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throughtrialbyfire · 3 months ago

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𝐖𝐈𝐏 𝐖𝐞𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 ♥

i'm a day late but i'm here!

tagged by the amazing @thequeenofthewinter @dirty-bosmer

tagging the fantastic @skyrim-forever @orfeoarte @hircines-hunter @oblivions-dawn @vivifriend

@saltymaplesyrup @viss-and-pinegar @aphocryphas @archangelsunited @changelingsandothernonsense and anyone who feels like joining in!!!! <3333

this is a first draft section of chapter 40 of Cycle of the Serpent. it features emeros thinking about a hunt he went on when he was younger, and some strange dreams he's been having… mild gore warning, but it's more abstract.

He was to kill an indrik. The hunt was a coming-of-age ceremony, one prevalent throughout Valenwood. Once taken with gazelles and other such beasts, the introduction of the indrik into the province from Alinor had created a peculiar problem with the creature, now deemed a pest. Some Bosmer had started farms of indrik, to butcher some calves and spare the rest, a good source of food throughout the northernmost parts of the province. He tracked it for almost a week. In his memory, he was with several other Bosmer, all on the same hunt, to work together, to build a connection to the Valenwood itself and to one another. The hunt lasted days, tracking the beast through the dense forests and humidity of the summer. They would take it down and take the hide, rolling it off like a tight glove, and decide what to do with the other parts. The meat, the organs, the bones, the sinew. He'd made good needles from those bones. Ones which he still used, many years later. He was deemed the best tracker of their group, and with his fathers hunting knife, he crept in pursuit of the wild beast. In his dreams, he was all alone, and the indrik was hunting him.

He'd run through the forests, thick with the natural growth of his home, the sound of hooves not far behind him, trampling the ground and pounding into his skull, the sound all around him now as he sped into any direction which could grant him a chance of survival, meager as it was. He'd come upon a house, and he'd slam open the door and bolt it shut and toe away, eyes wide in terror, the room filled with people he knew - faces, phantom-like, as though his mind didn't care conjure them up - and the voices of curiosity, questioning, why was he running, what from? Faces from his earliest memory, faces from recent, all taking up residence in the growing claustrophobia of the house whose walls threatened to fall in with the force of the indrik outside, pounding away at the door with its antlers, knowing that the one it sought stood there. The door would fall open, and the indrik would grin, and the dream would shift. Blood, in him, outside of him, endless stars, the wink and wax and wane of them. And fire, gods, the endless scorched forests and homes. This, all of this, had been his fault, from the very beginning. The house would not burn if he did not live there. The people would be alive if he had never been. Their faces, fractaled and incomprehensible yet unmistakable, stood in the doorway of a collapsing city and another starless ride through the sands and through the thick fields of another place and the faces shifted to blood on familiar, new faces, to hands reaching from dark waters, to nothingness. Emeros swallowed air as he awoke, the night not yet gone. Sticky with sweat and half-aware of his muddied surroundings, he fumbled for his blankets and tore them off. His throat burnt, hand rubbing against it, muscles beneath shifting as he swallowed down his awareness. Sleep talking, perhaps, the dryness quickly subsiding. He waited in the still, slow breaths through his nose, out through his lips, and again, until his heart could face the same understanding of safety that his mind was now clawing towards. He dressed quickly, seating himself at his desk, head in his hands.

He had not dreamt like this in quite some time. He could not recall what led his mind down this dark pathway, enough to influence the little peace he often got, but he found himself unable to put it aside. The indrik he'd hunted as a teenager, wiry and awkward in his gear compared to his peers, had been a quick kill. Yes, it had taken a few days, but when compared to what use they got out of it, then all had been more than worth the pursuit. Bones for tools, a skull they'd boiled into a stew the night they'd caught the beast, antlers into flutes and other instruments, sinew to thread… It had been routine, practically, and when the gaggle of youths returned a little haggard but with their kill, and showed their skills in taking it apart with the proper techniques and reverence, then they were deemed ready to take on the responsibilities that came with their age. It had never seen its death coming. But in his dream, the eyes took on an almost personal quality, as though borne by someone who wished him harm. Emeros ran his fingers through his thick, chestnut hair, scratching down at his neck and repeating the slow motions, before smoothing it all back with his palm and rising. There was no one to talk to at this hour, whatever hour it was, and the silence permeated the stone walls around him. He slid through the doorway of his dorm, darting his gaze left and right, the licking flames of the hearth and the utter stillness confirming that he was the only one awake, at least on this level. He pulled the door shut behind him and made his way to the kitchens, the sound of Bendt's snoring from his room nearby the only sound aside from the hearth. He could use a drink. Maybe two, if he were being honest with himself.

Emeros pulled one of the high bottles of wine from its shelf, clinking of glass together causing him to mutter curses under his breath, hand snagging the thin neck, wine sloshing around inside. He tugged a goblet from a table and popped the cork from the green bottle, seating himself to watch the flames. He still thought about that rakish boy, the canary-haired Altmer. He thought of him as he sipped his wine, and wondered bitterly how dire the situation in Whiterun must be, now that a Thalmor agent had been given a hand-written note to waltz right through the city gates and up to the Temple of Kynareth, all too close to the statue of Talos, and his zealot. The chill up his spine dusted over his shoulders and through his hair, and it wasn't from a wanton draft down the stairs. He sipped from the brass goblet and studied it in the light, the fine craftsmanship of it, the dents of a hammer which had worked away until the shape came into being. He twisted it in the crook of his thumb to watch the flames cling to the brass sides, the shadow always falling on his side. Another long drink of the wine served to help ease the nerves bundling up like fists in his mind. He poured the goblet full again, and examined the label more closely. Surilie Brothers. Figures, he snickered, that vineyard had a reach that many could only envy, though he had to wonder how. Emeros drank the last of his goblet in the silence, and placed the bottle back where it belonged, and moved to the dormitories. He stood, empty brass vessel in hand, outside the rooms of his friends. Wyndrelis' dorm was to his right, and Athenath's was to his left. He stood outside Athenath's door first, closest to the kitchens, and pressed his ear to the door. He could hear their breathing, punctuated by an occasional snore, then down into the quiet of good sleep. When he made his way to Wyndrelis' room, he twisted the knob, the Dunmer having admitted that he had a habit of not locking doors all the time. It moved, and he peered inside at the sleeping mage, the other in his typical, curled-up position on his side, face buried into the pillow. He shut the door and made his way back to his room, slipping into his chair and watching the faint light trickle in from under the entryway.

#tesblr #skyrim fanfiction #tes fic #the elder scrolls #skyrim #tes fanfiction #bishop.txt #oc ; emeros #oc ; wyndrelis #oc ; athenath #cycle of the serpent #wip wednesday #my writing #writing wip #fic writing #me giggling and kicking my feet as i build up to the events of chapter 42 #which i am STILL revising to get the rough draft right AHAH #anyways. im getting a haircut in a bit :3

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chameleonspell · 3 months ago

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HTDC commentary - 4: falling

[Looking back at HTDC after nearly ten years: comments on lore, character notes, influences, art, whatever. May contain spoilers for later chapters.]

chapter text: 4: falling

These early chapters tend to be short and jump forward in time lot, because I was just skipping to the next turning point, and Iriel isn't spending enough time with other people for there to be much interesting going on between. Especially now, because he's gonna be unconscious for a lot of it.

Much later, certain people would gravely refer to this period of Iriel’s life as one during which he “lost himself”

I had no idea who was supposed to have told Iriel this, later, and I still can't think who would be a plausible candidate. I said this purely for rhetorical effect. I feel like this makes me an unreliable narrator of my own story, though I'm not sure that's technically possible.

His conscious mind, cast adrift on an overwhelming ocean of sensation, became reduced to scattered thoughts and isolated impressions.

Seems like Ire was tripping on nature, before he was even tripping on sugar. I probably should have been less dreamily effusive, here, and saved it for the on-drugs bit, but I just really love the Bitter Cost! You don't need drugs to appreciate the Swamp! Despite the apparent similarities of the Pit being Iriel's shame and depression, Iriel being in the swamp was never at all the same metaphor, though it took until chapter 153 for me to really explicate this properly. Being in the swamp is mostly positive, if soggy. The swamp is comforting and accepting. The swamp doesn't judge.

The spongey texture of the luminous mushrooms he collected obsessively, and the ssschlucking sound they made when he yanked them out of the damp soil to lay them out in order of size and colour on the moss.

I got really into mushrooms (as organism, not drug!) after I wrote Iriel an obsession with them. Be very careful what interests you give fictional characters, because if you identify with them too hard, it's very easy to catch it off them.

All Ire knew was that he had found two small cloth bags of crystalline white powder underneath a crate on a small jetty, and that when he put a finger in and licked it, everything got better.

The story started with a concept and a shape, but no detail - that mostly came out of gameplay, at the start. The moon sugar was a happy accident, finding the bags in a random smuggler loot sack, and realising... why wouldn't he?

Moon sugar is described as a numbing and euphoria-inducing drug, similar to an opiate. It's also the soft option, compared to its more refined form, skooma, so Iriel's still in the narcotics kiddie-pool, really. That said, we also know these drugs affect TES races differently, with men and mer being affected far more strongly than Khajiit. And we know that Altmer specifically are more sensitive to magic (for better and worse) than other races. Thus, Iriel is having quite an extreme reaction.

he found himself falling: into the glowing colours, into the soft, yielding swamp, and not caring, because when he spat mud and rolled over onto his back, he found himself falling into the sky.

The whole "sad elves falling in swamps" thing is, I admit, a private joke. Because someone once (somehow, unaccountably) found my website by googling for the string "sexy women falling in swamps", and when I saw it in the search referrals, I laughed about it for days.

The night skies of Morrowind are stunningly beautiful, viewed sober. Moon sugar rendered them a religious experience.

Morrowind skies being best skies is just facts. @valtheimm illustrated this scene beautifully:

If I say that he spent long hours lying in the mud, staring at the fractal patterns at the end of fern fronds, I’m sure you can fill in the rest for yourselves. Let’s skip to the end.

I guess I wasn't too consistent with the first person narration, but the narrator was there from the start! It just fell into the background, when other things were happening, or the scene didn't want that sort of external comment, only to re-emerge later, and make people question me about where it came from.

Who is the narrator? Me, just me, the author. Nothing complicated. I was used to books where that kind of thing is common, as a random interjection. I was reading a George Eliot book at the time, and she's always interrupting the action to discuss her characters in first person. It creates a sense of ironic distance, so you don't want to have it all the time, usually you want to be right there in the characters emotions. Other times, you want to add that distance, and deliberately get out of the character's head.

