#he was excited about made up new watcher lore

[mumbo-isthemoonbig]

had a dream the other night that lin manuel miranda was shitposting about hermitcraft on his instagram story and ive not yet recovered from the emotional loss i felt when i woke up

[tiredfoxtf]

I think it's time for me to share a big headcanon I have about life series. And also some totally fanmade made up lore. It's mostly for people who are just interested in my vision. My... perspective if you will.

Grian is not a Watcher.

Okay, a big thing to say in this fandom, but bare with me for an explanation.

Watchers are ultimately what is called collective consciousness or the mind hive. Because they meant to represent every viewer and observer behind the fourth wall. They meant to represent the crowd, the people who judge the losers and hail the winners. Within the collective there's no place for individuality and singular voices and ideas, it's the mass, the ones who's louder, who echo through the most hearts are the ones who have a voice. And I generally divided them in great twos: the tragedy and the comedy. Those who look and cry and those who watch and laugh. Those who is connected to suffering, pain and grief and those who connected to thrill and excitement, pure joy. Who I appropriately called "Gloom and Glee" - the two polar opposites of emotion spectrum. The strong emotional extremes.

The very reason I think that Grian is Not a Watcher is because he still he has his individuality. If you haven't noticed that about him, he generally has a disdain for people telling him what to do and think. He has a strong will and strong character, he knows who he is. He is simply isn't compatible with the nature of the Watchers like a collective that would take away his personal freedom. It goes strictly against everything he holds dear and what he always fights for. Remember he was SUPPOSED to watch, but he /doesn't/, something unexpected happened. He refused.

BUT, he has made a contact with them, they attempted to consume him and it changed him. Not really mentally, he still has his individuality and freedom, importantly he has his choice (why I will elaborate later). This contact took away some part of his perfect humanity and borrowed some powers of the Watchers. He cannot live without strong emotions now, be it his or someone else's. He starves without attention, without explosive emotions and drives him up the wall. It gave him new look, which he isn't fond of (besides the wings) and pretends it doesn't exist (not like anyone noticed). He has special vision that lets him see rule breaking, the loopholes through the rules, to spy on people, he doesn't need glasses anymore. But he isn't thrilled about this. And he needs emotions. So many of them. And then. He got an idea. He can create a situation where emotions are at their extremes all the times. That is how the Life Series were made.

Yeah, another important point of my headcanon is that Life Series is a murder game that belongs to Grian, not Watchers.

Remember how it's important that Grian still has his choice? Yes, well, the Watchers do Not have a power of choice. Watchers is a mind hive with only one purpose - to watch. They can never, and I mean Never be the active party, they are a passive observer, it's against their nature. They have their power of suggestion, the power to persuasion (which is what I believe is happening to Martyn, but this is not the point at all rn), the power to watch over the rule breakers. But under no circumstances they can choose the outcome or create a situation. The audience that watchers the actors preform their play cannot impact the actors or the play directly, they are here to witness it happen. It's the People, the PLAYERS, who have an active choice and a voice. Watchers incapable of creating a scenario, a world with it's rules and win condition. Those killing games are made by Grian - a player with a power of active choice.

After the first one - Third Life - was over Grian never felt more alive than ever, even if he himself was overwhelmed with pain and grief of his own. He hoped it would be enough for forever, but it wasn't. He started to get hungry again. He tried great many things to satisfy it in other ways, but nothing hit him, he felt dull, not real. Then he thought of a new spin for the old game and he attempted it again, and it went even better. But the guilt he felt was even worse, feelings of his friends echoed through him, every single one of them and he felt like he was using and betraying them. Which didn't get better when a lot of people didn't show up for Double Life, a season he created in hope it will bring more positive than negative emotions, which didn't worked as well as he hoped it would. And it would happen over and over. He still can't understand why people willingly went to these games if they brought so much agony, that reflected in him. Why are they still with him anyway? What good he is if he just hurts them? But they always come back when he calls.

TL;DR: Grian isn't a Watcher, but connected to them, because of that he needs to consume strong emotions and this is why Life Series exists.

[sheets-of-your-own]

sheet wizard, won't you give us your best time travel recommendations? All fandoms, I'm not too picky

╰(°▽°)╯/*

I am very tempted to change my blog title to sheet wizard lol

Okay this is one of my favourite styles of fic so I'm about to break Tumblr's non existent character limit, I will be jumping from fandom to fandom, organization is only for when I'm not excited lol

Some of these are labelled as uncompleted- but all of them have satisfying endings to the stories at the time of posting unless stated otherwise

HermitcraftSMP, DreamSMP, EvolutionSMP

Mercury (No One Can Unring This Bell) by RoguishOne (DarkWolfMoon) T, Multi, 345,176 words, uncomplete

Absolutely amazing, they somehow made a timeline that should not work in any way, make sense for the characters and story's internal logic- Grian/Tommy is written so well, I am constantly weeping for this poor child

Summary: A TommyInnit is Grian series in four parts. Mix of DreamSMP, Evo, and Hermitcraft with all the amazing watcher lore, BAMF grian/tommy, and some DreamSMP scenes but it's very understandable for someone who has never watched it

My Hero Academia

Hawk's Guide On How Not To Parent (Time Travel Edition) by Grinch1234 M, Multi, 253,242 words, Completed

Sooooo I have never watched a single episode of BNHA, but I have read 50 works (>4 million words) about it through vibes and guessing plot points- That being said- Hawks is a great character and definitely not following my very predictable rules for favourite character. I love the baby hawks!

This fic is really well written, with lots of introspection by the characters- a style of writing that I find can be a hit or miss- but it really works here. Lots of healing by all characters involved with real growth over time. Hawks gets sent back in time by the commission and decides to rescue his younger self and wreak shit

DC (BatFam, John Constantine)

We Have Time by Blueseabird2 T, M/M, 110,336 words, Uncompleted

Lovely fic- really well written, plot points interspersed with time skips that never feel like you're missing something. John Constantine/Dick Grayson which is a ship I never considered but really works here. it's a series and all of them are great and really fun reads. It's funny and angsty and really well paced. Lots of hurt/comfort and familial fluff

Both John and Dick go back in time to change things when everything goes to hell, they remake the world

Marvel (Loki(TV), Avengers)

The Greyhoundverse by gandalfthemorallygrey T, Multi, 108,687 words, uncompleted

Loki/Mobius is an amazing ship, and while this fic doesn't have too much of it, it does have a lot of loki & avengers, and more specifically slow build trust between Loki & clint as reparations are made, which is my crack- I love fannon loki in general as well though Loki(tv) is great and Loki Agent of Asguard is the best comic I have ever read and I love everything about it.

After season 1 of Loki, Loki escapes the TVA and is determined to find 'his' mobius- he ends up camping out in new york, and making himself visible to Mobius can find him.- lots of slow build loki & avengers as both they and he try to trust each other and move on from New York Invasion. lots of relationship angst and just lovely overall

Marvel (Avengers)

Memento Mori by GwendolynStacy T, Gen, 81,869 words, Completed

This one is more Fannon-Loki than cannon, which is great. Lots of BAMF loki, both in magic and time-travel knowledge, him being forced to invade New York by Thanos, and being a scholar/strategist.

Loki gets sent to when he was imprisoned on Asguard after New York "That awkward moment when you've completed your redemption arc, but nobody else got the memo." taken directly from summary and a pretty great showing of the fic

DC (BatFam)

I'll Be The Villain So They Can Be Heroes by nighttmr T, Gen, 101,202 words, Completed

While my fav dc character is Tim Drake, this Gray-Dick Grayson is amazing- All fannon and cannon adaptations fail at making him as feral as he deserves to be.

Dick goes back in time to before Ethiopia and protect his family whatever the cost. He didn't anticipate that they would do the same for him

Harry Potter

Oh God Not Again! by Sarah1281 T, Gen, 150,709 words, Completed

This fic is so funny. If there way ever anything you would want for an adult sarcastic harry in year 1- this fic has it. It's really well paced with good worldbuilding in the harry potter world and great characters.

Harry goes back in time years after the final batter and gives absolutely zero shits

Malevolent

Discordant by Croik T, Gen, 13,759 words, Completed

This is bending the term 'time travel' but it's my blog soooooo……. oneshot so it's a lot shorter than the others, but it's really well written and I'm a sucker for john/Arthur-

After part 12 john wakes up back in Arthur's office, and only he can remember what happened.

The Hobbit

Take a Shot by Silver_pup T, M/M, 226,297 words, Uncompleted

I haven't read many Lord of the Rings fics- but this one is really good. Well paced, understandable for someone who doesn't know much about the world, and the characters are really well written. Lots of realistic reactions and relationship buildings with a read reworking of the original plot

Bilbo goes back in time after the beginning of lord of the rings (after he gave the ring to Frodo) and ends up just before the start of the journey to Erebor

Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Trading Tomorrow by Darkmagyk and loosingletters T, Multi, 44,138 words, Complete

Percy went back in time and decided that the only way to stop Luke from doing that is to date him and honestly he's so right. The fic isn't only about that, it starts in medias res from current Percy pov meeting this weird powerful unclaimed demigod. It's mostly current Percy pov with some of future Percy, it's really well organized and I like the way the plot shapes up

Percy comes to camp and meets Theo (Theseus) an incredibly powerful demigod with a mysterious past and a connection to water...

DC (BatFam)

How to Scratch a Record by TimTheToaster (tabletoptime) M, N/A, 150,556 words, Complete

The hope that this series will update is what is keeping me in the milky way. the main fic is done, but the sequel is not published or updated. Ends setting up the sequel and it kills me :)

Tim ends up in the past, and sets up in crime alley, accidentally adopting a gaggle of kids because the bat-genes run deep. It's an amazing fic and I love everything about it

Red vs Blue (Chorus Trilogy)

Asphodel Meadows by Hinn_Raven T, F/F, 35,761 words, Complete

f/f? in red vs blue? i didn't know they had enough developed female characters for that. This fic is great and lots of fun, but it tends to skip over cannon scenes so it'll be hard to understand if you haven't watched the chorus trilogy. A great take on the plot and relatively compliant

Tex gets sent into the future from an issue with Wyoming's time travel unit and ends up on Chorus. Tex/Kimbal later on but it's not a big plot point in the main fic

Red vs Blue (Freelancer)

If We're Going To Do This, We're Going To Do This Right by kapachiramasama E, Multi, 174,118 words, Completed

Honestly I was gonna reply to this ask yesterday but got caught up re-reading this fic, and if that's not an endorsement idk what is. This fic is really well written and just a lot of fun to read. Lots of angst and fluff, leaning to more angst at the end but there is a happy ending. Tucker gets too distracted with his own problems to realize the plot happening around him and that is cannon, actually.

