#i have way too many aus for a game that is near lore-less

[not-emerald-onion]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Terraria Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s) Characters: Original Non-Binary Character, Arms Dealer (Terraria), Demolitionist (Terraria), Nurse (Terraria), Mechanic (Terraria), Guide (Terraria), Wall of Flesh (Terraria) Additional Tags: Blood and Gore, Light Angst, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Guide is the Wall of Flesh (Terraria), mechanic is a little gremlin, but so is guide, only one of them can and will cannibalize you, deene is just so tired with this shit, an au where moon lord wins, and guide may or may not be the past heroes' friends, before he gets tired of seeing them die over and over and over Summary:

In a world where Cthulhu wins, the fate of Terraria rests on the shoulders of a small, insignificant human. But the ancient God's army is closing in, and their only way of escaping is through the very bowels of the earth.

In the end, when all else is lost, hope will be your final weapon.

[cossmoluck]

FINALLY finished this

turns out soon means one week+ in my little lizard brain, that's cool

anyways!!! meg

megalo don content,,, food

also, as a treat for making myself take so much to finish this, some of my AU lore rambling thing under the cut (warning, pretty long)

in my design, most of his exterior Nitro armor is removable, being an extension of the augument inside his body, which pumps Nitro both through his lungs and bloodstream, crossing from front to back through his torso. His tubes would be attached to certain openings around his body, which could also have 'lids' put on for safe closing. Every area where the Nitro pumps directly into his body would have 'Nitro burn'- a less proeminent glow than the one in his fueled up form. I, as many others also do, like to think that his mask actually comes off (I haven't drawn him unmaksed yet, but I'll get to that too eventually). One headcanon I have is that when you take his medallion in game, what you take is actually his mask and use it.

For his body I went for a slightly leaner strongman build, as he doesn't seem way too bulky in his non-fueled form, but he's still considerably bigger than most others. I tried to give him a 'scarred shark' look, and gave him burn scars on one arm from a misfiring Nitro Fist hit accident

also his hair look so so fluffy in game and for WHAT

(note, this is all to be taken as an AU. i am by no means well versed enough in Fortnite lore to make something close to canon or actual on point headcanons lol,,, tl;dr at the bottom!!)

i feel like the whole theory with Meg and big chuggus being somehow related is true, but not necessarily in the way others present it usually i don't think they're snapshots of each other in any way, i just think that they've been basically created 'for the same purpose', maybe in the different 'realities?' I'm not 100% sure how the zero point reset worked considering Midas was technically the same and all

so let's say Chaos had created the Slurp legends and Slurp creatures back during the GHOST/SHADOW conflict i like to think that Meg might have been created sometime during then too- a more refined variant of the technology used on big chuggus, enough for him not to end up as brain dead as big chuggus himself (sorry big chuggus)

Megalo Don could have been a fleet leader for the naval forces, as he has an overall very reoccurring military theme with his insignia and stuff. Maybe he was hired by Chaos to aid him and willingly allowing Chaos to modify him into the 'perfect leader', boosted by slurp into near perfection I believe his Oasis style would be what his 'original' look was, with Slurp coursing through his pumps instead of Nitro

so how did he turn into the Meg we know? during the GHOST/SHADOW conflict, his crew got destroyed, probably, and they somehow ended up punished to the Pandora's Box, but not dead like Midas, just punished there I like to think that there is not only one Pandora's Box, technically, and that they're basically some sort of even higher security 'prison' for things deemed disasters under certain circumstances, putting mortal beings into their own personal hell. The ones imprisoned in the Pandora's Box arent necessarily 'dead', like shade Midas in the Underworld, but they're not alive in the full sense either. This particular Nitro filled Pandora's Box sprouted there, leaving behind veins of pure Nitro in the depths of the earth through which the Box had erupted.

in the Pandora's Box, stuck in an infinite purgatory loop of fighting and dying, the slurp that fueled his crew quite literally rotted into Nitro, and Megalo Don himself basically 'rusted' from the rot. The Nitro, essence of death, in a way, compared to Slurp, slowly and surely altered Meg's brain, turning him from a calculated leader into a terrifying tyrant, with nihilistic views regarding his crew and conquest, as he saw them all die over and over again… Another case of 'rotten' slurp beings being Sludge, maybe, as he could perhaps be read as a Slurp creature gone 'bad' (slurp to nitro)

Meg's mind got clouded with the only thing he could comprehend anymore- Nitro coursing through his veins, through his ship, through anything in the living hell he experienced in the Pandora's Box. (Ultrakill flesh prison sounding aah) Obtained by conquest or murder, with destruction being the only method he could even comprehend using to get it, his very life seeming to depend on Nitro at that point, and being released into the world again brought him bo purpose than to seize back all of his Nitro and keep fighting more and more

after he and his crew escaped from the Pandora's Box, Meg had intercepted a boat droning the Island from SHADOW, which had went to scout out Helios after Midas' escape from The Underworld, unaware of the Pandora's Box opening right then, and getting caught in the sandstorm. Meg had just the luck to capture Chaos (or a snapshot), the very man who had taken away his humanity and turned him into a (now) Nitro-fueled beast. From them he also took the island plans, which helped his crew settle in as fast as they did, the Redline Rig digging for Nitro the very moment they got there and the Nitrodrome building itself over the abandoned Fencing Fields, repurposing the fizz machinery there into the dome's car destruction traps

i also like to think that Meg has a father/daughters bond with Scarr and the Machinist, with the Machinist maybe being one of the original scientists on Chaos' team, whom had helped him stabilize his new equipment at the time, and Scarr being a dedicated member of his fleet since before getting banished into the Pandora's Box. Initially, both Scarr and the Machinist would have admired him for his courageous leadership and respected him as a leader, but through their decline in the Pandora's Box, their found family bond only strengthened, with the two of them being probably his only subordinates he actually cares about

i also like to imagine that he had made most of the transmissions particularly silly in hopes of having them tune in on either patrol or at the Nitrodrome and make them laugh with the over the top commentary

tl;dr: i headcanon megalo don as an ex-slurp legend made by Chaos who had rotted to nitro in the Pandora's Box. His Oasis style is what he looked like pre-Box. Also the Mechanist and Ringmaster Scarr are his found family daughters

[crusherthedoctor]

5, 23, 26, and 30 for the fic ask meme, please?

5. What are your fanfic pet peeves? Do they have a huge effect on whether or not you decide to read something?

You can guess the obvious ones: killing characters off (bonus points if it's unnecessarily gory and/or extremely obvious that they're being killed off because the author doesn't like them), turning Eggman into a harmless villain or non-villain, turning certain heroes into OoC assholes/sociopaths/yanderes, flanderizations (Sonic, Amy and Rouge probably get it the worst, though Knuckles and Shadow aren't far behind), Mary Sues and Gary Stus that can do everything better than the entire official cast, with the smug personality to match...

Outside of that...

- I tend to roll my eyes at high school fics, especially given how oddly common they are.

- Alternate universe fics aren't usually my thing either, although part of that is because I'm not into AU stories in general, because I find a lot of them boring at best, and obnoxious at worst (since they tend to use it as an excuse for turning characters inside out to the point of being said characters In Name Only, rather than smartly playing around with them.)

- Archie-tier soap operas? No thank you.

- Villain teams up where they specifically make a point about not including Eggman because he's too pathetic. Doubly hilarious when some of the members needed to rely on Eggman and/or his resources in the past, like Eggman Nega, Lyric, the Deadly Six, etc.

- If Sonic and Eggman are forced to team up, no matter how briefly, I’m closing that shit. Because goddamn am I sick of THAT happening in the series as it is.

- I tend to immediately check out if Sonic says "Ames" or Amy says "Sonikku". Because I'm extremely petty, apparently.

