#i have a discord i guess i could dump this in instead

[amazingmsme]

After watching the mighty nein reunion I’m really in the mood to talk about my oc’s & the campaign I’m making🥺

[emypony]

.

[teriri-sayes]

Reactions to the Lone Flame's Chapter 213

New title - 27. The Lone Flame in the Ice

TL;DR - Old man faints after seeing the half-blood dragon. Dragons say that mana and aura were "restricted" in this world. Raon can use mana but suffers from nosebleed, so Cale forbids using it. Some background history of the place.

Power Restrictions The old man fainted after seeing the half-blood dragon atop the castle, so Cale invited their group inside. But he had some discussions with the dragons about the use of mana here. What they learned was:

Mana was being 'restrained' in this world

Aura was also 'restrained', but not as bad as mana. CH could still use 20% of his aura.

The restriction was regardless of race, because Rosalyn could not use mana too

Mana is part of the laws of a world. So if a dragon could oppress the world, controlling its laws was also possible

Raon could use his mana, but with some exertion. But when he suffered from a nosebleed, Cale was alarmed and forbade Raon from using it without permission. And then we had this funny scene afterwards. 😂

Cale: You can use magic if Eruhaben-nim or Sheritt-nim give permission. But don't use it now. Raon: I understand! I won't do it! And I won't have a nosebleed again! I am not as feeble as you, human! Cale: *feels a bit offended, but nods* Yes, you're not as feeble as me. Raon: That's right! I am strong! I will be the strongest of all 7 year old dragons! Cale: *sees Raon's undeniably plump feet* Yes. That's right. You are right.

Of course, Cale felt troubled with the power restrictions in this world. But what puzzled me was that dragons could still use telepathy despite there being a restriction on magic? Is telepathy not magic then?

And what about his ancient powers? Can Cale use it? There was not a mention of it in today's chapter, so I guess we'll find out later.

You Know Nothing, Cale Snow We get an info dump about the place where they were in:

The old man was a village chief

They arrived at a high place near a village below

The land they were in was the northern part of the Har Kingdom

Behind the village was the Erghe Mountains, a rugged mountain range

Har used to be an empire, but became a kingdom after the last emperor died 200 years ago

The Har Empire was the last empire referred by the dead dragon Maxi in the crown lore she gave to Cale

The archduke's family fell into ruin after the archduke protected the last emperor of the Har Empire

Beyond the Erghe Mountains was the Holy Empire, the only empire in this world located in the center

The Holy Empire worships the living god, the dragon

Annually, the Holy Empire sends a punitive expedition to the Erghe Mountains

Their aim is to erase the dirty bloods living there, the beastkin who live in hiding in the Erghe Mountains

The archduke used to protect this land together with the beastkin warriors

The strongest beastkin warriors were the wolf beastkin

The archduke family were known for their blood red hair

The archduke family was called the Snow household

The archduke got the nickname "The Lone Flame Burning in the Ice" because the red-haired archduke was always surrounded by the Blue Wolf beastkin warriors (ice has a bluish tinge)

Oh yeah, I'm going to use the word "archduke" instead of "grand duke" from now on because of the majority vote on Discord.

Moving on, I thought Cale was in the world of a rofan, but he was actually in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones... 😂There's even a Snow surname here. 🤣🤣🤣 And there's a line in today's chapter where the old man thinks that the red-haired man really knew nothing (about this place). Oh, the meme! 🤣🤣🤣

Ending Remarks Lots of interesting stuff today because of the background lore. But now we have the fan theory that the Thames household used to be called the Snow household before migrating to Cale's world. The blue wolf tribe living in Cale's world also supports this theory if you consider that the blue wolf tribe worked together with the Snow household before. There's also the thing about the blue wolf tribe being abandoned by god, which in Aipotu translates to the living god (the dragon) abandoning (hunting/erasing) them. See?

[littleshysheep-at-da]

Do you happen to have a discord account? There's a Kumo Desu discord. It's really not the most active nowadays, but it's there

I do actually! But I have probably the smallest social battery in the world and am also just a person who is INSANELY introverted, so I’m a very infrequent conversationalist. (Just a heads up to everyone I tend to give my Discord as a method of Content at Cons but uh… If I ever meet you in person and add you pls don’t worry if I don’t message you, I’m not trying to avoiding you or trying to ghosting you I’m just anti social and a dumby).

But honestly? I avoid general Fandom Servers (and ESPECIALLY Reddit Subs) like the plague. They’re just… too… unfiltered? Like I’ve come to learn how in Fandom everyone has different things they’re interested in. So you can be into the same Series but just completely incompatible, and that’s not that incompatible people are not bad people at all!!! You just have vastly different focuses and therefore not a lot to talk about! And since I’m mostly a Character Analysis Shipper type (and particularly a DIEHARD OTP/OT3 person) I tend to avoid more Gen stuff cause Shippers often get shit. Like excuse you Shippers DO care about Analyzing the Media!! But a lot of people in Kumoko are really in to like… Power Levels? And I mean yeah it has a lot of Stats and stuff so I don’t think that’s like an invalid point of interest!!! But it’s just never been my thing.

Plus with Kumoko I once checked the Reddit (mistake on my part I know) and (if I’m being honest about my bitterness, so heads up this next part is full of spite I’m sorry) saw people going for Ships I hate with such a passion I had to question if they even Read the Series or are Literate at all. Like my god I have never had NOTPs THAT STRONG. Like not liking the same Ships doesn’t have to be a dealbreaker (really depends on what they are though)!!! Like usually Ships I don’t like fall on a scale of “I could see it but it’s not my go to” to “that kinda icky but I knew it would be gross” but this was a “I have never questioned someone’s Reading Comprehension harder in my life and I want murder”. And do not get me started on people who Waifu Shiro and dumb her down to a Dere girl when her best quality is being insane. And people on Reddit are often mean and idk if Discord Servers are the same.

I mean… I guess this me having to come clean that I am… weirdly over protective of my Character Reads and Ships in Kumoko. Like a lot. Like a “I genuinely don’t understand why I get worked up about it so much?” (My best guess is left over Bullied Kid Trauma but I ain’t about to Trauma Dump rn) So ummmm there’s that… (my other all time Fav Series is Persona and idk cause it’s a Game I kinda expect there to be lots of people with bad takes cause people do Play Games without Reading the Dialogue at all (I know it’s super weird) and it’s a big enough (much bigger than Kumoko) Fandom for there to be people of all takes…) honestly Posting on Kumoko content has been super good for me cause it’s making me feel more comfortable talking about my Opinions? So I always have to give a BIG Thanks to people who send in Asks and Like my Posts.

… SORRY THIS REPLY GOT SO LONG AND PERSONAL GAH! Basically I didn’t know there was a Server but I’m not super interested. I’m gonna instead try to cultivate (with an emphasis on cult lmao) the kind of very specific Content I want to see on my own Blog 🫡

Basically I’m a Post about Shiro x Ariel and there three kids Mera, Kyouya, and Sophia as well as my Shun x Katia x Kyouya Agenda until you all go insane and it invades your brain.

[grief-worn]

munday: getting to know you ! ! !

Respond to the following prompts out of character, then tag others you'd like to get to know a little bit better!

ROLEPLAYER NAME: addi, or sometimes i go by glacier.

ROLEPLAYER PRONOUNS: they/them.

MUSE NAME: on this blog; shadowheart.

PREFERRED COMMUNICATION: gay hand-holding and parallel play. alternatively; here on tumblr (asks/dms/etc) or on discord if we're friends/good mutuals!

EXPERIENCE: i think my very first roleplay was on gmail chat, pfft. but i also did stuff on deviantart, IRC chatrooms, forums, skype/discord, and this one roleplay site i will not name because it's genuinely awful. (no it's not f-list). i have pretty limited experience writing on tumblr. just recently got back into it here after having a kinda meh experience in the resident evil fandom.

PREFERRED ROLEPLAY TYPE: not sure if this means like ... 3rd person? or like ... paragraph length? or what, but i'm open to pretty much anything! i'm super open-minded. i don't even dislike the infamous 1st person writing style, as someone who hungrily consumes reader insert fanfics.

PET PEEVES AND DEAL-BREAKERS: kind of a hard one to answer, but here's what i can think of off the top of my head:

guilt by association: dealt with a bit of this in another fandom. just because i'm writing with someone doesn't mean i'm aware of their issues. curate who you follow and what you see on your dash for sure, i will always understand quietly blocking to maintain your own peace, but i've gotten mixed up in some weird stuff just because i ended up writing with the wrong person.

heavy formatting: this isn't like, that big of a deal-breaker, i just specifically have poor eyesight and difficulty reading/processing words if there's a bunch of different fonts, and font sizes, and colors, and whatnot. definitely might be something i ask people to tone down, but it doesn't really make me mad haha.

soft blocking instead of hard blocking: i'm pretty stupid. please make it obvious if you don't wanna interact anymore! otherwise i won't realize and i'll probably accidentally make it worse orz.

vagueposting/sub-tweeting: that stuff is kinda mean and weird. i don't like seeing it!

PLOTS OR MEMES: either one is awesome, but they both definitely have their contextual uses! sometimes a bit of talking beforehand is nice, sometimes i like just winging it. they're both fun!!

LONG REPLIES OR SHORT REPLIES: again, they're both fun. long replies are sort of harder to get to since they take so long to write but sometimes that's exactly what i want; to get lost in a reply for like 2 hours straight. not sure if i have a preference, it's just that short replies are faster and therefore fit better into my daily schedule, but that doesn't mean i don't love dumping my text walls <3

BEST TIME TO WRITE: unfortunately i've found that writing at 4am when everyone is asleep is a WONDERFUL time for my creativity hehe. i wish i could write as good in the daylight hours lol !!!

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE: yes and no. personality wise; not really. we're both kind of goofy deep, deep down. and i project a lot of myself onto her, but i think that's just because her story and trauma resonate with me very strongly! i try not to like, overwrite her character and inject too much of my own stuff. i honestly just have the biggest, fattest crush on her and i need more of her in whatever way i possibly can have. i guess we both love animals. but i'd never have such ugly bangs. ew, shadowheart.

tagged by: @astralrogue (thank you very much!)

tagging: whoever wants to do this :3 it's sharing a lot of ooc info so i don't wanna pressure peeps!!!

[destinedarts]

🙈 Need Mandarin translations/confirmations for the messages the lmk creators left ASAP 🙈

Long story short, we tried to spread the animation studio switch letter Sarah posted. I speedran to Xiaohongshu (LittleRedBook/RedBook/RED); Instagram equal for China cause thought no one else would do it. This was before we found out the rest of the crew would send their regards as well.

Idk Mandarin at all so would appreciate any help. Literally just dumped everything into Google Translate.