After Tucker put on Maine's suit at the end of the chorus trilogy, he gets transported through time and becomes a freelancer, Agent Kentucky. Drama with other freelancers and time travel issues galore.

[katalyist]

This is my third time trying to explain my theory about Grian being a Watcher even before Evo so please someone stay with me.

We are all familiar with the «He was never meant to be there, he was only meant to watch» phrase (that didn't change my brain chemistry at all) right? Now, someone has always being... Odd about it, maybe the fact that is was the answer of «Why are you so sent on Grian?» that Martyn said. Everyone just kinda agree that it was refered to the life series, but what if the answer is that Grian wasn't supposed to be there even before? In Evo.

Because Evo Grian marks almost all the things of a watcher since... Day one? First, well, he was the admin so he had the power around the server, he was supposed to keep track of changing the versions (so he must have had a little bit of knowledge that the Watchers weren't that dangerous to let them participate in the changes of versions).

Second of all, he was very isolated from the rest of the members since the beginning, he was the one that lived further away from everybody else in a version where you couldn't run, there wasn't minecarts or horses or a way to get there quickly.

Third, he wanted to have access to everything. With the station to go from spawn to his base and the secret tunnels under it that were supposed to connect with everybody base (he abandoned the project pretty quickly but that isn't the point tho).

He has always been a prankster, but he hasn't never been the one that does the easy pranks, no, Grian send BigB to a journey with riddles and rhymes only to getting back to his base to activate a tnt trap. He make a treasure hunt with no treasure at the end (well technically it was but if you picked it, it would activate a trap). He trap his secret tunnels when they were compromised and told people to send comments to the other people on the smp tricking them to go see (poor Jimmy). And that isn't counting his multiple 'just tnt it' pranks. Also, he liked messing with people when they were streaming, when he could watch them.

He also didn't wanted to obey the Watchers, twisting their rules and breaking them, didn't the listeners say something about the Watchers thinking they are above everyone else? That they don't have to give explanations?

And one of the things that just scream Watcher behavior it's how he made a entire escape room for Taurtis to complete, with everything you could think, riddles, mind tests, rooms with puzzles... Just because he could and he wanted, just for his enjoyment.

If that isn't a Watcher thing at this point I don't know what it is! And it could explain in the Evo lore why he was so calm to go with the Watchers after defeating the dragon, he was even excited to have the opportunity to watch what all his friend were gonna do even if he wasn't there anymore.

So yeah, part of my theory says that he is a Watcher from the beginning, if he knew or not that's a different history. The important part is that:

He stayed. He is there.

Grian is a player (or at least pretending to be one) like the others, he participates like everyone else, the rules apply to him too. He wants the rules to apply to him he wants to be like everybody, even if that means pain, break promises, break friendships, even if it means that he is only surviving.

But his constant effort to connect, to stay present is not something that beggings in life series, as you might have noticed, it started in Evo. His nature competing with what he really wanted for the control.

Using the same examples to his Watcher behavior:

He isolate himself to almost inmediatly trying to find a way for people to visit. And when he finished most part of his base structure he abandoned it, he say something like "I want to be more close to spawn, I feel like I have no idea to what is happening there" and went there to build Evo town.

Most of the time he gave people something in return after a prank/situation that he feel unfair, when the property police blew up on accident he build a new one, and he always apologiezed.

After the Watchers punished him once he didn't break the rules and he warned Taurtis about not doing it. Even when he always found ways to twisted or steal from them.

In the game that he made Taurtis play it was a prize at the end: A cake, dumb, but a prize that seem fair and that he knew Taurtis was gonna like, and he didn't lie.

So maybe when They took him back he was excited at first, new things, to see, to learn, to explote. Maybe things he forgot completely.

But then there was the rules, watch but not participate, watch and create but never involve yourself with the players. Maybe They had the hope that teaching him again there ways was gonna make him stay, but we know Grian, he gets bored quickly.

So he escaped and now we are in the life series. I'm not gonna extend to much here, I reblog someone else talking about how Grian is making an effort to stay there instead of going back and the implications that it has about The Watchers moving everything just to make him miserable.

But why? Why they want him back? Why is he so important to them that he can't be replaced or forgotten to live like a player?

And here I add the popular theory/headcanon of Grian being the first player to become a Watcher. Because that makes him important to them, it makes him a success, something to study, to see how far he can go.

But he isn't cooperating with them, the worst of their character: Watchers always want to do things their way.

In conclusion: Grian as always been a Watcher and the Evo SMP proves it. How this impacts everything else? I don't know!

Thank you for reading, this is my third time writing this because i don't know where the drafts are (if you haven't notice I'm quite new to this Tumblr thing) and i lost two of my rants there.

[kyuuppi]

Hi!! I'm kinda gonna be rly busy these days and your writings make me smile and i rly love ur works:)

so if ur requests are open I would like to request tighnari, heizou, and albedo with and S/O that had a past life in the modern world as a doctor(preferably a neurologist-) bc I've kinda wanted to be one hehe

Edit: omg, realizing I very much misread this ask, sorry. :,,)

Gender-neutral reader / *un*established relationship / reader recently came to past Teyvat from the future / neurologist - naturopathologist - bioengineer reader (separate)

AU notes: Because it is just the “future” Teyvat, I assume many species and lore are the same but, in order for modern medicine to exist, a lot of the magic of Teyvat including visions (and by extension, the archons) have been lost to time. This is just some headcanons tho so I didn’t get too deep into world-building and there may be some inconsistencies.

Ft. Tighnari; Heizou; Albedo

⭐Tighnari // Naturopathologist

→ Naturopathology is a distinct field of medicine that combines the wisdom of nature with the rigors of modern science. Naturopathic doctors use traditional Chinese medicine, herbalism, and diet-based therapies. They emphasize the power of nature over man-made drugs.

Knowing you practice medicine and are from the future, Tighnari is immediately super excited to learn from you

You may have knowledge that could help the people of Sumeru, especially his dearest friend and assistant Collei

He assumes you use really advanced techniques and technology that Teyvat is thousands of years from inventing, so he’s really surprised to learn the ingredients and remedies you talk about are the same as his own

You explain to him that not all modern medicine is quite as amazing as he had assumed and there are many illnesses that still can’t be treated or modern pharmaceutical drugs with adverse side effects such as internal bleeding and psychological addiction – so instead, you prefer to use old wisdom and nature to heal people

You introduce him to new ways to utilize and process many herbs he is already used to working with

Likewise, he teaches you about some species that have been forgotten over time or are already extinct in your own timeline, proving to you the importance of conservation

“In modern times, the improvement of international travel efficiency and climate change have led to an increase in pandemic diseases–how do you keep your immune systems so strong without vaccines in Sumeru?”

Tighnari immediately perks up at your question, tail swishing in thinly-veiled excitement. The amount of people who show interest in the flora of Avidya forest are few, even among scholars, so he is quick to jump on any opportunity to talk about them–particularly with someone as intelligent as you who understands what he’s talking about.

“Avidya forest is home to a diverse range of mushrooms, each with potent medicinal properties,” he begins, gently grasping your hand to lead you through the thick patches of brush beyond camp. 

With how close you and Tighnari have grown over the course of the weeks, the forest watchers find it difficult to believe you had appeared out of nowhere just a little over a month ago. Tighnari was previously known to work mostly alone. While he offered regular lectures and was always more than willing to provide guidance and instructions to any forest watchers or visitors who asked, he tended to spend most of his time on solo patrols visiting the places he deemed too dangerous for anyone else. In the rare moments he wasn’t out and about, he generally stayed holed up in his tent, meticulously penning detailed research notes. 

The closest Tighnari seemed to have to a social life was the daily check-ins on Collei’s condition and Cyno’s occasional but unappreciated visits. 

Thus, seeing Tighnari spend his nearly waking moment practically glued to your hip, discussing flora and herbs in such detail even senior forest watchers would get lost listening to your conversations, was quite a surprise to everyone. The rare toothy grins usually reserved for lost animals or research breakthroughs have now become commonplace as Tighnari attentively listens to your every word. The lovesick smiles and starstruck expressions he constantly gives in your present are clear as day to anyone around. The forest watchers make it a point to leave the two of you alone on your “dates” – partially because it means they’re less likely to be subjected to a forest safety lecture from Tighnari when you’re distracting him.

Finally, the two of you reach a small river bank surrounded by cheerful yellow nilotpala lotuses in an otherwise nondescript location one would not think twice about. Tignari lets go of your hand to step forward and carefully lift a decaying tree log. There, a bed of bright orange fungus is revealed. They stand clustered together in varying heights but all dusted a bright orange that somewhat resembled a certain modern cheesy corn puff chip famous in some parts of modern Teyvat. 

You gasp softly, immediately recognizing them from the illustrations in your medical school textbooks. 

“Cordyceps!” you cheer.

Tighnari’s lips stretch into a boyish grin.

“Correct – when dried and ground they have a strong nutty flavor that pairs well in many savory dishes. They seem to have strong anti-inflammatory effects but concrete research is still lacking.”

“This is amazing,” you say somewhat breathlessly, slowly stepping forward to get a better look. Unbeknownst to you, Tighnari’s gaze never once strays from your figure. He seems to take in your every reaction in an equal fascination to your own as you gaze upon the fungi.

“We still use them in modern times,” you explain, “they’ve been shown to shrink tumors–but they’re extremely rare now and only grown in a few labs. It’s amazing to see so many of them just naturally occurring like this…”

“Really? That’s a shame��they’re aromatic and delicious in a mild curry or stew,” Tighnari claims.

Then, almost shyly, he adds: “Perhaps…if you come to my tent later we could share some for dinner tonight.”