23. What's your absolute favourite trope to write?

Too many to name, so here's a list of some of them:

- Build up. Whether it involves character development, the characters' interactions and fee-fees with each other, the background lore, establishing the villain's threat and personality, setting things up near the beginning or middle that may or may not be noticed by the reader the first time around, only to have a big payoff later on that gives earlier chapters a whole new context...

- Creating memorable locations and giving them their own details. Already talked about this in the previous ask, so I won't repeat myself here. Although, to add onto it...

- Creating a primary setting for the story as a whole. While there are exceptions, I've found that a lot of my favourite games tend to focus on one place in their world rather than going all over the place. (South/Westside/Angel Island in the Genesis trilogy, Dragon Realms/Avalar/Forgotten Worlds in the Spyro trilogy, DK Island/Crocodile Isle/Northern Kremisphere in the DKC trilogy, Beanbean Kingdom/Rogueport/other examples in some Mario games...) I think this might be because there ends up being a lot more passion put into their environments and overall character, rather than treating them as a footnote.

- Giving the villain a group of henchmen that have their own different quirks, yet are no less dangerous than their master. (Eggman has the Hard-Boiled Heavies of course, while Razor has "The Gifted".)

- Pushing the hero to their physical and/or mental limit, only for them to triumph through their determination/super power of teamwork/etc.

- Showcasing the friendship and loyalty shared between the heroes.

- In the case of new characters, making them stand out and be memorable without falling into Sue territory. With Trudy, it's fun to give the readers a feel of her personality, and (hopefully) endear herself to them without being annoying or overpowered.

- Letting shy or mellow characters come out of their shell. (Yep, Trudy again.)

- A final battle where everything around you is constantly changing.

- The heroes have triumphed, the nightmare is at an end, and peace has finally returned... but at a great cost, to cement how much of an impact the villain had even despite their ultimate downfall.

- Tastefully-handled aesops that either aren't as common, or are done in a more unconventional way. For example: "you may have your limits due to reasons beyond your control (like having a condition), but that doesn't mean you should limit your quality of life, and it doesn't mean you can't see the world".

26. What's your biggest distraction from writing?

It's a tie between constantly second guessing myself and worrying if my writing is good enough, and being discouraged by how it's a lot harder to get your fanfic noticed when compared to fanart...

30. Post a snippet from your current WIP without context - no more than 300 words.

(It's over 300 words, but screw it lol.)

"You... you..."

"What? No one-liners? No petulant nicknames? Or did you jump into all this with the expectation that I was in over my head, with forces beyond my control, being the ~mere mortal~ that I am?"

"But how...? How could you... do this...?"

"You were so pumped up and ready to lecture me, weren't you? So certain that this was another Chaos. Another A.R.K. Another Gaia. Another opportunity to point and laugh at the man who simply wanted a worthy empire."

"This isn't about your stupid empire," Sonic muttered breathlessly. Rage and confusion plagued his mind in equal quantities. "It's about-"

"Well you thought wrong." The doctor playfully wagged a finger, mocking the hedgehog's own tendency. "I took my time with this one, you see. I can do that, you know, despite what you may believe. Everything was set up perfectly, not that YOUR room temperature intellect would be able to appreciate the beauty of it. No one else on the planet could achieve this, not even dear old grandad, tried as he did... but I did! And this sad fossil right here...?"

His glance turned towards the motionless figure slumping between them. Then gave the body a kick for good measure, followed by a smug chuckle.

"Never stood a chance."

"You... you have to stop this," Sonic's fists were trembling uncontrollably. "This is wrong! WRONG! Even for YOU! Look around you, Eggman! Look at all this insanity! It doesn't have to be this way!"

"You're right. It didn't have to be this way."

He walked closer to him. Slowly. His grin carefully rearranged itself into a bitter scowl. Sonic could swear there were daggers pointing at him from behind those glasses.

"But you pushed me, Sonic. You pushed me. You pushed... and pushed... and pushed." His tone was quiet. Too quiet. As if he genuinely felt betrayed by not getting what he believed was entitled to him. "I have waited so long for my respect in this world, and it's all because of you. You and your insipid army of squeaky-voiced sheep. You've gotten in my way every time... every single time... and I'm sick of it. Sick of it. Sick of you not knowing your place like the rodent you are..."

Sonic's intense glare remained frozen. He never denied that the doctor was a villain. Never questioned that he was a menace. But with all their history together, there was a side of him - perhaps a selfish side of him - that wanted to believe he wasn't like the rest of them. He wanted to believe the doctor was a step above all those other monsters he faced through the passage of time, no matter all the things he did.

But...

He couldn't really do that anymore, could he...?

"You were fun in your time, hedgehog. I can't deny that there was some entertainment to be had between us, and had things been different... I may have remembered you as a worthy adversary. But like all toys that were brand new once upon a time, you became worn out just like the rest of them. And now?"

He pulled out another switch.

Sonic's heart almost stopped.

"I don't want to play with you anymore."

[burden-and-truth]

I'm probably making a bigger deal out this than I should be, and for that I'll apologize. I just gotta get this off my chest, if anyone even cares to entertain my borderline psychopathic ramblings.

I've been trying to organize my thoughts about Riot's unique choice to target Demacia as the "first to fall" to Ruination. Not going to lie, I was really upset at hearing it. I still kind of am, but I wanted to take some time to cool off before just saying "RIOT U DUM DUM" and not having any substantial points to justify my distaste for it all. So, for the sake of keeping this semi-rant contained, the rest is going under the cut.

1. I'm going to get my personal reasons out of the way first: It's another thing I, as a canon divergent RPer, have to deal with. I try to make it abundantly clear to anyone that wants to RP with me that they aren't playing with Riot's Demacia. This is a place I've cultured and nurtured well before they tried to add more detail the world, and I'm not willing to let it go, as selfish as that sounds. So I have to go on this whole tirade with RP partners, jumping through hoops and complicating things. I feel bad doing it. That's on me.

2. Another personal: It clashes with my Fallen AU severely. I've had this AU for YEARS. Once again, at risk of sounding selfish, all of this I've made is very near and dear to me due to how long I've been working with it. I just don't see myself being able to work it into my narrative like I did with the Mage Rebellion.

3. These next few are less personal and more from an overall narrative standpoint, and I'm gonna copy/paste a previous rant I had when there was discourse over The Black Rose having impostors in Demacia's ranks: "Handling a whole fantasy world with so many moving parts takes even more time. Riot does not function on that kind of time due in part to their focus being on game content, while just making up lore along the way that “sounds good” within that small timeframe the content comes out and is relevant… before the next “new” thing hits. It then results in this broken mess of plot holes, questionable reasoning, and other issues that won’t be touched upon because Riot is too busy promoting their shiny new toy." This Ruination plot just feels like more of the same.

4. Is the Ruined King game just being ignored, now? I feel like this angle is going to clash with that game.

5. With Viego's lore, there's been confirmed lands on Runeterra well beyond Valoran (Viego put his previous kingdom into shambles trying to do everything he could for Isolde before Thresh recommended invading the Blessed Isles). So we don't know how the world is setup beyond what we see. Slapping the entire world on a globe would more than likely mean that the Shadow Isles are not right beside Demacia. Did Viego really travel across an entire continent, unnoticed, to strike Demacia first? I can understand the logic of wanting to dismantle a place that could very much challenge the undead and the Mist... but he's not a very conspicuous traveler, as we've previously seen. Geographically speaking, it just doesn't make sense to me.

6. Where are the Darkin and the Void? Last I checked, Aatrox still very much wants to raze everything to the ground, and the Void still very much desire to consume everything and turn Runeterra inside out. Are these factions just chilling, right now? Do they take turns on when its time to terrorize civilizations?

7. Garen: First Shield ends on heavy implication that Noxus' attempts to invade Demacia are beginning, which would obviously lead into the Noxian/Demacian war. Guess that's gonna be put on hold, now. Kind of frustrating because, even though I'm canon divergent, I try to follow the world Riot creates on my own time, not in the sense of following it in my lore. This all has a feeling of cheap shock value. Is that due to my ravenous desire for Demacia to be a good place? More than likely. I'm not blind to my personal bias.