Here, we are watching Iriel flopping about the swamp from a distance, because he's out of his mind, so we are, too. We can go back closer when he returns to himself, try and feel the shock of that with him as much as we can.

Where he came from, the gods were not thought to actively involve themselves in the lives of their worshippers. This was part of what made them so admirable.

TES sets up a whole lot of metaphysical binaries, but the key one is Anu and Padomay, which for our purposes means stasis and change. This comes in a lot more later, but that bog body metaphor is already looking a bit prescient, innit? Here, we can just note that Iriel's home gods are the Aedra, which are Anuic, and therefore both unchanging and incapable of intervening or causing change themselves. Iriel thinks that in Morrowind, where other gods apply, things might be different.

Lying back down and dying was tempting, but Ire hadn’t survived this long by letting that part of his brain have its way.

Iriel is physically unimposing, cries easily and doesn't exactly tick many boxes on the socially-mandated "ideal masculinity" chart. He's scared of everything, because many things have hurt him, and life hasn't equipped him with many tools to defend himself. Does that make him "a weak person", as he himself believes? Or is he strong, for surviving, despite the odds stacked against him, for persisting regardless? What does it mean to be weak or strong, and is weakness even a bad thing? Questions I kept on coming back to, throughout the story.

Iriel is far from morally perfect, and sometimes does selfish things, especially while he's addicted to drugs. There wouldn't be much of a story, if he didn't make a total mess of his life, and have to try and clean it up. But he is strong, in lots of ways, and he will manage to be a hero, in lots of ways. Making him "an effeminate gay stereotype" was very deliberate. Because sure, that's a stereotype, but not for the hero. It's for villains and cheap-laugh side characters, where it gets laced with a lot of other homophobic tropes. Queer heroes, where they exist, tend to be indistinguishable from straight characters, beyond their sexuality - and that's nothing like the real people I know, it's nothing like me or my friends! Femme gay men exist, and are wonderful and diverse and incredibly powerful, actually.

Real-life queer people can't be stereotypes by definition, instead they have to constantly live with how their personal expression is interpreted and policed and refracted into cheap stereotypes by the dominant culture, stereotypes which are then used against them. I wanted to write a character going through that experience, that negotation of an imposed stereotype that has some truth to it, albeit in ways that the people using it against you don't understand. To be up-front about this: I'm queer, but I'm not a gay man, so I was always aware of the danger that I might misjudge something, and screw up. I tried to keep Iriel's specifically gay aspects as grounded as I could in non-fictional people I knew, or had read things by. In the case of real-life friends, I pray I changed enough details on any embarrassing anecdotes I stole that they can't recognise themselves here, and get mad at me.

Iriel set out in search of structure.

The moon sugar was extremely useful, narratively speaking. See, the wonderful thing about an addiction to hard drugs -- this sounds like I'm being facetious, but I've heard heroin addicts say exactly this -- is that it gives you something to do, when your life has no meaning. It forces action. You can't just lie face-down in the swamp forever. You have to go out, and get money, and get drugs. Which forces you, especially if the money part is challenging, into situations.

Playlist pick: Sparklehorse - Spirit Ditch. This is a song to lie in a swamp and get high to. By Mark Linkous, another junkie. Died by suicide in 2010. You always hope when someone writes songs that sad, that it means they have some kind of… answer. A different one, I mean.

next: 5: slide & 6: trap previous: 3: breathe

#htdc-comment

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eatmangoesnekkid · 1 year ago

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Being born with a womb comes with a great responsibility and requires a level of tenderness and pristine care that most of us were never taught how to nurture or manage.

One of our biggest responsibilities is that we must be able to hold union. Duality. All the yin/yang, good/bad, right/wrong, and heaven/earth. We can't be cowards and run away like little children, but must aim to live with more presence/mindfulness that creation is amplified through us. That's that Ma frequency, the Mother Matrix I speak of that can redirect the flow of energy in any room. Our female bodies have a natural and undeniable lover essence but also a real warrior essence. I think about the fierceness of a mother giving natural birth and the visual pushes me to do hard things with minimal to no complaints. 15 years ago, this was as "simple" incredibly complicated as learning to live more present to how I was breathing, holding my jaw, and walking through the world. To slow my breath down, soften my jaw, and walk slower was hard and required every ounce of my fierceness to integrate, but I did it!

Consider Living More Confident, Grounded, Phat, and Thickened Up In Your Female Body

We can indeed hold it all as long as we stay in contact with the earth. Being barefoot on the land or a small patch of grass in the city. Looking up at the sky. Listening to breeze. Talking to trees. Using our sounds--moaning, humming, singing, or box breathing. We can hold it all as long as we entrain our delicate nervous systems to slow down, stay regulated, and live in a more grounded state.

Know what is happening in the world without feeling the need to constantly attune to it. Feel the unfathomable heartbreak from what's happening while also being conscious and mindful that your female body is receptive and naturally lives in a state of continuous creation, divine (parthenogenesis) union. Your cells and tissues need this kind of love, care, and remembrance from you. Allow your body to return to presence as often as possible.

“Breathing in, I arrive in my body. Breathing out, I am home.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Many smart, brilliant, compassionate women and other female bodied people have problems with their wombs, bellies, breasts, and reproductive/sexual organs. This is why, Loved Ones. This is not judgement either but a tender reminder on why it is critical to not stay up in our heads and lose contact with the tissues in our bodies no matter what. When shit goes down in the world, I sense how we easily forget and live disembodied.

Birthing a new reality doesn't come from division (a root chakra energetic) but from an active belly, heart, throat, 3rd eye, and crown. It comes from embodiment--being in your body. When shit goes down in the world, we tend to lose our bodies and stay up in our heads about whatever is going on. And when we are NOT in our bodies, other "energetics/entities" can invade our tissues and stir up even more havoc upon this planet.

Women and other female bodied people like to talk a lot about "manifestation," but our ability to focus on and be devoted to unconditionally loving ourselves, loving our bodies (as they beautifully show up today), loving our loved ones, and loving this life, our creations, no matter what....positions us squarely into a love frequency. And from this love frequency (feeling present, feeling connection, feeling loved, feeling joy, feeling ease, feeling blessed, feeling celebration, feeling what is, trusting life, trusting nature, accepting what is, feeling the goodness of a homemade meal, etc.), we instinctively plant ourselves firmly in a natural momentum where we begin to consciously and deliberately get freed up to truly create and add more harmony and value to this world (where we are in the world and beyond far beyond it).

A Fractal of the Whole

We live in an energetic system. Never forget that loved ones. We are all entangled and connected in a web of invisible energy that becomes a force. That's why there is a real correlation between our ability to invite peace into our bodies, our homes, our shared meals, our baths, our lovemaking, etc. and positively effect change in some way all over the world. As part of the collective, what energy are you gestating on and impacting others with?

Because we are individuals who also belong to one other. We get to receive what we each have to give.

--India Ame'ye, Author

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void-ink-studios · 1 year ago

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Teatime With a God

More bonding between Scarab and his kind of office mom! Behold, Prismo's "Meet the parent" scenario, except the parent is a supreme goddess who literally has receipts on everything you've ever said or done!

Anyway, as always, enjoy!

Maybe I'll bring Fionna and Cake into the next installment? Who knows! Anything could happen!

Word Count: 2,000

Prismo was not one to panic over guests. The Time Room was a chill place to hang out. You were always welcome to visit and relax, no need for added drama or stress.

Except, it was not just a normal guest who was coming.

The Organizer was coming. Who also happens to be someone very close to Scarab. Who also happened to be one of the most powerful entities in the entire pantheon.

So, maybe Prismo was panicking a bit more than usual over someone visiting.

Scarab had been so excited to invite her. While he didn't share much of what was in the letters they sent back and forth, it seemed to be going well. Very well.

Well enough to apparently warrant a face-to-face visit. With tea.

Prismo was not used to feeling this far out of his element. Was this what Scarab felt like all the time?

Note to self, get more chamomile tea for Scarab.

At least he's finally managed to air out all of the depression funk. The Time Room actually looks kind of nice for now. He spared a glance to Scarab, trying to distract himself from his own nerves.

The beetle actually looked oddly calm, given the circumstances. He was diligently brewing tea, chirping softly to himself as the kettle whistled.

"Ah, that should be good..."

Scarab finally looked back to Prismo, who tried to flash a smile. Maybe the panic was more apparent on his face than he thought, because the beetle tipped his head at him.

"Are you alright, Prismo?"

"What? Yeah I'm alright, why wouldn't I be alright?"

"You know you're a terrible liar Prismo. You always have been." Scarab scooched close to Prismo, giving a gentle pet on his upper arm. "Can you tell me what's wrong? Usually, I'm the one pacing around the Time Room."

Prismo made a few strangled sounds as he thought. "I'm not usually this nervous. I'm everybody's pal!"

"Well, it's understandable to be nervous. The Organizer is very important, both to the pantheon and me."

"Scarab, Lovebug, I know you're trying to help, but that isn't making me feel better."

"You didn't let me finish. She's important, but she's also reasonable. She also doesn't have direct authority over you. Also, you are charming. If you could get me to like you, you won't have a problem here."

"I know but I didn't exactly make the best... impression on her, at the Gala..."

"You didn't make a good first impression on me either. Yet, here we are. I'm telling you; you have nothing to worry about." Scarab gave Prismo's cheek a soft nuzzle, chirping soothingly.

"Hmm... Thanks, Lovebug."

Scarab gave him one more squeeze, as Prismo finally seemed to be calming down.

It wasn't long after when a fractal rainbow beamed into the center of the Time Room, the Organizer standing there.

"Ah, good day, ma'am" Scarab said, a little bit of eagerness in his voice. He walked as close as he could from the wall and bowed respectfully. "Thank you for coming."

"I'm happy to be invited, little bug. Good day, Scarab, and to you, Prismo."

"G-Good day, Organizer, ma'am..." Shit, the nervousness was back. He clung to Scarab's words like a lifeline.

"I made tea, ma'am. Please, sit, make yourself comfortable."

"Ah, tea, just like when you were interning."

Prismo felt a spark of curiosity.

"You guys had tea together before?"

"Of course" she said, as if it was the most obvious things ever. "Scarab would brew a pot of tea every once in a while, and we'd enjoy it over lunch."

"It reminded me of home."

"Really now?"

"Yes. It was a common activity to do with friends. We'd gather around in one of our burrows, brew some tea, and talk about our lives. No one in the Judgement Hall wanted to partake, but the Organizer offered to join me. And then, it became a ritual between the two of us."

Prismo smiled softly. But, now he couldn't help but feel he's intruded on something private.

"...What kind of stuff did you talk about? Didn't take you for gossips."