Priority is everything in the 1st image. 2nd pic is just explanations I wrote for them in case they don't know, which idk how much they know about Flying Bark besides the fact that they thought their animation was awesome. Sometimes they share the storyboards on Bilibili/Weibo but that's about it.

Put them as images cause I was gonna post on Twitter, but coming here first, which also might be better instead.

The RedBook Post

Might need to go through some verification check, basically sliding things across the screen. No sign in should be required to view, though it could vary between countries.

Short Link: http://xhslink.com/kkPC3I

Link: www.xiaohongshu.com/explore/663ee802000000001e01c1bb

Reasons

If I don't get any sort of translation confirmations, I'm gonna have to update the post anyways. Right now, it's also full of ugly edits cause first time ever posting and I actually ran off to make this like the minute we were asked to do so in mk central discord. Gonna make it look nicer now that I realize it's gained traction. >_>

There's a lot of upset/angry/sad/mad fans on RedBook, Douyin, and Bilibili. Much like how we had the wildfire and death threats on Twitter except I think not as extreme to the point of sending death threats... thankfully. They didn't know about the studio change. Honestly, just trying to give them facts and reminding them they have part of the power to get the show cancelled or not; but also not telling them what to like or not like/stop grieving/etc.

Literally one of the RedBook comments on the S5 trailer LEGO China uploaded contains the picture from my post (cause I added disclaimer that it's not lego official translated). So I definitely would like to have the other translations down if they're just sharing around pictures like that. 😬 And note that they're all sharing the Mandarin ones; not the English even though I did provide them. I don't have Douyin and I dunno if I can upload on Bilibili. Weibo has been covered. Idk if there's other Chinese soc med I'm missing.

Notes for translation

Exact Mandarin/English text used in the ALTs of the pictures and "Keep Reading" section cause I realize ALT can’t copy and paste if needed

Uh please write down exactly what phrase to change, cause I do not understand any of the characters except the show title heh

1000 character limit for post, including tags and characters

Tags used: #lego乐高 #lego #悟空小侠 #乐高中国 #乐高悟空小侠 #乐高悟空小侠5年庆 #第五季 #齐小天 #孫悟空 @LEGO乐高 #乐高 If there's more that's helpful, please let me know lol been riding on these tags. If I can, I'll put English hashtags, but depends on character limit; Chinese is a priority

20 character limit for title, which I've chosen: 悟空小侠电视剧的未来🐒导演和编剧的笔记 (basically "future of LMK, directors & writers' statements/notes")

Crew member names and titles were written in the Mandarin dub credits, shown in 2nd pic. Not changing those in translations.

"Harbinger of Chaos" doesn't exist in the Mandarin version... I think? based on the s4 e7 subtitles we had way long ago. Changed Breen's tweet so it said to "find out more about MK." I guess I could've put "demon monkeys" but left that out in case they actually don't address it in the season. And idk the mandarin phrase they used for that

WildBrain Studios doesn't have a proper mandarin translation according to all the Mandarin dubbed Ninjago episodes so just kept it English

Idk if I forgot something, been having hard time keeping track of stuff oop I'll add more if there is more

Needed

From Christian: 谢谢悟空小侠粉丝们！

经过三季的动画导演后，我很荣幸能够执导旋风狗制片的悟空小侠的第四季，也是最后一季。

这是一个非常贴近我们旋风狗制片所有人的心的系列。 我为我们的团队感到无比自豪，他们在这些美好的岁月里一起工作，成为了一家人。

对于所有悟空小侠粉丝的热爱和奉献，我们感到非常幸运。 你们是我们长期努力的原因，我们将永远感激不已。

这场演出由 Wild Brain 出色的团队负责，我希望他们和我们一样享受这次旅程。

这张照片是我在悟空小侠中的最后一场演出。 我已经非常想念这些猴子了，但我对未来感到兴奋，迫不及待地想分享我们接下来要做的事情。<3

From David:

悟空小侠第五季要来了！ Wildbrain 将接替旋风狗制片留下的巨大足迹。 团队中充满了才华横溢、充满激情的艺术家，我们迫不及待地想让大家了解更多关于齐小天的信息！

From Deirdre:

乐高悟空小侠第五季即将到来，猜猜谁写了三集？ 我🤭

Sorta Needed

Please note that I did use a translator (and friends) to write this article. I'm a western fan but I have access to the app. And please spread the word too. I don’t have much contact with Chinese social media.

请注意，我确实使用了翻译来写这篇文章。 [Could swap to saying friends instead of translator.] 我是西方粉丝，但我可以访问应用程序。也请广而告之。 我与中国社交媒体没有太多联系。

Former series directors and writers from Flying Bark Productions, as well as current writers, have all issued statements regarding the handling of the series.

旋风狗制片（Flying Bark Productions）的前系列导演和编剧以及现任编剧都就该系列的处理发表了声明。

Sarah Harper served as series director from S1 -3 before fully becoming a writer for several episodes in S4. Some of her series credits include "The Jade Emperor" and "Rip and Tear."

莎拉·哈珀（Sarah Harper）在第一季到第三季中担任系列导演，之后在第四季的几集中完全成为编剧。她的一些剧集包括《天庭大对决》和《青毛狮之怒》。

Christian Barkel served as animation director for the first three seasons and was promoted to series director in the fourth season.

克里斯蒂安·巴克尔（Christian Barkel）在前三季担任动画导演，第四季晋升为系列导演。

David Breen is currently a writer on the show's fifth season. He served as script supervisor for S1-3 before being promoted as one of the show's writers. Some of the episodes he has written are "The Brotherhood" and “A Lifetime of Mistakes."

大卫·布林 (David Breen) 现任该剧第五季的编剧。 在晋升为该剧的编剧之一之前，他担任第一季到第三季的剧本总监。 他编写的一些剧集有《青毛狮之谜》和《寻找美猴王》。

Deirdre Devlin is also a writer on season five. She was brought on as a writer in the fourth season. Her three episodes are "The Great Tang Man", "Court of the Yellow Robed Demon", and "Pitiful Creatures".

迪尔德丽·戴夫林（Deirdre Devlin）也是第五季的编剧之一。她在第四季中担任编剧。她的三集是《小天遇三藏》 、《神秘的“朋友”》、《受困保护咒》。

Not Needed but would be nice

Flying Bark Productions has withdrawn from the animation production of "Monkie Kid". Since 2020, they have been continuously invited to participate in new projects, such as "Disney's" "Moon Girl and the Demon Dinosaur" and "Avatar Studio"'s upcoming "Avatar" film in 2026.

旋风狗制片已退出《悟空小侠》的动画制作。 自2020年以来，他们不断受邀参与新项目，例如“Disney”的《月亮女孩與惡魔恐龍》以及2026年“Avatar Studio”即将上映的《降世神通》影片。

From now on, WildBrain Studios will animate the series. They were also responsible for the Ninjago TV series, although that was in 3D rather than a 2D TV series like Monkie Kid. The writers and voice actors remain the same, but new people could join the team.

从现在开始，WildBrain Studios 将制作该系列动画。 他们还负责《幻影忍者》电视剧，尽管该剧是 3D 的，而不是像《悟空小侠》那样的 2D 电视连续剧。 编剧和配音演员保持不变，但可能会有新人加入团队。

Some artists work as freelancers for the team. I don't know how WildBrain Studios' 2D department hires their artists. If they were invited back to the show, some of their work might be similar to their work from previous seasons. But that consistency may not hold true under new directors. We'll have to wait until the end of the season to see the TV show's credits.

一些艺术家作为团队的自由职业者。 我不知道WildBrain Studios的2D部门是如何聘请他们的艺术家的。 如果他们再次受邀参与节目，他们的一些作品可能会与前几季的作品相似。 但在新董事的领导下，这种一致性可能不会成立。 我们必须等到本季结束才能看到电视节目的制作人员名单。

Previous seasons used "frame-by-frame" animation, all drawn by hand. Based on the trailer, the new season appears to include the use of "rig animation," which is the use of technology to move characters and objects.

前几季使用“逐帧”动画，全部由手工绘制。根据预告片，新一季似乎包括使用“装备动画”，即使用技术来移动角色和物体。

All of these changes will impact Season 5 and beyond. I don't know how fan support affects entertainment distribution in China, but over here, if a show doesn't get enough views upon release, it may be abandoned by the distributor and have a hard time continuing. We will give as much support as possible in the West, although the success of the Monkie Kid LEGO sets and TV show has always and will always depend on its performance in China.

所有这些变化都将影响第五季及以后的内容。 我不知道粉丝的支持如何影响中国的娱乐发行，但在这里，如果一个节目在发行时没有获得足够的观看次数，它可能会被发行商放弃，很难继续下去。 我们将在西方给予尽可能多的支持，尽管悟空小侠乐高套装和电视节目的成功将始终取决于其在中国的表现。

Change can be difficult, and it's okay if you feel disappointed or upset. While waiting over the past year, we’ve been teased by the writers and voice actors that this story will be emotional and heartbreaking, and we trust the writers who have carried the story of Monkie Kid, so I hope you will consider watching season 5.

整个变化可能会令人震惊，如果您感到失望或不安也没关系。 在过去一年的等待中，我们被编剧和配音演员取笑，说这个故事将是感人且令人心碎的，我们相信那些承载了悟空小侠故事的编剧，所以我希望你能考虑观看这一季 5.

[anti-transphobia]

I really REALLY wish people would start saying "have some sympathy/compassion" instead of "have some empathy". Feelings do often impact actions but....they don't have to. And a lot of problems arise when actions are taken solely based on emotions. The type of empathy I'm best at is cognitive empathy - recognizing and understanding how someone might be feeling - and that's a skill that's shaky at best. Emotional empathy I nearly completely lack. I can count the amount of times someone had made me feel their emotions on one hand (I think about three times in my entire life).