That's all I got, right now. Am I making a huge deal out of this when I really shouldn't? Probably. Am I selfish for not wanting this? Absolutely. I couldn't let myself remain silent, though, as this event really does hit close to home, for me. I'm not mad at anyone who might be excited for this. Hell, I'm not even mad at people who just hate Demacia and are getting a huge kick out of it. At this point I can't even say I'm outright mad, anymore. Just thoroughly disappointed in it all.

[crystalstar8]

Knights of the Night (ch 7)

Chapter 7

Ch 1, ch 2, ch 3, ch 4, ch 5, ch 6, ch 7

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29139240/chapters/71536491

pairing: Jungkook x oc

genre: vampire au, college au, twilight, romance

word count: 1,367

warnings: blood (obviously), kidnapping, child kidnapping, needles, France

notes: vampires, vampire au, college, college au, so many twilight references, blood, needles, kidnapping, children, homelessness, dance, ballet, flashbacks, romance, slow burn, probably no smut, idk yet tho, France, French things, attempted genocide, inaccurate French history, bisexual main character, @strawberriewithchocolate-blog @mozy-j  @daechwitad-2​ @zobadak​​

summary: Catalina starts college in a small town all the way across the country. She doesn’t know anyone and isn’t exactly looking for friends. She just wants to focus on dance. But when she meets fellow dance major, Jimin, and adventurous, fellow freshman, Jungkook, Catalina ends up discovering a whole new side to the small college town; one that is dangerous but oh so enticing…

              After they had shown the ghost hunting documentary at game night, which everyone had loved, Jungkook declared that he was thirsty and was going on a hunt for beverages. That’s how Catalina found herself searching the front of the house for the garage with him, since Taehyung said, “There’s soda pop in the garage refrigerator.”

               They ended up in a back kitchen, which connected to a mudroom, which led them to the garage. The garage was filled with ancient looking equipment and a tractor so rusty, Catalina figured she could shatter it with a good tap.

               “Here they are!” Jungkook said, facing two refrigerators against the wall.

               “Which one is for the soda pop?” asked Catalina. Jungkook opened both at once. The one on the left was filled with pop, beer and a single head of moldy broccoli. The other was filled with…

               “What do you want? Coke?” Jungkook asked, closing the other fridge and reaching into left one.

               “Wait, what was in that other fridge?” asked Catalina. She opened the one on the right. Blood bags. It was filled with blood bags. They both gasped.

               “The secret soda pop,” Jungkook whispered. Catalina slapped his arm.

               “Jungkook! Why do they have these?” she asked. Jungkook shook his head.

               “I don’t know. Maybe one of them is a doctor or something?” he said.

               “Probably not,” Catalina thought for a moment. “Not a word about this to anyone. We’ll discuss it later. Let’s just go enjoy game night. We probably shouldn’t stay the night though. Just in case.”

               “Right. Got it. So, coke?” he asked, pulling an entire case of coke out of the left fridge.

               “Yeah, coke is good,” Catalina nodded.

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

               Later that night, Catalina sat up in bed on her laptop, unable to fall asleep. She just couldn’t stop thinking about what she saw in that fridge. She opened Google on her laptop and typed in “vampires”. Most of the sites that came up were about vampire novels or movies. She typed in “vampire history” instead. This gave her a bit more. There were tales about bloodsucking monsters all over the world. In Europe, they were considered demons or witches. There were many names for them throughout the middle east and Asia, but all the stories had the same few things in common: red eyes, superhuman speed and strength, unnatural beauty, and the need to drink human blood.

Catalina closed her laptop and sat against the wall, since her mattress was still on the floor against the wall. She had seen enough. Catalina knew what she needed to do.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The front door looked less intimidating than it did the first time Catalina had laid eyes on the house, but her heart still pounded in her chest as she raised a hand to knock. She waited a few seconds before the door opened. It was Namjoon. Catalina’s heart stuttered. God damn, he is so beautiful…

“Oh, hi!” he said. “What are you doing out so late? Not that I mind seeing you- I mean…”

Catalina giggled and momentarily forgot why she was here. Namjoon scratched the back of his head.

“Um, anyway, come on in,” he said.

“I was actually wondering if we could go for a walk,” said Catalina. Namjoon nodded and stepped outside, closing the door behind him. He led Catalina into the woods on the cobblestone path.

“Is there something you wanted to talk about?” he asked as they strolled side by side. Catalina felt her heartrate pick up again.

“I know what you are,” she said. Namjoon stopped and faced her.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Don’t play dumb Namjoon. I know what you are,” said Catalina. The confusion melted from his face, replaced with an intense gaze.

“Say it,” said Namjoon.

“You have blood red eyes, and all of you are unnaturally beautiful. I haven’t seen it, but I bet you have superhuman strength and speed,” said Catalina. “I saw the fridge in the garage. It was filled with blood bags.”

“Say it,” Namjoon said again. “Out loud.”

“Vampire.”

“Are you afraid?”

“I know you won’t hurt me,” Catalina said, looking up at him.

“You know the risk, and yet, you still want to see us,” he said.

“You’re not a killer.”

“I’m a predator, Catalina. Everything about me is meant to draw you in. You couldn’t outrun me if you tried, and you certainly couldn’t fight me,” said Namjoon.

“Namjoon. I don’t care. You and your friends have been nothing but kind to us. I’ve seen you all and none of you seem like you want to drink our blood,” said Catalina.

Namjoon scoffed and said, “You have no idea how much I’d like to taste your blood. You smell…irresistible.”

Catalina blushed. “Can you stop? Once you’ve had a taste?”

“What?”

“I mean, if you were to drink from me, would you be able to control yourself before you took too much?” Catalina asked. She couldn’t believe what she was saying. She was playing with fire, but the thought of it made her a bit dizzy with anticipation. Her blush was hot all the way down her neck.

Namjoon stared at her and said, “You can’t be serious.”

Catalina shrugged and brushed her hair off her shoulder, baring her neck. Namjoon smirked and shook his head. Catalina’s flush turned to one of embarrassment.

“I’m not drinking from you,” Namjoon said. “I’m old enough to control myself, but what if I wasn’t? A younger vampire wouldn’t have turned you down either.”

Catalina sighed and said, “Sorry, I don’t know why I asked that.”

“It’s okay,” Namjoon said. They continued walking.

“So, vampires are real?” Catalina asked. Namjoon nodded. “Are other things real? Like werewolves and demons?”

               “Werewolves are real, but you probably won’t ever meet one,” Namjoon explained. “They tend to live off the grid and the ones who don’t are hunted pretty relentlessly by the Pack Hunters. Also, demons[PG1]  aren’t real. Religion is a human based concept that holds no truth.”

               “So, crucifixes don’t repel you or anything?” Catalina asked. Namjoon laughed and said no. “Cool, wait who are the Pack Hunters?”

               “The Pack Hunters are an organization that hunts werewolves,” he said. “They say that they’re protecting society but most of the time, the people they hunt are harmless, just trying to live peacefully. It is a problem in the werewolf community. Werewolves can no longer live in packs like they used to. They’ve been on the run for so long, it’s basically every man for himself.”

               “That’s terrible,” said Catalina. She had so many questions buzzing through her head and she didn’t know where to start. She supposed what she was most curious about was what lore was true and what wasn’t. “Do you have fangs?”

               Namjoon flashed a toothy smile, showing off sharp fangs. Catalina gasped.

               “I didn’t notice those on any of you guys before!” she said.

               “That’s because we didn’t want you to notice,” said Namjoon.

               “Can you be killed with a wooden stake?” asked Catalina.

               “No.”

               “Does silver hurt you?”

               “Yes, it just burns a bit.”

               “Can you enter a place before being invited in?”

               “It’s not the polite thing to do, but technically yes.

               “Do you burn up in sunlight?”