"Oh, gossip is hardly my concern," the Observer sighed. "Scarab traveled all across the multiverse during his internship. Much of his scouting and tracking skills were built during that time. He would bring back stories and shiny things. I hardly leave my office. And I'm not like my brother, who can see it all. So, it was nice to hear more about the countless worlds our pantheon stewards."

"And the Organizer would tell me history" Scarab chirped. "When you are as ancient as she, you experience enough to talk until the end of time."

"Scarab. Ancient? Really?"

"What? You're the one always talking about 'The Time Before Nothing.' Prismo, you know what I'm talking about."

"Don't drag me into this, Scrabs."

"Traitor."

Prismo chuckled, taking a sip of tea. It was a bit more bitter than he would've preferred, but he wasn't about to complain. Scarab and the Observer seemed to be enjoying themselves.

"So. How has life in the Time Room treated you, little bug?"

"I have fared well. I have enjoyed my time, both here and with Prismo. It is... peaceful. Sometimes too much so. But it is nice to exist not on the move sometimes."

"I am glad, Scarab. While I stand by the statement that you made an excellent Auditor, I am happy you have found some peace."

"I have. I've been... making things. I made the shawl and wing attachments I wore to the Gala."

"Really now?"

"It was traditional on my home world to decorate wings for special events and gatherings. I... Well, I couldn't do that anymore. But I still wanted to honor the practices... Prismo has been helping me... reconnect with my identity. Talking about my homeland again, it got me thinking. So, I improvised."

"You looked wonderful, Scrabs."

"Thank you..."

"I do agree, you looked confident. It seems that the Time Room has been good for you."

"It has, in a lot of ways." There was a slight pause in his thought. "But... I don't know, there's things I cannot do here. I suppose that keeps it a punishment of sorts."

Prismo raised an eyebrow. "Scrabs, do you miss your Auditor stuff?"

"Hmmm... I miss the excitement. I miss the hunt. I miss seeing the multiverse. I miss putting away criminals and cosmic threats and keeping reality safe."

"They are noble things to miss, little bug. But I sense hesitation in your voice."

"...I do not miss the hatred."

"The Auditors are not popular, I admit. Necessary is their profession."

"I heard a lot of weird things can get you in trouble with Auditors. Like, stealing office supplies? Playing games on work time? Not great, but I didn't think Auditors are necessary."

"They... weren't" Scarab admitted. "Not really. But, I frequently ran out of high-profile targets. Orbo... thought I was lazy if I rested. I thought the same thing myself. So, I tried to never be without work. I took on targets that would've most likely been waved if left alone. I know it made me no friends. But it was either that, or deal with Orbo, and that had made it an easy choice."

"Oh, Scarab" Prismo sighed.

"Little bug, I can imagine that was a stressful way of life. I once again reiterate, if you should return to Auditor, you will not be dealing with Orbo again."

"And I thank you for that, ma'am."

"...It was not right he was allowed to do what he did to you."

"I am... beginning to understand that now, ma'am. I hope you know I... don't blame you. You are busy, you don't have time to check on every Auditor in your employ..."

"I should've made time to check on you. I have employed many Auditors, Scarab, but it was you who I mentored. I had thought you wanted separation after our last conversation, but... I miscalculated, I believe."

Scarab's eyes widened.

"You are the Organizer, ma'am. You do not make mistakes."

"I am the Organizer. Not the Observer. I do not know everything. I do not make mistakes when the instructions are clear. But there are no instructions when it comes to living things, Scarab. It is all calculations and trust. As you once said to me, you are left to guess when it comes to people. And... I guessed incorrectly in this case."

Scarab seemed to mull her words over, chirping softly.

"Well... I have miscalculated plenty in my life as well... Consider us even, ma'am."

The two were looking intently at each other. Prismo could imagine there was a full conversation happening here with just eye contact. Then the two nodded, as if everything was clear.

"Speaking of miscalculations..."

Her eyes turned to the Wishmaster.

"You're telling me what happened here, with your 'close friend' Prismo."

Prismo nearly choked on his tea. "H-Hey, I thought you were above gossip!"

"I am. It's not gossip if it's facts."

Scarab chirped lowly in a laugh before part of the gaze was turned on him.

"One of you is going to tell me. Unless I must call on the Observer."

"No no no no need to bring the Observer into this, heh..."

"Perfect. Then why not tell me how you two became 'close friends' then."

"I-I mean... I dunno, we just... talked" Prismo stammered. "We got to actually talk to each other as people for the first time. And, we found we liked each other."

"Hmmm... Liking each other does not necessarily mean holding hands, Almighty Prismo."

Prismo felt his face heat up.

"Y-You saw that, huh...?"

"There is very little happens in my office that I'm not aware of, great Wishmaster."

"R-Right... sorry... Uh, well, we uh got closer. We find ourselves liking each other more and more... I... I found out things he hasn't really told anyone else. I... I dunno know how it happened ma'am, but I'm thankful it did. Scarab's great. He... He pulled me out of a very dark place. I'm glad he's in my life."

"As am I, ma'am" Scarab cooed. "Prismo has made me feel loved and cared for in a way I have not felt in eons... Not really since you, in all honesty."

"Hmmm" the Organizer cooed, thoughtfully. "I can't say I know much about you as a person, Prismo. But, I do trust Scarab's judgement. And I think I shall learn more, soon enough."

"Does that mean you'll come again?" Prismo smiled at the barely suppressed joy in Scarab's voice.

"Of course, my little bug. I missed our teatime. And I need more breaks from the office. My new assistant can hold the fort down."

Scarab paused.

"Assistant? I thought you didn't want or need help?"

"Oh, I still don't. Doesn't mean I can't find something for a currently being punished Auditor handler to do."

"Wait... ORBO'S YOUR ASSISTANT?"

"For the next few thousand years at the least. Scarab, you're familiar with the Archive, correct?"

"...The Endless Archive? The one that has a file of every being to have ever existed in the multiverse? The one you specifically told me to not enter when I was interning? That Archive?"

"That's the one. It's been needing some reorganization. I've never had the time to do it myself. Luckily, I have an assistant to help me with that. For the next eon or two."

The two other gods stared. A beat. Then two. Then both burst out laughing.

"OH MY GLOB!" Prismo wheezed.

"Ha! Have fun with paperwork for once, Orbo!" Scarab sounded triumphant. "That'll be torture for him! Nothing but endless corridors of filing cabinets and silence!" He looked at the Organizer. "Thank you, ma'am. For everything!"

"The Judge and I both thought it appropriate."

Scarab smiled. Wider than even Prismo had ever seen him. "...I thank you. From the bottom of my heart, ma'am. I appreciate everything you have done for me. If there's anything I can do to repay-"

"Nonsense little bug. The only repayment I seek is that we continue having tea."

Scarab looked like he was about to weep. He nodded. He nodded eagerly.

"Yes! Yes, of course, I'd love to."

The Organizer did not have a mouth. Or a face in general. But... Prismo got the impression she was smiling.

#prohibitedwish #scarab x prismo #scarab the god auditor #prismo the wishmaster #prohibitedwish fanfic #wrath of the wishmaster

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eesirachs · 8 months ago

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dearest correspondent. i've been thinking about creation. namely adam as the mud-creation, eve the rib-creation, cain and abel a uterine-creation, every subsequent human uterine-creations. how each gestation is exponentially longer, how adam and eve were two sent away from eden having spat with god and now we are numerous and often laical. how each iteration eve-onwards has begun as a human more enveloped in a human than the last. maybe adam came first to be, and never again, part of gestation. the first beginning, chaining to him the rest of them, because god wouldn't want him to be left behind.

something always gestates, human-to-human. the fourth iteration gestated murder. am i my brother's keeper? i think of how we became responsible for each other, here. something god learns from this new, alone thing, here. each thing we have done, that has happened to us, as a first thing. i think of the weaning. i think of how babies are born with skulls not fully closed, how the tender spots that once needed protection close over the toughest, breaking sometimes, anyways. and the fractals of repetition and repetition and the repetition. my mother watching me grow and her mother watching her grow and her mother and hers, on growing into, on becoming uncontrollable

xoxo, dove

biblical hebrew loses all tension with organs, especially matrixial ones: they are described not as anatomical things but as their functions. so eve has a womb, yes, but adam’s gaping side wound is a womb, too. as is eden, as is the leaving of it. sheol is another womb. and hagar’s waterskin, and parts of the temple, and elisha’s whole body. in the ancient world, skin was not perimeter for the anatomical, and organs had spread. the self was co-constituted of parts that fell well beyond its fleshy limits. we speak, in this world, not of bodies but of bodyscapes. i am thinking, with you now, about gestation that doesn’t look anything like gestation. about how the ground inhaling abel’s blood is umbilical. about how gods voice so often sounds muffled, as if we’re still in utero. about how, really, we still are—in utero, i mean

#ask

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1141520851813892291920 · 5 months ago

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This is very tricky to type this without it just giving me errors each time it tries to send.

So we'll start somewhere.. mundane?

Do you remember the first time you had a headache? The first time you met a beloved pet? The first time you had your favorite food?

Some of these moments impact people differently, but it's not all that unusual to forget. Let's go deeper.

Do remember the first time you felt loved? The first time you felt grief? Do you remember the eyes of the one you lost? The shape of their smile?

Upsetting, but the only constant in life is change. It is natural to lose these ephemeral details, time will erode everything one day. My memory falls like sand through my fingers some days.

Let's go a bit lighter.

Do you remember the first time you studied a subject you liked in school?

This memory does not elude me, as many others do. In a small class for "gifted" kids, I learned the many ways patterns show themselves in nature. The Fibonacci sequence, golden ratios, fractals that trace paths into dizzying infinite shapes.

Snail shells, pinecones, flower petals, tree branches, intricate shapes and patterns, entire living organisms built upon eachother, which we pick apart to base numbers in hope of finding meaning.

I find myself losing track of my thoughts lately, and yet the first time I traced the many spirals of a pinecone sears itself into my mind with a giddy joy and wonder. The memory is a positive one, but why do I get to keep it and not the memory of the one who taught me?

I never know when I am going to lose the memory of a moment I cherish to a combination of colors- the shape of a tree trunk- chaos and order- always, always spirals

In my dreams I hear nonsense music and fly through fractals of fear and elation. My art doesn't look the same as it used to, the colors still bring me joy but the shapes never come out how I wish they could. Does it look strange to you?

There is nothing chasing me, no monster under the bed, it's just me. I've always known my mind may fall apart on me, my family doesn't have a great track record for sanity, but I never thought it would feel like this. Funnily enough, I can't remember what I thought it would feel like at all. It doesn't feel very funny.

If I find a way to send my story outside of jumbled thoughts, I will do my best to do so, but trying to get more specific seems to glitch everything, and getting it out in a coherent way at all is.. difficult.