⭐Heizou // Neurologist

(disclaimer: I literally knew nothing about Heizou and just read through his wiki page & voice lines to write this so it is likely really ooc x_x)

→ A neurologist is a specialist who diagnoses and treats conditions of the brain, spinal cord, and nerves. This can include muscle diseases and disorders that affect thinking and behavior.

Heizou values innate abilities above any learned skills and tends to see things in black and white – people are either good or evil and those who are evil must repent through proper trial and punishment in the criminal justice system 

smh what a bootlicker

So he’d probably really underestimate you at first

He thinks nothing and no one is better at gauging the mind of others than his own intuition, not even your years of schooling and professional experience can beat genius detective Shikanoin Heizou!

You kinda have to prove yourself to him

Like maybe you happen to be tagging along when Heizou solves a case and correctly identifies the culprit to a petty crime – except even the culprit themself doesn’t fully remember committing the crime and they seem oddly confused and disoriented

After hearing the circumstances of the case and asking the suspect several questions, you learn that they had recently recovered from a very severe infection and deduce that they may be suffering from some negative cognitive effects from it that impairs their judgment and memory

You explain the concepts of neurological trauma and how physical illnesses can affect the thinking and behavior of people – sometimes criminals themselves are just victims of circumstance

After that, Heizou is much more receptive and openly interested in your profession and future world. He asks you to explain all kinds of different neurological disorders and degenerative diseases

He’ll listen to everything and try to understand the complexities of the human body as you describe them but he’s a little lost at times tbh…

He’s really interested in how your field is used in criminal cases in the future; you explain to him how medical professionals are sometimes called in during trials to explain why the victim or criminal may have acted in a particular way

Disorders relating to dementia kind of freak him out — he can’t imagine many things more terrifying than forgetting everything you’ve ever known without even being aware of it; what if he lost his intuition from a small concussion? He might be even more reluctant to get into physical fights from now on…

Since coming to Inazuma, you have become a frequent guest of the Tenryou Commission and, more accurately, of the top detective, Shikanoin Heizou. While your relationship initially began with you being the subject of intense interrogation and scrutiny – “How exactly did you get here from the future? What are your intentions for coming to Inazuma? Do you hold a grudge against the Raiden Shogun?” – over time, your honesty and pure heart – his words, not yours – earned the trust of Heizou and thus the rest of the Inazuman people.

Eventually, hours of grueling interrogations between the two of you became playfully competitive card games and battles of wit. Heizou absolutely loved to test your intelligence but not because he doubted it. On the contrary, you were honored as one of the few he considered nearly on par with his own quick wits. Even if you always lose, Heizou is convinced you’re one of the most intelligent people in Inazuma–maybe even all of Teyvat! 

One of his recent favorite games to play is one in which he gives you a hypothetical patient with a list of symptoms and asks you to tell him the diagnosis. You’re pretty sure he wouldn’t even know if you were right or not but you decide not to ruin his fun.

“Okay, how about this – muscle weakness, poor vision, and difficulty standing still,” Heizou rattles off, apple green eyes watching you expectantly. 

“Age of patient,” you inquire.

“Old.”

“How long did it take for symptoms to manifest?”

“Hmm…a few days.”

You look away thoughtfully as you mentally sift through multiple possibilities, Heizou’s gaze darting across your face with each small twitch of emotion. Watching you think has become something of a fixation for him.

“Possibly… Gullain-Barré Syndrome? Would need to do some NCV and cerebrospinal fluid tests to be certain though,” you finally conclude.

Heizou grins at your rudimentary diagnosis, seeming just as satisfied as he is after solving a cold case.

“As I thought, you really are a genius!”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” you sheepishly brush off, feeling slightly shy under Heizou’s enthusiastic praise. From what others in the commission have told you, Heizou is generally not one to throw around empty words of flattery. You find that somewhat hard to believe considering how often he compliments you, from your sharp intellect and wit to even less obvious aspects of your personality you have never considered praise-worthy. 

“Nonsense,” Heizou simply brushes off, “my intuition tells me so and my intuition is never wrong.”

⭐Albedo // Biomedical Engineer

→ Biomedical engineers apply the sciences of engineering to the art of medicine in order to improve the function and life of individuals. They study, design, develop, and evaluate biological and medical systems such as artificial organs. 

This is the one closest to my field IRL so my bias is going to be so obvious LOL

Albedo was interested the moment he heard someone from the future had come to Teyvat – there are numerous things that can be learned from the future, whether technological advances or social inclinations

However, when you explained your specific profession, Albedo’s immense excitement was apparent

Albedo wants to know literally everything

He’s smart enough to be able to piece together the bits you give him. Even if you don’t fully know how to explain future technology in simple terms that people from thousands of years ago would understand – how do you explain a laptop to people who don’t use electricity? – Albedo somehow gets it

He wants to document every single bit of information you give him. He listens intently and has everything you tell him basically memorized word-for-word but he still makes an effort to write down a summary at the end of each day.

While you claim there are still many limits of science in the modern world, the advancements your society has made are beyond even his own imagination and they give him hope that his goal of understanding the truth of the world may one day be possible

“So these stem cells are able to be harvested from bone marrow and transplanted to any part of the body where they naturally proliferate and regenerate damaged tissue in any part of the body?” 

Albedo sits across from you in his office with uncannily perfect posture, right hand resting under his chin in thought as his gaze remains steadily on your own. Neatly-written report papers decorate the desk between the two of you, your own wonky diagrams doodled between his neat penmanship. 

“Yep,” you chirp, “we have even made whole organs and organ systems with them. Simple tissues like muscle are much easier of course, but we have successfully created even more complex organs, like the heart. In the future, we hope to eliminate the need for human organ donations, especially for organs with the longest waitlists, like kidneys.”

“Fascinating,” Albedo murmurs, gaze becoming distant as he seems to lose himself in his thoughts for a moment. His attention snaps back to you before you can spend too long admiring his delicate features– a habit you have admittedly shamefully indulged in over the past few weeks.

“If you can create organ systems from cells, creating human life must be less than a century away,” he reasons. 

“Actually, we’ve already created model embryos which all major organs and a beating heart, but consciousness is concept that eludes even modern science,” you begin. 

With anyone else, you’re sure the start of your rambling would be met with bored, glazed over eyes or pleas to ‘please stop talking like an encyclopedia’ but Albedo’s attentiveness does not waver in the slightest as he seems to hang on to every word. The only times he breaks eye contact are to briefly add to his notes when you share something particularly novel that he wishes to discuss further in detail after you finish talking. With Albedo, there is no need to fear boring or confusing him. 

And while Albedo finds your life from the future far more interesting than anything his world has to offer, you firmly disagree and are eager to learn about alchemy and visions, as they are not widely practiced in the future. He was a bit startled to learn visions are practically nonexistent in your timeline but he concludes that your science is far more magical than anything a vision can be used for. 

As you learn more about each other’s worlds, you naturally come to learn about each other on a more personal level as well. You share some bits of your daily life and hobbies only as off-handed remarks but you’re surprised to find Albedo is just as interested and inquisitive about them as he is your science. 

Similarly, you discover his artistic talents by accident one day when you mistakenly pick up his sketchbook instead of the notes he’d asked you to look over.

“This is amazing, Albedo!”

“They’re just some simple sketches,” he dismisses, glancing at the familiar leather-bound book in your hands.

“These are more than just sketches. Your shading is so good and you capture their expressions so perfectly! These belong in a gallery…”

Albedo finds himself fiddling awkwardly with his gloves as an uncharacteristic warmth rises fills his chest cavity from your praise. Over time he finds you elicit all sorts of uncharacteristic feelings within him, both psychological and physical. He wonders if perhaps instead visions your people have their own invisible magic that affects him so peculiarly… 

The idea of exploring this particular area of research with you fills him with an amount of excitement he didn’t think possible

“I appreciate your compliments,” Albedo concedes, “however…”

Your gaze shifts from the open sketchbook in your hands to meet his own, finding him already staring at you with an expression you can’t quite decipher.

“I believe I require a model to truly improve my talents. If you don’t mind, I would be honored to practice with you.”

[svartalfhild]

More thoughts!

Illario is extremely sus.

THE CAMEOS!!!!! IN MINRATHOUS!!!!!

I always knew from the lore that the First Warden was a little bitch, but actually meeting him is a next level experience. What a fucking asshole.

Taash is such a fun character. They're so delightfully blunt, but also sweet in their own way. The gamer bros are so mad about Taash and those whiny little pieces of detritus can go fuck themselves.

Every now and again, there's a wild Matt Mercer, and I'm delighted. He Has The Range.

I'm genuinely enjoying the puzzles, which is a wild concept for a BioWare game. Finally, some good fucking level design.

They keep dropping deep lore bombshells that have put years of me going full Pepe Silvia over this world to shame, and I'm so excited about it.

Ghilan'nain is a straight up nasty bitch in every sense of the term, which I already kinda knew from Tevinter Nights, but fighting her makes me think Rook should invent bleach just to deal with her mess.

Emmrich's personal arc villain has energy somewhere between Yzma and Doc Ock, and I am very entertained.

Emmrich may not wear black, but he's the gothest motherfucker in this entire series and I couldn't be happier.

Everyone is so concerned about Lucanis' pantry living and it's very sweet but also hilarious.

I love watching Lucanis develop friendships with everyone else. That's right; open your heart, sad bird man.

Love how Taash is immediately Lucanis' #1 fan for assassin reasons and he's so confused by it.

Unlocking the pieces of Solas' backstory is so fun because you get worldview-altering lore drops and then the Veilguard has a family meeting every time to discuss the new info and read Solas for filth.

Absolutely worth reading any codex entries related to the Lighthouse or companions, because you get fun insight into the daily domestic living of the Veilguard in the Lighthouse on top of whatever lines you already get about it when they're talking to each other at home. They really are like a household.

I enjoyed the Descent DLC of Inquisition, so Harding's personal arc is an absolute joy.