               “Not exactly, we’re just more susceptible to really bad sunburns.”

               “Are you actually immortal?”

               “Yes.”

               “How old are you?” Catalina asked.

               “Twenty-three.”

               “How long have you been twenty-three?”

               A pause. “A while. Catalina, I’d love to stay out and answer your questions, but don’t you have class tomorrow morning?” asked Namjoon.

               “Do you need sleep?” she asked. Namjoon sighed.

               “No, I can sleep but I don’t need to. I’m pretty sure it’s nearing two in the morning,” he said.

               “You’re right, you’re right. I’m sorry for bombarding you with questions,” said Catalina. They stepped off the trail and Catalina didn’t even realize they had made their way back to the house.

               “No, it’s okay,” said Namjoon. “I never mind spending time with you.”

               Catalina blushed again.

               “I like spending time with you too,” Catalina mumbled, playing with the ends of her hair.

               “I’ll drive you home. Someone recently went missing in this town, you shouldn’t be out at night alone,” he said.

.

.

.

(Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!!!)

[deanstop13billyjoeltraxx]

Superposition

a deancas college roommates AU

Dean Winchester had it all at Wichita State University — a second chance, a future devoid of his father, and a roommate-turned-best friend who understands him inside and out.

But his father dies, he fails out in his second semester, and Castiel Novak leaves without so much as a goodbye.

Three years later, Dean has picked up the pieces. He works at the most trusted auto-shop in Lawrence, he’s putting Sam through college. Dean thinks it can’t get much better than that.

Then Castiel Novak gives him a concussion, and everything falls apart. Again.

Chapter 2 is up on AO3 (and below the cut)! Tumblr chapter masterlist here.

Classic Rock and Other Foreign Concepts

Three Years Earlier

Castiel Novak was ready for his second chance. 

Sure, the name “Wichita State University” held no cache, and sure, it was only two hours away from home. But it was a full ride, it was free of old high school acquaintances. It was enough. 

Castiel stood at the door of his empty dorm room, hope blooming in his chest as he regarded the dingy bunks and linoleum floors. 

He didn’t have much in the way of belongings, so moving in was quick and easy, even by himself. Castiel made his bed, hung up his limited outfits in the dresser, and filled his desk with his books and paper. Only one thing remained in his suitcase — a picture of his family, two Christmases ago. Castiel took it out and looked at it for a moment, before deciding to place it on his desk. 

He decided it might be a good idea to familiarize himself with his new surroundings. That was sure to calm down the inevitable anxiety that his first trip to the showers would bring. Castiel strolled down the hallway, doing his best to stay out of the way of all of the other freshmen moving in on his floor. 

After successfully discovering the bathroom and the water fountain, as well as narrowly avoiding an awkward encounter with two giggling girls who were apparently intent upon introducing themselves to him, he returned to his room with a sigh.

Castiel moved to his desk and opened his computer. He pulled up his course schedule, reviewing it again, despite having already committed it to memory. Tuesdays and Thursdays would be difficult, he thought, with financial accounting, economics, and an intro to business. The other days were more interesting, holding philosophy, creative writing, and nineteenth century British literature. 

Castiel was about to read the class descriptions for the millionth time when a loud thud and a grunt interrupted his thoughts. He stood up, fast, almost knocking his head on the bottom of his bed. Castiel got to his open door just in time to almost run into someone. 

“Shit! Watch it, man!”

Castiel found himself face to face with… Plastic storage bins. The man holding them shifted to reveal a mild scowl. Castiel cleared out of his way, and the man set the three boxes down. 

“Sorry,” Castiel muttered. 

“You’re fine,” the man grumbled. “Sorry, long drive.”

“Dean Winchester, I presume?” Castiel said, cautiously. He had seen his roommate assignment online weeks earlier.

“Damn straight,” Dean said, and he offered a hand out to Castiel, who accepted it graciously. “Sorry, man, I’m terrible with names. Have we met?” 

“I’m Castiel Novak,” Castiel replied, then added, “We haven’t met, but the website informed me of your name and email address. I emailed you a few weeks back.” 

Dean nodded. “I definitely didn’t respond. Sorry ‘bout that, I kind of haven’t had access to the internet in… Well, it’s a long story. Anyway, good to meet you.” 

“You as well. Do you need any help unpacking?” 

“Least you can do after nearly killing me.” Castiel tensed, but then Dean clapped him on the back. “Kidding. Help would be great.”

Castiel moved to unpack the box nearest him, but Dean stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“No! Uh, not that one. No offense, but that’s the most important thing I own. Give me a second, you can start on this one.” 

Castiel tilted his head in inquisition, but Dean said nothing more, just got to unpacking the bin. Castiel set to work on the second of the three, first grabbing the sheets to make the bed. 

When Castiel had finished with Dean’s bed, he turned to see Dean had set up a record player and a pair of bookshelf speakers on the floor. 

“Behold,” Dean announced. “My prized possession.” 

“A record player?” Castiel asked. 

“Not just the record player,” Dean said. He went back to the box, which Castiel could now see was filled with vinyl LPs. “The whole collection.”

“It’s quite impressive.”

“Fuckin’ A-right,” Dean said. “Here, you like Zeppelin?” 

“Embarrassingly, I have no idea who that is,” Castiel said, blushing.

Dean’s eyes widened. “Dude! No way! Oh man, it’s time to educate you. How have you survived this long Zeppelin-less?” 

“My father was strict about music.” Castiel felt suddenly very nervous that this, combined with his near-toppling of Dean moments earlier, would have him solidly fixed on Dean’s bad side. But Dean was flipping through his records with animation, as if Castiel’s ignorance was a game to be won. 

“That’s utter bullshit,” Dean declared. “Here, listen to this.”

Dean put on Led Zeppelin IV. Castiel turned back to the plastic bins, intent upon doing something while the record played. He was quiet as he worked, setting up first an ancient-looking coffee maker, then a small, LCD monitor. Dean unpacked his clothes, quietly singing along to the music.

“Do you need help with the rest?” Castiel asked when they had finished, assuming there had to be more than just those three boxes. Dean chuckled quietly. 

“Nah, this is it. Thanks for the help, Castiel.” 

Castiel raised an eyebrow, but only said, “You’re welcome.” Dean had brought even less than he had. 

“That’s a weird name, by the way,” Dean said, turning the volume down on the speakers. “Castiel. It sounds kind of --” 

“Ancient?” Castiel supplied, and Dean nodded. “That’s because it is. It’s adapted from the name of an angel in the third book of Enoch.” At Dean’s blank look, Castiel added, “Christian apocryphal lore. My parents are very religious.” 

“Ah,” Dean said. “And you…?”

“Haven’t been to church since I was fourteen,” Castiel finished. “We are very different, my family and I.” 

Dean nodded. “That them?” He asked, pointing at the picture on Castiel’s desk. 

“Yes,” Castiel said. 

“That’s a lot of kids.” 

“Yes, there’s five of us.” 

“Road trips must have been fun,” Dean said.

This actually got a laugh out of Castiel. 

“I’ve only got one. My kid brother, Sam,” Dean said.

“How old is Sam?”

“God.” Dean rubbed his face, considering. “I guess he’s fourteen now. It’s weird — I feel like I can never see him as any older than, like, eight.”

“I can’t say I understand,” Castiel replied. “I’m the youngest.” 

“Damn, that must suck, four older siblings. What’re their names?”

Castiel picked up the picture. “The boy on the left — he’s the oldest — that’s Gabriel. The other is Bartholomew. The redhead is Anna. And then there’s Hannah, she’s just a couple years older than me.” 

Dean nodded, moving to his record player. He pulled a small, worn piece of paper from the inside. 

“This is old as hell,” he said, showing Castiel the picture, “but that’s my dad, and that’s Sam when he was… ten, maybe?” 

“It’s just the three of you?”

“Yeah, my mom died when I was, like, four.”