Fingers crossed it works this time.

The dizzying colors of T̶h̴e̴ ̵P̵l̸a̶c̸e̴ ̷B̶e̸y̷o̴n̸d̴ ̴T̷h̵e̸ ̸D̶o̴o̸r̸ cut at your brain like a million stinging barbs, plucking the strings of your synapses until light becomes sound becomes the̷ ̷u̴n̴d̷u̵l̷a̶t̷i̴n̵g̶,̵ ̷a̴r̷r̸h̸y̴t̷h̵m̴i̸c̸ ̵u̴n̴h̷a̵r̸m̵o̸n̸i̴e̶s̷ ̵t̵hat strangle your eye stem in a migraine.

Reality is melting, sliding through your fingers like so many grains of sand that grates against you until you are smooth and without boundaries, b̴l̸e̵e̵d̶i̶n̴g̴ ̴i̷n̷t̶o̴ ̸t̵h̶e̸ ̶s̸p̶a̴c̵e̸ ̷o̵u̸t̵s̷i̷d̶e̴ ̷o̸f̶ ̴y̴o̵u̵r̴ ̴o̴u̴t̷l̸i̷n̷e̸,̷ ̷o̷n̵t̸o̷ ̷t̸h̸e̸ ̸c̶a̸n̷v̴a̵s̵ ̷o̸f̵ ̵t̶h̷e̴ ̷u̶n̸i̸v̷e̶r̶s̸e̸ ̴a̴n̶d̴ ̷y̵o̴u̴,̷ ̵y̵o̴u̸ ̷c̷a̷n̵n̶o̵t̸ ̵s̶t̶o̴p̸ ̴t̸h̴e̴ ̸s̵p̴i̶r̶a̷l̶i̷n̶g̵ ̶p̵a̷t̷t̸e̷r̷n̵s̴ ̸y̸o̷u̵ ̷b̷e̵g̶i̵n̶ ̵t̵o̵ ̷p̸a̵i̴n̴t you paint the sound of the hideous laughter that tastes of over saturated primary colors.

You are the ink of the words in the books lost behind shelves, the rustle of pages in an empty library, the heat of the eclipsed moon. You have unbecome and are becoming this almost being of empty space occupied but unaccompanied.

T̶h̸e̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̵w̸a̸y̴ ̸o̴u̶t̴ ̷i̶s̵ ̵i̵n̶ ̸t̵h̷e̸ ̵w̸r̴o̸n̴g̴ ̴d̷i̶r̶e̷c̴t̷i̷o̸n̶.̸ ̵

#19230112121523200805190505040618151320080507011804051420080120091914152018050112 #[submitted statement]#another archive #tma #tma podcast #somewhere else #the magnus archives #tma rp blog

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thatonebirdwrites · 5 months ago

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So yesterday I went to People's Pride in my town. It's an event run by locals, where corporations and cops are NOT invited and not allowed. They want to keep it people and community focused, so that our talents are on display. A way for us to bring back the aims of the original pride (before corporations and cops took it over).

The only reason I decided to go was because it's a mask-mandated event (thank heavens, we're in the pandemic era, so community care means wearing masks for not only security but also health safety).

I also went because the friend who asked me was so eager to hang out again. (I've been isolated due to LongCovid for four years, so being around people genuinely excited to get to know me better, and who don't belittle, tear me down, constantly bring up all the things I do wrong no matter how much I apologize? I felt anxious. Wondering when the other show would drop. But it never does. They are just a very kind person.)

While there, a baby bird was found. That little critter is so soft, and I was so delighted. My friend told me I looked cute looking at the baby bird as the bird looked at me. I didn't know they had taken a picture until after when they sent me a copy. lol

My nickname is Bird. :D

While there, I encountered another wheelchair user that had decorations on the spokes of their wheelchair. I squealed in delight, "Holy crap, that is so awesome! Where did you get those wheels? I need them for mine."

The person replied, "They're spoke covers. You can get them online. I definitely recommend."

So now here I am searching the Internets for spoke covers to make my wheelchair even gayer than it currently is. (I have put so many LGBTQIA flags and stickers on it that it's kind of ridiculous. lol)

I could only last around an hour, and I did get to meet new people. The friend who took me was oddly eager to introduce me to ALL the people, and they sounded so proud. I wasn't sure why until after I got home, rested a bit, then sent them a signal message thanking them for taking me.

That's when I found out they had been SO EXCITED to share the joy of knowing me and getting to know me better. They also adored the fractal art I gave them.

My first thought was: Why?

Am I really that delightful to know?

I didn't know what to say, so I just gave the message a heart.

As an aside, I fear I'm unlovable at times because most days I feel like I don't know how to human. Like I'm a bundle of chronic illnesses and trauma wrapped up in a spiffy trenchcoat. I try hard to be kind, and I'm trying hard to not sabotage things out of fear of getting hurt/abused again.

Overall, People's Pride was a good experience. The entertainment was all local folks either doing drag, singing and interpretative dance, poetry slams, or sharing stories at the nearby amphitheater. The vendors were just local folks who make art, mending library, repair library folks, tea folks, and just folks who manage LGBTQIA shared spaces.

The organizers asked to store things in my garage, and I agreed because I don't use it. Fair Air Network (FAN) already uses it to store their masks and air filtration supplies -- they are the group I help with and who are doing their best to educate people on mask-wearing and the necessity of continuing pandemic mitigations.

I'm fine with my garage being a community storage for LGBTQIA folks and groups. It's nice to be able to give back to the community in what little ways I can.

Anyway, wanted to share this story. :) I love when community comes together like this. It's beautiful.

#People's Pride #Pride #Birds #friendship #I'm always surprised when people tell me I'm neat #I feel like I don't know how to human most days #lgbtq community #lgbtq #lgbtqia #lgbt pride #queer #queer community

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e1dritchqueer · 1 year ago

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UNITYxEclipse Liveblog: Coronation Ball pt 2.

aaaa it's happening it's happening LAST WE FUCKUING LEFT OFF (a brief brief summary) :

Illia smokes outside with his old mentor/friend Isa, they reconnect

Callisto and Illia got closer.

Callisto had her heart fucking broken by Io, a new potential rival who is out to get the Wraith of Deimos

Coyote got to meet his evil twin brother (Ferdinand). A real liquid snake mother fucker. He offers Coyote a chance to leave, to be welcomed back into "the family". Bad things are coming and Coyote has a chance to be welcomed back into the powerful family (part of the cia esque organization Io is in (among MANY others)) and escape what's to come. He can abandon his mech. Abandon this crew. Be safe. Coyote decides to leave.

Biggs.... gahh... so much with biggs... has a drugged fight with Wren, his rival,. Wren professes his devotion of hate towards him. Biggs refuses to play any of his games. Leaving him abandoned, laying on the floor, on an empty beach. Biggs crawls, alone into his cockpit.

Callisto is crying, alone in the Red.

THE CORONATION GOES TERRIBLY WRONG. Upon the boyking being coronated (which involves like uploading the conciousnesses/memories of past (seasoned) rulers into the boyking's mind.). This happens: "The King-God slumps into heir throne. blood pooling under nose and trickling at the edge of hier’s mouth. A word trickles out, imperceptible if not for the vacuum of sound created in the coronation 'Run.' In heir’s chest is a strange fractal shape. It blooms. Heir spits out something, not black, but the void of color. And collapses. Heir bleeds on the ground. All colors flow out of the King-God. Nothing moves, then, all at once, the agents begin their work."

and so the session begins....... aaaaaaaa

#UNITYxEclipse #UNITYxEclipse lb #game lb

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ivo3d · 10 months ago

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Already posted, but whatever:

June8' - the power of the early morning sun - a new re:born

audio track: FSO 002 04 by Maks - Neuracid

(Fractal Sound Organization label)

(vj session record with notch)

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scarletsaphire · 2 years ago

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Torn to Bits and Pieces (Dannymay Day 4: Fractals)

A ghost is not easy to kill. Maddie and Jack severely underestimate what tearing Phantom "molecule by molecule" will do.

Danny died completely under his mothers blade. Physically, it didn’t hurt as much as it did the first time he died, but that didn’t mean it was pleasant. Emotionally, it was far, far worse.

They caught him transforming in his bedroom; he hadn’t known they had put cameras to try and figure out how he kept breaking curfew, but they had and they saw him transform after a fight, and he didn’t realize until he awoke with anti-ghost nets draped over him, his hands tied behind his back and his head pounding. There was a bruise on his arm. They had drugged him, he realized through an addled mind.

He tried to talk to them. Tried to reason with them, to show them that he was still Danny, that he wasn’t any different than he was before. They shoved a piece of metal into his mouth, fastened it around the back of his head. It burnt. His eyes watered and he tasted a mix of ectoplasm and blood on his tongue. His father monitored his vitals (they never referred to them as that; he wasn’t alive, so he couldn’t have vitals.) and dealt with collecting the specific samples. His mother held the knife. She was always the more precise of the two. Always the sharper one.

The knife burnt like the gag did, his flesh cauterizing wherever she cut. She started with his feet, pulling out shards of bone, collecting his blood, severing his nerves and his veins and keeping them in neatly labeled specimen jars. He did not die until she made it to his waist. Even then, the pain did not stop.

His body had gone limp, but that did not stop his struggle. It did not stop the tears. Now they flowed down cheeks flushed with green, a double image between his body (his corpse) and him. His mother had smiled at him, separating the bindings from his corpse and securing them firmly around only his ghost. They left the body alone. (They said they’d bury it. Give their son a proper rest, for the death that he, Phantom, had caused. That hurt almost as much as the scalpel.)

They continued their dissection on his ghost. This time there was no bones to extract, no nerves to sever or blood to gather. He wasn’t a half ghost anymore. He was entirely ectoplasm. That didn’t stop them from tearing him apart, gathering samples from every bit of his “body” that they could. (He tried to scream, to shout, to wail. The gag held tight. All he could manage was a bubbling sound from the back of his throat. It felt like it was melting.)

It took hours before they decided they had gathered enough substances to test. It was another hour before they decided how to dispose of him properly. Danny remained aware. Conscious. He felt every agonizing second of their discussion, as everything that was him bled across the table and onto the floor.

They decided that they should fulfill the promise they had made so many times. They would tear him from molecule to molecule, until he was better than dead, since he couldn’t die right the first time. How long this took, Danny couldn’t say. (He couldn’t say anything now. He didn’t have a mouth.)

Killing a ghost is nearly impossible. His parents didn’t know much about ghosts, so they assumed that when he was rendered into pieces barely visible on a microscope, that he would be dead. Properly dead, not like he was the first time (and the second, at their own hands.) That was not the case. Ghosts who were strong enough to have a physical form, who could separate themselves completely from the surrounding ectoplasm, were much sturdier than that. If there was any bit of them left, they would continue to exist.