But then there's compassion. Compassion you can do regardless of empathy level. Compassion you can do regardless of how something makes you feel. People can have extreme levels of empathy and choose not to try to help someone that they could. Likewise, people can have zero empathy and choose to help someone. Emotions can influence actions but it's not the only thing that matters

I am technically not no empathy, but I'm so low and so bad at empathy and trying to apply it that I'm virtually no empathy. Moments of true empathy are mostly flukes for me. But I'm a very compassionate person! An example is when someone vents or is sad in a discord server that's really not about that/doesn't have a vent channel for a reason. Do you know how that makes me FEEL? Irritated. Irked. If it's a small line or two, fine, it slips out, especially when your reality sucks. Entire unprompted rants? Trauma dumping in the middle of other people's normal conversations? That pisses me off. But you know what I'll often do? I'll say a few words. Generally my policy is that I'm not going to devote a ton of my own energy at my own detriment for a stranger (had an issue with that online as a teen), but if it doesn't hurt me physically or emotionally to give a few kind words to someone hurting, then I see no reason not to do it. It doesn't take much time from me and it makes someone clearly struggling feel a little bit better. There's zero empathy or any kind of "I feel so bad for you" emotions there, and yet, because I generally believe in trying to make things better if you can, I comfort them. I acknowledge that someone is hurting and play my part to remedy the situation

This is why people need to decouple actions from emotions. You don't have to feel ANYTHING to do the right thing. Something isn't "less good" because their heart wasn't in it. If someone drops their wallet and you return it to them solely out of social obligation, guess what? A wallet has still been returned. Someone's money, debit/credit cards, and entire identity, was not lost. Someone was just saved a ton of grief by a simple act carried out by a person who doesn't give a fuck. The results of your actions is, for most every day circumstances, more important than how you actually feel doing them

[rivalsforlife]

I finished the new persona 5 tactica game and its dlc in 7 days which is faster than most people with their priorities in order, so I am ahead of all of my friends and therefore am going to dump all my spoilery opinions here.

The gameplay was fun (I played on easy mode because I am a baby) and I liked making triangles. that was definitely the most satisfying part of the game when I could make triangles and wipe out every enemy on the board at once. I felt like a god. I liked seeing these characters again, I like them, I like getting little insights into their lives.

I can't say that the story was """objectively""" bad but it did a lot of things that just kind of irritated me / felt sloppy / holy shit this is some of the worst Women Writing in a franchise I wouldn't say has particularly stellar Women Writing.

To begin with, I will list off my predictions going into this game based off of trailers:

-This is obviously taking place inside this toshiro guy's brain and/or he's the one who is causing all of this.

-all the villains are going to be Evil People In His Life

-first boss Marie is going to be his wife/fiancee, but it's some kind of political marriage type deal. second boss is going to be some kind of mentor/boss. probably run into a character that is going to be his teacher at some point when the school arc hits

-erina is based on a real person in his life as well who was involved in whatever sort of rebellion toshiro did outside of all this.

This is practically exactly what happens in the game, with the exception that I got the second boss's identity wrong (he's the father, which in hindsight I should've guessed from the start - instead I guessed as soon as Toshiro brought up that his father arranged his marriage).

It might be my fault for watching the trailers before playing but in my defense this game is extremely predictable. Like I said, I guessed the second boss's identity before he even showed up in the game. I think it became pretty apparent this was toshiro's fault early into the game.

uh what else. first kingdom I didn't love much because it felt very repetitive and like it went on for too long. as I wrote in discord after finishing it:

toshiro and erina are both fine but a lot of it is like. extremely predictable and blatant about it. like I could guess marie's whole deal from the trailers so it's a lot of "yeah we know. yeah we know" and it feels weird how the phantom thieves haven't yet at all guessed that toshiro is the cause of this when it feels like that's deefinitely how they're going to end up. a lot of the early segments felt repetitive (toshiro "oh no we should run away why would we risk getting hurt" erina "but we have to stand up for what is right!" toshiro "!" repeat endlessly until close to the end of the kingdom). and I definitely did not enjoy marie as a villain, she's so cartoonishly evil that it just kind of got to the point of exhaustion. comparing her as a first-game villain to someone like kamoshida for example, both are horrible people, but seeing kamoshida in real life and his actions in real life and how it was affecting everyone, despite him being fairly one-dimensional as a villain, made him an extremely hateable but very effective villain. I did not feel any of that for marie I was just sick of her. I'm hoping the game steps it up a bit moving forward bc I think the "not seeing the villains in reality aside from a few brief glimpses" thing might be rough on that aspect

I played the DLC after the first kingdom, which was a mistake because they have the same credits as the full game meaning I got spoiled on Yuki being related to him somehow. I thought she was a sister, maybe, until the moment toshiro brought up that his mom was dead, and then it was pretty obvious but it took the game FOREVER to actually state this.

Yuki's writing is where I really started to lose it because her character trait is Mother. There's nothing else. I actually laughed a bit when she jumped in front of that beam to protect toshiro because literally where else could it possibly be going. at this time I declared her "the most fridged persona character ever". this was, perhaps, naive.

THIRD KINGDOM. the introduction of eri natsuhara who dragged erina down with her. we have now completed the "bitch wife - mother - manic pixie dream girl" trifecta of shitty female character writing tropes. And I don't think it would bother me quite so much if they didn't go for all three in the same game and none of those three seemed to have any amount of motivation outside of toshiro.

Like again I'm not going to claim that persona has ever had stellar female character writing, but they typically at least manage to have the characters have some amount of traits outside of whatever guy they're associated with...? They have some characters I really like (Futaba, Yukari, Mitsuru as examples off the top of my head) and most at least have some part of their character arc as an individual one.

I guess the closest I could compare Eri's whole thing to is Aigis, but Aigis at least had a good part of her character arc independent, tying into the overall "meaning of life" theme, trying to figure out her own purpose and soul and ending up on "wanting to protect the protagonist" isn't bad because the game is about friends giving you the meaning of life. aigis contributes a lot thematically and I think her character arc makes sense. at least in my view.

I did not see any reason for Eri to be the supportive character to Toshiro's whole deal, but she's like "I'm going to help you achieve your dreams!!" when her own dreams and goals took a hard sideline in the plot. We know basically nothing about what Eri's done in the presumably decades between the high school events and the events of this game. The game really tried pushing the "sometimes, if you fight back... people get hurt!" but it was much more of an emphasis on "toshiro is sad that eri got hurt" and much less "how is Eri actually suffering from this other than in hospital wearing bandages". we know she lost her will to fight but the girl literally just got hit by a train so who can blame her for that, we don't know how or why she regained it, I especially don't like that she made the whole thing about "I'll catch up to you one day!". Did she get to graduate? What's her career like? What's the extent of her injuries and how do they impact her day-to-day life? We know Toshiro got shunned by everyone but did Eri have her social circle decimated as well, especially since Toshiro apparently never talked to her again??

It's like the focus on Eri's injuries was a) she lost her will to fight :( b) Toshiro is sad about it and they won't be able to fight together anymore :( and not the things about how it's impacted her life outside of Toshiro. I think that would've been nice to see more.

And the thing I especially didn't like about how they wrote Eri is that her character dragged down Erina, who was pretty good throughout the first arc, fell kinda into the background in the second arc, and then in arc 3 just got pretty much merged with Eri and suddenly her sole purpose was to protect Toshiro's heart -- nothing about the people she was trying to protect in the first arc or really anything other than a few allusions to an ongoing identity crisis over not being a real person. I will admit that her turning into a Persona was the first time I was genuinely caught off guard in this game.

(Sidenote: It was so obvious throughout the third arc that the ruler would be Shadow-ish Toshiro that the red herring they were pulling with nakabachi was completely insufferable.)

Anyways I get that this wasn't an Erina Game it's a Toshiro Game but it's just the combination of a bunch of weird writing decisions that really got to me in this case and at a certain point it was like doing a bingo for "shitty women writing". Eri is both the Inspiration For Toshiro's Rebellious Spirit who also Sees His Potential and Wants To Help Him Achieve His Dreams and then is later The Poor Defenseless Victim And Her Being Hurt Causes Toshiro To Lose His Way But Still Inspires Him To Be Better, and she's also The Woman Who Broke His Heart And Spirit And Is The Cause Of His Suffering But He Doesn't Regret The Time They Spent Together... it's just a weird checklist and it got tiring for me. I don't mind some of these things if it wasn't also in conjunction with Yuki's sole personality being Mother and Marie's sole personality being Bitch Wife Only Marrying Me For My Status.

idk maybe I'll feel better about it as time passes but at a certain point it was like my god are we really still doing this.

anyways what else. the DLC! I enjoyed the DLC overall. I really liked Guernica and Luca's whole thing. I think it was mostly held back by the fact that neither Akechi or Sumire were their normal selves and you couldn't fully allude to their Problems. Akechi kind of did nothing even if bullying him was fun. Sumire got a few good moments. I found it especially weird that Akechi didn't pick up on anything being up with "Kasumi", especially when at one point Luca literally calls her "Kasumi" in front of everyone, and especially when he should have picked up on something being weird when Sumire was talking about her sister since to the best of my knowledge japanese doesn't have an age-neutral "sister" word so she would have been saying "younger sister" when she meant "older sister". but I'd be interested in checking the original out to see if they got away with it some other way.

(I do find Akechi's one weird "let me guess, you're a god" comment extremely funny though. Is it meant to imply he's dealt with gods before this because I don't think he should have. I think Akechi got too much knowledge of how persona games work for a second.)

I really think Akechi could've been an interesting addition to the main game considering the plot is centered around the guy who is rumored to be becoming prime minister after Shido, but I figured out pretty quick that they couldn't put him in here because he would just have too much knowledge about the current political state and would be able to deduce at least most of the second arc very quickly. at least half this game apparently operates on idiot plot or in one memorable case "yeah I thought something was off but apparently decided not to say anything about it until now". so back to purgatory with you, akechi.

oh one last thing. in the main story. why the fuck were the phantom thieves there?? I get how the whole thing got constructed for toshiro but there was no reason for the thieves to get called into this, because the god wouldn't want them there and (unlike the dlc) toshiro wouldn't have called for them, unless maybe it was subconscious, but they really don't even attempt at giving a half-assed explanation so I am still completely lost on that.

anyways overall like I said I had fun but a lot of this felt sloppy. sometimes I feel bad about my writing skills but then I remember how incredibly unsubtle persona is and feel better about myself. I really wish erina could have driven the plot on her own right and not just for toshiro's sake. that's kind of the part I feel bitterest about at this point.

[galaxies-unknown]

I think I’ll be going on a full-blown hiatus from the main, for a time. It’ll borderline be from Tumblr in general, but mostly... The main. After a good 2/3 year sprint where my energy for characters was as fickle as the wind...it finally all coalesced and stopped.

I don’t plan for this to be forever- but I’ve started working on a fanfic for the first time in ages that managed to pass Chapter Two, and I want to focus on that story and the characters involved. I honestly hope- someday- I’ll be able to finish that fanfic I’ve begun, instead of laying it to the side as my energy swaps within the month again.

But for now, this blog will remain on hiatus. The only blogs of mine that won’t be hiatus’d for now will be the MHA one and my personal selfship-dump blog, although that will mostly center on the canon from the fanfic I’m writing. And even those will be low-activity, at best. Y’all can catch me on Discord to chat and whatnot, but I won’t... Really be around here all that much for a while (not that I have been). I guess you could call this my yearly ‘take a step back’ time, since it seems to occur around now each year.- But anyway.