“I apologize, I didn’t mean to --” 

“No worries, man,” Dean said. “Long time ago.”

There was an awkward pause that made Castiel want to open his computer just to look preoccupied, but Dean spoke. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t get over this name stuff. I can’t be roommates with a dude named after an angel.” 

Castiel felt his entire body deflate. Day one, and just his name was already making things difficult. “I’m… Sure there’s a way to switch roommates. But, what’s wrong with being named after an angel?”

“Dude, I was totally joking,” Dean said, putting his hands up defensively. “I’m not switching roommates — unless you’re secretly a vampire or something.” Castiel smiled at that. “And there’s nothing wrong with it, I’m just not into the whole religion thing. Makes me feel weird. Nah, I’ll just have to call you something else. Any suggestions?” 

“I’ve always just been ‘Castiel.’” 

“Man, haven’t had many creative friends,” Dean said. “Cas it is, then.” 

“Cas?” Castiel replied. He considered the new nickname. Castiel actually found it strange that no one had ever thought of it before, now that he had heard it. “I suppose it is a great deal shorter.”

“Easier to say, too,” Dean said. “It fits.”

Castiel smiled tentatively. “Sure.” 

The music faded, and Dean flipped the record to the B-side. 

“What do you think so far?” He asked. 

“It’s certainly different than what I’m used to. In a good way,” Castiel added. 

Dean beamed at him. “Awesome. I have more in here, too, and it’s not just Zep. Mostly the classics — the Stones, Rush, AC/DC… And a shit load of grunge, too. Man, wait til you hear Alice in Chains…” 

Castiel smiled at his animation. “Music is important to you?” 

“Dude, I couldn’t function without music. I feel like every time I listen to a song I like, I find something new that makes it even better.” Dean chuckled to himself. “Sorry, I’m geeking out about classic rock.”

“I don’t mind,” Castiel said, and he found that it was true. “I feel similarly about books.” 

“You like to read?”

“Immensely.” 

“You’ll have to give me some recommendations. I read Vonnegut in high school, and that was cool, but other than that and Harry Potter I think I’m pretty hopeless.”

“I will,” Castiel said, even though he knew he wouldn’t, even though he knew Dean was simply saying the polite thing. He had learned by now that when people asked about him to talk about the things he liked, they were just being nice. 

Dean asked Castiel which end of the hall the bathrooms were on, and excused himself.

When he returned, Dean clapped his hands together. “So,” he said. “I gotta ask you the Freshman Questions.” At Castiel’s confused look, he elaborated: “You know, the two things you ask everyone for your whole freshman year. Where are you from, what are you majoring in?” 

Castiel nodded. “I see. I didn’t know there was a procedure.” 

Dean looked at him for a moment. “It’s not — I was kinda joking.” 

“Oh. Right,” Castiel said, rubbing his neck. “Well, I’m from Guthrie — it’s a small town in Oklahoma, just a few hours south of here. And I’m studying accounting and creative writing.” 

“Guthrie… I’ve driven through there, on our way to Oklahoma City for a job my dad worked once,” Dean said. 

“It’s not very impressive.” 

Dean laughed. “Nah, not really.” 

“What about you, Dean?”

“I’m from Lawrence — it’s northeast of here. And I have no fucking idea what I’m gonna major in,” he said. “I’m not really… Well, Sam is the smart one. That kid is gonna kick ass when he goes to school. I’m kinda just here to…” Dean trailed off. 

“Experience it?” Castiel suggested. Dean shrugged. 

“Yeah, I guess.” He cleared his throat. “Why accounting? I get the writing thing, you said you like books — but accounting? I feel like those two don’t mix.”

“They don’t,” Castiel agreed. “But I don’t want to be a starving author. I do want to be able to take care of myself.” I want to be far, far away from everything I’ve ever known. I want to leave and never look back.

“Fair,” Dean said. “I don’t know about you, Cas, but I’m starving. Wanna grab some dinner?” 

“Sure,” Castiel said with a smile.

 The next day, in his first creative writing class, the professor asked each of them to share their major, their hometown, and a fun fact. He called, “Novak, Castiel?” 

“Double major in accounting and writing. I’m from Guthrie, Oklahoma. I suppose a fun fact is that I’m named after an angel, but you can just call me Cas.” 

[gayregis]

blood and wine rewrite au basic layout

i already posted something like this before but i cant find the post so im just rewriting all of this from the top of my head

everyone’s repurposed roles:

geralt - he’s still a witcher. he’s geralt of rivia. obviously. i don’t have time or interest to think about how to rewrite the entire witcher 3 game to be lore-friendly, but i assume there would be less triss and more dandelion involved in it. for this let’s just take him as geralt having done everything in tw3 but with the personality of geralt from the books because geralt from the games doesn’t have much of a strong personality good for writing or thinking about.

regis - a bitch. nah jk. he’s same regis but just what he was like 100 years ago when he got his head cut off. he’s less spiralling-into-doom than he was then, and is less desperate and hopeless overall, but is slowly getting there once again. he doesn’t remember anything about learning from his mistakes and becoming a good person, because this regis didn’t get any of that. to this regis, it’s like no time has passed at all since he died, and he’s ready to start partying again without any thought of the consequences. he’s moved to toussaint because everyone’s already tipsy there and the north is plagued by war so it’s not a really great source to be drinking from (like if there was a sewage leak near the vineyard you sourced your wine from). he doesn’t remember anything about maturing up or about becoming a surgeon or about the hansa, so that sucks.

dettlaff - not a fucking maniac. actually a character geralt will likely spend a good amount of time talking to. total character overhaul because he does not have a personality in the actual DLC. he arrived in toussaint because he had heard that regis had returned and wanted to fix things wih him, he had previously left him.

syanna - not a fucking dumbass, yet still naive in her own way due to being blinded with the promise of power. in this, she is planning to stage a coup on the duchy (because she is the older sister, so it IS her right by law) and she supports regis’ slow dive again into uncontrollable insanity because it helps her prop up rumors that her sister’s reign is ineffective against real threats and is cursed. but this alliance does not go as she planned...

orianna -  in this, she is the owner of a gladiatorial school (instead of an orphanage), and is still like in canon a wealthy and influential individual of beauclair, yet reclusive from human society. she is regis’ best friend and goads him on, because she never fixed her own issues with alcoholism and now is elated to have him back and forgetting that they had disagreements which drove them apart in the first place. they’re best friends (NO romance) and it’s just good to see how insanely different orianna and geralt are because they’ve both been regis’ close friends at different points in time.

the purpose of this:

fix regis’ relationships with the vampires. he slowly drove all of his good friends away by going off the deep end and many are likely wondering whatever happened to him. but books regis would never consider partying like that again, so we bring the party regis back and then slowly de-escalate him into normal books regis again, and we finally get closure with him and his old friends.

cool dramatic stereotypical vampire shit. i’m talking about a final battle or conversation in a giant dark castle with large open windows and billowing drapery.

regis’s hairstyle

give syanna actual agency as a character and give her motivations that extend beyond pure revenge (although they are related to revenge) and make her more unique so she is not just a ripoff of renfri. 

demonstrate anna henrietta and geralt’s relationship as it was in the books. he was genuinely intimidated by her and i interpret him as being jealous of her relationship with dandelion, so he in practice was quite withdrawn around her as she was her overemotional and embellished self

give dettlaff an actual character, holy shit. i hate how sorely underdeveloped he is in the game. i understand why because it’s not meant to be writing, it’s meant to be a video game, but come on. i hate having the vampire with the cool character design be the ultimate villain of the whole narrative. in this, he’s someone geralt can talk to and sees himself in. he’s emotionally mature and doesn’t mix with the other vampires. since we already know what regis is like, we don’t have to sit through dettlaff making excuses for him and trying to describe what his character is like. we also get a better view of regis’ past through dettlaff’s lense. 