All the gamer bros complaining that the game isn't dark, mature fantasy like the rest of the series are honestly probably just mad at the lack of Desire demons, because there is absolutely no shortage of dark shit in this game, y'all. I mean, for fuck's sake, the major factions in the story include 1) a struggling abolitionist resistance movement that routinely tangles with people engaging in horrifying ritual murder, 2) a guild of assassins who have way too much political power but have also been forced to become a resistance group because their country has no army, 3) the supposedly apolitical army of people who poison themselves to fight evil until they inevitably die horrible deaths, and 4) straight up necromancers. And that's just the factions! That's not even getting into the plot!

Neve and Lucanis continue to have stellar chemistry.

Bellara needs so many hugs and it frustrates me that I can't provide them.

Experienced a very funny glitch during Harding's second personal quest in Act 2 where something seemed off about my Rook and then I realized that her left boob was missing. Her left boob was Sir Not Appearing in This Film. Straight up had decided not to participate in this conversation. I lost my shit. I may share a screenshot of it at some point.

Taash admitting in an argument with Emmrich that they don't like him because they think necromancy is freaky allowed me the opportunity to be like "Do you think that about me? 🥺" as a Mourn Watcher, which I'm so glad of, because a lot of the companions are uncomfortable with Emmrich's necromancy and I have been dying to get the chance to call them out for not considering how that would make Rook feel.

Emmrich made a move on my Rook last night and *fans self* hoo lord. Lucanis better show up with some extremely strong game very soon, otherwise he will have thoroughly lost to Thedas' very own Hammer Horror Man.

(Davrin fell out of the running pretty quick, since his personality ended up not fitting well as a romance for my Rook. Ironically, when they first announced the companions, I was almost certain I would end up being a Davrin girlie. Alas, he is not the type I'd thought he'd be. He also failed to show up in a waistcoat, unlike the other two, and we all know how weak I am for a good waistcoat.)

I love that Act 2 is just like The Gang Goes To Therapy. Sometimes this involves killing things. Or people. But not always!

Some fun DATV things I'm experiencing:

Playing as female Rook makes the first few quests until you get Lucanis very Girls Night, which I really started to notice after a friend pointed it out and she is so right.

Neve is bestie.

Lucanis' intro cinematic made me feel so attacked. That shit was so my brand lol.

Lucanis and Neve's banter is hilarious and if I don't romance Lucanis I may end up shipping him with Neve.

Did Bellara's first personal quest and almost cried. Hit me a little close to home.

Neve's hangout quest was delightful. I want to chat and snack and walk around with her all day.

Neve and Bellara's developing friendship is so fun. I want to see a scene where Lucanis gets involved in their cooking adventures.

Shopping and getting coffee with Lucanis was like Oh No He's Thoughtful And Charming And I'm Weak.

Chose Lucanis over Neve in that one decision that made me want to scream and now she's hardened and I'm so sorry bestie I was thinking of the defenseless people and I will never be okay again.

Varric playing mentor to Rook got me right where it hurts. He's there for when you need an adultier adult to tell you that you're doing okay and that he's proud if you. I cry forever.

Assan and Manfred are my SONS and I LOVE THEM and I make the most ridiculous noises when they are on screen. THEY ARE SUCH GOOD BOYS.

The quest to acquire Emmrich is fucking delightful if you're a nice Mourn Watcher and you bring Bellara along. Just three huge nerds enjoying each other's company while doing dangerous shit.

Davrin and Emmrich's banter is like two dad's comparing notes.

As a Watcher, Myrna kinda feels like my mentor-mom, which is funny.

More thoughts to come. Just wanted to scribble down a few things so far for the people to let y'all know I'm having a fucking blast.

[betweenlands]

zedaph or martyn inthelittlewood!!

both again

zedaph:

First impression: oh yoooo it’s the other guy that was in minecraft toy box alongside simplysarc! i didn’t know he was a hermit, i wonder what he’s up to?

Impression now: SCIENCE GUY OF ALL TIME. severely underrated hermit. i love him a lot and he deserves to go apeshit. incredibly brilliant redstoner

Favorite moment: idk man like all of s8. The Chamber was brilliant

Unpopular opinion: whoooboy. okay. potential Hot Take: i really, really feel like people tend to infantilize him and/or heavily diminish the role he has in team ZIT, to the point where it feels like some people don’t even really care about him as a character compared to impulse and tango? like for some reason there’s been a big uptick in zedaph content that literally could not be further apart from the way zedaph actually works as a person and hm. don’t like that!

Favorite relationship: uh i’ll be honest i don’t have a favorite dynamic of his rn. they’re all roughly equal in my mind. would love to put him in the same room as grian for longer than just a base swap and shake them a little bit. also obviously the dynamic i have wholesale invented between him and sarc Owns, but that’s because i made it up for myself

Favorite headcanon: @autisticlalna‘s alpha-z au, baybee! i really love the added layer of depth that comes with the implications of “zed is a clone of The Original Original Lalna That Worked At Yoglabs” and i think it adds a fun addition to his sciencey thing. it’s just really unique and also it means he can be little a sinister. as a treat

Idea for a story: uhhhhhh idk what if zedaph invented a new weapon called a gun i’d like to write a sequel to stormwatching the sandbox someday! of course, that relies on simplysarc uploading enough for me to squeeze more lore out of him, but. yeah

martyn:

First impression: oh yooo there’s a yog in this grian series? i didn’t know grian knew any yogscast members! i don’t know much about martyn but i’m excited to see where this goes!

Impression now: i rattle him gently and his one mcc coin falls out of his pocket. every time i watch his teams in mcc they do absolutely awfully and the one time i didn’t watch his team, he won. i’m very sorry martyn. also his lore is alright i guess

Favorite moment: i honestly think his double life series through cleo is hilarious in every possible way and it kinda owns

Unpopular opinion: ...yeah i’m still not a fan of the watchers lol. i tend to justify it with “this is some kind of entity pretending to be the watchers” but i just do not vibe with watcher lore. i feel bad because i know his lore isn’t intentionally the exact same as the fanon watchers i have disliked for so long, but it’s way too close coincidentally for me to be comfortable with it

Favorite relationship: just like with 3rd life ren. its renchanting duo. how could it ever be anything else. however also like i’ve mentioned in previous asks i would go absolutely insane over the thematic implications of a true impulse-martyn day one alliance in a traffic game, you would never get me to shut up

Favorite headcanon: anything bridging third life and yogscast i am SUPER down for. i think @strifesolution is the person i’m thinking of who likes drawing explicit parallels between the sacrifice at black heart altar and whatever the hell parvis and strife are doing in blood and chaos? and i think that OWNS.

Idea for a story: ohhh i dunno this is a hard one. maybe something with hopperhawk martyn, like he gets trapped in the breaker world that is trafficseries and then when he busts out he promptly decides he wants to dimension dive into other dangerous realities? yeah. maybe that

[dreamerlynx]

i decided it would be fun to doodle my whole getting into dsmp timeline and keep a record of it for myself! notes for myself under the cut :)

Sometime late in the November of November 16th fame, I started getting back into minecraft YouTube again and I could not tell you for the life of me exactly what I was watching that lead to it but I became a big fan of Ghostbur and watched lots of clips compilations of him and by extension tommy. I didn’t watch any of Nov 16 or anything but I was a hardcore Ghostbur fan and his goofy but often sad antics in New Lmanburg, the family drama with Phil and Fundy, were really what captivated me about dsmp lore this lead to me checking out dsmp people on twitch, so I followed a raid onto ranboo on the day he joined and from then on I was a ranboo main! I watched him like everyday, I got super invested in his lore as it began, and I remember desperately hoping he’d hang out with phil because I thought he was cool and I think I remember ranboo looking up to him too (so you can imagine my excitement when soon into new lmanburg they started to actually hang out!)

this continued through doomsday into january when foolish joined, who I initially did not actually like- I just didn’t vibe with his day one stream when I watched a bit. But then I saw someone who screenshotted part of his summer home (the first big arch he did after the snake statue) and I was flabbergasted, so I tuned into a building stream. And I found foolish was… extremely funny! He’s really silly so his humor is never about putting anyone down for any reason, he had a great rapport with chat that has never changed, and he is an amazing builder. those streams were enthralling, because even doing something as tedious as building can be he always keeps me completely entertained

so slowly, as we moved from February to March, I stopped watching ranboo a lot (especially because I found his nighttime beeduo streams boring at best, so less and less of his content appealed), and started to become a true foolish main! I got really into the egg plot, I started to wane a lot in my liking of c!ranboo, and by the time ranboo moved to the uk I had stopped watching him entirely. of course, this is during prison arc, which is when my passing love of cc!dreams acting like in the exile negotiations and doomsday started to become a lot more serious investment in c!dream

now, back in that first fall, I had also been recommended via YouTube (no surprise) minecraft manhunt, which I devoured as soon as possible, so I liked Dream but it’s not even as if he streamed or made content much (and I was admittedly afraid of how fervently people disliked him and would attack fans of him), but as I moved to foolish, and had been entrenched in these ccs for long enough, I started to like allow myself to really enjoy him and he and foolish balanced out perfectly bc foolish did almost daily content and dream did rare bursts!

of course, roughly last fall karl hit it off with foolish and started consistently joining his streams, and from there I really fell deep into this friend group of ccs, dtqk+, and became a big watcher of Karl alt streams and, eventually, Tina!! Foolish integrating into that group with Karl, Quackity, and eventually Dream really brought me a lot of joy :) their content and humor really clicks with me

I’m currently very happy with where I’m at: finally have somewhere I can comfortably just ramble about these people I enjoy instead of getting by on lurking, and dump art I make instead of having it rot on my phone!

[gabbiness]

Gabbi vs Comics #3 - Why is soft worldbuilding so hard??

One of my sources of inspiration for my upcoming comic, is Studio Ghibli movies, for a lot of different reasons. They have such lovable characters full of personality, and their worlds are fun and interesting, and sort of become a main character in itself. You always wanna know more.

But one of the big things I was inspired by, is the whimsical mood that many Ghibli movies have. That feeling that anything could happen, anything can exist and you don't really question it too much. The rules are rarely typed out or explained, and it gives room for such excitement and wonder! At least in my opinion. 

I stumbled upon the term "soft worldbuilding" and "hard worldbuilding" two years ago when I watched a video by 'Hello Future Me' on youtube. 