His parents had not destroyed him. They had torn Phantom into trillions of pieces, yes, spread him throughout their lab, into the ghost zone, into their vents and the rest of Amity Park. And yet every bit was a part of him. Fractions of fractions of fractions. Barely a consciousness at all. But they were aware enough. Aware enough to know pain, and betrayal, and a need to be reunited.

It would be years before enough of him would gather to be anything visible to the eye. Years where ghosts would run rampant, where they would learn just how much he did to keep the town safe. Years for the people he loved to forget about him and run away, or years for the guilt and grief to dig them further into his grave, the ones his parents dug with scientific inquiry, lack of ethics, and a scalpel tipped with poison.

It would take longer for him to do something about it.

Danny would never hurt anyone, especially not his family. Danny would do anything to protect them, to save them. Danny died under his mothers scalpel.

Phantom reformed slowly, painfully, steadily. Madde and Jack were regarded as heroes by the town (the town that had shrunk after Danny’s death, where buildings often didn’t last longer than a year and people died in the dozens. More ghosts showed up every day. More work for them to do.) Maddie and Jack were heroes, like Danny had once been.

Danny had died a hero. Phantom had lived to become the villain they expected him to be.

#tw dissection #tw character death #dannymay2023 #dannymay day 4 #danny phantom #danny phantom fanfiction #he dies proper #kind of?#he still comes back but not Right

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finishinglinepress · 8 months ago

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FLP CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY: This body was never made by Tara Propper

On SALE now! Pre-order Price Guarantee: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/this-body-was-never-made-by-tara-propper/

This body was never made is a meditation on #grief and its attendant fears surrounding the #body – the body’s frailty, lineage, and legacy. Its #poems paint portraits of #maternal #loss, of a fractured #family, of nature’s eloquence, and of transcendental beauty. While This body was never made does not solve the problem of death, it embraces the “night sounds” that accompany an awareness of the body’s temporality, resolving in the chapbook’s final lines, “There is nothing in this room but shapes of us—amorphous/organs ascending and descending underneath the bed sheets.” In this collection, still-life speaks, seascapes listen, and math provides counsel, reminding us that #life exists before and beyond the body.

Tara Propper has earned her MFA in poetry and PhD in English. Her poetry has appeared in the Southampton Review, Janus Unbound, Literature Today, Ekstasis Magazine, Shuili Magazine, Taj Mahal International Literary Journal, Moveable Type, Vagabond City Press, and P – Queue. Her scholarly work has been published in Composition Forum, Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, and Resources for American Literary Study. She is currently an Assistant Professor of English in the Department of Literature and Languages at the University of Texas at Tyler.

PRAISE FOR This body was never made by Tara Propper

Cerebral, lyrical, witty, loving and grief-worn, Tara Propper’s life-infusing poems in the collection, This body was never made, reveal an immense talent, a rare gift to the world of poetry. In a sky of many, Propper is singular. The poem “Seascape at 4:42 PM” concludes: “One chiseled cloud makes a metonymy/ of itself. Cotton mammals lurk above/ both pure and untrue. /4:43 PM drops/its un-blessings. It’s the ugliest of day–/and most aware.” Propper’s poems are sinuous tracings that unnerve the tick of the clock; a lot happens between 4:42 PM and 4:43 PM, a lot that is “most aware.”

–Star Black, author of three books of sonnets: Waterworn, Balefire, and Ghostwood; a collection of double-sestinas, Double Time; and a book of collaged free verse, October for Idas

Tara Propper’s This body was never made tests the precision and range of mathematical concepts in particular and, more broadly, any intellectual construct we use to understand the stunning input of our senses. Can a fractal describe a pregnant female body? A miscarriage? Rage? Death? This body was never made also tests the language with which we express these concepts, using rhymes, chimes, puns and syntactical play to push words to their limits: “Outnumbered, she let the numb root.” The raw power of these poems comes from the pressure they are under to bridge the rational and the anything but.

–Julie Sheehan, author of Orient Point and Bar Book: Poems and Otherwise and Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at Stony Brook University, NY

Please share/please repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry #chapbook #read #poems

#poetry #flp authors #preorder #flp #poets on tumblr #american poets #chapbook #chapbooks #finishing line press #small press

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raaorqtpbpdy · 2 years ago

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The One (2)

For the Phic Phight prompts: Soulmate Au where after your soulmate dies, you can only see in black and white. As in you see normal colors until they die and then only in black and white for the rest of your life, so you only ever know if you had a soulmate once it's too late. Except Character A's (up to you who you want it to be) soulmate is Danny. While Danny is in Phantom form, character A's vision is in black and white, but returns to normal color when Danny is Fenton. Character A is going crazy trying to find their soulmate who keeps dying and getting resurrected. (from @ghostboidanny) and Wes is the first one to find out Danny's secret. No One Knows AU. (from @murphy-kitt)

Chapter 2: Bathed in Green Light

Previous | Next

AO3 Link

[Warning for death mentions and graphic descriptions of pain (the portal accident)]

This was by far the worst moment of Danny's life.

He'd been stupid to hang around in his parents lab. Stupid to go into the portal. Stupid to touch anything. He'd never thought a decision made out of boredom, made because he was lonely and had nothing to do with both of his friends busy for the day, would have such disastrous consequences. He hadn't expected that thoughtlessly putting his hand against the wall in the dark hole which was supposed to be a ghost portal, would result in the worst moment of Danny's entire life... and quite possibly the last.

He could feel the electricity coursing through his veins, pumping millions of volts under his skin. His bones were being fried into brittle black powder. His blood evaporated in his arteries. His eyes practically popped right out of his skull, his organs melted. Then a shock of something ice-cold soaking him through, shredding him to pieces on jagged fractals.

It felt as if he was being torn apart molecule by molecule.

Toxic, radioactive green flooded in.

For what felt like forever, it dominated all of his senses. No scent, no sound, no taste. He could feel nothing and see nothing, except for that horrible, headache-inducing green.

He blacked out.

When he came to, he was on the floor of his parents' lab. Miraculously, he felt fine, until he tried to get to his feet, and realized he didn't have any. He floated up, so freaked out he wasn't even breathing and yet, he also wasn't running out of breath.

A glance in the nearest reflective surface showed him a very different sight than he was familiar with. His once-black hair was snow white, and his eyes that same, sickening green that had been his whole world for an instant and an eternity at once. His white Fenton jumpsuit had turned black, his skin was a pallid gray.

He'd changed, somehow.

The portal had changed him.

It had twisted, and altered, and rearranged his atoms until he wasn't human anymore.

All Danny's life, he'd heard his parents ranting and raving about ghosts, but he hadn't believed a word of it since he was six years old. Never in a million years could he have imagined that he would become one.

Alone in his parents' basement lab at fourteen years old, Danny Fenton had died.

A few minutes later, while he was still freaking out about being a ghost, the door at the top of the stairs slammed open, and in an instant of unparalleled fear, something incredible happened. A white glow passed over Danny, a bubbling, fizzing line of light against his body like a layer of skin was dissolving right off of him, and he dropped to the ground, looking just as human as he'd ever been.

"Dann-o, are you down here?" his father's booming voice asked. "Jazz said she heard screaming?"

"Yeah I... I was just looking at the portal," he said. "It shocked me when it turned on, but I'm okay now." His father's heavy footsteps stopped halfway down the stairs.

"It turned on?" he repeated, then he thundered gleefully down the rest of the way to see, like a kid on Christmas morning. "How? What happened?"

"Oh, I don't know," Danny lied, rubbing his left arm awkwardly. His left had been the hand against the wall, and he could still feel the phantom stings of electricity buzzing under his skin. "Maybe it just needed some time to warm up?"

"Maddie!" Jack bellowed upstairs. His voice no doubt carrying easily into the house, and probably all the way down the street as well. "The Fenton Portal is working!"

It was mere seconds before the clattering of his mother's boots could be heard clamoring down the basement stairs as well. "What do you mean it's working?" she demanded, though she was clearly thrilled to hear it. "How can it be working?"

"Danny here says it just needed some time to warm up!" Jack said, clapping his son on the back. The contact set Danny's raw nerves on fire, but he was quick to mask his pained grimace with a forced grin. "Says it gave him a shock when it turned on though. You're not hurt, are you, Danny boy?"

"Uh... no," Danny said, though it was the biggest lie he'd ever told. As soon as he'd turned human again, the pain came back, muted and faraway, but still there, and agonizing when anything when anything touched him. "No, I'm fine. Just some bad static, I think."

"Are you sure?" his mother asked with a sympathetic frown, but he nodded, fake smile still plastered on his face. "Well, if it's not serious...."

"It's not," Danny assured her promptly. "I'm just excited that the portal works now, I'm happy for you. But uh, I'm gonna, you know, go upstairs and leave you two to your work, cool? Cool." He started out of the basement, feeling with every step as though he was walking barefoot on shattered glass and gritting his teeth to keep from wincing as he ascended the stairs.

"I don't understand," he heard Maddie say behind him. "The prototype activated right away... I mean, it didn't function as intended, but it activated."

"Well, this one's bigger!" Jack responded, as though that explained everything.

Danny didn't hear anything more as he kept going until he reached his room on the second floor, where he lied down on his bed and tried not to move at all until the pain slowly but surely started to ebb away. When it had subsided enough for him to think, Danny considered what he should do.

Honestly, he didn't have the slightest idea. He didn't even really know what had happened to him. One second he was a ghost, and the next, human again. If he could switch back and forth, he had no idea how to do it, and if he was really dead and just somehow disguised himself as a human, he wasn't about to tell him parents that; they'd have a breakdown. And Jazz... Jazz was always going on about how it was her job as the older sibling to protect him. How would she feel if she found out about this? Not good. That much was certain.

And what about Sam and Tucker? He should tell them, at the very least, shouldn't he? Although... on second thought, maybe not. Tucker was always saying how dangerous their lab was and would never let Danny hear the end of it if he found out about the accident, and Sam, goth though she may be, got squeamish about death when it was more than just a word in her poetry. She didn't even eat meat. If she found out Danny had sort of died, she'd have a conniption.

For now, it was best to keep it a secret, at least until he figured out how to break it to them gently.

He was so not looking forward to school tomorrow. Maybe he could fake sick or ask his parents for the day off as a reward, since he was the one who got the portal working and all.

In the end, his parents were so busy running tests on their newly functioning portal that Danny didn't even need to make an excuse. He just stayed in bed, in the pajamas he'd eventually recovered enough to change into, and they never noticed that he cut school at all. If the school called them, they'd probably even ignore it in lieu of sample collecting and data checking.