give orianna an actual character, holy shit. i hate how they didn’t even try with her and just used her as a “surprise, she is quite evil!” gimmick. have her actually have a larder for blood that is lore-friendly yet still jumps out at the audience as morally wrong.  give her more personality and development.

examine regis’ backstory without actually getting into every single year of those 4 centuries. we can examine how it started good, turned bad, went worse... there’s a lot of loss involved and i think this would be nice to process it.

roughly what happens (under cut because if i ever do write this fic out, this is spoilers, literally the synopsis of the whole thing):

anna henrietta sends envoys to geralt. they establish that the duchess has no conflict with geralt and that her conflict was with dandelion, only. she has requested his help because he effectively dealt with many monsters while he was in beauclair and established a trustworthy reputation (also, he’s famous, and toussaintoirs are superficial). instead of the beast of beauclair killing particular victims, it’s the countryside which has been plagued by vicious attacks of the devil knows what.

geralt arrives and examines the scenes of the attacks. the sincere majority of the victims are alive, so he speaks to them. they remember nothing, but woke up with their village fucking absolutely trashed and with vomit everywhere. they all have wounds on their necks. geralt thinks he knows what’s up, but is reluctant to deal with it because of his memories of regis, who he misses

damien de la tour is assigned to geralt as a sort of backup. they argue and geralt manages to get him to stay put in beauclair while he rides to a village they believe will be attacked next. it’s not even a full moon so the vampires don’t even come out in their bat form (disappointing) but instead just mesmerize their way in in humanoid form. dettlaff sneaks up on geralt who is (ahem) staking out the situation, and is like hey dont kill regis hes not evil hes just misguided!! and geralt is like REGIS? EMIEL REGIS? THTS WHO’S LEADING THEM? i ..... i know him.... and dettlaff’s like what the fuck how... then they get caught and regis is like oh hey dettlaff who’s this guy and geralt feels very left out :( and also sad bc regis doesnt remember shit and geralt even lists the hansa members by name and regis is still like O_O ok yeah im just going to hypnotize you to get lost ok goodbye! but dettlaff prevents him from doing this and they both get thrown out of the party.

after the party geralt is a mess and is like wtf so hes back and what... how... huh... and dettlaff doesnt know how he returned or why he returned either but they compare geralt’s knowledge of how regis died with dettlaff’s knowledge of how regeneration works and they figure out that regis just regenerated from his past body and that’s why he doesn’t have any of his memories from when he turned good.

then they eavesdrop a little more and find out that syanna has been talking to regis and making deals with him (its... not really like she thinks, regis really hasnt been doing anything he doesnt want to. shes just like “hey can you attack this village here” and regis is like yeah i was gonna host a party there tomorrow night ...) so they are like who the fuck is this woman and track her down to her base of operations, and then they find out that THEY got followed by damien de la tour, who identifies her as sylvia anna. geralt is a little miffed on behalf of dandelion that damien seems to be so close to anna henrietta but i digress.

geralt reports his findings to the duchess but does NOT mention regis because the duchess knows who regis is. then we get the same vampire talk from canon b&w where the duchess and damien are sorely misinformed on every single thing ever.

geralt is defeated and has no idea on how to fix this and hes looking hard into a mirror by candlelight and then decides to go to bed so he turns around and regis is right behind him like hey. cue ‘holy shit what the fuck’ moment and freaking out. regis explains himself and says that he doesnt remember him but the fact that he gave so many specifics weirded him out and he kind of wants to know more out of curiosity. also he wants to talk to dettlaff but feels too bad about how he argued with him like 3 centuries ago that he cant just ask him directly.

so they talk and geralt is all :(( and regis is like ok well. i kinda want to get these memories back because they sound pretty significant and also im pretty miserable. but also im not going to stop partying bc its the only thing that makes me feel alive rn. so long!

geralt and dettlaff talk to orianna and she dislikes them both but still talks to them and then regis materializes and also begins bothering them and its quite civil but this scene just serves to demonstrate how annoying they are as friends lol

there’s scenes where you can either save damien / syanna from being unalived by the vampires’ / regis’ hand, only if you let syanna die will the duchess be mad and accuse you of being heartless like dandelion is and then geralt and the duchess actually get into an argument bc of that comment but geralt ofc loses bc hes scared of her lol

no matter what you get regis his memories back but your decisions to either continue helping him or not is what makes him change or not. even after he gets his memories back (or because he gets his memories back?) he decides to raze beauclair bc hes just so fucking miserable and geralt has to talk him down, if you are harsh and not understanding and shame him etc then he doesnt change, if you condemn his actions but still offer your support then he does.

if you offer your support > geralt talks about the hansa like For Ever and regis then adds in everything and yay regis is back to normal. theres like a wholesome montage of geralt being like “just TRY to sew up a wound i promise you you will be good at it” and regis does and hes splendid at it. regis and dettlaff finally make up and are bros once again. we help orianna with her issues and she realizes stuff but is still going to have a drink once in a while. if syanna is alive she doesnt hate on any of this but just decides to make up with the duchess and then become captain of the guard (damien gets fired for being a dumbass).

if you do not offer your support > regis goes to cry in a delapidated creepy old castle and you have an epic fight (geralt is backed up by dettlaff) and he turns into a bat and geralt almost dies, they manage to decapitate regis again and put him in the ground and set a timer for 50 years

if you redeem regis then there’s an ending scene where the duchess is like “oh regis i didnt know you were in town” and hes just like <:) ahaha... yeah...

cue crying about milva/cahir/angouleme For Ever. maybe link this with the fic where geralt and regis bring them all back as ghosts/real ppl and then they have to deal with those consequences

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

so i’d really like to finish my guardian takedown lore analysis, but honestly the game isn’t really fun to play at the moment anymore (even with the health debuffs they added) so I think im going to be taking a break for now because I’m just not having fun anymore.

this game has a lotta mechanical problems i think need to be addressed so im gonna summarize it as bullet points below. I’ll play the new dlc when it drops, but idk if i’ll be on more than that (grinding, end-game stuff) until they make some serious changes. I’ve been playing (near) daily since launch, followed the patch/hotfix notes every single week, and my patience has finally, FINALLY run dry, especially with that really disappointing Phase 1 Patch and then the hotfix this week not adding anything else. What is the balancing team doing??? 😩

tl;dr: FIX THE VAULT HUNTERS!!!!

anyway. That’s all I needed to get outta my system. I might log on to this blog every now and again to post some random shit that pops into my head (probably with regards to my AU), but I’m not going to be actively playing and posting for the time being. Goodbye (for now), and here’s hoping the new DLC is good!! 

guardian takedown only problems:

there’s a lot of waiting around, and sometimes it’s not explicitly stated that you’re waiting for something, so you’ll be lost on what to do next (not sure if that’s a dialogue glitch or not)

the crystal charge insta-death is bull. just. what the hell. at least make it so you just have to start over. killing ur players for failing a “puzzle” that they then have to fight all the way back to is so infuriating.

dying because you fell off a platforming puzzle is also bull. 

i remember playing the first DMC on my playstation in middle school and having a conniption over the part in the observatory(? it’s been a hot minute since I played DMC 1) with the disappearing/invisible platforms. I h a t e jumping puzzles. why are they in a section of the game where death is semi-permanent and a detriment to your teammates. i tried the takedown 2x with friends and both times one friend didn’t make the first big jump to the temple and had to wait for our inevitable deaths. that’s so unfair to them.

there’s absolutely no reason for a boss to have 12 fuckin immunity phases. 4 per health bar with 3 health bars? Who the fuck designed this? *pumps shotgun* i just wanna talk. 

i appreciate a tasteful immunity phase every now and again (the ones in the Valkyrie fight are actually p reasonable), but christ. that is overkill. I don’t mind the main boss fight, since u can end those early through certain actions, but jesus. the mid-boss fight is annoying as hell. you spend more time running from the immunity phases and finding the damn boss than u do actually shooting it.

drop rates are crap, which I guess should be expected given what happened with the Maliwan Takedown and the handful of months it took for them to fix that, but also you think they’d have learned.

in the maliwan takedown there’s a sense of progression thru the facility after you kill each area’s batch of enemies, but in this one it’s... dampened by the crystal charging sequences. you kill all the enemies in an area, press a button, and now you have to kill 3x that number of enemies in the same area, expect you’re just standing there motionless. It’s not fun.

the crystal charging stuff is just not fun in general. standing in a square is not entertaining. it’s worse that it was clearly designed for 3+ players when a majority of people play/grind solo

i gotta admit the boss fights just aren’t as fun as the Maliwan Takedown fights overall. I felt like a real badass fighting Wotan for the first time, but the main boss for this Takedown is kind of a bitch. Wotan’s fight is chaos, there’s so much shit happening at once and you don’t really have time to process everything and I love it. This one is p meh...