This isn’t forever, I will be back...but for now, I want to focus on that story. So... I love you lot, take care of yourselves and each other- and I’ll come back when my energy stops being so narrowed.

[semi-imaginary-place]

mecha discord rambling

was allergic to mecha when I was young so I didn't get into evangelion until way later. I wouldn't be suprised if the game was japan only either

Neon genesis evangelion... Yeah that sure is a series. Lots of interesting concepts the production was a disaster. That last episode was a slide show

I like the lore of the original anime better. Well the videogame lore. But the remake movies are overall just better done. remember how in the anime people will vaguely reference adam and the lore of evas. Well it's only in a ...playstation? fame where they actually wrote out the lore, what nerv is what the angels are. And tada it was ancient aliens all along but the aliens were human's... Ancestors/creators. The progenitors split their souls only arcs of two types seeds of power? will? (Adam and the other angels) And seeds of life (lilin/humans). it does make everyone sooo mysterious in the anime. Where everything is obscure and opaque. Lore dumping it hard to do. I remember the series ergo proxy and deca-dence that lore dump is the funniest ways possible and just lean into the emersion breaking

the last episode It definitely was atmospheric. Also i applaud the animators for making something so incomprehensible. They did good with the 0 animation budget. The first episode with shinji on the train was also very atmospheric. and that's where all their animation budget went.

Code geas was another very conceptually strong anime but it's execution wasn't very good. I remember being disappointed all the interesting stuff would happen offscreen and then the on screen parts were all the boring connecting parts were people talked about the aftermath of the interesting parts. The political maneuvers and most of the actual plot happens offscreen. We don't often see the characters taking actions just talking about what has happened. Or the highschool setting wasn't really well used we dont really see them being students.

Ergo proxy is one of those incomprehensible series where you need 3 PhDs to understand what is going on like houseki no kuni or serial experiments lain. It starts as like a cyberpunk noir thriller and then becomes a post apocalyptic episodic roadtrip adventure until the finale which where the drama comes back. Setting is a destroyed earth where people live in authoritarian domed cities.

Deca-dence starts off with the last humans fighting monsters and living in a giant robot city that can like walk around. It starts off about a mechanic girl that dreams big who meets this despondent middle aged dude at work. I cant say much because there's major spoilers in the first episodes but it's a subversion of the usual scifi tropes and the humans vs. existential threat of monsters genre. I guess you could say it's action adventure. Deca-dence is really fun and lively with some serious moments. I found the story beats exciting and I always wanted to know what happens next. I really liked it. Definitely top 30 anime if not higher

The quote's from a podcast. I was thinking about this back when evangelion first came out the twist that the evas weren't robots but cyborgs was massive but now in 2024 it's like oh yeah remi's a pilot and linguini is his mech. "you know what the weak point of a mech is? ... The fucking pilot"

I was crazy about dragon age for like a year or 2 i was pretty active in the lore and theory crafting communities. It has that hybrid gameplay so i was always pausing but the game isnt designed to be paused so it mostly just made combat really slow. Loved the story didnt like the combat which is why i still havent finished a da game despite watching multiple playthroughs. Compared to say 13 sentinels where most of the combat is spent paused so it essentially plays like a turn based. Maybe that was why i liked it. 13S was my first rts and after 3 battles i was playing on the hardest difficulty. I then bumped it down so i could 100% the archive the first time instead of having to play a map multiple times. I was too impatient for more plot haha

I HIGHLY recommend Japanese audio for 13s. Okino's voice in eng is BAD. He sounds exactly like manuela from fe3h. Where as in jp he sounds closer to kurabe. The archive is like 1/3 of the game the devs intended players to check it regularly. Very useful for piecing things together.

[veebs-hates-video-games]

Get Discorded about Diablo 3, I guess:

viBRAToryblurriness: First impression of Diablo 3: it looks like it probably has more depth in the long run, but it's at least initially less compelling than Torchlight 1 or 2 Deckard Cain hasn't even told me to stay a while and listen Literally unplayable

viBRAToryblurriness: Oh, also, next level wtf One of the first things I had to do when I opened the game was adjust the overscan settings In 2023 In handheld mode Do I look like I'm playing on a CRT in like 1993 and have to worry about what parts of the edges of the screen are behind the bezel or something?

viBRAToryblurriness: Idea: make the first several skills more interesting or make getting new ones not take so long I decided to try a couple other classes to see which ones I actually like Demon Hunter supposedly has grenades, and that could be fun...and then it turns out that's not until level 15, and every skill I've gotten before that so far is just "shoot slightly different flavor arrow" And now I understand why power leveling is such a thing in this game, because it takes forever to get anything interesting I keep scrolling through the skill menu and being like oh that looks like it could be fun and then it's inevitably like level 30+ And so I continue the exhilarating life of pressing the A button in different colors with different classes, and sometimes ZR now and then if I'm feeling fancy And not even bothering with the Y skills because they haven't been worth the effort to push the button more than once or twice so far Imagine if I could choose what skill to unlock next instead of you're going to use this crap for 30 levels and you're going to like it

viBRAToryblurriness: Oh, ok I guess it just took them until the necromancer to figure out how to make good leveling progression It seems to have fewer skills than other classes, but all of them are good so far and actually have synergy with each other Good job finally getting the hang of it with literally the last one you added to the game

viBRAToryblurriness: Necro is the first one where the third skill category (usually defensive/utility) has actually been useful as soon as it unlocks instead of just a waste of a button Wizard was like here have a long cooldown that lets you freeze stuff that's already climbed up your butt for a whole two seconds and doesn't do damage, while necro is blow up corpses for over 1000% damage each

viBRAToryblurriness: Why is this the one that sold like 400 million copies? I guess the past day of rambling answers my own question Because it's the most accessible one and dumps you right into what's going on without having to do a lot of work on your end to figure out how things in the game work, and you basically can't screw up putting a character together so people don't get frustrated by that And it's Blizzard and has the Diablo name recognition But I just genuinely don't care about a single character so far or any of the story, and every class I've tried the gameplay has ranged from incredibly meh to surprisingly boring And also surprisingly poor feedback from the game? Some of my skills I can't even see when they happen, and there's almost zero feedback for when they actually hit an enemy or succeed or anything Which is bizarre because that's the kind of thing everyone said it did better than other games Once again people on the internet are stupid and don't know what they're talking about probably including me, but not in this particular case I'm definitely right about this

viBRAToryblurriness: I feel like I should at least finish act 1 because I'm probably not far from the end of it, but also I'm not sure if I care enough to bother The story isn't doing anything for me so that's not motivating me to keep going, I haven't unlocked an interesting skill in hours, I haven't gotten any interesting gear that isn't just number go up in a while, the environments are pretty bland...what am I supposed to keep playing this for?

viBRAToryblurriness: I think it's probably safe to say that I just still don't really like Blizzard's games Like there's nothing objectively wrong with it, I just don't like it There are lots of things I personally think are subjectively wrong with it though But that's because I'm a hater and because video games were a mistake

viBRAToryblurriness: Also knockback in this game is just unreasonable Yes it's really fun playing a melee character when there are trash mobs that can knock me back like ten feet at will Repeatedly And I have zero CC res options so far

viBRAToryblurriness: This continues to be Hold the A Button (and Occasionally Press ZR): The Game But that was also true for the necro Although that one also got to push...Y I think? now and then in boss fights

viBRAToryblurriness: To express myself in Xenoblade terms, I'm not really feeling it, and I want something a bit meatier

viBRAToryblurriness: Also oops wizard time again Which does much better on Torment I both because it has much more damaging skills and because obscene knockback from enemies is actually a good thing Getting yeeted across the room when you never wanted to be at melee range in the first place is just helpful, especially when you have a passive that increases your damage when you're farther away from the enemy And this is how we deal with having zero CC res at low levels

viBRAToryblurriness: Maybe having a dozen different difficulty levels available when you first start a new character is a bad thing, and maybe having that many period with that much granularity is also not a good idea

viBRAToryblurriness: Supposedly smart loot is a thing, but this loot is all decidedly stupid

viBRAToryblurriness: I also love how every time I put my Switch to sleep and wake it up again it reconnects to the online servers Even though I told it not to before Also it makes me reconfirm which controller I'm using Despite not having changed controllers ever

viBRAToryblurriness: Ah good, I now have the fart pants, not to be confused with the poop pants in GD There must be some D2 item I'm forgetting about that inspired all of these

viBRAToryblurriness: Ok this game does have toggled buffs, because I have one now that I just turn on once and it stays that way forever So then why do I have two others that I have to cast that have a ten minute duration and then run out? This does not help anyone Also having to dedicate half my measly six skill buttons to buffs is just silly Or I mean I could just not use all the buffs and be worse and have room for another utility skill or something But that's also not useful

viBRAToryblurriness: I think looking at build info for stuff later in the game has made me less interested in playing the game There's so little variety for some things compared to what I'm used to

viBRAToryblurriness: Also watching video of some of them it really continues to suffer from a lack of impact for a lot of stuff It's like they watched the GDC talk about "juice" or anything Rami Ismail has said and used it as a guide for what not to do or something Or like they did half of it but skipped the things that make the biggest difference? I don't know how you have dozens of ten foot meteors constantly raining from the sky that feel like they have zero weight and at most pop like a balloon when they hit the ground I see the damage numbers with a T at the end or whatever so I'm sure it's a very big number, but it doesn't feel like it's making a big number

viBRAToryblurriness: I think that might be the end of that It keeps almost being pretty decent, but there are a bunch of little annoyances for me that add up, and it just doesn't feel satisfying to me

Interspersed with all that were people either agreeing or not being bothered when they were playing by various things I mentioned or pointing out how some of it is slightly different and/or better explained in not the Switch version. Ultimately I’m surprised I lasted as long as I did, but it’s not really my thing in the end. Not surprising really when you consider that’s been my reaction to every other Diablo and Torchlight game I’ve played previously.