He uses Lord of the Rings as an example of hard worldbuilding, where the world has a lot of written lore and history. Important people and places, made up languages and rules for powers and magic. 

Hard worldbuilding is created to be a believable framework that can immerse the reader/watcher by making the world feel logical and grounded.

Soft worldbuilding on the other hand is what Ghibli movies usually use. Logic doesn't always have to be a big thing. People, creatures, and items can be added for the story's sake, to further the plot and strengthen the themes of your story, but doesn't always need to be explained. 

[X] Because as far as I can tell, soft worldbuilding is great when you wanna make a character driven story. A story that works a lot with feelings and themes. It can give you more creative freedom, but it can also make your story come out as flimsy or poorly planned out if you're not careful.

Both ways of worldbuilding are great! And obviously, they can both create amazing stories! And some stories are on the spectrum between hard and soft.

I went into my comic story with the intent of using a soft worldbuilding system. I wanted the imagination and wonder of Ghibli movies... but the more I work on my story, the more I realize that soft worldbuilding is just really hard for me. XD

The moment I add a new element to the story, like a strange otherworldly creature or a new quirky power, my brain instantly wants to figure out how the thing works, where it comes from, what the limits are, and so forth.

I think my brain is just hardwired into hard worldbuilding. XD My previous projects have shown that I like to get nerdy about magic systems and history, and I doubt that this story will be any different, despite my initial intentions, haha! I like making rules and limits to my world, just so I can bend and break them. 

While working on this story, I've realized that the structure of hard worldbuilding helps me create a better plot. But maybe this story can still be somewhere between hard and soft. Even if I know how something in my world works, doesn't always mean that the reader has to know everything right? Do you always have to explain something that isn't relevant to the main story? I think a world with a clear set och rules and limits can still have moments of otherworldliness, imagination, and wonder.

[green-t-ea]

Ngl when Etho did that bit in his lp ep my first thought was "Huh, funky! Wonder how Green is gonna use this and incorporate it into Etho lore" ajdjsjdh

-chaggle

Well here's how folks!

Most if not all of us know about episode 404 right? With the whole production quality of ethos world!

It stands to reason that canonically in world etho creates his episodes similar to how real YouTube episodes are made considiring he keeps a script or a plan of what he will do each time he records, while also spending time not recording to himself generally doing things he wouldn't make content about. So like a YouTuber actually inside the world!

What most people don't know/remember is back in chocolate island before ep 404 he had a first encounter with his original rival/antagonist General Spaz the creeper. General of all mobs in ethos LP world but mostly associated with creepers and skeletons. General Spaz in this encounter tries to have peace talks with etho, saying he will have mobs stop attacking him of he promises to never record content again, the reasoning being that creepers only blow him up because the cameras scare them. Well there's a reason why the cameras scare them for certain!

We the veiwers are an outside force from the world of Minecraft, we have no connection there to his lp beyond the way he makes in for us by making the videos. We are an extra planer force that veiws the world through what he shows us. The creepers (the most sentient mobs as far as we know in ethos LP considering he speaks with them frequently during chocolate island and they have a command structure and heirarchy) are afraid of us and do not want us intruding in the LP world. Not because of anything we do jus because the idea of something outside their knowledge being there is startling understandably. Etho refuses and keeps making episodes.

I have a little personal head Canon that he doesn't have a spectator account (because he doesn't as far as we know) and what he has instead are floating ominous glitchy camera objects that look close enough to hit the uncanny valley hard, and they have a red eye instead of a lense. Ethos red eye is his way of watching the feed from the cameras to get 3rd person pov's for thumbnails and also for spectating builds.

Now for a little blurb based on the latest episode to put it all in perspective shall we?

"hello hello everybody! This is etho and welcome back to another episode of! The let's play series. Aaaaand scene." The eye blinks the same time as he does. Ending the clips recoding to be edited later. Today he was spicing things up and trying a new intro idea, like he did when he learned how to edit things like the star-wipe transition.

The camera follows after him in fits and bursts appearing beside him and being left in the dust in equal measure while he flies towards the pumpkin farm, he already excavated the area and peeped for the next spot in the recording, no need to have the camera follow smoothly when the footage wouldn't be used.

He found it odd way back when having that 3rd perspective point of view. Most players he knows now adays use screens to veiw their 3rd person footage from a recording or using voice description from whoever they have as their camera person. He never needed a camera person. He and his audience have always made due. Multiplying eyes that could outlast any number of creepers attempts on the hardware.

Cameras are invulnerable.

He was excited for the lah-va farm and how much easier smelting would be because of it, simultaneously dreading the requests for a super donkey that were sure to follow the reveal of donkeys returning to the world.

(also as an FYI this idea has nothing to do with EVO and please don't compare it to watchers. Ethos vauge lore has been around for much longer and while drawing on the theme of veiwers existing is similar I personally find it disrespectful of the intent of the post to throw the work aside for "hee hoo Evo lore" I'm an etho blog, not a Evo blog.)

And also apis I saw your ask and instantly went "gasp! Apis sent ask? Ask about etho??? Apis thought of me when the ep came out" I will cry how dare you compliment me so /lh hope you enjoy my brain rot there will be more.

[simonxriley]

OC lore part 1 of 7 for @gear-redfield 

Since I have a ton of ocs I’m gonna start off with the ones that are in different fandoms and then work my way through the fandoms I have multiple ocs for. I think I’m gonna do 5-6 HCs for them so it won’t be a mile long. The other ocs I’ll go into more details (maybe).

Riley Sanders (Metro Series)

Has three Watchers for pets, they’re her babies. But there was barely any room on the Aurora for them until they ended up getting the other rail carts. They tend to sleep anywhere they want, mostly in place where they stop people from moving around the train. 

She’s not very talkative, likes to keep to herself for the most part. The people she talks with the most is Ulman, Artyom, Anna and Duke. That was until Katya and Nastya joined them. 

Being able to breathe fresh air was kind of liberating for her. It made her happy that there were placing where you can live and breathe on the surface, not stuck in the dark, cold and damp metro. 

Besides her and Ulman, Nastya was the first of the Aurora crew to hold their son. 

Her brother wasn’t with her when that whole issue on the train occurred. He has no idea if she’s alive or not and she vice versa. She’s hoping she’ll be able to see him soon and have him meet his new nephew. 

Amazing at stealth. Can sneak by a group or camp in a matter of minutes without killing anyone. 

Kenadee “The Viper” Taylor (Ghost Recon) 

She joined the US Army right out of high school with her high school sweetheart, Maverick. They married a year later and a year after that had their daughter Addison. 

Joined Delta Force at the age of 24. That whole selection process was rigorous but very rewarding. 

She has a very happy outlook on life, always bubbly. You wouldn’t think she’s apart of Delta. It throws people off every time. 

Lost her husband in the field when their daughter was 5 years old. She retired after that and moved back to her hometown of San Diego where she could raise their daughter in a better environment. 

Joined Nomad’s Ghosts five and a half years later. All thanks to Midas, who she met because their kids go to school together. 

Carries around a knife coated in snakes venom, only uses it during interrogations. 

Anja Kovic (Uncharted)

Was born to Borislav Kovic, a General Major in the Yugoslavia Ground Forces and Svetlana Kovic, a former nurse. Also the younger sister to Vladimir. 

She grew up in a highly abusive household under her fathers rule. He had that mindset of the men work and the woman stay home, then add on the strictness of being in a military family. 

Wanted to be a nurse growing up but those dreams got shot down when her father married her off to the war lord Zoran Lazarevic at the age of 18. 

Marriage to Zoran was horrific, she was just happy he spent more time in the field than with her. His death did not sadden her whatsoever. 

Lost her mother to suspicious circumstances when she was twelve. Leaving her and her older brother at the will of their father. 

After Zoran’s death she was finally free. She left for Serbia in search of finding her brother and during that time gave birth to her and unfortunately Zoran’s son, naming him Dragan. And yes, she did find her brother and became the nurse she always wanted to be. 

Evelyn “Evie” Hazelton (The Order 1886)

Was born to Edith Hazelton and an unnamed father in London, England on October 1st, 1860. (Her mom was a prostitute) 

She lived in a brothel up until her mom’s murder. She loved it, to be surrounded with so many women that helped her through her life, gave her advice and helped molded her into the woman she is today. 

Sir Percival/Malory gave her a spot on the Order after her mom’s death and she became the protege of Sir Galahad/Grayson. There she learned how to fight and shoot a gun. 

The first time she ever saw a werewolf she thought it was a big dog. It was late at night, she was young and couldn’t tell since it was in the far distance. 

Has a scar going down her back from being scratched by a werewolf during a fight. 

Very protective of the people she cares about. She was the only person who pleaded not guilty during Grayson’s trial because she knows him. She knew he wouldn’t have worked with the rebellion if it didn’t suit a good cause. 

Lydia Wilson (Call of Cthulhu) 

Her parents were apart of the cult that was trying to bring back Cthulhu. However, they left Darkwater when Lydia was five and moved to Boston. 

No matter how much her parents tried to make her forget the past, she didn’t. She still has memories of the cult, what the uniforms looked like, the masks. It never left her. 

Started hearing the voice of the Leviathan in her dreams once she hit her late 20′s. Eventually she caught wind of what he wanted and she set sail for Darkwater, a place she hasn’t been since she was five.  

Her father ran a tailoring shop and she helped a lot through her childhood. 

When she spaces out she has a resting bitch face. It makes her loo unapproachable according to her mother. 

The first time she saw the Shambler she though she was hallucinating. That wasn’t the case and she never wants to deal with it again. 

Lily (MCU)

Born on the planet Prometheus. A planet cover in lush green grass and waterfalls. 

Ever since she was a child she had this fight in her. She use to find a decent sized stick and pretend to fight a tree. 

Was married to Thanos for over 20 years. The only good that came out of it were her kids. 

Joined the Avengers after Thanos’ death. It was nice to be around people and strike up conversations. She just loved learning about Earth and she would talk about her home world. 

She was the first owner of the scepter until it was given to Loki. That made her angry, she really loved that scepter. 

The first person she befriended was Carol Danvers because her youngest daughter, Lotus really liked her. 

