wanting to share in what he’s feeling with them, how he sounds so wistful and soft, “Come! It’s far prettier up here.” “I wish I could share it, but...you need to be with us. You have to be with the pattern.” Come see the view, just stop and rest awhile. It’s reminiscent of Lucien watching the sunrise with Caduceus, taking a moment to just breathe and enjoy something beautiful. 

He drives all his followers to their doom, yet still he clings to the Nein. Even after being corrupted by wasting away in Cognoza for years, shattered into broken fragments the Somnovum themselves pieced back together in their own distorted design. Lucien, the person he was before the Nonagon, whoever Cree once knew and called out to in her final moments--a part of him was a bit lost or lonely I think, desperately craving some way to stave off the “emptiness” in his own life. And maybe that was something he thought the city could provide. The power to turn dreams into reality, to grant any one of his desires. 

It’s strange, because...the Nonagon is this hungry, distorted presence of manipulation and control, an otherworldly entity that came here to obliterate the Somnovum and rule whatever remained of these ruins. The Lucien that was once a mortal man had long since been lost to this. That’s not even factoring in whatever compassionate shard of his soul was broken off and became Mollymauk. And yet, we see a gentler side of Lucien last episode, I think. He seems oddly welcoming when he sees the Nein. He wants them here with him, even if he can no longer understand why. Lucien, even while one with the Somnovum and the City, is still compelled to act on Molly’s feelings for the Nein--in his own distorted way. 

I think Lucien as the Nonagon, still feeling this ache from Molly’s heart, the way Mollymauk’s soul is still fighting and enduring within him...I think it means hope. More hope than I’ve had all campaign. Molly at least will survive this I think. And given that his soul was once part of Lucien’s, we can hope that maybe a part of Lucien’s heart, this glimpse into the better person he could’ve been--that lives on in Molly. 

[neverendingparable]

Three loud knocks tore through the quiet of Maelle's office. She glanced up briefly from the book she was reading next to her mahogany bookcase which was certainly not hiding any secret entryways, wondering if she should turn around and deal with whatever nonsense her employees needed from her now.

They have been awfully clingy lately, on edge after the threatening messages the Institute had been getting from some Lightless Flame members. Threats of the Institute burning to the ground, of terrorizing everyone the employees cared about. Jonathan had been assaulted personally by one of the members, but to Maelle's disappointment, none of them burned him.

She had hoped that riling them up with help of the Spider would push them far enough to rough up her Archivist a bit. Of course the danger was always that they'd just kill him, but Maelle was certain Jonathan didn't have enough to lose for them to go that far. They did prefer torture over death and it would be far more likely that they'd wait until he had found the love of his life, started his family and achieved all of his life’s goals before they'd take it all away.

Either way, she would have to find another way for them to hurt her Archivist enough to mark him. Manipulation was one of her many skills, she liked to think, even if she wasn't nearly as good as the Web. But manipulating the Desolation...well, it wasn't as easy as it seemed.

Maelle sighed. It must be Jonathan coming to ask if she was sure the Institute was safe enough. For the fourth time this week. Sometimes his constant worry annoyed her. He was made head archivist too quickly and felt out of his element, now that he didn’t have Alice to look up to for advice.

She didn't think to check before she called, "Come in."

If it was an avatar, she reasoned they wouldn't bother to knock in the first place.

The slow, atypical creaking of the door made her pause. Her door never creaked due to the maintenance she insisted on so...

With an annoyed sigh, Maelle placed the book back into its spot.

"I really don't have time for you right now, Michael."  

"Good thing I'm not Michael." An unfamiliar voice said back.

She turned around slowly, sizing the newcomer up. He looked uncannily familiar, despite the odd fashion she was certain no one in her Institute followed. His voice struck a nerve of familiarity as well and it took her a good while to notice he had two arms too many.

A Flesh avatar?

"You're Maelle Something something Magnus, right?" He asked, eyeing her right back. Unlike Maelle, he seemed to recognize her.

This entire thing was starting to unnerve her. Usually she was the one doing the unnerving. But it would be easily fixed, she thought and directed the Eye's attention towards him.

"......I- I see." An intruder from a different dimension. Not a flesh avatar, a pitiful remainder of an experiment, done by a shady organization. He was here for her. He was probably not alone, yet she couldn't See any physical being around him. Clearly he had just hitched a ride with Michael, no doubt It was trying to mess with her in any way possible.

However, she couldn't figure out more about him. She couldn't See any influences relating to Alice or even figure out what sort of leverage he had over her. His mind was surrounded by something white and unfathomable, it kept his secrets hidden. Nothing like that has ever happened before, except...

He stood there, watching her. To regain any sort of control over the situation, Maelle quickly tucked away her worry and motioned to the chair right across of her desk.

"Please, take a seat. Let's discuss the reason behind your...visit."

She sat behind her desk and waited for him to take a seat. To her surprise, he obeyed without any hesitation. Either he didn't expect her to have any traps or he knew whatever defense systems she might have would do nothing. The latter, coupled with the strange protections around his mind, worried her even more.

"What can I do for you?" Maelle began, hoping to resemble a calm, collected strategist who could have any amount of tricks up her sleeve.

"I actually came here to spy on you," the stranger said without hesitation. "Hiding in the tunnels because your weird Eye can't see me there or whatever. But I decided I am not getting any fun out of sitting in dusty old passageways in the middle of London so I wanted to see if we could...arrange something else."

He smirked.