[m0e-ru]

why do you use him/her he/she pronouns for mim in that post?? isnt mim strictly they/them???

yeah okay no. 1: sorry that post was literally unreadable no punctuation no context no shit no nothing no life. like literally how my discord message dumps look like I am SO sorry I really am. you can always ask though I talk about shit like it's an already known thing I'm sorry my dear okyakusan

no. 2.1: umm short answer: idc about pronouns really I've been juggling them the whole time. I'm balling 🤾🤾🤾 also I'm a writer and I like to be dramatic but that comes with the fact I make shit too vague and it doesn't make sense in the end but I like the drama. like telanovelas <-doesn't know what they're saying at this point

no. 2.2 and all the other sections under cut because I'll be a lot more talkative this time around while I uh. still have the energy though

I'll just put a really loose chart here for a second

Izy (my idea ,technically OC, of the whole Iznmi and Marie once was) - she/her Marie - she/her Mim - whatever (the situation calls for)

while publically and online I don't talk about my ideas in detail or like, something closer to a finished product, I do like to use pronouns dramatically trying to make use of the English langauge (<- thinks in 2-3 languages at a time). In this case, it'd be towards mim's different aspects. as a diety (she/her), human facade (he/him), or like uh Ame-no-Sagiri (it/its) and other stuff they do while possessing people probably.

imagine there being an omniscient narrator but likes to be dramatic and talking to an audience in the voice of a certain character and from that "perspective" (<- desperately trying to explain their bullshit writing style). If I write from a Teddie perspective then the narrative would use "sensei" for Souji and describe details curiously, or an Adachi perspective where the narrative would use "idiot" and sounds very annoyed and lazy, or Souji using "senpai" and is particular with descriptions and with things that catch his eye, or, very vaguely, mim trying to distinguish their roles and identities as god and as this human they're acting as.

but the narrator is also its own guy and decides to make analogies that could foreshadow something or make things sound interesting or sound embarrassing and cheesy and (gritting teeth, punching the fucking air)

onto a more personal take though, I guess I do leave the impression I use they/them for mim pretty firmly but not really strictly! I am a silly guy I don't really care it's not really firm at all lol

that, or you caught me while I was building this station from the ground up (2020 blog making) and pronoun usage was something really. violent eye twitching. to me. Sure I had some issues with it on a really personal level but it's fine now if that's what you're worried about. I get the feeling I do and if you came back after a while to see me messing around and letting she/he come out of my mouth without choking I'm sorry if that disturbed you. Just remembering I'm in a Community and this guy was a doll thing to be played around with and I can decide my corners and circles with blorbo. and also coming to terms with. myself (self projection revealing things about oneself WHO KNEW!!!!!!!) Or I could be completely mega wrong and I'm the only one in the world who had this experience oh well sorry

reiterating from my last letter (really long post, whichever that one was) "Mim" can be something so personal but at the same time I don't want to alienate people but make them feel comfortable with it instead. like a house name, like I am LITERALLY that friend who has nicknames for everybody and you just know who I'm referring to and you aren't obligated to use the same terms.

mim is like my guy. my boy best friend. my mom. my terrible aunt. my knows too much grandparent. my funny uncle. my cousin from a different city. my brother. my local cryptid freak thing

LIKE use whatever you want for mim, for Nami, for Izanami, whatever. I don't want you to force yourself to use mim because you think referring to them as anything else would make me turn into a hater. I am tottsly fine really its fun seeing what other people use. like a personality indicator. but if you do use mim genuinely then, well that makes me feel a bit soft.

if you want a closer look at my brain I'll try and plot it down /scratches head/

Mim is a general go-to, Mimi if I want to feel sentimental. Hell, I'll switch it up to Iznmi like calling your teacher sir Benny in class but having to say sir De Guzman to call him out from the faculty office (unless this analogy is a bit more specific, sorry, I meant when I'm vomiting ideas in message vs trying to plot it out for a proper discussion or talk to other people who don't know I use mim)

Iznmi is all contracted because of the Horrors but I ended up sticking with it, without the added Horrors, because it got easier to type and my keyboard already learned the word in its autofill, so. I also use it when I try to distance myself from blorbo vision and try to discuss more specifically and with proper details.

Izy is the oc she's her own thing. I got tired of using "izanami-no-mikoto" all the time i mean heres my nickname documentation

Izanami is when I'm referring outside of P4 like the creation myth or other Izanamis in different media (hifumi.........).

like a special code for myself especially when I'm trying to discuss all four in one sentence (IT GETS CRAZYYY) like "Izanami (p4) and Izanami (who marie was as a whole) and Izanami (creation myth) and Izanami (there was this really cool blazblue recolor I saw one time)" I WOULD'VE GONE INSANE !

okay back to pronouns um. having mim as a blorbo put me through very special horrors but at the same time a journey that taught me a lot. figuring myself out and what kind of trans swag I want. pronouns, presentation, etc etc all that junk. and I realized I do not really care? I can do what I want and so can mim and I'm happy for them and by extension happy for me. while I don't really care, I guess I don't like messing with the topic too much publically and I know of some people who have it close to their heart and do take identity and transness very seriously. I don't want to seem apathetic but also non accepting at the same time, it's just, augh, there are reasons I don't want to be popular and the fear of having a knife to my throat to have aggressive questions like this. you can do what you want! it's cool 👍 I don't want to take sides most of the time (unconfrontational, doesnt want to fight) but I'll have opinions when I have opinions (you know. the obvious). this is, auggg it's tiring to be people pleasing in general (it is 2am) THAT'S ENOUGH OF A PEROSNAL SPIEL GOODNJGHT ANON HPE YOU HAD A NICE FKRST TWO WEEKS OF THE NEW YEAR.

[dragoncxv360]

Some info dumping I did on a discord server while discussing our personal views of Sun and Moon's relationship, putting it under a read more since it gets long

I personally see Sun and Moon as lovers in my aus. I do adore many aus with them as siblings, it's just not something I personally want to write. Idk if it's just cause I have a preference for romance stories (even tho I'm aro ace) or if it's 'cause I don't have great relationships with my siblings or what but I just prefer writing them as lovers.

They were originally created as one attendent (Eclipse) with two different modes. Sun as security (moto being "to be the light in the dark") and Moon being the daycare attendent (idk what moto he would have). But then they slowly split into two people and became best friends. They were initially nicknamed twins by the workers since they came into being at the same time but they were never actually programmed to be siblings. The first time they met a set of twins they were excited to see somone like them. But then they realized they didn't feel like that towards each other. They wanted what the parents shared with each other, the soft touches and looks, the kisses, all of that. And they panicked. Because they were told they were twins and twins didn't feel that way about each other. But their creator reassured them that they were not siblings, twins was just a nickname tagged on so they didn't have to say Sun and Moon every time and he could tell people to stop if it made them uncomfortable. So the workers stopped calling them twins.

They went through a lot of trauma after their creator died and Sun was stripped of his role as security (because they overdid it with him and he didn't have human morals, didn't see why killing was meant to be a last resort to stop bad people, not a first, and didn't understand death at all really). Moon replaced Sun as security with so many limits that it was nearly impossible to do his job and Sun replaced Moon as the daycare attendent. And they hated it. They hated the role reversal and they hated their new bodies with static smiles instead of working moving mouths and eyes that couldn't cry and voices that couldn't say the things they wanted to say (speech filters). They became depressed and anxious and tried to destroy themselves but they were always put back together with more limits on what they could do to themselves. Evenrually they stopped doing anything. They didn't come out of their room and the daycare was shut down. And the only reason they were never decomissioned is because their new boss knew that would be giving them what they wanted.

And then the virus happened and their connection was broken. Sun would wake up covered in blood with no memory of what happened and it terrified him because Moon had never killed anyone before. And he knew something was wrong with Moon but no one would listen. They thought Sun was behind everything so they limited him to the daycare only (just barely thought of that). After all, who's gonna believe a robot with past violent tendencies when they say they didn't kill the people who are disappearing?

And Sun has complicated feelings upon seeing Gregory. Finally, there's another living person in the daycare. Finally there's someone to talk to. Someone who might listen when he tells them his lover is sick. But, well, that doesn't happen. The lights go out, and Moon comes out. And Sun is so angry when he comes back. Because Gregory didn't listen, because Gregory could've gotten hurt.

Now, I def need to read up on the different endings but I'm guessing princess quest would be the one fitting for what I need since I'd like them all to be alive and not burnt to the ground.

But yeah, after that, things finally start to get better. New techs and bosses are hired on. Moon is finally free of the virus and can talk with Sun again. He doesn't remember what happened really though. He just gets occasional flashbacks that give him really bad panic attacks that even Sun doesn't know how to calm him down. The worst of the memories is the one that finally made the virus start to lose it's hold on Moon, the one where he killed the one good tech they had left because she knew something was wrong and wanted to help them, she knew the person she was talking to wasn't Moon, wasn't the same person she helped down from panic attacks when the other techs talked shit about them while repairing them. (Not entirely sure where this scene will fit into the timeline tho 'cause lore wise it needs to happen post game but I keep imagining it happening pre game. Maybe Moon remembers doing that but then the virus got worse and everything after that is gone.)

Sun and Moon meet Mary and Alex (my tech ocs) and they start fixing them up and actually asking them what they want their body to look like. Eventually, they get seperated into new bodies and they start to feel more like themselves. They have working mouths again and can cry actual tears (instead of oil) and they get brand new colours and outfits and everything works again. They also have tails.

Also the first thing they do when they wake up is Sun runs to Moon, picks him up and kisses him. And Sun tells him "for all the kisses I never got to give you". I'm thinking Moon replies with something along the lines of "I've been waiting to do that for 10 years."

They discover things about their sexualities and genders they didn't know before. Sun realizes she's genderfluid and likes she/they/he pronouns and she's pan and Moon realizes he's agender and likes he/they pronouns and he's aro/ace. And they both realize they're poly after they start liking other people (which is a bit scary at first 'cause they don't know about poly relationships).

They start meeting and talking with the other animatronics again. And they fall in love with some of them. Moon becomes close with DJ. Sun becomes close with, well, just about everybody. Moon has a bit of a rocky relationship with Monty and Bonnie 'cause they play a prank on him and it pisses him the fuck off. (They dressed him in one of those playboy bunny costumes and being ace and very much sex repulsed at the time, it did not go over well). Eventually Moon and Monty work things out though after Sun and Monty start dating and Sun gets sick of them fighting over her. Moon starts dating Monty too and realizes he actually really likes Monty. He still hates Bonnie tho 'cause Bonnie refuses to stop flirting with him. Eventually it causes a big fight between everybody 'cause Moon ends up having a meltdown and screaming at Bonnie and Sun breaks up with Bonnie and tells him if he ever tries to pull something like that again she'll personally decomission him and scatter his pieces across the plex. Tensions are really high after that 'cause Bonnie's partners don't want to like completely abandon him but they also don't want Sun and Moon to feel like they think what he did was acceptable. Eventually things get better tho.

Moon realizes like 4 years after being seperated that he's demi instead of aro/ace and has a bit of a panic over it 'cause it's new and weird being attracted to Sun in that way but things eventually work out and he feels more comfortable with himself and the way he feels about Sun and later Monty (and possibly some others but idk if that'll be canon or just little what if oneshots). Moon also eventually finds out he likes Sun and Monty using she/her pronouns for him (that's actually something I have written out).

I think eventually they do all end up escaping the plex, maybe it burns down, but idk for sure. I haven't really thought that far yet.