Ashlynn Davenport (Tomb Raider)

Was born into Trinity. Her father was a sergeant in the Trinity army and her mom was a nurse. 

She liked her life for the most part, loved her parents and friends, but the more she found out about Trinity and all the harm they do she wanted out. Unfortunately they didn’t happen when she was being married off to the Trinity field commander, Konstantin. 

Being married to Konstantin meant moving around a lot, never really staying in one place for too long. Once the mission was done then they moved on. She didn’t mind it, not at first. She liked traveling around and seeing the world, but the stuff Trinity did put a bad taste in her mouth. 

Ash can be quite manipulative when she wants to be. It was something she learned from her dad growing up. 

She helped Lara take down Trinity from the inside when they were looking for the divine source. No one figured it out, all of thinking it was Lara. 

Ashlynn actually loved Konstantin, she just thought his mind was corrupted by his sister and was trying to make him see what was right. So when he died she was pretty pissed and was going to say her true feeling to Ana. Unfortunately the Trinity sniper got to Ana first. Leaving her with a bunch of anger inside her. 

Sawyer Monrow (TLOU)

She was 12 at the time of when the cordycepts outbreak began. Her life was pretty great as well and then over night everything changed. 

Her family ended up at the Hartford QZ, where her and her younger brother went through military training (just like in Boston) to teach them how to kill infected and other humans if necessary. 

Met Joel and Ellie in Pittsburgh. She was with Henry and Sam at the time and after their deaths she stayed with them and made the trek to Jackson. 

She can be very standoff-ish at first glance. It’s how she acts in this apocalyptic world, more so to protect herself and because she doesn’t trust people. 

Started a relationship with Joel a year and a half later. He was the first person she really let in and was happy for the few years they were together. She even considers Ellie like a little sister. 

She lost her family when the Hartford QZ fell. She tried to save her brothers, but couldn’t. That still haunts her to this day. 

Phaedra Alexeyev (Werewolf The Apocalypse) 

She’s very good at backstabbing and manipulating people. All thanks to her former caern. A part of her hates it, but the other knows how in handy it can be. 

She was born at the Shadow Lords Thunderstrike Sept, Ural Mountains, Russia. Close to the city of Chelyabinsk. 

Phaedra and Cahal became a surrogate family after they both had to kill a family member. 

Always the first ready to jump into the action. When there’s a fight she’s on the front lines, she’s not going to miss out. And she just likes to fight in general. 

She born under a full moon making her have the Ahroun Auspices.The Full Moon makes the Ahroun the living weapon of Gaia. They are the warrior among a race of warriors, the champion of a martial people. Ever ready to kill, and to die if need be.

Her name means Bright Defender. 

Emma Ross (Stargate Atlantis)

Joined the Marines to help pay for her college tuition. She surprisingly enjoyed it and continued to serve as she got her degree in science. 

Lived a very mundane life growing up. Had two wonderful parents, a good upbringing, nothing exciting really happened. Which might have been the reason she joined the military. 

The hardest thing she has to do is lie to her friends and family when she was transferred over to the Atlantis expedition. Being so far away from them sucks, but with the Daedalus she has more of a chance to go visit them.   

As much as she’s in danger, she’s never felt more alive than being on Sheppard’s team. All the action just makes her blood pump. 

Ronon calls her ‘red’ due to her being a red head. She finds it kinda funny. 

She’s very friends and loves to strike up conversations whenever she can. Getting to know more people on Atlantis made living there easier. 

[arch-i-techs]

Hey! Im obsessed with your excitement over "watcher lore" but idk what it is. I would love to know more! I Understand if its too much to explain tho.

Also, your art is amazing!!!

Oh! Aw man Anon, not gonna lie, I'm probably not the best person to answer this question, but I'll try my best to explain!

So, before Last Life and even before Hermitcraft, Grian created/co-created an SMP called "Minecraft Evolution" or "EVO" for short. It was a series where the Players would go through each update of Minecraft from the beginning.

In that series, there was an outside force known as the "Watchers". They, true to their name, watched over the Evolutionists. From what I know, they were a very passive force, and liked to "test" the Evolutionists by giving them puzzles, nothing inherently malicious. I think they mostly helped the players go through an "update" to the new versions.

They're not without personality though, in the specific case of Grian, he's drawn their ire more than once and they retaliated by placing obsidian over his chests.

Anyway, there's not really much known about them, except, at the end of Grian's time on EVO, the Watchers "took" him and made him a Watcher.

He became a Watcher of Evo, while the players of EVO continued on. I think the main idea is that the Watchers are the "admins" of EVO, but that was never confirmed (i think).

Apart from that, I don't think we've gotten any other lore or story from Grian about the Watchers themselves, but the fandom (me) really loves the idea of Grian being some all-powerful and mostly, mischievous little bugger, so the Watcher stuff tends to get added to a lot of fanfiction/fanart/aus/etc.

A lot of the "watchers are evil" type of stuff comes from the fandom since in canon they're mostly really like... a kind of higher being that's watching the Evolutionists like they're test subjects.

That's really the basics of it! I don't think anyone expected Martyn to bring up Watcher stuff, so even if it's not canon, it's still super cool to see!

There's more to the lore like the Listeners, but I honestly don't know too much about them. I hope this explains at least a little bit anon, though I'm sure you can find much better explanations out there.

If I missed something, please let me know!!

[razorblade180]

Overall thoughts on V8? Assuming you didn't answer this already.

I meant to do a volume wrap up review but I got incredibly busy and it fell to the waste side. The thing about me judging RWBY I have to come at it from two angles or I won’t feel like I judged it appropriately. There’s the casual, first time seeing the episodes and seeing this through the lens as a casual watcher who probably only sees the episodes once or twice. But then there’s the other side to that coin. I review these episodes, write aus, theorize, check extended lore, listen to the music, etc; that means I have to go back and watch episodes several times for any given reason and that’s when you start noticing the holes or picking up on things you didn’t before.

As a casual watcher, I’d give this an 8/10. There’s plenty of moments where characters do things that got me excited and plot points I wanted explored. This volume actually gave a decent amount of things I wanted for quite some time and some things I didn’t know I needed. Certainly there are things I don’t like in this but I’m open and curious to see where RT takes their storie because it’s their story.

Okay, now as a someone who’s had to deep dive and take a step back multiple times for a variety of reasons. 6.5/10 maybe a 7/10 if I’m being generous. A lot of my problems with this volume are problems that aren’t new to RWBY and that’s just how surface layer portions of arcs are and how a variety of choices/bonds don’t exactly make sense with what we were previously shown, or they only make sense because the writers don’t want introduce other complexities even though they should be there realistically. I’ll give a couple examples of these and yes, I’m aware what I say doesn’t bother everyone but it bothers me.

Qrow was never angry at or brought up Robyn being the reason their airship crashed in the first place because she started the fight; which aids in Clover dying.

Emerald follows Cinder, not Salem. Even if Cinder is working under Salem, why would Emerald be so willingly to complete shift to the side that actively goes against Cinder? There’s been no grand revelation to make Emerald believe Cinder doesn’t give a damn about her. Leaving made sense because she was about to get tortured. Going full turncoat right now doesn’t. No change happened. Emerald always hated being near Salem but adored Cinder no matter the crimes and the show hasn’t done anything to switch that view point.

I’m happy Whitley and Weiss had a touching sibling moment that implies they’re okay and making/made up, but there was never a conversation about the actual problem and thoughts that had them at odds in the first place. Weiss saving his and Willow’s life shouldn’t be the thing that smooths things over. It would’ve been terrible if Weiss do something to save their life. Whitley helping Penny is okay I guess because he really had no reason to contribute but did anyways. Even so, a person doing a morally correct thing doesn’t automatically warrant the conflict between him and Weiss’s resolved.

We got Cinder’s backstory; it didn’t tell us anything about how she eventually came into contact with Salem. Honestly her back story felt more in line of her main goal through the series was an absolute freedom by the means of breaking down the systems that trapped and didn’t give a damn, rather than her quest for power. Yes you can argue gaining power means it’s easier to maintain her freedom to do whatever she wants but I personally think that’s a little off the mark when you gave her a story that involves her trapped by rules and time rather than being too physically weak to gain freedom.

This show has built up that the Schnee family has suffered various types of abuse because of Jacques and uses Weiss as a medium to build towards breaking free from that. Not just overcoming but confronting the abuse by cementing it’s place below you. We don’t really get that. There will never be a moment where the siblings and mother truly get to break out of Jacques grasps emotionally and then put him in his place because he’s dead! Yeah they never have to worry about him again but even last volume they showed Winter still having turmoil and being able to get strung along by him. We don’t even really know how Whitley perceived his father. It feels so lackluster. Then they care to mention how it’s Weiss’s idea to save him like it’s an empowering moment when in actuality, it would be against her character, values of a huntress, and morality to let a person die in cell when you’re the reason they’re in a cell! Letting him die in there would just terrible. I don’t even know why he wasn’t let out in that scene! He’s a coward! He’d follow their orders to save his skin. All he has to do is shut up and walk through a portal.

Ironwood and Oscar both knew they could remove that staff to use it and Atlas wouldn’t drop immediately. Why did nobody have any kind of compromise with one another since there’s nothing stopping them from using the staff for something and then putting it back? They had this morally gray thing going on which I liked but then they decided to make Ironwood go full evil. I’ve never had to say this before but the song he got in V7 and the character they made him be in V8 just don’t connect. I got upset listening to that song recently because I liked that Ironwood.

Clover’s importance. RT tried making a character who had no more than 9 minutes in the series and one meaningful line of dialogue into the cornerstone of a side plot. Clover is such a nothing character. Vine did more than Clover. They try to make him have such a profound impact to the people around him but we never see him bond with his team; Harriet specifically. We get one scene of Clover telling Qrow the kids are fortunate to have Qrow even if he doesn’t think so. First, I doubt Clover knows Qrow decided to get drunk in a ghost town and the kids nearly died and cellar while he did it so that compliment doesn’t hold much weight for me. Second, We see nothing meaningful between the two. V7 has a time skip and just expects viewers to be on board with Clover being this influential change on Qrow without showing anything outside of a witty remark and Clover flexing his semblance. I would’ve bought it more of Qrow almost relapsed and Clover stopped him then had a real meaningful conversation.