Maelle kept her face impassive. She was starting to worry even more.

"What did you have in mind, Mr...? And who sent you?"

"Just Maso. I'm not that old to be called Mr yet, mind you. And I'll tell you who sent me." 'Maso' paused.

Maelle weighed her options. She couldn't See much about him. She wouldn't be able to tell his weaknesses or pull out his most unpleasant memory to render him broken if she needed to. She and the Institute had always relied on the Eye for protection, but if It was blinded now, she would have to be smart.

"Alright, 'Maso'. I'll bite. What would you want for an information exchange?"

"Ah, it's simple." He drawled, stalling. "Very, very simple. We both have information the other person wants. And...how do you usually get information out of people?"

"I use my eldritch powers to See into their mind and pull out whatever I want to know, rendering them defenseless against the attack."

He smiled. "You can't do that to me, I've got some fluffy pillow protection."

What on Earth did that mean?

"How else do you get information, Maelle?"

She studied him. 'Maso'. It was starting to make sense, but it seemed to ridiculous she didn't want to believe it.

"Are you suggesting I torture you for the intel?"

Maso clapped his hands together. "Congratulations! You have a brain after all!"

"You are protected, though. You said so yourself."

"Protected against evil sneak peeks in my mind, maybe. Not protected against the other stuff." He jumped up, kicking the chair aside. "Alright, we'll make this simple. You torture me and I'll tell you some stuff. Of course you have to really put your effort into it, if you're just going to put on Mozart or something then I'm going to leave and you'll never find out what schemes are being made to take your Eyepire down."

This had to be one of the weirder conversations she's had in a while. And in the Magnus Institute, that does count for something. For all of Maelle's evil schemes and despite her mercilessness when it came to watching her employees get tortured and killed on the job, she felt a little in over her head. She usually watches others get hurt or she pulls out their most painful memories until they had no other choice but to submit. Actively hurting people wasn't quite her thing.

But she couldn't afford not knowing. There were things at stake here. Her glory, her power and most importantly, her safety. She couldn't afford being stopped. She had to see her plans through, she had to prevent herself from becoming a victim as well.

Maso was waiting for an answer, looking like he had already resigned to her saying no. There was something utterly pathetic in watching him ask for her torture and if she had the option, she would deny him the pleasure of it just to watch him suffer through getting rejected once more. But there were bigger things on the line than the pleasure of hurting - or denying the hurt - of one sad multi armed freak. So she sighed in resignation and stood to take off her neat blazer.

"How do you feel about pipes?"

[crystalelemental]

So I finished Ephraim’s route in Sacred Stones for the first time since the game came out.

When I was young, I remember saying the same thing: I don’t like Ephraim’s route.  It just didn’t seem as strong as Eirika’s.  And I could never articulate why, to a degree where most of my friends would insist it was because I just played Eirika’s first so the complete deviation felt weird, even though Ephraim’s route was just as solid.  But I’m an adult now, and I like to think better at articulating opinions, so maybe now I’ll finally be able to express why I don’t like Ephraim’s route.

Part of it is Ephraim himself.  I don’t like Ephraim, I find him incredibly dull, and think he embodies every insult people want to throw at Micaiah.  Unbeatable in battle, unnaturally good at everything contrary to what’s told to us, the plot literally revolves entirely around him.  Ephraim’s just bland to me.  I think the best way to express this is to use a quote from someone who really likes him, courtesy of the only Fire Emblem fandom personality that I legitimately cannot stand.

Their take on Ephraim’s route is that: "Ephraim says he doesn’t pick fights he can’t win, but then he does pick a fight with Lyon.  Then the journey after that is his character arc, of accepting how to become a king.  He goes back to his kingdom a loser, and learns to accept that loss to become a better person.”

Problem: not a single word of that is true.  For one thing, Ephraim never lost a fight, because that would be a flaw.  Ephraim won every fight he was in ever, because “I don’t pick fights I can’t win.”  Ephraim, you are three guys, exiting a castle, surrounded by a moat, further surrounded by mountains.  Your only backup are cavalry units, and your enemies are mostly flying units, including a general so powerful that he injured Seth, your country’s best knight.  But oh no, he gets to escape.  No explanation, because you cannot possibly write a believable explanation for how that happened.  He just gets away because Ephraim’s just so cool.  So yeah, there’s no “learning to accept the loss,” because there is no loss.  To anyone, at any time.  I have no idea what they’re even talking about with “his loss to Lyon.”  My best guess is they just hadn’t played in a while and forgot.

If anything, Ephraim’s crucial flaw should be presented as being a fucking slacker.  They poke fun at it when they’re being taught as kids, but when war broke out, Ephraim left Renais to rush into battle, got his ass stranded, and wasn’t present to help Renais at all.  This is slightly acknowledged when they finally return to Renais, but only in the sense of “he’s back now and he’s better so it’ll never happen again!”  But (1) it’s mentioned exactly once, and (2) it’s not brought up nearly as often as Lyon being weak-willed, or Eirika “relying” on Ephraim protecting her, as flaws go.  Which is its own issue, considering we never actually see Eirika relying on Ephraim at all.  She didn’t actually need his help either time he showed up.  Nice to have, but far from saving an unwinnable situation.  We’re just told she always needs his help, because if she didn’t then Ephraim can’t be the cool twin who’s so good at war.