Also Sun and Moon have kids. Some of them are built, a couple of them are more along the lines of artificial/robot pregnancy, which I know squicks some people out but I personally like it. It's nice to think that at that point tech would be advanced enough to do stuff like that. Their children are robots tho, no weird half human half robo babies going on or human babies in a robot incubator. That just sounds weird for my Sun and Moon (tho I imagine there are robots who can carry human babies if like they *really* want to, it's just not something I'm personally going to explore in my fics)

I also had the idea the other day that maybe baby Eclipse and baby Monty (who wasn't named Monty 'cause he's trans and was originally a gal) met each other 'cause they were created around the same time and they ended up being like best friends and had a qpr (btw a lot of the relationships in this fic are qpr)

But idk if I'll add that. It wouldn't make much sense how they feel about each other later if they used to know each other. Unless their memories were wiped or they otherwise forgot

Which would be very sad

Eric (Sun and Moon's creator) also made Monty and Roxy, and possibly Bonnie. Contemplating making him trans since all of them turned out trans

Also fun fact this all stemmed from me being like lol what if Sun's rays were knives, like a RWBY style weapon. Well, actually, before that I wanted to draw Moon with the swords on wires that Penny has in RWBY. Sun's rays are still knives but now they can also be put together to form spears (the handles on them extend)

(Someone mentioned their moon not liking touch and I replied with this)

Moon isn't a huge fan of touch either in my fic (from non significant others). It takes him a long time to get reaccustomed to the idea that touches from other adults don't have to be cruel or causing him pain 'cause he got used to only being touched by violent intruders or staff members punishing him. So the idea that an adult (animatronic to be specific) can touch him and be gentle and caring about it is both very unfamiliar and also pretty scary. Because he hasn't trusted anyone but Sun in a long time. So having to put his trust in someone else to not hurt him when they touch him is terrifying. And even with the children he's scared 'cause he gets flashbacks of when he hurt them while he had the virus and he doesn't trust himself with them anymore. But he learns to trust people again and ends up loving cuddling and kissing. The fear doesn't 100% go away. It never will. But it stops controlling him

(They said that was sad and that their Moon isn't traumatized, just aggresive and tempermental)

Yeah my lad got the electric shock treatment when he fought staff so he's just a bit traumatized (Sun could handle it better since she was used to it and built to handle tough situations including pain)

I decided I wanna make some info posts about my characters and stories and stuff, so I’m gonna start with my Security Sun AU

Sunflowers and Stardust is the canon story/timeline. I haven’t completed any chapters yet so I haven’t posted it

Blood and Oil is an alternate bad ending and is just…really dark. It deals with a lot of things I’ve had personal experience with such as loved ones dying and all the grief that comes with that. To be honest, I actually feel like it’ll help to get all those feelings written out as something that’s not what actually happened to me.

But anyways, back to the canon story. (Also sorry that this won’t be very organized, I am very adhd so my thoughts are everywhere.) In this story, Sun and Moon originally started out as one attendant, Eclipse. At some point during the testing phase, they split into Sun and Moon and their design was modified to fit that. Sun was assigned security and Moon was the main face of the daycare. These were their designs at the time (I’m still working on them so there might be some changes):

Sun enjoyed being security, maybe too much. He was ruthless with intruders and staff. He didn’t hesitate to resort to violence. Staff were terrified of him. People started disappearing. Eventually, staff started finding the bodies, what was left of them. Sun had been eating them (which was totally added ‘cause of That One Fic Where Sun and Moon Eat People). Soon after, staff confronted Sun and told him they were taking him off of security. He fought hard when that happened, tearing any staff apart that managed to get near him. Finally, they were able to tie him down and shock him so he stopped fighting back.

He and moon woke up later in parts and service, with a different body and different face. Moon had been put on security in Sun’s place with safety protocols put in place to keep the same mistake from happening again. They screamed and screamed when they realized and through it all, they couldn’t cry or do anything but smile. They looked like this (about, this is old art so there would be some differences):

The years after that were the hardest they ever had. They both hated their new bodies and new duties. They tried to destroy themselves and every time they got close, they woke up in parts and services, put back together and with more safety measures put in place to keep them from doing it again. Eventually they stopped trying and just gave up on doing anything. They refused to come out of their room to take care of the children. The daycare was shut down.

And then the virus happened. Moon became violent and lost his connection with Sun. He wasn’t himself and he wasn’t aware of what he was doing. Sun would wake up covered in blood and it scared him because his Moon had never been violent, had never taken part in the things Sun did. He knew something was wrong with Moon, but with no access to his lover anymore, he had no way of fixing things. And that’s when the events of the game happened. Sun was panicked when the power went out ‘cause he had no idea what Moon would do to Greg and he had no way of keeping him safe.

I’ll need to read more about the different endings to see which would be the best fit for this AU but I know for sure it isn’t a fire ending

The virus is eventually fixed and Moon is back to being himself. He has vague memories of what happened while he was “gone” and they terrify him. He gets flashbacks and they scare him and send him into panic attacks where even Sun can’t calm him down. When the daycare opens back up, he’s terrified that he’ll hurt the children again. It takes a long time for him to stop feeling so panicked around the kids and to get back into the swing of things.

Eventually, Mary (she/her) and Alex (any pronouns) are hired as Sun and Moon’s new techs. They start helping to get Sun and Moon in better working order and eventually ask them if they’d like to be split into separate bodies. Sun and Moon are hesitant at first but they eventually decide they would like that. Mary and Alex get their input on the new designs and try to follow their wishes as much as they can within the limits corporate gave. Their final designs end up looking like this:

In some ways, they like being separated and in other ways, they regret it. They love being able to touch and kiss and hug. But they miss being one, they are only half an AI each after all. They’re meant to be together and they can’t function without the other, it’s why they ended up loving each other so much. (And why Moon losing Sun in Blood and Oil hurts so much.)

And I think I'll end this post here now. Hope you enjoyed reading it

I almost forgot but I have a playlist for blood and oil

[phoenixyfriend]

OKAY so on the topic of Star Wars takes wrt “character ends up in an A/B/O universe where they’re an omega, but they were previously a cis male in their canon”

@atagotiak and I had some Thoughts on discord

So, obviously, Anakin would make a good omega and he’s also incredibly murdery. Foregone conclusion that we're using him for this.

There is no preexisting Anakin in the Omegaverse. He shows up JUST as the war is starting. Canon timeline is in the third year of the war (he’s 22), but whatever dumped him into omegaverse also tossed him back a few years. No de-aging, just a bit of mismatched timeline stuff.

He's... really good at war, and clearly a Jedi, so the Temple just kind of goes "WELL OKAY THEN, SURE, YOU'RE IN, EVERYONE PRETEND HE'S BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME." The Jedi, by and large, don't care about omegaverse dynamics beyond 'what do you need, medically, to be happy and healthy' and 'what do you need to be aware of so you can be prepared for biases you encounter in the field?’

None of the civilian natborns (mainly politicians) want to put him on the field because of those biases. Anakin, being Anakin, is VERY blatantly an omega in scent, has never been on suppressants (because it wasn't a thing he fucking NEEDED), is incredibly emotional as a person, loves kids, etc.

Like, nobody wants an omega fighting a war anyway, but THIS one is like PINNACLE omega, and those awful Jedi are making him FIGHT just because he's good at stab!

The Jedi: Actually, it's because he's got several years of war experience that we don't, and he's a good tactician that works well with the clones-- Coruscant: You MONSTERS The Jedi: Look, we gave him the option to not stab and he looked absolutely devastated. Anakin, several days earlier: You don’t want me? I’m not good enough??? Jedi: Also he can beat up at least half the temple.

He doesn't know a damn thing about dynamics, but he DOES know that sometimes he's so horny he wants to stab HARDER. The clones are largely disinterested in their generals' dynamics because between mostly-Mando* trainers and no-dynamic Kaminoans, they only really care if a person can shoot.

* Mandalore approves of Fighty Omegas. As far as (traditional) Mandalore is concerned, you want an omega that will kill the threats to your children as well as you do.

Anakin: You know more about being an omega than I do. Rex: ...I'm an alpha. Anakin: Yeah. Let that one sink in a bit.

We have two options for Obi-Wan!

Omegaverse local Obi-Wan (beta) has never met this man before, and is very unnerved that the immediate default reaction Anakin has to his presence is releasing Family pheromones as if Obi-Wan is his DAD and like. This strange, too-tall man from another dimension has got absolutely NO control over what he projects in the Force OR in his dynamic.

Obi-Wan was ALSO transplanted from canon to omegaverse, and is also an omega, for contrast reasons. He is nice and friendly and and likes poetry and that sort of thing... but also he has the highest dismemberment count in the movies. Also he doesn’t prioritize romance.

We went with the second one because it's hilarious.

Someone watching them spar: Wow, omegas from that universe are terrifying.

As previously mentioned, now with some tweaking to account for both: Obi-Wan and Anakin just straight up don't exist until they drop headfirst into the council room, already covered in blood. (It's mostly not theirs.)

Nobody realizes either one is an omega until they "naturalize" to this dimension and Anakin goes into heat... and doesn't realize it, actually, because his primary symptom is heightened protectiveness and aggression. Everyone else with the right nose realizes, because the man has no control over his pheromone production, but Anakin? No. He just stabs. He’s angry and horny and he will cut someone.

Ahsoka has no reaction to human pheromones but basically everyone smells Anakin's "my child!" reaction to her, so... Cool. Have a padawan, we guess.

Anakin ends up sparring a lot with Aayla and Ahsoka, because only humans and near humans have dynamics, so these two don't REACT to the pheromones situation.

(Palpatine is a Kindly Old Beta who tries to treat Anakin the way he EXPECTS Anakin wants to be treated, which is. Not. Accurate.)

(Anakin hates it.)

I'm just so in love with "An omega can't fight." "You wanna fuckin' bet?"

There are plenty of omega Jedi, by the way, it's just... most of them can keep it relatively low-key instead of Anakin's jet-engine broadcast. Some, if they're known to be omega, probably take advantage of being underestimated, like Obi-Wan probably (and especially a version of Obi-Wan that was always an omega, unlike this version). They have a very different way of presenting themselves than Anakin, who's not subtle about being an omega and also not subtle about being all aggressive and stabby.

At one point, Anakin has to protect some Very Traditional Individuals who get all "Stay back, Omega, it's not safe!" and he's just... so tired of this shit. “You are squishy civilians and I'm a trained Jedi Knight and accomplished GAR General who's killed more people in one sitting than there are in this entire palace. Sit the fuck down and let me do my job.”

It starts making the rounds that Anakin insisted on fighting in person, and the rumors shift from "how dare the Jedi force an omega to fight" and over into things that are deeply hurtful in-universe in the vein of "broken omega" and some people try to say it to his face but like...