Ruby goes against Ironwood only to then want to do a plan that’s aligned to longer term thinking than even his, talks about how everyone should be working together, but then adds a part in her video to actively antagonize and vilify Ironwood. Afterwards, she wonders where everything went wrong and doesn’t think of a plan or do anything to immediately help either kingdom until the final hour between the ultimatum being made, to everything getting destroyed. The inciting incident was disagreeing Mantle should be left in favor of Atlas but the main character didn’t do anything to help Mantle 90% of the season and hindered Atlas’s safety up until the final plan.

Yang is used to be the devil’s advocate in a bunch of situations, but she’s wrong most of the time or her lines just don’t make any sense. They weren’t doing just fine before Atlas. They almost died every step of the way. The team didn’t beat a Leviathan; silver eyes and a robot take credit for that. Why would Blake think less of Yang for wanting to go save people immediately? Blake was never mad at anyone to begin with. Yang consistently calls out people for following orders as if it’s objectively wrong, but is never called out on the fact she hasn’t followed anybody’s orders but her own and added discourse to every situation. I get RT is making her ask questions because that’s what Raven told her to do, but all she’s really doing is picking fights and disobeying every order. Yang states to Ruby they accomplished more than they expected. That’s false, getting Oscar back is correcting a mistake caused by her own plan that she didn’t even complete.

It took 6 volumes before Yang had anything to do with the Summer Rose subplot again and 7 volumes before her and Ruby had a sister to sister conversations; 5 if you wanna count Yang telling Ruby to leave at the end of volume three. The reason I bring this up is because in V8 , they treat their argument as if it’s a big deal but then have every character say it wasn’t that big a deal; but then have two circle back to that conversation later after having neither character discuss to anybody that the argument actually did weigh on them. Yang doesn’t think about Ruby until she sees her again and the closest we get with Ruby is Blake reassuring her that people need her and how Blake admires her. I like that scene but it’s not the same as Ruby actually airing out the specific point that Yang said something that Ruby found hurtful. Vol8 in general people trying to comfort others but nobody ever actually addresses what made them uncomfortable to start with. Except Ren.

This one is a nitpicking but I’ll say it anyways. Penny getting hacked only served as a purpose to go to the vault, a thing Ironwood already wanted them to do. Nobody got her because she was hacked. You can’t even say her getting hacked is the leading factor to her actually dying because Penny became a vulnerable human afterwards that can’t be rebuilt. Pietro was gone, and already stated last volume he doesn’t have the aura to build Penny again. If she died as a robot then it’s still permanent death. No core, no Pietro, and no aura; hacking her was just to create a Hound reveal situation and make them go to the vault on a different set of terms. I’m not exactly upset with this, but I don’t understand why the extra steps. The Hound was hunting her anyways. I would’ve brought some kind of value if she hurt a friend and it caused them to potentially hinder the plan later on or remove them entirely. Penny could’ve rekt Yang and it only adds value to Yang getting one shot later. I don’t know. I’m rambling.

I think I’ve wasted enough people’s time. Honestly, I do like this volume. I’ve enjoyed a bunch of it. But there’s things that legitimately make me think it’s not as good others and makes V7 even worse.

[gemini--emerald]

So i made a lore thing for us nHo so take this

Their nearly pitch black hair whipped around themself, the heat of the lava surrounding the large barren rock didnt even make him flinch anymore. When you live in whats basically Hell for almost your whole life you get used to it. The red glow of the Nether portal that would teleport him into another worlds overworld was almost blinding, it was way to bright for their liking, although; he supposes he wouldn't have found it any other way so its actually good he assumes. Well; if the “nHo” liked him that is. Xenon tried whispering reasurrences to himself on the way over here but the fact he could only speak Galactic did nothing to help their nerves so they eventually gave up. Despite Silas telling him repeatedly that enough of the members knew Galactic or sign language to understand him and translate for the other members he still couldnt avoid the prick of doubt in his mind. The anxiety that they wouldnt take him for how he looked or acted or… the Other Thing. It was stupid he knew; Silas had said themself that they took in anyone and that a little bit of craziness was welcome. 

Neither knew how they other looked physically because of the fact that the ‘Watcher’ comm, as Silas called it, didnt allow pictures or anything of the sort but despite that the supposed Ender Hybrid seemed excited to meet him; at least, Xenon thinks so from the messages they sent him. Xenon has never really met anyone else besides family and the souls of the Taken and wasnt good with social cues. He really hoped that would change and that hed learn how to socialize somewhat well despite what could probably be considered a verbal disability. 

He exhaled, “Guess I better get this over with huh,” he said to no one but the strangely empty air. He picked up the Netherite filled bag with ease, having done so so many times and walked towards the portal. Turning around and looking out into the dull red fog for the last time for a long time he whispered, “Goodbye, hope to see you soon.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When he opened his eyes again he was met with the blinding green of, what he was pretty sure, jungle grass...Along with Crimson Nylium?? What was that doing here?! Opting to ignore that for the time being, he noticed they were in a large clearing surrounded by jungle trees, some of them having branches cut off and with large smiley faces with the mouth too wide and the eyes X-ed out. Huh.

“HEY!!” His eyes snapped to his left and up into one eye of bright red, not unlike the portals, and one purple one, like an enderman’s. He took in how they looked, the bright colors of their rainbow hair starting at red on the top and going down to purple at the nape of their neck, the right side of their face covered in enderman scales. They seemed to be about 2 inches taller than him, that didnt happen often, although they are part enderman so he supposes it makes since. Oh shit, he’s been staring hasnt he? It took him a moment to process what they said before and that they had said it in Galactic so he said back, “I can understand English you know; I just cant speak it” They looked surprised for a second, then broke out into a grin. “Guys its him!!”

Suddenly, what seemed like a tad over 10 people started jumping down the trees, some using the vines to help them and… some of the vines helping them itself? Whatever, not the weirdest thing ever. They decided to count heads as this was happening and it seemed like there were 11 people, not counting Silas and himself.

As the swarm of 11 people came into view better he started to notice more and more details about them. Like how one seemingly hovered above the ground, and one was about the same height of Silas, was also floating, had horns and really liked orange. Three more flew around the clearing; one with wings of purple and pink feathers, another with what looked like phantom wings, and a white somewhat-humanoid wolf/avian hybrid. 

One short person stood way back in the shadows for a moment before starting to walk. He started walking and grinned when he caught Xenon staring...and then the shadows bent around him almost like inviting them to see him without all the shadows. Well that was new. Silas followed his gaze and piped up, thankfully in english this time. “I see you’ve found Zero, he has a symbiote that bends the shadows.” 

Ooookayyy... taking that into account Xenon looks back to the rest of the people; one taller girl, still shorter than him however, was in full blue, even blue hair and jogging next to her was some sort of robot with a red cape covering up where their left arm would be. Three more girls were the last in the group and from what could be mistaken as a trick of the light, but he knew it wasnt, was glitches swirling around one with short hair in a lab coat. The next was the same height as her and had a pink coat and flowers in her hair; the last one was shorter than the previous two and was wearing elyra with a plain t-shirt and jeans and had rectangle glasses.

Once all of them finally reached the portal they automatically made a semi-circle around them, besides Bon, who stayed to the left of him; the rest were close enough to hear and talk, but far enough away so that they wouldnt touch him if he didnt want to. These people must be really accepting if they care enough to give him space. ‘That's… really nice of them,’ he thought. 

Before anyone could say anything however, he noticed everyone looking above him with smiles and smirks on their faces. Before he could even think of turning around, he was caught off-gaurd by a sudden force on the back of his head. Okay, so thats why theyre keeping a distance, bc they think he’ll fall and die, thats wonderful, he cant wait to tell them how wrong they are. However, right after that thought, he heard Silas yelling,  “Helix what the fuck?!” With the others laughing while watching him stumble with the added weight seemingly attached to his head.

He felt the weight attached to his head shift over to his right shoulder as Silas kept yelling and everyone else laughing to death on the Crimson ground… right that was still a thing. He felt someone sit down on his shoulder and looked towards them as best he could with his hair in the way. They seemed to notice this as they proceeded to move his hair and tuck it behind his shoulder; not knowing if they knew Galactic he hesitantly said a simple, “Hi?” and waved his hand. ‘Helix’ excitedly waved back and used sign language to ask what their name was. Xenon hesitantly looked to Silas and before he could ask, Zero piped up and said “Helix does have a mouth so they use sign language to communicate, by the way they asked what or name is.” Well he knew that; wherever Helix lived before this, their sign language was close to that of the Nether. 

Xenon looked back to Helix who was looking expectantly at him. Holding up his hands, trying not to jostle Helix too much, they quickly signed ‘X’ ‘E’ ‘N’ ‘O’ ‘N’ to them. After, Helix looked at the others in what he could only guess was awe as he felt them go almost limp on their shoulder, only holding on to his hair which was starting to hurt by how hard he was gripping it. Curious, Xenon looked to the others and saw awe and happiness in their eyes. Why? He wasnt sure, but after a moment he felt the death-grip on his hair release and a tap on the side of his head. 

Turning back to Helix he watched them sign ‘you can understand me’ Xenon signed back, ‘yes of course.’ Helix signed back ‘i understand most Galactic so you can talk.’ “Oh ok, well uh, can i put you down now?” Helix heard this quickly signed ‘sorry,’ and before Xenon could do anything, they jumped off his shoulder, thankfully landed easily and surprisingly graceful on the spiky, weird Nylium and went over to the tall brown haired guy in orange and started climbing up his leg, then arm, and all the way up until they were sitting on his head and between his horns. After that the blue haired girl looked up to him and excitedly exclaimed, “That explosion was so cool! Did you mean to do that?” Xenon had no clue what she was on about and meekly croaked out a “What?” She looked over to Silas for guidance, a non-galactic speaker then.

Silas merely looked at him and said, “so you didn’t mean to make that explosion?” He blankly stared at them and whispered “I had no idea that it would do that.” Silas then leaped into the air and pumped their fist. Looking down at the phantom hybrid they yelled “Told ya so, now you owe me 5 diamonds Alex!”  Xenon watched as Alex begrudgingly walked over to Silas and handed them the diamonds .