And that’s all that Ephraim is, and all he ever becomes.  There’s no “learning to become a king.”  He accepts that he’ll take the crown, but there’s really no reason to it aside from his penis.  He’s the prince, so he gets to be king.  Nevermind that Eirika’s route was more about establishing diplomatic ties, and that she’s by far the better leader.  Ephraim gets to lead because reasons.  All Ephraim does is charge into battles.  We get exactly two establishing scenes of Ephraim’s leadership qualities, both of which are around war and not actual leadership in a governing sense.  And get this!  They’re both with Seth, who, again, is their kingdom’s best knight. And guess how both scenes go.  You’ll never guess.  Ephraim’s either just as keen as Seth, or is presented as the one in the right.  Seth comes along as Ephraim’s advisor, but literally never has to advise, because Ephraim’s just so capable and good at this.  And remember, this is the hero who never read a fucking book.  Who copied all of Lyon’s homework, and couldn’t be asked to learn shit in his life.  I’m fine with him being a strong soldier.  Hell, I’m fine with him even having a keen sense for combat due to practical experience.  But being able to keep up with or exceed Seth, who should be one of the best minds for fighting we have, is kind of annoying.  At the very least, allow Seth to have some role as an advisor, rather than just...nothing.

At no point does Ephraim really learn or develop in any compelling way.  He starts out great and ends great.  Any flaws the narrative presents are solely as a backdrop, they’re never reflected in the story.  Him being bad at studying and books never bites him in any way.  Hell, it never even comes up, save for flashbacks and a singular comment the Demon King makes about Ephraim being “poorly educated,” which was more a taunt about him not immediately guessing Demon King.  Ephraim suffers from exactly no faults ever.

This leads into the other big issue.  Lyon.  I do not like Ephraim-route Lyon.  At all.  There’s a lot that goes into this, but the short version is I actually think Eirika-route Lyon is more engaging, complex, and shows greater force of will.

Eirika-route Lyon presents as fully consumed by the Demon King.  His soul is actively being devoured, and the beast within is winning.  However, at certain points, Lyon takes back control.  Briefly, but he’s trying.  He fights back as much as he can, but it’s impossible to resist the Demon King’s control.  His motivations are the same in both routes, and largely comes down to a desire to save his country and his people.  He’s used the arcane arts to manipulate the energy radiating from the Sacred Stone that has the Demon King trapped within.  He uses it to heal people, and see into the future to attempt preventing disaster.  In Eirika’s route, the Demon King expresses more of the unresolved feelings for Eirika, and his inadequacy because Ephraim’s just so good.  So like...they had a compelling tragedy going.  I could absolutely believe a 17-year-old has inadequacy issues around the girl he likes, and that this would be an easy mark for an ancient eldritch evil.  But the fact that it has to double back to Ephraim pisses me off.  But we’re talking about Ephraim-route Lyon, so that’s enough paraphrasing her route.

Ephraim-route Lyon seems to present just as himself.  On the surface, this seems like Lyon is showing greater willpower and resolve, right?  He’s in control!  He’s going to use the Demon King’s power to save Grado from impending disaster!  That’s way more impressive, right?

Well, not really.  Considering that Lyon acts in control, but is ultimately just going about this like a nitwit.  Complaint #1: Lyon doesn’t act as in-character in this route.  Ephraim even acknowledges it.  Lyon’s peaceful, he’d never instigate a war over this.  Like, this is an Edelgard move, not a Lyon move.  But here we are, being told that Lyon, of his own will, started this war.  Why?

Complaint #2: Because Vigarde sucks, for a start.  In the last flashback, Lyon is talking to his dad, and expresses uncertainty about his ability to rule.  Again, great in for the Demon King.  But Lyon’s actually on this one.  A major disaster was foreseen, and they need outside aid for their people to survive.  Vigarde says Renais would never aid them, because they need to put their people first.  There’s a bit of interesting consideration here, in that Renais, a smaller nation, probably can’t take in all the refugees that Grado would have.  But like...Renais is friendly with Frelia, who could be persuaded to help.  Rausten is all about charity like this, as the religious epicenter of the continent.  What the fuck are you on about, Vigarde?  Pinning literally all of this on Lyon to find a solution isn’t just cruel, it’s stupid and wrong.  Get it together, asshole.  How did you manage to not lead Grado into the ground?  Was it hard to teach yourself to breathe through your ass, or is that natural talent?

Complaint #3: Lyon’s motivations are all over the place.  This starts because he revives Vigarde, and this breaks the Sacred Stone, creating the Dark Stone that houses the Demon King.  Okay cool, this is when the possession starts.  But remember, they’re presenting this like Lyon’s in control.  After this point, Lyon still takes leadership.  He still makes the commands, through his father.  And he instigates a war.  Why?  Well, they never really say.  One answer is envy of Ephraim, and a desire to beat him.  The other is self-sacrifice.  He talks with Knoll about some documents that allegedly allow him to circumvent the foreseen history, and it involves human sacrifice and great magical power.  He plans to use the Demon King’s power and his own sacrifice to accomplish this.  But that...doesn’t explain the war.  You could just kill yourself on your own time, dude.  Like, hidden motivations include saving your people, but all of this was the worst possible method.  If you anticipated latching on to other nations after your death ends the royal bloodline, then your people are now reviled for being instigators in a completely meaningless war.  They’re less likely to get help than ever.  If it was to conquer territory for them to move to before the catastrophe, then why self-sacrifice at all?  The war now has a point, but nothing else does, because you’d have accomplished your goal through the war.