This would be fine and I’d 100% not care that much if there weren’t all these OTHER problems

General Issues with the Game

There’s no endgame stuff to play outside of the takedowns. 

I assume they’re working on the first raid given some stuff I found in the Guardian Takedown files, but I really wish they’d keep the seasonal events/areas. They give us the option to disable/enable them while they’re ‘active’, just give us the ability to do it whenever we want.

when i hop on i either run through Athenas (my favorite map), or farm a boss or two. I have all the loot i really need from the maliwan takedown/elsewhere, and the guardian takedown just... isn’t fun atm, so i have nothing to do.

I’ve reset my playthru multiple times to play the main story at m10, but u can only play it (and the dlc) so many times

Mayhem levels and modifiers are a hot m e s s

a majority of the modifiers just aren’t fun to play with

they incorporated like 2-3 fun modifiers (from the community), then added a bunch that straight-up aren’t. I’m fine with the game being more difficult, but at least give us modifiers that make it more entertaining to play at a higher level instead of more annoying. I like the ones that have trade-offs or add new ‘enemies’, but I hate the ones that just straight up reduce your damage output.

a majority of the weapons with the mayhem 10 anointment (scaling) do not work on mayhem 10 (we’ll go more in-depth with this later)

Player Characters (Vault Hunters!!!) are also a hot mess and a lot of problems plaguing them haven’t been fixed SINCE LAUNCH

theyre literally the basis of the game and its balance. why havent you guys fixed them yet. stop adding new content until they’re fixed. no new skill trees until the base 3 trees work ON EVERY CHARACTER.

seriously. Why is amara p much limited to using Phasegrasp. Why does Iron Bear not matter to Moze except to proc anointments. MAKE ALL ACTION SKILLS EQUAL AND HAVE HEFT.

i wrote an essay here about it bc i feel that strongly about this

SERIOUSLY FIXING UR VAULT HUNTERS WILL MAKE BALANCING SO MUCH EASIER PLEASE IM BEGGING YOU THEY ARE THE BASE OF UR BALANCING WOES

ZANE IS STILL UNUSABLE WITHOUT THE SEEIN’ DEAD CLASS MOD!!!!!!!!!!!

MOZE IS SCREWED BC HER DAMAGE IS TOO RELIANT ON ASE ANOINTMENTS!!

AMARA DOESN’T HAVE A FUCKING MELEE BUILD AS THE ADVERTISED MELEE CHARACTER???

FL4K’S HEADCOUNT SKILL IS S T I L L BROKEN EVER SINCE THE RELEASE OF THE MALIWAN TAKEDOWN

ARE YOU GUYS LISTENING TO THE COMMUNITY *PLEASEEEEEEE*

BUFF AND FIX THE GODDAMN VAULT HUNTERS

Anointments were a mistake. Damage end-game is wayyyy too reliant on them

anoints should have a maximum of, like, a 20% damage bonus. the damage necessary to kill enemies *should be coming from the VHs themselves*. i don’t care if you have to revamp every single Vault Hunter’s skill trees and buff them all by 9000%. THEY DESERVE IT AT THIS POINT

at the moment in m10 there really isn’t much build diversity *even between Vault Hunters*. We’re all using the same 5 guns (OPQ System. Kaoson. idk. fuckin brainstormer? is that still a thing? jesus fuck) with the same 3 anointments (100% on ASE, cryo while SNTL, and 300% while 90%).

you want to diversify builds like you said during the gameplay reveal???? you want our choice in Vault Hunter to actually fuckin matter???? FIX THEM!!!! THEY SHOULD BE ABLE TO DEAL DAMAGE WITHOUT STUPID POWERFUL LEGENDARIES AND ANOINTMENTS!!!

Anoints also shouldn’t be common. At all. They should be, like, Pearl rarity. To let that happen, their damage needs to be tuned way the fuck down (again, 20ish % bonus MAX) and ALL ANOINTS NEED TO BE USEFUL IN SOME WAY

NOBODY IS GOING TO USE THE AIRBORNE OR SLIDING ANOINTMENTS JUST REMOVE THEM ALREADY AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

obviously these changes can’t happen because they fucked up and buckled down with everything being anointed in m10, but still

imagine a world where the VHs actually did damage on their own without anointments and the damage buff from them was just an incentive to grind for the 100% perfect weapon and NOT A REQUIREMENT TO DEAL DAMAGE

>:(

A majority of gear is borderline worthless at M10

I’m fine with the difficulty of M10, i should let it be known. The enemy health isn’t really the problem IF ALL GUNS ACTED THE SAME AS THE OPQ SYSTEM

ffs.

you know, if you fixed ur vault hunters so they all did damage with just purple weapons (abt the same damage as legendaries w/o special effects) and removed the anointment requirement from late-game play, balancing your guns would be sooo much easier. you know. just saying.

right now only 10% (im being generous) of guns in the game are viable. 90% are worthless. We need AT LEAST 60-70% viable at M10. WHERE IS MY BUILD DIVERSITY. WHY ARE ALL LEGENDARIES NOW JUST “HEY THIS GUN IS STRONGER THAN THE LAST 4 WE RELEASED. HAVE FUN”

how to fix this problem? do as above: BUFF YOUR PLAYER CHARACTERS. MAKE ANOINTMENTS LESS STRONG.

then, at least the 10% already strong weapons would be stupid strong and OP as fuck, BUT AT LEAST WE COULD HAVE BUILD VARIETY!!! I don’t care if other people are dummy strong one-shotting everything in sight. I don’t! so long as they don’t play with me, I couldn’t care less!!! I want to be able to play with the unique, interesting legendaries. instead of the OPQ System. which, by the way, I dislike compared to the normal Q-System. let me use the frozen heart shield and the infiltrator mod. I don’t wanna be chained to the Seein’ Dead anymore :(

honestly at this point im starting to think removing slag was a mistake bc then at least we could use guns that aren’t solely damage-based guns. you know how fucked up you’ve got me that im thinking maybe slag wouldn’t be so bad this time around??? YOU GOT ME FUCKED UP B A D.

FIX THE GAME

IM TAKING A BREAK

MAYBE I’LL BE LESS UPSET WHEN I COME BACK FOR THE DLC BUT HOT. DIGGITY. SHIT.

[syrupwit]

Letter for Chocolate Box 2021

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Hello there, and welcome to my letter for Chocolate Box Exchange 2021! I appreciate that you’ve taken the time to read this letter. I hope that it will provide you with clarification, inspiration, or at the very least a bit of entertainment.

I have requested fic only for all items below. Although I’ve written more for some sections and less for others, rest assured that I would be thrilled to receive a gift for any of the requested fandoms or relationships. 