After introductions and more goofing around, and handing out the Netherite he would never forget the hours of mining that took them, Xenon was sure that he’d like it here, even with the bright green of the Jungle it was ganna turn red soon enough anyways. 

(i really hope this worked right, also i didnt edit it yet but i’ll do that later)

[oswednesday]

some deepest lore

 their names wouldnt all be in english but You get it, you get whats going on here, my sona is the oldest but theyre all like the sameish decade bracket like any fck’d up religious family:

okay so there’s thursday who is of the buried and was def a part of the buried ritual, they/he, they managed to get out with some serious damage, most of his body is made of clay now, he still operates in the states, so he goes after his interest in earth sciences like geology rock growth but the pressure from the family causes him to turn directions and he ends up doing accounting business major stuff gets into doing loans specifically for student, his abilities are like applied pressure he can make something feel so dire like he could be like “give me that thing you’re holding” and you’ll feel like the weight of every possible consequence will come down on you, personality wise he’s probs kind of whiny like demanding and needy quick to throw ultimatums

friday i think would also still be in the states she works as like a bioethics doctor like she tells people to pull the plug on their loved ones in a coma and talks them down from life saving treatments due to Costs and Complications, she has a brittle matter of fact personality and hates Excessive noises, like the sounds of people breathing, her abilities like pull the grief out of people so the patients just rapidly deteriorate as the family or whoever refuses treatments, she usually picks someone young patients when she can and leaves a loved one or two out of her control for maximum impact to the nurses and the families

saturday belongs to the lightless flame, she’s in school to be a lawyer at like an ivy league school, she like belongs to a sorority of desolation devotees but she lives in the freshman dorms as an ra where she likes to report basically everything like if you even think of; sneaking a beer or a cigarette into you room save nothing of prescription meds or weed-- it is On Sight, your life is over age 18 she’ll make sure, she’s exceptionally joyless for a member of the desolation, preferring to start fights with like everyone over anything, a stray look? a tone she doesn’t like, her hands are ON you, it’s nice to have like someone like that around so the older members clean up her messes and shield her from consequences, her abilities havnt manifested into contact flames yet, but she makes any room she walks into stiflingly stuffy and is paranormally adept at making people snap at her and start the fight first, which of course gets them expelled and not her, despite being with the desolation she’s still involved with the family and will blow up her other siblings phones with family drama that most of them want no part of

sunday belongs to the hunt, he ran away as best he could in his teens and ended up with like a street dog gang, they end up ripping up homeless people and people who walk at night, squatting in those apartments that crop up meant for businesses that never move in; like those empty high end investment buildings that happen in america, the gang views what they do as cleaning up the streets, he’s very adamant about keeping the streets clean and he moreso than some of them , who get more caught up in hunt pack turf wars,he will chase down a vampire and other such Monsters in his spare time, he def views his birth family as monsters and would Not hesitate, he’s a Gun Enthusiast and whatever he has on him always manages to have a bullet in it, he’s obliviously self centered and completely not self reflective dogmatically,hes the youngest of the group

monday is of the dark, he/she/xey, he was blinded like while sunday was still living with them, it’s saturday who does it and she hasn’t been able to manifest flames like that again, but it had been like mutual rough housing), xey were the closest in the family to actually being what they wanted, like a devoted follower of the ceaseless watcher even after the accident xey still retained some of xeir abilities but like if someone put them on a dimmer, there’s a very dramatic stronghold storming and she gets kidnapped by an american branch of the people’s church, he’s like 15 at the time, (i think it’s a big deal that powers are a Thing for adults that’s so seldom a thing in media, so monday was like a child prodigy like completely atypical) and gets raised the rest of the way up under the dark who wins out his devotion, her powers wax and wane with the moon, when its close to being new she can turn into darkness like a shadow person and creep about unseen in the dark, when it’s full they’re aware of Knowledge of the dark, books that are manifestation of the dark, objects of dark power, people marked who would otherwise fall under the watchers gaze and they can snatch them away, they’re not at the ritual sight, their purpose is to be keeper of dark knowledge, other kidnapped marked people who can handle it end up as like library assistants and since the failed ritual they’ve been spreading the dark news through reading mail orders the kind that just turn up mysteriously to your house like a magazine you never subscribed to, they have an easy going personality all things considered, monday gets excited easily and can always find ways to entertain herself, she enjoys alone time so she might creep in the dark to avoid anyone but likes to sit and be by others when doing anything and is quick to seek like opinions and feedback, xey live in greenland

tuesday also ran away in his teens, unlike sunday, it’s pretty normal, he kept his grades good but not Too good so skirted being too noticed in either direction and had formed a friendship with a set of kids that got out before him, with their help and like an outside support network, he’s been working and living with groups of people with no real direction in a way that never really bothered him to much, he transitions into avatardom kinda, seemlessly, like he just goes to work, comes home, keeps going to work, becomes the work, he’s the manager of an All American fast food franchise, like the fundamental concept of that, a place you’ve never heard of pops up and accepts your application, workers at it just fuse with the friers and people who eat at it end up becoming the ingredients, there are other cogs in the meat machine, he makes sure every place is running smoothly like book balancing and all that practical boring stuff, it’s a living, this happens a bit after the flesh ritual fails, like he’s the second youngest of the group, he has a real checked out burnt out personality

[mysterioussinkhole]

Family Business

Statement Summary: Statement of Gerard Keay, from beyond the grave. He starts by asking if Jon killed the hunters and refuses to give him any theoretical info he might need. Then he asks for a cigarette before realizing he probably can’t smoke as an apparition. Jon introduces himself as the Archivist and tells him how Gertrude died. He asks for Gerry’s help with Unknowing but he refuses because the fate of the world doesn’t affect him any more. It hurts Gerry to exist now. He wants Jon to take his page out and burn it. It takes some convincing, but Jon tears it out to show his good intentions in exchange for a few answers. Gerry doesn’t know how to stop the ritual, though it seems like it’s most vulnerable when it’s started up and can’t stop anymore. Gertrude hinted at having something to stop it but she never told him what it was. She has a secret storage compartment that probably has it. They talk a bit about what being the Archivist is like. Gerry knows Gertrude could compel people but never liked doing it. Upon interrogation, Jon admits he likes the ability. Gertrude also had the habit of just reading statements into the air. Then they chat about Mary and how she was less goal-oriented than Gertrude. She scoffed at people who chose specific sides, like the Lukases or the Fairchilds (not actually a family). It’s amusing to Gerry how the Lukases serve a power of loneliness but are always expanding their family. He thinks Mary wanted a dynasty like that but he denied it to her. He decides to give a formal statement about leaving his mother.

His mother said that destiny was for the powerful (despite being from the Von Closen family, from Schwartzwald). He hated Leitner. Mary was obsessed with books and using the powers without being bound to them. All he knows about his dad is that he used to work at the Archives and that his mom killed him. His education as child always included the occult and they traveled around meeting terrifying figures. The ignorance of the world put off of running away. He hunted down Leitner’s as a teen. When he got older he recognized the hubris of messing with such powers. He came back to the shop one day to smell blood and see that his mother was working on more skin pages. She made him help. He tries to run but slipped and ended up injured in a coffee shop. The police assumed he had murdered her. Gerry was almost tempted to stay in jail but he knew his mother had bound herself to the book and it was her who got it out of police custody. His case was declared a mistrial due to misplaced evidence. She was there when he went home, in a warped sort of state. She practically haunted him for the next couple years. Then Gertrude came. She burned the book and gave it back. He didn’t know Mary had taught Gertrude how to make pages. Jon knows the rest.

Jon asks about why Gertrude did what she did. Gerry tries to explain that it’s what Jon is doing now but he doesn’t know the specifics of rituals and powers. So he lays it out:

The entities are the primordial fears that are ingrained into humanity’s collective consciousness. They’re origin is unknown but their form is. They are capable of change but at a very slow rate; barely anything has shifted since the Industrial Revolution. The most common list is Smirke’s Fourteen. They work like a color wheel that continues in an infinite overlapping spectrum. Jon needs another stress cigarette. Fear is the only concept with entities behind. They go through the list. You know the one. See the other twenty bazillion post about it. The only utterly unknown bit is how the Hunt and the Flesh grew out of the fears of animals rather than humans. All of the powers have a specific ritual that takes centuries to build up to. A successful one would make the world more accessible to their powers, so that they can prey on anyone rather than people on the fringes. Gertrude was devoted to stopping rituals, and the next on her list were the Unknowing and the Watcher’s Crown (for the Beholding). He doesn’t know much about them. Gerry feels ready to stop. He asks Jon once again to burn it and he promises to do so. He asks him to call him Gerry. And Jon lets him go.

Who Did It: The whole gang’s here, but not in any active participation beyond the book.

Spooky Rating: 2/10, It’s the second annual lore episode, now featuring even more lore

Drama Abroad: Julia and Trevor let Jon have a look at Mary Keay’s old skin book and tell him to turn to the last page. They leave him alone because using it unsettled them. Jon begins to read the page, words seemingly from Gerry’s perspective as he died. And then he is there. Afterwards, Julia and Trevor come back in. They agree to let him go back home. He has a few new allies now.

Stray Thoughts: We finally get a shiny list to make personality tests out of. Yay! That was definitely the original intent! No, but seriously this episode is much appreciated by all of us who can’t do the whole Pepe Silvia thing unless we go through sentence by sentence. Gerry is wonderful. It’s a shame we’re unlikely to hear from him again but I’m almost positive there will be more statements involving him in the future. Maybe Gertrude even recorded him when he first came in. He and Jon talking about these unfathomable beings of sheer terror like they’re annoying political figures or something is relatable. Like I know I’d be personifying the heck out of some ethereal space demons if I was aware they existed. I’m glad Gerry found at least one friend in the end. Or at least someone who valued his life and his wishes. Also, I could practically hear Jonny getting excited about furthering his Meat Agenda during the Flesh’s description. I’m super pumped about the Watcher’s Crown. It’s next up. Elias is deadly serious about it going through as planned. Jon’s probably involved. I am excited for new content soon!!!