So basically, if Lyon’s in control, there are two possible motives for the war: showing off to beat Ephraim, or a pre-cursor to your self-sacrifice for some reason.  Either way, it’s super shitty.  Like really, what’s your motivation for enacting continental warfare?  Complete disillusionment regarding mankind’s right to rule, and seeking to end strife through complete subjugation by another species that (allegedly) doesn’t feel the emotions that lead men to folly?  The belief that war is inevitable and that living beings cannot help but kill one another for the most banal of reasons, and thus the most just course is to re-awaken their creator to put them all to an eternal rest?  Recognition that the structure of society is so bad that people are constantly suffering and dying, and decided to stand up and tear the structures out by the roots through bloody conquest if necessary, in hopes of a better tomorrow?  Or because your childhood friend’s dick was too huge and made you feel inadequate/you had to kill yourself and I guess this was the best you could come up with?

The more likely reason given how fucking incomprehensible his motivations are otherwise, is that the Demon King was always in full control.  That Lyon was never actually in command of things, but thought he was, even as the Demon King ate away at him from within.  This makes more sense, because it’s just...Demon King killing things for funsies.  But it also means Lyon has 0 actual agency, and it’s even more just the demon king.  In Eirika’s route, Lyon actually fights back and wrestles control, if just for brief moments at a time.  But in Ephraim’s, the only implication that makes sense is that Lyon never had anything.  He was never in control, and never even put up a fight.  He was just easily duped into believing that these were his conscious decisions.  Which makes Lyon a lot less compelling overall.

I just...I don’t like Sacred Stones.  I figure that’s clear, but it’s good to be open about it.  I feel like the game just tries so hard to make Ephraim the coolest thing ever, and every male character (except Seth) who interacts with Eirika is just obsessed with this notion of needing to be better than him before she’ll love them back.  It’s why I can’t stand Innes.  All their supports are is him being bullheaded and insisting that no, he has to protect her, because that’s how this is supposed to go, and he will be better than Ephraim so she’ll accept him.  Fuck you, Innes.  Though man, Lyon’s not much better.  I can at least sympathize with Lyon’s feelings of inadequacy and uncertainty about Eirika reciprocating, but the fact that it all boils back down to Ephraim again...god, neither of them even consider Eirika in this.  It’s all about Ephraim and your own dick-focused insecurities.  At no point do either of you consider Eirika’s feelings in the matter, everything’s about you you you, and needing to be better than Ephraim who’s just too cool I guess.  May as well rename this Toxic Masculinity: The Game at this rate.

tldr, Ephraim’s route sucks.  Eirika’s route is at least a decent tragedy, but sidelines its main character too hard to really feel like her route.  Lyon would be better off without Ephraim’s route.  The end.

[doctorstrangeaskblog]

Doctor Strange’s Powers Week!

<<< Mirror Dimension <<< Seraphim Shield, Grinsom Bands of Cyttorak, Eldritch Whip, Rings of Raggadorr <<<Bolts of Balthakk <<<Portals <<<Eldritch Barrier

TODAY IS GOING TO BE VERY TEMPORAL! AND IT HAS TO DO WITH TIME RELATIVITY!

Today we’ll talk about…

Rings of Raggadorr

Winds of Watoomb

Eldritch Whip

Eldritch Sword

Seraphim Shield

Grinsom Bands of Cyttorak

Bolts of Balthakk

Images of Ikonn

Teleport (short distances) (Thor Ragnarok)

Future Prediction (by touch) (Thor Ragnarok)

Astral projection

Mirror Dimension manipulation inside this dimension

Mirror Dimension opening

Reality Bending

Tracking Spells

Portal Conjuring

Object conjuring (map, Thor Ragnarok)

Telekinesis

Transmutation (tea to beer, black hole to butterflies, clothes)

Eldritch Barrier

Time Manipulation

Eldritch Catapult

Eldritch Platform

Time Manipulation!

So, what is “time manipulation”? What extents does Doctor Strange’s power has? Along the movies so far, we’ve seen Stephen use the time stone in MANY DIFFERENT WAYS, so yeah, it’s not about “time travel”, it’s about something way more complex and it has everything to do with the multiverse theory and with the theory of non linear timelines. Since this will be complex, let’s divide the thing in topics to make it easier. Before we start, it’s important to have in mind Stephen consumes a lot of energy in order to use the stone. It’s tiring and difficult to do so and that’s something just him (and Agamotto) managed to do so far. (Thanos doesn’t count since he used the Gauntlet to “force” the stones to use their powers).

Control over the time stone

Witness temporal possibilities

Rewind, advance and freeze time

Time loop

Time travel

Control over the time stone

Time spells are activated while using the hand sign below. It’s also used to open the Eye and activate the time stone, but probably, time spells that do NOT use the time stone also can be executed that way!

When Stephen first used the Eye of Agamotto, which contains the Time Stone, Wong and Mordo were impressed, and there’s a reason for that. In the comics, there are many theories and versions of the story that only someone with a pure soul or with a huge potential for good can control the time stone and the Eye of Agamotto. Other theories claim only Agamotto himself could control the eye, what made the “Doctor Strange is Agamotto’s reincarnation” theory get strong among many fans. In the movie, it’s only subtext about how one must learn a lot in order to use the Eye. Strange still hadn’t read the entire book when he used the Eye for the first time but he already had a lot of knowledge considering the massive amount of books he had read. He also has the huge potential for goodness the Ancient One had spoken about so...everything matches, but so why didn’t other sorcerers manage to use the eye? I bet Wong and the Ancient One were good people and skilled sorcerers, so why didn’t they use the Eye before? That still is a mystery, it hints us there’s something special about Strange, and I personally believe it’s about his DETERMINATION. When Stephen started to study the Mystic Arts, he was the most determined fella out there and I’m not talking about being a genius. Stephen might be brilliant when it comes to learning and he has photographic memory, but still, that doesn’t make him a genius. What does so is how determined he was. He BELIEVED learning all those spells would make him recover his precise movements, he believed he would get his old life back (what was a great lie). That raw, pure, intense determination made his “mana”, his “mystic potential” grow strong enough so the Eye would listen to his will and obey (or accept him).