At around 3:20 in the afternoon, Danny felt a chill and his breath misted in front of him as if the temperature had suddenly dropped a good thirty degrees. Something green and glowing flew up through the floor into Danny's room. Danny knew that color all too well, though it was weird to see it on an octopus, far, far away from any place an octopus would logically be. It flew at Danny, and he threw his hands up defensively, squeezing his eyes shut.

When he opened them, he saw white gloves in front of his face, and a translucent green barrier between him and the ghost.

There was no time to think as he wrestled with the octopus in his bedroom, so he let instinct takeover. Green light shot out of his fingertips, making the octopus recoil. He grabbed the creature and dragged them both through the floor and through the floor again. He stunned the thing by zapping it with electricity and tossed it through the ghost portal and then... Danny decided instincts were a terrifying thing.

His parents backs had been turned to the whole time while they examined some kind of samples. They hadn't seen a thing. Danny flew back up through the ceiling, back to his room, closed his eyes, and willed himself to become human again. It wasn't until he felt his heart start to beat rapidly in his chest that he realized it had worked and he sighed with relief.

Crawling back into bed, he wrapped himself up in his blankets, and tried to magically erase everything that had happened the previous day the same way he'd transformed mere moments ago. Unfortunately, his will alone wasn't strong enough to do that, and it didn't work the second time.

#phic phight #phic phight 2023 #fic #The One #dp #danny fenton #danny phantom #angst #no one knows au #Jack fenton #maddie fenton #things i wrote

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daekie-gw2 · 7 months ago

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Your IBS/SoTO post is really good and I would love to hear your opinions about asura writing that got cut for time

OH, UH, OKAY. SURE. Disclaimer that a lot of the thoughts here I picked up from my friend @ratasum. (I honestly didn't expect that IBS/SotO post to get read by anyone so waking up & seeing it appears to have gotten onto the main 'circulating' version of the post and having people agree with me is a little wild, haha.)

As always, cut for length, I've never said in five words what I could say in twenty and trust me I've tried.

"Surely it can't be that long--"

I know. I'm a parody of myself. I'm sorry. Just like you cannot blame the scorpion for what is in its nature you cannot blame me for writing five and a half thousand words on funny goblin rat video game narrative.

ANYWAY. [CRACKING KNUCKLES] THE ASURA

OKAY. THIS IS GOING TO BE A MULTI-POINT -- I'm not going to call it an essay. It's not an essay. That implies a level of organization going in that there isn't, I'm slapping points in as I recall them (I am going to cite my sources, though). But there's a lot of miscellaneous things I'm going into here. Also this is shorter than it could be because I wrote a big chunk of it right after getting home from work, got distracted by making Limbus Company OC IDs for hours, and by the point I rotated back I was getting worried something would happen and I'd lose this post.

You may be able to tell which points I wrote later because I get progressively less informative and more AGGRESSIVELY WAVING MY HANDS.

EDIT THE NEXT MORNING: Added more stuff into Point B that I didn't realize I skipped over, my kingdom for a table of contents

Point A: "The current writers don't like the asura."

When was the last time you heard any character talk about asura tech or society in a way that wasn't derogatory? Just in SotO alone, from my memory and some very shallow wiki checks, we have:

Uenno: But we're... stubborn, our kind. Bureaucratic. It's all so stifling. Uenno: Zojja and I had the same realization. Expecting satisfaction from that city is like expecting a skritt to win the Snaff Prize.

...and, from Zojja's Journal:

Before I left Rata Sum, they considered me a battery without any juice. Well, I feel the same about them. ... The technological advancement of this place is far beyond Rata Sum. Seeing this would give the Arcane Council a run for their money... I bet they lost it after Cantha opened its borders. What I'd do to be a fly on that wall... ... If the council learned about any of this, ESPECIALLY the wizards' ability to create fractals, they'd try to quarantine the entire region. Rip it apart, piece by piece.

...and, from Zojja's journal from Tower of Secrets:

The council is too scared to put me back on fieldwork, and the colleges seem less than interested in having me teach. No talks. Nothing. Past my prime, apparently. Send me straight to the retirement facility. ... She used to be a professor in the colleges, but she left after years and years of frustration with the system. Students set up for failure, refusal to grow or expand (sound familiar...?).

Now take a quick jaunt to the wiki's summary of asura culture:

The asura value intelligence and intellectual superiority over all other attributes. Individual asura will dedicate an entire lifespan to building a portfolio of successful projects or becoming the foremost expert of some tiny aspect of the arcane. They constantly seek to prove their own intellectual superiority, and by extension the superiority of the asura race.

The writers are really trying to tell me that Zojja was damaged goods post-Heart of Thorns, but, like. She was one of the foremost geniuses in Asuran society and one of the two surviving students of the genius Snaff (or one, if you count us killing Kudu in Crucible of Eternity). She is the absolute foremost expert on Elder Dragons (Taimi wasn't this until LWS4ish, imo), was directly involved with the Pact offensive on the Heart of Maguuma, and has a "connection" (I'm not going to say friendship but yknow.) with the Sylvari who stole Glint's egg. And you want to tell me nobody would want to hear from her because she was disabled? They'd be breaking down her door to get her to teach.

I feel like a lot of this perception comes from Phlunt's overbearing smothering of Taimi getting spotlit during LWS3, but Phlunt is an obstructive, small-minded bureaucrat, even by Arcane Council standards; he doesn't want to be there, he sure as hell doesn't want to be busy chaperoning a twelve-year-old with polio in his "free time", and if he dissuades her from doing anything then he can kick back and relax. His chaperoning is not a microcosm of All Asuran Society's Relationship To Solo Geniuses Who Are On The Younger Side (afaik he was also supposed to be Inquest anyway, so that probably bleeds into some of it). Take a quick walk around Metrica Province or listen to ambient dialogue in Rata Sum! Even taking into account comments about bureaucrats in ambient lore in Rata Novus, which makes it a cultural thing, I honestly still don't really see what that would have to do with 'Zojja would be a pariah'. The fuck she would. I would excuse the Zojja diaries if it was Zojja is completely shutting herself away from Rata Sum society and convincing herself they don't want her, but it's... it's not! It's 'Rata Sum threw Zojja out with the bathwater'! In what world!!!!

EoD (I go into this a couple of points down the post) is also just like a conga line of asura going WOW CANTHA IS SO ADVANCED WE'RE SO BACKWARDS and it just feels baaaaaaad.

Point B: "Since LWS4, it seems like nobody on the writing team has really actually understood the asura, and they're either written as 'basically children' or 'crazy comedy gremlins'."

When was the last time we got an asura NPC who was, you know, actually involved in asura society or had asuran attitudes? Professor Smoll from April Fools doesn't count, don't give me that. Uenno in SotO only really talks about asura society to comment about how backwards it is/was compared to the Astral Ward's tech/setup, and although the Inquest are a genuine threat... since LWS4, when was the last time the game actually remembered that? They're cartoon goons.

(The Arcane Council is actually really interesting, too! Their job is to deal with all the mundane shit and bureaucratic matters and City Things, and nobody wants to do it, to the point it's common to trick others into accidentally taking the job or replacing you so you can quit. They sometimes try to kill each other. The Inquest is considered a bunch of criminal assholes by the average asura, but they're pretty distinctly a tool of the Arcane Council who uses them to work on projects that might be 'unsavory'.)

I'm not saying the asura aren't funny. They are. Even at GW2's launch, they were smack-talking little gremlins -- but they weren't comic relief. And I'm not saying everything Angel McCoy ever said was right (I am refusing to read the interview where she says cells don't exist on Tyria and everything is made of magic <3) but they're snarky little shits. Back in GW1 they were partially Invader Zim references. Asura are researchers and, I'm gonna say it, sapiosexuals first and foremost -- they're monogamists in the sense that romantic relationships are often between two asura fixated on the same idea.

ANYWAY. Asura are weird freaks and they're kind of memey little bastards about it but they're also insanely intense SCIENCE bastards, who prize being an asshole. During LWS4 the Inquest had live samples of the fucking scarab plague, were experimenting on the Olmakhan with it -- they're a genuine danger. The Inquest can be both funny Team Rocket villains and genuine threats due to their lack of morals!! They can be both!!

But what they're reduced to these days is... they're either childlike and need care (Dagda calling Zojja little one would be fine on its own, but combined with everything else...) or they're just Haha Funny Quip Guys. They're not dicks anymore. When was the last time an asura was an asshole to you in a way that wasn't immediately condemned by the story/narrative as them being an unreasonable small-minded jerk? I don't even necessarily think Arenanet has ever had a real consensus on how to write them, but there's enough content from basegame to LWS4 where you can absolutely write them with just as much... genuineness? not seriousness, but, yknow? as the sylvari or the norn. Like -- imagine if every sylvari we met was either a wide-eyed innocent or a Nightmare Court irredeemable asshole who was torturing babies and cackling about it. If every norn we met was a one-note jovial party drunk or a Son of Svanir who just went JORMAG JORMAG JORMAG.

That's what it feels like has happened to the asura.

Everything in this section from here on until Point C starts is a lot of really misc. disjointed thoughts but I couldn't make them work anywhere else and they seemed relevant still, so. Sorry. You get what you pay for.

...circa End of Dragons --

Taimi: Yes! Xunlai has an entire MedTech division. They make braces for conditions like mine. Taimi: They're incredible. I feel almost no pain when I'm wearing them.

I can buy that asura don't really have a lot of development into assistive devices as a whole because they're generally all pretty self-focused, but there's gotta be a krewe somewhere that's got physically disabled asura, right?

In Icebrood Saga, Phlunt and Taimi's focus during Champions on fighting Primordus -- even if they have to ally with Jormag to do it -- is kind of portrayed as... petulant? Ignorant? But, like, it is very reasonable to say that asura are culturally traumatized, I'd say. Their entire culture and people, over the course of fifty years, were pushed into involuntary migration from their home and into a completely new environment. If the Kodan are traumatized by doing the exact same thing but due to Jormag and that's taken fairly seriously, especially in Bjora Marches. The writing is bad here! Champions struggles a lot on a lot of fronts, and I know it's because that was because a huge chunk of the devs abruptly got dragged off to go make EoD, but they could've at least left someone senior to handle narrative and I don't think they did.

(That honestly ties into a bigger frustration, which is that for a season/expansion where we take care of the Asura-associated dragon and the Norn-associated dragon once and for all, it sure is about Charr. I don't think this is what they meant to do going in! I think the writers meant to have you deal with Jormag in the next season/expansion, and have them be an everpresent force puppeting people around who you never actually fought in Icebrood Saga. Fuck, I don't think you were even supposed to encounter Primordus here, it's not called the Fire and Ice Saga. But the mandate? orders? came down, and suddenly they had to figure out how to get rid of both twin dragons by the end of the season, and they didn't have enough space left to change direction from the charr (who did actually get some great narrative here, I think that was at least preserved).