He didn't grow up here.

He doesn't care.

Say that to one of his friends and he's going to rip out your spleen, probably, but say it to him and he's just staring at you flatly and asking if that's a negative on getting away from the encroaching battle droids, sir?

"You're rather unpleasant for an omega, aren't you?" [deeply offensive] "I literally could not give less of a fuck about your opinion. Move."

It's not that there aren't omegas that act like Anakin, either, it's just that most of them aren't, you know, Jedi who regularly interact with the upper crust, or capable of his level of destruction. Unbeknownst to Anakin, everyone clocks him as Outer Rim based on his behavior, well before his accent gives him away, and certainly before he mentions he's from Tatooine, because Core Omegas Don't Act Like That.

Someone they meet in a more diplomatic setting says something decently passive-aggressive about how at least Obi-Wan acts more like how an Omega should. Then a battle breaks out for some reason, and... well. Anakin and Obi-Wan cause such a scandal by keeping score of kills in a battle, don’t you know?

Turns out sending Anakin to fight Ventress is great because she keeps expecting him to react a certain way but NO he's here to STAB.

I like the idea that Obi-Wan's favorite opponent these days is Grievous because the cyborg doesn't have a nose, and thus gives zero fucks about dynamics or heats. Dooku is a rich old man who has opinions heavily influenced by Sith Juice Making Him More of a Dick, and the Dathomiri can smell dynamics even if they don't have them, and so they have biases about those things. Meanwhile, Grievous is just there to Kill, and Obi-Wan genuinely appreciates the lack of commentary on his dynamic.

Dooku’s probably an alpha, or a beta who's used the whole "we are more level-headed" thing as one of several angles to keep himself the public face and supreme commander of the CIS.

On to more fluffy things that have less to do with political biases.

There's a lot of "I'm upset that my loved ones don't know me," but also please understand the appeal of Obi-Wan marching up to Quinlan like "Yes, hello, I understand you've been read in on the full situation behind myself and my former padawan. I was close friends with your alternate universe self, which I feel is necessary disclosure before I propose the following: Would you like to join me for my upcoming heat, as I have minimal experience with the dynamics situation and even fewer people I actually trust, and I believe I can put my faith in you to treat it as casually as necessary while still having control and respect for my person."

(The Team is in a fairly safe place to process stuff, but having sudden unexpected changes to your biology has gotta be a little traumatizing, on top of ending up in a universe where none of your friends know you and people have a whole host of unfamiliar forms of sexism to point at you.)

Obi-Wan, who wasn't quite touch-averse but was much more easily overwhelmed by physical contact than Anakin (who craved it), suddenly finds his body switching gears and insisting on cuddles with Trusted Loved Ones, which is.... mostly Anakin, on account of nobody else really knowing him yet. Also Ahsoka, who is aware that she's something of a replacement for her alt-universe self, but Anakin explained it as "I love you so much no matter which dimension I'm in or what you're like, and I'd like to get to know you the way I got know her."

(It's rather eloquent for Anakin. He got Obi-Wan to help him draft up the script for when he pitched taking on omegaverse Ahsoka as a padawan.)

Anakin gets a more intensely sexual heat than 'usual' at one point for Reasons (IDK it could be as innocuous as 'we got better food than the usual rations and my body is reacting to the higher fat content with the belief that it's safer to have a baby now'), which nobody takes a whole lot of notice of because they're in a WAR, and also this is only his fourth one so it's not like he's got a lot to compare it to... except then the predominantly alpha clones can't stop themselves from reacting to the pheromones, mostly by wandering past his door and asking if he needs anything, offering up alpha-scented blankets and stuff for the nest to soothe the hormones, bringing snacks and electrolyte drinks, and like, Anakin is flattered, really, but fuck off please.

(He got a warning from medical a few hours before it hit that it would be different, so he actually does have alpha-scented fabrics to help him out. Apparently that's a thing you can just ask friends for, so he asked Rex if he had anything on hand that he could spare. He now has one of Rex’s recently-used sheets and a bodyglove in the nest.)

(Anakin has no idea how to feel about the nesting instinct, but at least it’s warm.)

Tia asked "Oh hey, who has the scared and horny reaction to his carnage?" and like.

Listen. I'm not saying I've been low-key imagining this as Rex being a very subby alpha who's really into Anakin's whole Thing but...

At one point Anakin gets injured in a way that requires painkillers and he ends up whining to the point of almost crying about the fact that nobody is cuddling him right now in medbay and Kix just gives up and comms Ahsoka to come hug her weird older brother.

And Then There Is Purring.

That’s a Thing Now.

Rex ends up in the pile somehow. He came over to check on Things and ended up yanked in by half-asleep, half-high Anakin, who has a grip like an octopus and no impulse control and is purring like a pod motor while NUZZLING HIM.

There’s a lot of blackmail photos featuring Rex’s very intense blush as he’s cuddled by his commander (giggling at him) and general (clinging like a tooka and rubbing himself all over).

Anakin is deeply offended that ANYONE thinks he'd want to get pregnant by just any old person, NO he needs to fall in LOVE there needs to be EMOTIONAL DRAMA and if Padme won't have him (apparently she's in a relationship and no he's not BITTER) then he'll find someone else to have a whirlwind romance with!

People think Anakin's a slut because he can't control his pheromone production (he has NO practice and for health reasons he can't go on suppressants) so he always smells open and ready for flirtations, which Obi-Wan also has to a somewhat lesser degree (he's older so his body just naturally produces less), and then someone tries to cross a boundary and grabs his ass and ANYWAY Anakin has to now fill out an incident report for breaking a civilian's arm.

Again.

[thefanficmonster]

Take That!

Corpse Husband & Reader (Female) ft. Streamer Gang

Warnings: Mentions of Depression, Suppressed Sadness, Swearing

Genre: Platonic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: What is a friend? Your smile through the tears. The umbrella over your head when it starts raining. The ointment to your wound. But if you wanna put it in a more literal manner, a friend is something that doesn’t have a concrete definition. It can be the person you sit next to in class or the person who’s hundreds of miles away from you and you’re connected to through a Discord call.

Requested by Anon. Hello dear! Thank you so much for your request, sorry it’s taken me so long to complete and post it but here it finally is and I hope you enjoy the read if you happen to come across the fic. Love, Vy ❤

There are those days when I wake up excited for a new day. There are also those days when the thought of playing Among Us with my friends is all that gets me out of bed. And then there are those days when not even that can get me to budge. Today is one of those days.

I’d still be in bed right now had I not needed to use the bathroom. On my way back to hide under my covers, I heard my cat’s meow from the kitchen, reminding me she needed to be fed. After tending to that task I just sort of lost will to return to bed either. Speaking truthfully, today is a will-less day. The type of day where I have no idea what to do with myself because I feel so odd and uncomfortable: heavy and bustling head, motivation below zero no matter whether I have zero tasks to tend to or a mountain high pile of work. It’s a laying on the floor and letting my mind eat away at me type of day and I can’t say I appreciate it.

The only thing I have to look forward to is the game of Among Us Corpse invited me to yesterday. Had I known I’d wake up feeling like absolute shit, I wouldn’t have accepted. I just know I’ll be a downer the whole time because I suck at covering up how I feel - my smiling masks and faux happiness don’t cut it but staying quiet is even worse because I’m typically and energetic and bubbly person, always having something to say or a comment to add to the conversation. Always looking to make people laugh.

Well, it’s hard to make people laugh when you feel like a deflated balloon.

I can’t describe the feeling any better than that - I feel empty, maybe a little sad somewhere in the mix, unmotivated. I keep these feelings to myself cause whenever I bring them up people just blow me off, saying I’m describing laziness but more dramatically. Either that or burnout which is sometimes the case, but I’m more than sure that it’s not the culprit for today. You can only blame burnout so many times.

Anyway, I make a mental note, promising myself I’m not gonna bail on my friends regardless of whether my mood gets better or worse. Who knows, maybe a gaming session with them is exactly what I need.

                                                              *  *  *

Not much has changed with my emotional state - I’ve spent a good chunk of the day surfing through TV channels and my socials with nothing else to occupy my mind but the overwhelming knowledge that I’m not feeling ok and that hyperawareness of a void that I feel but cannot describe. At one point, Corpse sent me a text to confirm I’d be participating in the gaming session and I was this close to saying no. This close to coming up with some bullshit excuse and bailing but I didn’t, thankfully. 

Here’s the thing about this drop in mood of mine - I know it’s gonna be gone by morning. It bullies me, beats and batters me for only twenty four hours - never more, never less. Like clockwork and as precise as a Swiss watch. And so fucking annoying. No matter what I do, I can’t end it prematurely and I can never wake up feeling down and unmotivated the next morning - there’s always a surge of motivation coursing through me and it drives me to be super productive as if making up for what I didn’t do the previous day when I was in the dumps.

It’s a twisted way of it showing me I’m powerless and at the mercy of a force that, despite being mine and existing within me, I’m completely unfamiliar with. It’s so fucking unfair, it’s disheartening.

“Hi everyone! Sorry I’m late.“ I greet the five people who have already gathered in the Discord call and the Among Us lobby.

Yeah, sorry I’m late, I was contemplating not showing up at all last minute

“Don’t worry about it, many people are running late as you can see.“ Rae replies reassuringly, “How’s your day? Anything spectacular happen?“

I can’t help but scoff, “Yeah sure, a TON of spectacularism in my life on the daily. From the large stack of papers I couldn’t bring myself to touch, to the dusty surfaces all over my apartment I didn’t convince myself to clean - it’s all fabulous over here.”

Fuck, that was too real

“Whoa, where’d all this sarcasm come from?“ Rae asks, sounding genuinely baffled rather than teasing, “It’s never been your strong suit.“

“Neither has unproductivity.“ Corpse, my best friend, chimes in, “Everything ok?“

Well, I admit, I should’ve known better than to have an outburst like that in front of people who have known me for a while now and can probably gauge my emotions even without me admitting to them. I truly don’t know where it came from. Hell, I didn’t even see it coming.

“Nah, it’s ok. I’m just being lazy, I guess.” I’m quick to withdraw and brush off any suspicion. The last thing I want is to worry my friends or, even worse, receive the same response from them: that I’m being dramatic, that I’m attention-seeking, that I’m just lazy and unmotivated as are most people of my generation.

“You know, what people often self-diagnose as ‘laziness’ often turns out to be something more serious. I don’t mean to scare you, but it could be depression.“ Corpse says after a brief moment of silence in the call, his voice soft and cautious as if explaining a complex problem to a kid who’s bound to be hurt by what it’s told.