Doctor Strange’s willpower is what makes him the genius he is, he gets really good at whatever he WANTS to do and that’s his strong spot. Let’s not forget Strange was THE WORST STUDENT EVER, he couldn’t conjure the easiest of the spells and all the other students seemed to do easily what he would struggle a lot to accomplish. What did he do? He started to study day and night, he focused and eventually, surpassed them all. His willpower was unreachable. The Ancient One, when leaving Stephen on the Everest so he would get determined enough to conjure a portal showed us confidence, determination and focus are extremely important when it comes to magic, in other words, spells aren’t just about equations and formulas that must be said or pictured, it’s about emotions and spirit as well. In Infinity War, we also get to see how there seemed to be a strong bond between the Stone and Strange, maybe even a friendship bond considering the stones do have personality? In fact, Stephen never USED the stone, Stephen and the stone have WORKED TOGETHER to achieve noble goals so sure, there’s a huge bond between them, the stone allowed Stephen to control its power. Thanos needs a gauntlet to FORCE the stones to use their power while Strange can even hold he stone with his bare hand without getting hurt.

Witness temporal possibilities

Strange can use the stone to live possible outcomes, as he did in Infinity War. When he does that, the stone and himself become the “center” of time, so while it seems seconds to us, to Strange the events might last for YEARS. Stephen saw over 14 million different possible outcomes in Infinity War. Many calculated that for him this trip might have lasted between 500 and 1500 years, considering each outcome could have lasted from hours to entire days or weeks. While in this mode, considering himself and the stone become the center of time, he doesn’t age, but his thoughts, since thoughts are quantic, Strange gets to keep the memories of everything he witnessed since time doesn’t affect them directly. That’s the tactic he used to find the only way to defeat Thanos and bring everyone he killed back to life. According to this logic, Strange defeated Thanos the moment he got to see how to guide the heroes to fulfill the future he saw. So yeah, Stephen already defeated Thanos, we basically still didn’t get to see that yet, we’ll probably see it in Avengers Infinity War Part 2. This technique requires a really strong mind and willpower because well, anyone could easily go insane doing this. Imagine seeing your friends die or be tortured for years over and over again in different scenarios of the same thing, you the only one who knows and remembers how things went, like in the movie Groundhog Day.

Rewind, advance and freeze time

The spell activation causes a great impact on the atmosphere.

We saw Strange doing that to the apple he was eating and to Kaecilius and the entire Hong Kong area in which the battle took place. Using that technique, Strange brought back to life everyone who had died, including his fellow sorcerers and undid all the destruction. This spell only works under its range, in other words, all the cameras OUTSIDE the Eye’s range FILMED the entire battle and weren’t affected by the Time Stone. Strange doesn’t make existence rewind, he makes the RANGE he used the spell on rewind. To prove that point, there’s a teaser trailer in which Hong Kong’s News are broadcasting the battle, not understanding what’s going on while Strange and Kaecilius are fighting, like Breaking News! See the video below:

Another important thing about this spell is that sorcerers who know time is being manipulated around them and over them can get out of the spell, just like Kaecilius and the zealots did. Thanos probably would have been able to do that too if Strange tried to use the Time Stone against him, considering the titan had 3 stones to use against the sorcerer. We saw Strange move time backwards, forward and freeze time in the movie, so yeah, it’s pretty clear he can do that.

Time loop

The famous “SAVE GAME?” from videogames, Strange can use the stone to “lock” time in a fixed point and set conditions so time will be rewinded to that specific position all over again, in the movie, he used time loop against Dormammu and the condition for the loop to be activated was his own death. Strange locked himself and Dormammu inside the loop while all the rest of time was frozen around them, preventing Dormammu from escaping. As time is relative, everyone else didn’t realize they were frozen, so all they remember is to be living happily, in that case, Strange indeed could fight Dormammu forever while humanity lived safely from Dormammu. It was the most heroic thing Strange did in the first movie, what granted him the definitive title of Master of the Mystic Arts and his place as the New York Sanctum Guardian. (Until he died in Infinity War). Strange also can use the loop in specific targets to make someone relive the same moment over and over again, as well as he can do that to himself. He can also lock a place in a loop or a group of people. We know that because of Wong and Mordo’s warnings and scolding, in which they implied Strange could erase his own existence or live moments over and over again. Considering Stephen can choose the range and the targets of the time stone, he easily could trap anyone inside loops, except if they were a more experienced sorcerer or if they had another Infinity Stone to counter his own, like Thanos. That’s why using the time stone to BATTLE against Thanos was useless, but that didn’t stop Stephen from using the stone to win the war.