Point C: "Existing content from LWS4 and earlier establishes that asura tech is extremely advanced."

Anyway I think EoD was generally pretty cool, but I also think they got very worried about potentially making Cantha come off as 'less advanced' than the asura and unintentionally seeming racist in that way, and they swung real fucking hard in the opposite direction. (If anything they probably would be further advanced than Cantha, though -- they were using dragon-magic to power their waypoints & cities back during GW1, and swapped to independent? ambient? magic when the Great Destroyer awakened & pushed a lot of them to the surface. I personally would've gone for the idea that it's deeply impressive that humans, alone, have created something on par with but not better than asuran tech, especially when using a powersource that the asura historically never got as far as the Canthans with.) Asuratech created fractals and a device that could completely destabilize fractals in order to fish up real entities stuck in them (I expand on this further down on my last point).

Moto built an entire fucking immersive videogame with a hammerspace teleporter.

Rata Primus in Sandswept Isles in LWS4 has a satellite dish, implying they've gotten asuratech into orbit.

Asura have had holograms and solid light for ages -- they were developing immersive VR all the way back in Rata Novus. Oola has a hologram. There's multiple hero points where you fight hardlight projections. What Do You Think The SAB Weapon Skins Are.

They're experimenting with radiation.

They have elevators.

They have televisions.

They have sous vide!

They've got holo-clipboards!!

Okay yeah sure it's one random throwaway line from a miscellaneous Rata Sum NPC but THEY HAVE NEWSCASTS, this guy's probably been here since the game RELEASED

HOLOGRAMS

Blish uploaded himself into a golem and he's just Like that now!!!

What the Canthans and especially Joon are doing with jadetech is incredible! But asura tech is not inferior to it. You could say 'dragonjade carries incredible magical power because Soo-Won is awake and actively filtering her power to create it, as opposed to the GW1 asura skimming some off the top of Primordus' and I'd go yeah, okay, that sounds completely fair. Joon having tech that can evaluate the drained Aurene? This makes sense! She's been directly interfacing with Soo-Won's magic for years and probably has a better understanding of the biology and process of Elder Dragons + how their magic works within their body than anyone else alive, including Aurene! If anything, her dragonjade could well be tapping directly into Soo-Won's domains of Water and Life, making dragonjade tech especially good for healing or creating assistive devices. You could potentially insinuate this, but I really don't think the game actually ever says this, so I don't know if I want to give it credit for that. (In fact, the game specifically says that the magic in dragonjade is stripped of all signatures, it's pure dragon magic, so really it says the exact opposite of 'Soo-Won's connection to her domains is so powerful that she infuses the jade she empowers with their essence').

Ankka's stolen Extractor even has a note on its wiki page that it acts similarly to existing asuratech from basegame personal story -- just scaled far, far up. It's not new tech! They've had this, just weaker!

ALSO SNARGLE'S AGENT SAYS ASURA DON'T HAVE, LIKE. VIDEO GAMES? MOVIES? MOVING PICTURES OF ANY KIND? YOUUUUUU HAVE HAD HOLOGRAMS FOR HUNDREDS OF YEAAAAARRRRS. HE'S LITERALLY PUBLISHING SUPER ADVENTURE BOX THE NOVEL. WHAT DO YOU THINK SUPER ADVENTURE BOX IS, LITTLE MAN

Kippo: You bet. But that's not all! D'you know Cantha's living in the future while the rest of us mopes are still eating dirt? Kippo: That's coming from an asura. They watch theater projected from their jade technology. Moving pictures! Kippo: I want K&M at the forefront of new media. Cause pretty soon, ain't nobody gonna be readin' books. Kippo: Maybe one day, the audience could even control these move-ies. An interactive experience. Feel like you're really there!

I hate this guy

Point D: "Gorrik and Taimi have both basically undergone character assassination over the years and had all their edges smoothed off, and SotO Zojja is Zojja in name (and voice actor) only."

LWS1 Taimi was such a fucking brat. Precocious, sure! But she was an asshole of a child who was constantly chafing against any adult in the vicinity and idolized Scarlet Briar. She was a deeply lonely girl who only had Zojja and she was kind of shitty! She was awful to Braham! And, like, I will repeat this again, she idolized Scarlet, the insane mass-murdering terrorist who poisoned and destroyed the entirety of Lion's Arch.

She was a kid. She was a brilliant, lonely kid, and she sucked as a person. After HoT, Zojja is basically comatose, and Taimi decides she has to step up as the Commander's asura tech expert, to prove that she's not just a child who has to be corralled, she's just as much a part of this as you are. And the way she tried to prove herself was by taking on as much responsibility as people would let her, and even some they wouldn't, and she kept being brilliant and she had to keep improving and improving and why didn't Rata Sum see she wasn't a child, and you never realized that maybe she was taking on too much because you didn't have anyone else who could do this research, and she was keeping all her vulnerability to herself -- because if she told you you'd tell her to stop and rest. Everyone would. And she needed to keep proving herself and being the best, the smartest, indispensable to Dragon's Watch,

and eventually it got her caught by Joko. He doesn't torture her, exactly. He traps her in her own assistive device, with limited air and no control, and then he sets Scruffy on you, and this teenage girl has to watch her only safe haven try to kill the only person who can save her as she slowly suffocates to death.

And she's fucking traumatized. And she's trying to put on a brave face but it really, really fucks her up. No time to cry. She has to be helpful, and useful, and if you make her go lie down and rest she's going to fucking scream. The key of Taimi, to me, is that in a lot of ways Zojja probably saw herself in her? An incredibly brilliant and desperately lonely child with nobody to advocate for her, turning all that frustration at her life and herself right back out at the world. If she never shows weakness and if she can be just as rough and tumble as the adults, they'll see she's not a baby. She's not a poor sick victim who needs to be protected.

She's Zojja's protege and Zojja was Snaff's protege and, like -- Zojja is not that old. She's maybe ten, fifteen years older than Taimi? No more than fifteen, I'd say. She's barely an adult when Snaff dies, and she has to be everything Snaff was and more. Zojja remembers what Snaff was for her, and she sees this impossibly smart progeny girl, and she thinks to herself Snaff was my lifeline out of that. and she's that for her.

And then she kind of sucks at it because she's Zojja and she's really not very good at communication that isn't her being a bitch, but, like, she was trying, probably. And Taimi was-is just as attached to her as Zojja was to Snaff.

But Taimi, unlike Zojja at that age, isn't alone. She has Zojja. She has everyone in Dragon's Watch. She has people who take her seriously and believe in her, and her greatest enemy is herself. The older she gets the more she levels out -- partially from the trauma but partially because she's just... growing up! She's still kind of a jerk, she's an asura and she knows she's the smartest person in the room most of the time, but especially when compared to Gorrik (who is admittedly amoral even for an asura), she's got a conscience. She's a firebrand of a girl who pushes herself too hard and she ribs you when you take yourself too seriously, because you've seen her at her most vulnerable, and she knows how hard you take it when you fuck up.

And she's your friend. She's a bitch but like the rest of Dragon's Watch she's your friend.

And by the point of EoD, all that assholery she was capable of has been shifted over to Ankka (who exists to die, unfortunately), and she has now been fully transformed into The Commander's Tech Support Who Says Funny Things And Listens In On Your Conversations. There's no bite to her. There is nothing uniquely Taimi about her anymore.

I wasn't a big fan of her losing Scruffy 2.0 either -- it feels like they were trying to go she's all grown up now, she doesn't need her security blanket anymore! but, like. She has an incurable degenerative disease. That was her assistive device who just also had a personality? Give her a hoverchair or a cane or something. They eventually gave her leg braces in EoD, which I think is fine and honestly works really well (& I wish we'd gotten to see her talking more with Joon and Yao about tech than we did), but. Mmm. It felt weird, you know?

-- ANYWAY BEFORE I MOVE ONTO GORRIK. I do want to touch base with Champions, because Champions was really where they started flanderizing her the most notably. It is completely reasonable that she suggests siding with Jormag, honestly, reasonable in a way the game doesn't treat it as and neither does the Commander, because she's kind of selfish! Jormag? Who cares? She hasn't been really dealing with the rest of the Icebrood Saga so far the way you and Braham have, she just sees 'Jormag's willing to work with us to kill Primordus and hasn't caused mass horrific destruction, they're a completely sentient person'. She sees a solution to a problem and she wants it now, you can talk about Jormag later, her entire race had to diaspora because of this thing and she was there the last time it almost woke up and things got really, really bad after that, what with Balthazar. Jormag is a problem, yeah! But they're not a problem that's hurt her. They're a problem she can look at and understand and speak to. Primordus? Primordus is a monster. It's a natural disaster. You can't convince Primordus to hold off on killing people, it's just what he does. But she can make a deal with Jormag to stay away from these people, maybe, and Taimi even now thinks she's the fucking shit and she's smarter than she is, and she thinks she can outwit Jormag.

Champions could've been a really interesting look at Braham and Taimi basically trying to kill each other because they both have incredible cultural trauma layered on top of personal experiences that means they can't even consider not killing that specific dragon so super dead as a first course of action, and neither of them would be wrong about feeling that way, because if you haven't forgotten -- Taimi is barely an adult at this point, if she is at all, and Braham was a teenager during LWS1 and HoT. He's barely an adult either in the grand scheme of things! A scenario where both dragons are represented by one of your friends would've been really, really cool, and the challenge is 'how do we fix this without the dragons going out of balance'. And It Was Not That At All In Any Way.

I actually had this idea as I was writing this post but, like. Man. I understand the point of Ryland, Champion of Jormag, but I would've loved to see Jormag really gaslighting the hell out of Taimi and convincing her she's just as special as he is. She deserves special power and she understands Jormag, she's so clever -- just that slow horrible corruption through persuasion, through appealing to her pride. That's the asura cultural flaw! They know they're smarter than everyone else! Play to that.

This is partially because IN THE MEANTIME, FIRE ALARM makes me want to punch a table. I hate that voiceline. I hear it so much. Dragonstorm, why.