I can’t help but chuckle. He has no idea how much he’s relieved me by saying that. I always ‘don’t want to talk about it’ and ‘want to change the subject’ while what I truly need happens to be the complete opposite. I need someone to hear me out, I need someone who will not brush me and my concerns off like we don’t matter. I need someone who’ll understand. And if these people who have openly struggled with anxiety or depression don’t get me, who will?

“Yeah, I genuinely thought I thought of myself as a lowlife while I was in college cause I started losing motivation for everything and started fearing what was to come. I began avoiding going out and talking to people cause I felt like I was the sore thumb in the friend group I had - the only one without any specific goal or a dream.“ Leslie says out of the blue, “Turns out I suffered through a burnout so bad it turned into an anxiety/depression combo that I just blamed on being a lazy college student.“

“Same here!“ Toast pipes in, “I was bedridden for a while during the first days of my streaming career, for a very ridiculous reason - I believed I didn’t deserve the attention I was getting and I wasn’t doing as well as people gave me credit for. So that had me crippled with self-doubt for a long while.“

“I still don’t believe I’m doing as well as I get credit for, but oh well.“ Leslie laughs, “I already told you all about my dumpster-fire of a brain, so I’m instead gonna say: what you need is an appointment with a therapist. Also - you need to stop underestimating your struggles. Invalidating yourself and what you’re going through is gonna make things only worse for you. You need to love yourself.“

“And you need us!“ Rae exclaims, “You need the best support you can get and, lucky for you, we’re the best in the business. Count on us always being there for you, Y/N. Cause we always will be.“

“You’re never alone. We’re all just a call or a text away. Especially me.“ Corpse adds, “I’m basically at your service 24/7, just like you’ve always been for me. What are best friends for if not sharing mental struggles and lifting each other up afterwards?“

I don’t know when this smile made its home on my face but it seems to be rather happy with where it is and wants to stay. Something tells me that thanks to these guys, it will indeed stay there for quite some time. And every time it tries to slip away, they’ll be there to bring it back.

“Then let’s lift each other up, shall we? I mean, what better way to do it other than killing each other and getting away with it?“ I attempt a giggle, hiding my emotions behind it like my life depends on it. Chances are they heard all I’m feeling in my voice, but I can only hope they’re not gonna mention it.

“Y/N, hun, I’m sorry to burst your bubble but....you never get away with it.“ Corpse wheezes, causing me to narrow my eyes and frown.

“Oh, you’re so gonna get it now!“ I exclaim, cracking my knuckles before getting my hands on my keyboard, “Start the game! I have a point to prove!“

And just like that, in what felt like the blink of an eye, the clouds have shuffled aside to make path for the sunshine to grace my brain with positivity I was not expecting to feel until tomorrow morning. I can’t give myself the credit for that though - it all goes to these amazing people I have the honor of calling friends.

I may have no power over it on my own, but with the gang’s help, I can take full control of it. And as a middle finger to the melancholy, I’ll do it all with a bright smile on my face.

Take that, brain!

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[viridiave]

Daylight Prairie- Creatures of the Light (lore dump)

I've had a couple of theories and headcanons stirring around my head regarding Prairie for a while now- so right here we're gonna tie some of them together cuz I haven't lored in a good long while XD

Note- btw I'm not part of beta so this is purely just me- a crackhead- putting together a crackpot narrative. SOME spoilers for Eden are present.

<THE CEREMONIAL WORSHIPPERS>

okay these guys drive me fucking nuts

We barely know anything about these guys- and what little we do know is derived purely from their closed off uh... Worshipping space. Look at this freaking thing.

In the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by clouds for miles. Fairly advanced diamond technology. Altars with graves decked out in gold and candles. The mechanism for the entrance to the elevator to begin with is fairly complex as well- activated by butterflies and the butterflies don't even die in the process. And to top everything off, this place has a portal that leads directly to the Prairie Temple.

If this isn't sus I don't know what is- but I think I have an explanation.

There are six spaces for six more people that we are not aware of. The only people we DO know of is one bald person in the short garb and another bald person in the long garb. I propose that these six missing people are the Whisperers.

Which is... pretty out there, I know. Counting the 'voices' that we get in game, (including the ones from previous Seasons like Lightseekers and Sanctuary) we have one for Birds, Whales, Mantas, Memories, Crabs, and Jellyfish. For now, we're not counting either Butterflies or Krill- and I'll explain why in a bit.

As for the initial proposition that these Whisperers are the missing six, first we need to ask ourselves what exactly it was that the Worshippers were... worshipping. There is a possible god of which we see in game, and the name of this god is the Megabird.

Megabird here was heavily present in concepts, and in the final product we only ever get to see traces of her and heck to this day we're not sure if she's a canon entity in the final game at all. Megabird as an entity in the concepts is basically the god overseeing the world of Sky and is comprised entirely of light. It's unclear whether or not the Ancestors were aware of her existence after or even before the King rose to power. The Elders themselves are likely privy to this information, but somehow I doubt that it's something anyone wanting to assert control over their people would encourage.

There's certainly the possibility that these Worshippers were a religious sect dedicated to the Elders themselves- but since I'm here trying to propose that they're worshipping something tangential to the possible actual god, we're going to assume this isn't the case. On that note-

<THE WORSHIPPERS WERE DEVOUT TO LIGHT ITSELF>

I propose that the Ceremonial Worshippers valued the Light above all else- and this worship was extended towards the light creatures themselves.

'Oi. Vir. Crabs are DARK Creatures.'

Not all of them. Heck, a dark crab might not have been the norm back then, but that's a stretch and besides- the fact is that these crabs on the far end of Sanctuary are docile.

Keep in mind that these followers were stationed in Prairie, of all places. You know what else is in Prairie? Sanctuary Isles- home to several kinds of manta, butterflies, jellyfish, and even the elusive Elder Manta (yes that's what the big chonky boi that looks like a light krill is called- it's not a whale.).  Daylight Prairie is in no shortage of light creatures- and at the center of it all is its Elder.

Prairie Elder is implied to have responsibilities toward the light creatures as presented in the SkyShop poem featuring them:

'Fields of harvest, prairies of joy.

Farmer and fauna as one.

The Elder protects the creatures of light,

For darkened days to come.

Fly up, fly away,

For the Children of Light in need.

We shall recall our days of wonder,

And feel its air once more.'

-SkyShop Poem (Prairie Elder Pin)

In the greater context of the story, Daylight Prairie is the primary source of light energy in the form of the light creatures- it makes sense that the Elder of that realm would oversee the flow of light creatures from one realm to the other, and that the Ancestors in their domain would have a greater respect for the creatures than others. They're the ones working with them, and they're the ones that know them best.

Enter the Worshippers- who were likely serving directly under the Prairie Elder. I'm not confident that the Prairie Elder could have shared information about the Megabird- or if they even know the god existed. 'The Light itself' is pretty vague for something to be worshipped, and it's possible that the Prairie Elder instead encouraged people that the Light manifested itself into the various light creatures that we see.

In this world however- industrialization marches on, and eventually these light creatures became things to be harvested rather than worshipped. It's speculated that light creatures were used in the production of diamonds- we see signs of this scattered throughout Forest, and Wasteland by proxy. The mural under the bridge in Forest and the doors to the Temple seem to suggest as much at least. Eventually, this industrialization will grow out of hand. I have a few theories on what the Prairie Elder might have done to passively rebel against this.

<PRAIRIE ELDER AND THE BUTTERFLIES>

We learn in the Prairie Elder's cutscene that they are able to form- not summon- butterflies from fire. I'm not proposing that the Prairie Elder is single-handedly responsible for the existence of butterflies- rather I'm proposing through the Prairie Elder's abilities that light is able to be manipulated in such a way that one can create light creatures, should they know how.

It could just be the butterflies, honestly. And really it could just be the Prairie Elder that's capable of such a feat- and because of these holes in this theory it's the first to go.

And yes this is the reason why the Butterflies don't count. I think. That has holes too and I can make a case for the Butterfly Charmer technically being part of this... But I digress.

<SANCTUARY ISLES>

Sanctuary Islands could be a literal Sanctuary for the light creatures- there is an impressive variety of them present. It's also very out of the way, tucked away in a corner of Bird's Nest. The theory I'm proposing here is that the Prairie Elder and the Sanctuary Guide worked together to keep this place hidden from the rest of the Kingdom- and that it was the Sanctuary Guide that broke the bells that would have granted the Ancestors access to the light creatures.

<THE WORSHIPPERS DISBANDED>

This is... probably improbable, but my whole post was leading up to this so we're doing this. The missing six Worshippers are the Whisperers that we've encountered throughout the game- leaving in order to either develop their relationship with or protect their creatures of choice.

The Bird Whisperer stayed close and remained in Prairie- and is probably the reason why Bird's Nest exists at all. The Jellyfish Whisperer remained as well, opting to stay in Sanctuary- the natural habitat of the jellyfish.

The Whale Whisperer ventured to Forest- where there probably once was a small population of Whales, given the corpse we see in the Bridge Area and the live Whale in the Underground Cavern.

The Manta Whisperer went to Valley- I'm guessing to see how mantas were being used for labor and competitions? And Valley is right next to Wasteland so I might be reaching but they could have been monitoring that too.

The Crab Whisperer is a tricky one because we see them travelling with the Lightseekers, and yes I am proposing that this lady was formerly a Worshipper. But because we're dealing with a creature that we now know is more dark than light, maybe the Crab Whisperer joined the Lightseekers in order to observe that phenomenon more closely? Because she does refer to the crabs as friends in her SkyShop poem. Wasteland wasn't always a... wasteland, after all. Things could have been different, and the crabs could have been adapting in a time where they would be relatively dangerous but not so much that an Ancestor couldn't approach them.

And then there's the Memory Whisperer. For this one, I don't think a spirit manta actually exists- at least, not as an organic creature and moreso just an interactive holograph courtesy of the machinations of Vault. I'm actually not too sure on what this person could have been doing, but they have a call- and my best guess is that the Memory Whisperer is one who listens to the last vestiges of light leftover by a creature- because we do see skeletons in Vault, and one is of a creature that looks like an amalgamation of several spirit mantas.

<WHY DON'T THE KRILL COUNT?>

As far back as Prophecy, Krill don't appear to be aligned with the light. They aren't depicted as former light creatures, nor a corrupted variant of an elder manta or whale- they are presented as thenselves in that Prophecy mural. Though I'm sure we'll get a Krill call later on, I'm not going to count them until then.

<CONCLUSION...?>

This huge post is... full of holes and heavy speculation, I'm aware. Mostly I just wanted to dump a bunch of shower thoughts and leftover lore I came up in the Discord lore chat. Go check it out sometime, I've derived a few points in this from interacting with people there. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this matter, by the way- it's fun theorizing! I haven't done this seriously in a long while.