Time travel

It’s the greatest question Infinity War left us. When witnessing the many different outcomes, it’s clear enough Strange LIVED them, one by one, considering his panic and despair after he came back from the trip. I don’t think it’s easy to give Stephen a panic attack but that use of the stone sure did. He can use the time stone not to just watch the future or the past, but he can also live those possibilities. Going to the past and changing things could erase someone else’s existence (like in Back to the Future) as warned by Mordo, however, going to the future and trying different things to solve a matter creates different outcomes. Considering Strange belong to the MCU reality, despite seeing many different outcomes, if he moves enough pieces he can GUIDE THE MCU REALITY INTO TURNING INTO THE REALITY HE WANTS, in other words HE CAN MANIPULATE THINGS SO ONE SPECIFIC FUTURE COMES TRUE, leaving the other possible futures for other realities, parallel ones, inevitable ones. It’s also a great question if Strange sent the time stone to the past or to the future in that moment. Well, we saw him hiding the stone in a star in the most poetic way possible, so well, I wouldn’t be surprised if Avengers 4 started with the time stone appearing in front of Tony in Titan, since it can only travel time, not space. Was he bluffing when he gave the time stone to Thanos? Did he activate the stone in a loop? Did he use the stone to make the gauntlet break or travel time? We’ll have to wait to find out, but the theories are amazing regardless. 

This was today’s Doctor Strange’s Powers Week! I hope you liked! Share and comment! :D 

[cvenir]

here i am to introduce EIGHT characters that i actually thought i had already introduced lmao set me on fire !! but yay, take a look under the cut! ofc eventually proper bios will hit my pages and their tasks will expand much more on my children! as always, pinterests and songs are linked if u wanna go a lil deeper

just kidding i drafted that when i was aCTUALLY gonna do 8 but thankfully tea says she won’t accept me until i post 2 intros so yOU SHALL RECEIVE 2 RN and 8 later <33333 gotta keep y’all on your toes heh also i wrote niall’s in my journal on the plane so like... it’s not great (literally just bullets of sentence fragments) but wtvr that’s what bios are for amirite

NIALL O'DONOGHUE looks an awful lot like TARON EGERTON. HE is TWENTY-EIGHT and while they're ASTUTE, they have a tendency to get pretty ARDUOUS. You’ve probably seen them around Kola listening to DON'T WANNA FALL IN LOVE by KYLE (ok his pinterest is incredibly unfinished look away)

v conflicting mix of soft and hard

king of suppressing his lowkey intense feelings

kinda awkward around others due to the fact that he spent his entire life reading, writing, and studying –– he rarely interacted with other people as a kid and this mostly continued into his adult life

sweet soft boi has a double masters in medieval and renaissance studies and french and romance philology; he’s working on his phd rn while interviewing to become an assistant professor at kola university

grew up w a single mom (never knew dad) and had no siblings so his childhood was even lonelier :////

so like mad libs = his bff :’(

well mad libs and the shoulder flashlight he invented for late night reading (shoutout to amy santiago)

v soft and passionate heart

loves intellectual discussions like my boi has v strong gemini/virgo/mercury influences –– and a libra (or taurus i haven’t decided yet) venus so waTCH OUT

takes friendship v seriously (love u grant <333 @mcnuggcts )

buttt he can be a giant asshole sorry i don’t make the rules

v organized and particular

and scared of getting close to people bc he’s so used to being alone ugh my son!!

but once you get in there you’ll see he’s a good guy like rlly is he just has a bad temper sometimes and can barely express any emotion but anger half the time :///

ISLA VARGA looks an awful lot like ALEXIS REN. SHE is TWENTY-TWO and while they're SAGACIOUS, they have a tendency to get pretty MACABRE. You’ve probably seen them around Kola listening to COOL GIRL by TOVE LO. 

so i’ve played isla before n i’m v sorry to do this but i feel hella lazy so i’m sORRY but here comes a fucking huge wall of text don’t look at me and don’t feel like u have to read it ://// all the triggers i tagged apply to her; she’s p dark so seriously do not read it if you think she will make you uncomfortable!!

to preface, isla is like the embodiment of all of the seven deadly sins, and i molded her a lot after amy dunne (scary, i know) and april ludgate (mostly amy tho april is just deadpan like she is –– when she’s being herself, that is), as she is an incredible pococurante yet perfectionist who borders on sociopathy

soooo this will make sense later but her real name is actually brigid (father’s surname idk) which she now uses as her middle name

so isla’s dad is a fucking rockstar !!! badass right. she’s half-siblings with hadley ( @ofadorations ) and colby ( @shtbgs ) but she actually never met her mom, something she’s not too pressed about

bc she was cute as a button, family friends decided to get her into the entertainment business as a child star almost as soon as she could walk –– she did it all, acted, modeled, danced, sang, she was literally hollywood’s little starlet and she hated every minute of it. the entertainment business loved who they created, but that girl was never her and it weighed deeply on her psyche.

when she was twelve, she decided to fake her own disappearance because she was fed up with everything –– she cut her hair to her ears, dyed it brown (and has continued to do so ever since) and sneaked her way to nyc hoping no one would recognize her

well someone did, and they happened to be a member of ruthless and organized mobs of the city –– in return for keeping her concealed, she pledged her devotion and became one of their most skilled and lethal honeytraps in the business (WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE BC THEY MADE HER START YOUNG I AM SO SORRY FOR WRITING THIS IT JUST PLAYS HEAVILY INTO HER CHARACTER)

along the way, members inevitably died –– people she was sworn to care for –– many times before her eyes as well, which only lead her to realize she enjoyed witnessing all sorts of death, even those of people she was supposed to “love”. emotion was almost nonexistent in isla’s childhood, a trait that bled into her character development.