ANYWAY -- LWS4 Gorrik was barely ex-Inquest. Bioterrorist weirdo. The most autistic man in the world (love him for this). His argument against 'YOU WERE EXPERIMENTING ON THE OLMAKHAN WITH THE SCARAB PLAGUE?' is just 'I didn't vote for it but the results are FASCINATING also btw it's actually a pestilence, not a plague--'. His morals are entirely about what will let him do the most Bug Science. Sure, the Scarab Plague is one of the most horrifying contagions in history, but he is a scarab expert and he could infodump on this shit for HOURS. Do you remember that time he got arrested for bioterrorism after exposing himself to said plague, and his main concerns are 'people calling it a plague, not a pestilence' when they want his fucking head? Even when you get him out he just goes 'am I supposed to anticipate the neuroses of everyone around me?? Them freaking out was totally unreasonable'. Yeah, man, the fucking Elonians losing it about the potential of the Scarab Plague coming back is an unreasonable hysterical reaction. He doesn't care about people! He only cares about bugs! (This is an exaggeration but you get what I mean.)

The Commander: Joko intercepted the ship. Exposed all the crew and passengers to the Scarab Plague. Gorrik: Oh my, my, my—a full-spectrum outbreak! This is incredible! Taimi: Gorrik... Gorrik: Oh, right. Sorry. Tragedy. Terrible.

He's a freak! He's a freak of a man! I love him! COMMANDER HOLY FUCK DID YOU SAY CHAK from Jahai Bluffs lives in my heart. Weirdo guy. Incubated the roller beetle in his own body under his skin just because he thought it'd be cool. He never really grows a conscience even after Blish's death, because that's not who he is, that's not how he perceives and interacts with the world. He has a completely different perspective from you, and his priorities and predilections make him an impossibly brilliant scientist... who should probably not be allowed to talk to anyone he doesn't already know ever again.

Now circa EoD he's... what? What is he? Haha he's funny detective guy who can't read social cues and is dragging Rama into things. Oh, I guess he's an asura, so sometimes he says tech things. They have removed this man's deep freak nature from him :( The man I knew would've been out there doing fieldwork and dissecting void creatures yesterday. He would've been fascinated by the Dragonvoid glitching reality! Sorry, no, he doesn't do that anymore, he's just Funny Detective Guy, sometimes he does science things with jade tech because Rama is around and that means Gorrik is also there because he's Those Two Guys with Rama now. Sure. I like their dynamic but man did things happen to Gorrik to get there. I wish it could've been Very Normal Man Rama and a little goblin man who has decided Rama is his bestie.

(Also I'm deeply weirded out by the narrative pushing TAIMI IS AN ADULT NOW SO SHE'S GOING TO DATE GORRIK BECAUSE ADULTS GET IN RELATIONSHIPS unironically. I really do think the writers have forgotten there's like... a 15 year age gap between them and just remembered 'Gorrik's brother was Taimi's classmate, and he was close? in age to his brother, probably?, so it's fine' he's like 30, man. And if Taimi/Gorrik didn't feel so slapped together and like a way to pair them up so they're busy with each other and no longer narratively relevant outside of Tech Support, maybe I would be less bitchy! But I really don't like them symbolizing 'Taimi's not a little girl anymore, she's all grown up now!' by having her immediately display romantic interest in a guy who, like. You cannot tell me Gorrik fucks. I love him but I don't think he has ever contemplated fucking as a thing he would do.

They're research partners! They're good friends! But they are absolutely not in a romantic or sexual relationship. I don't believe it.)

Zojja... god, they did that woman dirty in SotO. They did her so dirty. I talked in my original post about how her narrative role here is actively sabotaged by it being Zojja and Caithe (or even Logan!) would've done it better, and I'm sticking to that. Anyway, the Tower of Secrets story summary includes:

I've never seen her out of her element or so unsure of herself; I'm used to the hypercompetent and defiantly confident golemancer of legend. This is an entirely new side.

Even taking into account the idea SotO wants us to accept that she's gone through character development offscreen and a full arc, Zojja would never. Zojja gets fucking mean when she's stressed or unsure, and even if it's been years and she's grown past that... she's still not going to wibble about it. This is part of the big problem with her writing, even in the base content for SotO: Zojja is very, very passive. She's nice, even! She mediates between you! She's your good friend Zojja (even though she was maybe friends with an asuran Commander, and she sure as hell was not making friendship bracelets with any other Commanders and wouldn't go YOU'LL FIX EVERYTHING :D after not having seen you for ten years). ...But asura in general, and especially Zojja, have a chip on their shoulder and they will prove themselves. There are ways they could've shown Zojja growing past that asuran cultural selfishness by really listening to and cooperating with other people -- the way they did it isn't that. I'm gonna call back to that Angel McCoy interview I linked earlier:

Sit back and watch the sass fly! A side effect of asuran intelligence and self-confidence is that they’re masters of the zinger. They don’t suffer fools lightly and don’t believe in sparing feelings. Workers expect to get snide comments from their krewe bosses, and progeny expect it from their parents. Teen asura, of course, give it back as good as they get it—it’s part of growing up. This verbal abuse may seem mean-spirited, but the asura don’t see it that way. They don’t take it personally. Their competitive natures drive them to greater heights of achievement. Remember, asura have survived against terrible odds, including their tiny statures. They’ve earned their attitudes, and a certain amount of bravado keeps them from being victims. With their jibes, they’re telling it like they see it, and if you can’t take the heat, get out of the laboratory.

Yes, this is asura overall, their cultural standards, but everyone in Destiny's Edge is/was -- to some degree -- a prototypical example of their race. And beloved Zojja was a prickly son of a bitch if you weren't the asura commander. She would never wibble. I really, really do think they gave her amnesia via wizardification so they can justify both 1. her never referencing your past adventures and 2. doing a bit of moeblobification. It's not gap moe if she doesn't have moments of being a bitch, Arenanet, it's just sparkling woobification.

They can have her talk about 'I used to be so mad at everyone' but there's a point where it's not 'reasonable offscreen character development', it's 'the writers telling us ACTUALLY it's lore-justified why she's written this way now, and she's telling you it, so she's a reliable narrator'. Zojja would be a completely unreliable narrator!! She's a bitch!! Like I said in the Taimi section, there are ways to write a character growing past being a total horrific bitch in ways that make sense! This isn't it.

This dialogue actually really frustrates me more than anything because it wants you to just... accept that nobody went looking for her, and that she didn't ever reach out because she didn't feel worthy of us. Nobody went looking? Not us, not anyone in Destiny's Edge, not anyone noteworthy in Rata Sum who would've cared about Snaff's brilliant progeny-cum-legacy and perhaps the best Dragon specialist in the world going completely off the grid and disappearing? And not even Taimi, an orphan whose mentor figure Zojja was so horrifically harmed in Maguuma that she was basically comatose. That Taimi? That Taimi would've only checked in on Zojja when she was in hospital, would've let Zojja turn her away when she wasn't ready for visitors, and wouldn't have looked for her or told anyone she was missing, not even the Commander? (okay she told us once but it was kind of a casual throwaway line. i don't count it.) Not only is it shoddy writing, it makes the Commander, Taimi, and all of Zojja's guildmates look like horrible people. We didn't check on you because the writers wrote you out of the narrative, girl.

Also Zojja doesn't say a single fucking thing about Snaff relating to Mabon at any point. A mentor who saw her for her and took her in and gave her a home? A father figure? This part does drive me insane actually because given SotO's writing I don't think they even thought about it. I don't think they meant to imply that she's basically having flashbacks to Snaff's death and that's why she flips out so badly at Mabon getting possessed and dying. I really don't think they did.

"But c'mon! Make a life-changing decision just after Mabon died? If it came from anyone but Dagda, it'd be emotional warfare." IT LITERALLY IS. IT'S LITERALLY EMOTIONAL WARFARE. THE GAME IS SO CLOSE TO POINTING OUT HOW CREEPY IT IS FOR DAGDA TO DO THIS, because with the base content drop for SotO they were at least partially interested in exploring the idea that the Astral Ward had a benevolent front but was ultimately culty and doing some horrible shit in the name of the ends justifying the means.

AND NOW SHE HAS AMNESIA AND WE SAW HER, LIKE, ONCE BEFORE WE WENT TO NAYOS. LITERALLY WHAT WAS THE POINT OF HAVING HER IN THE STORY AT ALL. THIS COULD'VE BEEN A FRIENDLY LAMP. Coulda been DUCHESS CHRYSANTHEA or someshit. Faren!! I don't know!! It's 2:30 in the morning I'm very tired, this post isn't getting any proofreading it is going out as is.

Point E: "This is actually just about Fractals, sorry."

I know they were thinking about continuing the Arkk storyline at one point, apparently that was the original draft for Sunqua Peak. Dessa's implied to have some deep connection to Uncategorized, which is explicitly not Rata Sum. When some prerelease images mentioned 'fractal' in the URL for SotO and it was apparently going to be about the Mists I was like 'oh, shit, are we getting closure on Arkk'? He's out there!! In the Mists!! Where is our fucking boy!!! (He's nowhere, the current writers' room don't know he exists. :') )

The major interactions with the Mists are generally Asura-developed -- Dessa and her krewe developed fractals as we know them, 'capturing' these Mists-echoes and preventing them from dissolving (and she also 'studied' at Rata Sum (though it 'didn't work out'), implying to me she grew up somewhere else and moved to Rata Sum for college before dropping out). And then Arkk managed to somehow break into the Mists physically, disrupt your transportation back from one, mash several Fractals together, let Mist Beings into the Observatory,

It's implied (to me, anyway) that there is or was a real Dessa who created the Fractal Observatory and then... got out. She had a kid before making the Observatory -- Arkk mentions she looks very young during Shattered Observatory, she recognizes him, and she has some unspecified connection to the Raving Asura -- who has an unsent letter to her which makes her deeply sad to read, and, also, yknow. The kittycat golems. He could be Arkk's dad, is what I'm saying.). And never knew her fractal echo was trapped inside the Mists, repeating forever and forever and forever. And then she died, or she disappeared (maybe something happened when fractals-Dessa tried to leave during LWS1 and reset?), and Arkk found out that she was still in the Fractals, and he managed to destabilize the fucking Fractals in his attempt to rip in there and get her out.

And the version we meet of him in Shattered Observatory is just an echo, too, trapped in the loop forever and ever and ever. Maybe there is a real one out there -- or maybe the Mists destroyed that one as he tried to escape the Shattered Observatory, and the only versions of these two that exist are their shadows endlessly looping (which is honestly what We only exist in the Mists…echoes of ourselves. is meant to mean, but hey, it's not specific enough, I read it as 'the versions of ourselves that we are now aren't real. we're just shadows of our real selves, who aren't here any longer'). Fucked up, man. Anyway they should've made one of the archwizards in SotO an asura

Asura. They're little bastards. Love 'em. In my universe my asura druid Svess is holding Taimi's hand and talking her fucking head off about how to make nitroglycerin and they're having a GREAT time

#I'm not tagging this.#If you want to read my takes you gotta come for them manually.#It's 230 am I am so tired why did I write 5.4k words on asura

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