she began to idolize the gang and its power, something she now craved. still, isla was doing a great job of portraying herself to those around her as a rosy, meek, baby-doll, when in actuality she was a child full of hate who would soon blossom into a young adult of the same tone. she became even more obsessed with death, fantasizing about it as if her unusual thoughts would make her less afraid when it came for her. 

eventually, as she grew older, she was accepted into the higher ranks of the mob; this couldn’t have made isla more content. the macabre girl was honored that someone else noticed her genius, the way she could predict things, assess situations, manipulate people to do her bidding. it was only right that she was initiated into a society that praised her for such harshness

but, as all things do, her time in the gang ended after ten years and isla did what she does best: disappeared. she’s relocated back close to home, kola california, and it’s only a matter of time before people and the industry realize just who she is

if she’s acting like her true self, she behaves like a negative, eldritch layabout who likes to watch others suffer (sounds extreme, i know). however, she rarely lets anyone see the real her, and instead accepts various facades in a big game –– the darkness is truly her personality, she’s not faking her cold demeanor. this image enables her to mask her true potential and the fact that she is unflaggingly loyal and cares about those she’s close to.

if i had to give her a label, it would probably be the pococurante (which is defined as: an indifferent person. possibly they’re bored, jaded or even been hurt. either way, they tend not to get attached to things and don’t show much enthusiasm, whether that’s on the outside or the inside, too)

on the other hand, she could be accurately summed up as an arcane, as she’s an enigmatic mystery and she prides herself on being a puzzle that several people have failed to solve. there are many sides to her personality; in some aspects, she’s very much an aesthete considering she spends a great deal of her time taking putting together outfits, so she has a very defined fashion sense and typically dresses like a princess half the time, which is very ironic considering her dark personality. she truly is so GLAMOROUS (and this is why i love alexis for her) and she works that mean girl, hard soul aesthetic while serving looks and also able to come across as incredibly sweet, which is perfect for her multiple personas. she’s a stunner, with both her appearance and personality; as much as she is indifferent and would prefer to fly under the radar, wherever she goes people always want to ask questions, making her into this intangible concept that everyone wants to define.

people will recognize parts of her as if they’ve seen here in another life, and because of her ostentatious, puzzling, and spellbinding personality, she’s unforgettable. on the other hand, she’s also something of a virago, due to the fact that she can be incredibly feisty when angered; but it takes quite a lot to actually set off her fuse, as she’s good at controlling which emotions she shares. for the most part, she is incredibly blasé and even-tempered. additionally, she’s is a bit of a picaro because her primary aim with her life at this point is to be independent and liberated from any and all attachments to other people. mostly, though, she’s is nothing more than a girl who’s afraid; of what, she still can’t decide.

all in all, she’s so much of everything that she isn’t quite certain of her own identity. her character is one shrouded in secrets and shadows yet alluring and sensual. but, lbr, most of all she’s just deadass terrifying. one of her defining characteristics is her desire to make things happen for her through her own abilities and determination. obstinate as all get out, she doesn’t like to own up to making mistakes so she tries to prove that she’s almost invincible to them bc she doesn’t wanna let anyone see her vulnerable, or she doesn’t want to let someone down - this refers only to those that she’s actually close to. due to her apathetic nature, all she really wants to do is let most people down – people she finds boring and useless – and have some fun because of it. however, when it comes to people she truly has allowed herself to care about, her deepest desire is for their happiness because they must be pretty damn special for making her give a shit.

still, because of her evasive tendencies, she almost always does ruin things for herself and for others, even when she actually cares. she’s like a double-edged sword; when she finds something worthwhile, she sees so much beauty and potential in it, but she’s got a midas touch. whenever she wants to obtain it or pursue it, her involvement makes everything fall to ashes, and she is afraid of her own influence. despite her tendency to run away, once she latches on and decides to be truly loyal, she’ll be devoted in such an extent that she would undoubtedly kill for them.

she can be a loudmouth whenever she actually decides to speak, constantly fabricating outlandish stories and even going off like a deranged person, but beneath her caustic and frightening exterior, isla is rather pensive. on the occasion that she chooses to offer legitimate advice, it’s usually very elaborate and composed. still, she doesn’t want people to know about capable she is, or how intelligent she can be, so she hides her rare brilliance with a tough exterior and stoic personality.

idk if you can tell but i like diving into the specifics of my character like their star signs and stuff so i searched an amy dunne mbti and tweaked it bc it really helped describe her even further! she’s a intj !

introverted intuition (ni): isla sees everything around her in a world of symbols, of metaphors, and of potential. her narration will continually be littered with predictions, with ideas about how things are going to be and what will result from this or that. despite her brashness that some may assume is impulsivity, she is a planner, anticipating new “problems” and seeking to rectify them with her own twisted brand of justice. she tries to work everything into her overall system of understanding, of her big ideas about how the world works, including her take on her various false identities she possesses for her previous job as an escort but also to mess with the minds of others around her. she’s always disappointed by how the real world is never as good as the way she imagined it; she is perfect and nothing else can catch up with her expectations.

extroverted feeling (fe): despite her aloofness, and rather lack of any sort of emotional bearing, empathy, or any sort of true feeling, isla is conscious of how others’ perceive her, of the image she’s created, and of how key that social perception is to her success, even if it’s just in her own imagination. she restrains her real opinions in order to adapt to her environment, as she’s somewhat of a chameleon, only a few have had a chance to catch the true witch beneath the crown. she’s the mistress of change, easily altering her identities in order to better fit in with new people, should the situation require it. she’s easily devastated when she reveals her real personality to others, as in the past, some that she’s left truly see her have refused to accept her twisted true-self. even though she is wholesomely selfish and self-seeking, isla is very people-focused, and applies most of her intellect and analysis onto general people-based functions, that may she can have the confidence that she has clearly manipulated and analyzed every aspect of her environment, as she needs this to feel in control.

introverted thinking (ti): as mentioned, isla is highly analytical, always trying to see the why of a scenario, what’s behind human behavior, which turns her attention to psychology and manifests in her flair for anticipating the thoughts and actions of those around her; she is so obsessed with understanding why people tick that she looks past her own slighted judgment, as she herself could easily qualify as a sociopath/psychopath. she’s always trying to fit in any new experience, or piece of information, into her pre-established system of facts, and as such is rarely ever surprised. despite her apathy and lack of care for her life or how it progresses, she’s highly organized and loves to make checklists, arrangements for the future, and methodically ticks of her obligations, one by one. while her emotions and feelings are significantly suppressed, and even nonexistent, she makes up for that human trait with a very powerful mind, one that is quick to learn and adept with languages, memorization, and logic. however, she doesn’t want anyone to know just how brilliant and quick she is, as it’s her greatest asset, thus explaining why she chose not to be a member on the intellectual team.

extroverted sensing (se): isla tends to respond her physical environment with fierce analysis, as expressed in her intellectual capabilities. she’s almost incapable of living in the moment, contrary to how people suspect she is, considering she portrays herself as impulsive and cunningly excitable. in reality, though, even when she’s crossed off everything on her checklist, she’s almost incapable of relaxing, or enjoying the world around her, as she doesn’t find things that other people find beautiful. she struggles the most with the physical side of her plans, even though she is a very physical individual. she is very open with her body and indulges with the lusts of the flesh, as she sensuality is at the same level as her wickedness. along with this, isla craves for the environment that houses her figure to be pleasant and organized, and can’t stand when things are out of order.

[sawkinator]

ayyy who wants a textdump about the last few ST episodes? Too bad you’re getting one anyways.

So I guess we did find out what the deal was with ‘008’. And she was…. Kind of a manipulative POS. After what she did with Eleven I’m kind of wondering about her other friends and how she ‘healed’ them. :u. Even so, I hope we get to see her again at some point. Still curious about the other kids, if they exist.

Oh yeah, and I guess it’s possible that Papa is still alive? Given that one dude was offering to take them to him. Obviously he could have been lying to save his ass, but…

Anyways, the lab was intense as hell, Jesus Christ. I’m sad Bob didn’t make it, even if it wasn’t all that surprising. He was a good dude. :c Why can’t they let Joyce be happy??

Oh yeah also you could never get away with just injecting shit into people like they did there. Especially not anything that can knock someone out, because you can easily kill them if the dose is wrong. I know it’s just a show but that’s just Too Much for my suspension of disbelief, man.

One of the things I did really like is how everyone cooperated to try and defeat the Shadow Dude. :P Everyone did SOMETHING – Nancy and Jonathan helped Joyce and Will, Steve kept the Children safe, and Max drove a fucking car and finally got to stand up to Billy (whom I still hate. Even if his dad is suggested to be abusive, that doesn’t give him a ‘get out of jail free’ card for being a POS – especially to Max.) I also like that more people just… keep getting dragged into this shit that they absolutely never signed up for. Nancy, Steve, and now Max. It’s just funny to me somehow. :v

Dustin making Steve shove the dead demidog into the fridge was fuckin hilarious (but I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t do the same). If I came across the body of a creature from another dimension you bet your ass I’d be all over that shit. And really, if a bunch of people were able to study it, maybe they’d figure out how to effectively deal with Upside-down stuff in the future. I really don’t think this is a fight they can keep doing by themselves. …  Then again the military had to come in and close the lab down, so maybe a lot more people know what actually happened now.

I’m surprised nobody else actually died? Dr. Owens made it somehow (which I’m happy with – he did turn out to be a Good Guy). At first I was really expecting Eleven to disappear again, then I was sure she would Die from closing the gate – but she didn’t, and she’s living with Hopper again and god it’s all so good. I do wonder whatever happened with her aunt and mom after she left, though.

Dart recognizing Dustin was kind of adorable actually. Sure he was an Actual Eldritch Hellbeast and would probably have attacked them eventually, but he knew. Good demidog, best friend

The very end was fairly satisfying imo. Everyone had a good time at the cheesy middle school dance, Joyce is doing Okay, Dustin’s mom got a new cat… Steve, in a very welcome trope subversion, isn’t a Huge Jerk about Nancy leaving him, even if he was hurt. The ‘big brother’ thing he has going with Dustin is really sweet, too. I’m such a goddamn sucker.

The last shot made it VERY CLEAR that the shadow monster was still around – and Angery. So I’ll assume we’ll see him again in season 3. We still don’t really know what he exactly wanted, or what he actually is. I get the impression he’s an Important part of the whole Upside-down – maybe even a ruler of some sort? Or the final stage of the demigorgon life cycle (which means there might be more than one. That’s scary as hell.)

Welp, time to wait a whole ‘nother year before we get any answers, I guess! I’m already dying, Squirtle