Please see the table of contents below:

Likes

Do Not Want (DNW)

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Fandom: Planescape: Torment

Fandom: Stellar Firma

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LIKES

My general/SFW likes include: 

Surreality and weirdness

Character studies

Lore and worldbuilding

Humor and comedy, especially dark comedy

Psychological, paranormal, and cosmic horror

Stories-within-a-story

Unreliable narrators

Unusual team-ups

Dramatic rescues

Canon divergence AUs

Unconventional formats

My smut/NSFW likes include:

First times

Awkwardness

Characters being super into each other, especially if one or both of them are conventionally unattractive

Jealousy

Xeno

Humiliation with a male sub

Tease and denial

Orgasm delay; also orgasm denial

Dominant bottoms

Mutual dubcon/noncon, or dubcon where the dubconned party enjoys it

I have a very long list of fic likes here.

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DO NOT WANT (DNW)

Characters under age 16 involved in sexual situations

Sex without mutual attraction

Hate speech or hate crimes (discussions/mentions of bigotry are fine)

Harm to animals (the existence of ghost animals is OK, and it’s fine to mention animals that have canonically died, but I don’t want to hear about injury, abuse, or noncanonical death of animals)

Bestiality

Scat

Necrophilia (sexual activity involving ghosts or sentient skeletons/undead is OK, just not inanimate corpses or remains)

Sexual activity involving worms / spiders / insects

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THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES

Requested Ships: Adelard Dekker/Gertrude Robinson, Agnes Montague/Gertrude Robinson, Evan Lukas/Naomi Herne, Gerard Keay/Tim Stoker, Harriet Fairchild & Simon Fairchild

One of my favorite pieces of horror media! <3 I’ve requested mostly rarepairs for this exchange. Please don’t look to the amount I’ve written to gauge how much I want one pairing over another -- I want all these things equally and would be happy with any of them.

Adelard Dekker/Gertrude Robinson

The respect, rapport, and humor between these two is palpable in the text of Dekker’s statements and the way Gertrude talks about him. She was still holding onto his plans to disrupt rituals after he presumably died. I’d love to know more about their working relationship, the foes they faced, and whatever’s going on with Dekker’s relationship to the Web. Extinction!Dekker would also be awesome.

If you want to get into Dekker’s faith versus Gertrude’s lack-of, please do! I’m really interested in the way that religion/faith functions in a world like TMA’s, and I love conflicts between characters where neither “side” is cast as “right” by the narrative but it’s clear why everyone believes the things they do. But if you’re not interested in touching on this topic, no worries.

Agnes Montague/Gertrude Robinson

Star-crossed as hell. I refuse to believe that they only met once, or that they were entirely somber and fateful and dutiful about it. imo Gertrude generally comes off as contemptuous or irreverent about other entities and avatars, but she seems to reserve a certain respect for Agnes. Agnes... I’d just like to know more about Agnes.

I’d love to hear about their history: how their metaphysical bond works in daily life, the encounters or near misses they’ve had over the decades, the ways they’ve helped or foiled each other from a distance. I would especially love some outsider POV, whether it’s Gertrude receiving statements about Agnes, Agnes hearing of Gertrude’s exploits secondhand, or a third party perceiving a meeting between them. A statement directly from Agnes could also be awesome.

I’d love any AU where they have to work more closely together, as well -- be it canon divergence, or a setting AU like vampire/vampire hunter. (Oooh. Buffyverse AU with Gertrude as a Watcher and Agnes as the leader of the vampire cult that killed her latest Slayer, y/n?)

Evan Lukas/Naomi Herne

“Alone” was one of the first episodes in the podcast that really got me, and the image of Naomi running between those open graves is still striking. I feel terrible for Evan and am so curious about his fate. I’d love to hear more about their relationship, anything that might have happened to Naomi post-Eyepocalypse, or an AU where Naomi rescues Evan from the Lonely or vice versa.

Gerard Keay/Tim Stoker

These two have never met on-air, but I think they’d really get along. They’re both quick, driven, given to quips and reasoned action, and possessed of tragic backstories. Whether they meet somehow pre-canon, Tim finds Gerry’s book in the time between Jon’s return from America and the Unknowing, or there’s a full AU scenario, I would love to see them interact. I think there could be some interesting tension around Gerry’s decision to consciously align himself with the Eye versus Tim’s unwilling conscription, and the ways their family histories have forced them into contact with the supernatural.

Harriet Fairchild & Simon Fairchild

Harriet Fairchild is a one-episode background character with barely a handful of third-hand lines, but I’m very intrigued by her. Simon is a sparkling example of Affable Evil and I would enjoy reading more about his philosophy and relationships with others. I’m interested in the family dynasties connected to the entities and just kind of want to know more.

What are the Fairchilds, and how do they create new family members? Who was Harriet before she became a Fairchild? How does she conceive of the Vast, and what is her attraction to it (or aversion-turned-attraction)? Who is Simon to her -- teacher, tormentor-turned-teacher, evil father figure -- and how do they agree and diverge on how best to serve their patron? I really love explorations of avatars’ different relationships with their respective entities, so I would adore something about that. 

Some things that particularly compel me about the Vast: the image and name of the Falling Titan, freedom in nihilism, the comfort of insignificance, call of the void, oceans / storms / cliffs, space, scales of size so large they’re not humanly comprehensible, love for the sky, adrenaline and excitement, hollowness / emptiness, unusual manifestations, alliances and rivalries with other powers.

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PLANESCAPE: TORMENT

Requested Ships: Annah-of-the-Shadows & Fall-from-Grace, Annah-of-the-Shadows/Fall-from-Grace, Morte & The Nameless One, Morte/The Nameless One

I completed this game for the first time in fall 2020 and enjoyed the hell out of it. I’ve only played through twice, and I haven’t explored all the routes or possible encounters; please excuse the current gaps and mistakes in my canon knowledge!

Annah-of-the-Shadows & Fall-from-Grace | Annah-of-the-Shadows/Fall-from-Grace

I fell for Annah because of her voice acting (the affectionate wryness! the ill-concealed vulnerability!), and Grace because I love older female characters whose stoic or gracious exteriors conceal fortresses of discipline. While I’m not in love with the way women are written in Planescape: Torment, I really like both these specific characters and crave more interactions between them. Their relationship has a great deal of tension with no real resolution, and they have an interesting mix of similarities and contrasts. I think there are some fascinating possibilities to explore with them, whether platonically or romantically. 

Annah mistrusts and is jealous of Grace. Meanwhile, Grace seems disappointed when Annah rejects her friendly overtures, and repeatedly shows protectiveness towards her. (What does Grace see in Annah, besides a romantic rival or just a younger woman who doesn’t like her? If they had met earlier, how would Grace have tried to cultivate her?) Annah is hotheaded and ruled by emotion, while Grace keeps her arguably more tumultuous feelings under rigid control. Then Annah’s implied discomfort with her heritage as a tiefling, and Grace’s turmoil over her identity and past trauma as a tanar’ri, are another potentially exploitable source of conflict. 

I’d love something about a bonding attempt on Grace’s part gone awry -- does it get criminal? Unexpectedly dangerous? Uncomfortably sexy? An exploration of how they deal with things post-ending (any ending), or just everyday interactions with the citizens and environment of Sigil, would also be awesome. Hurt/comfort, too -- maybe something where Annah is trying to be stoic while Grace heals her, or a situation where Annah has to take care of Grace and is super out of her element? Or maybe Annah gets mazed somehow, and is shocked when Grace shows up to rescue her? These are all merely suggestions though. 

Morte & The Nameless One | Morte/The Nameless One

One of the most complicated relationships in the game, and also (in my opinion) the most intriguing. I’m really interested in Morte’s loyalty to the Nameless One and the way his guilt intersects with and fuels it. They have such a long, twisted history, and the player’s decisions can put so many different spins on it. I’d really love anything about them, shippy or gen. (I would prefer that the focus be kept off their romantic/sexual relationships with women or aspirations toward the same, particularly the sexually harassing comments.)

I’m a massive, massive sucker for comic relief characters encountering serious/dark situations, so I would love anything with Morte in that vein, whether it’s one of his canonical moments of peril (getting stolen by Lothar! potentially being traded to the Pillar of Skulls!) or a new situation. A past incarnation of the Nameless One could also provide the peril. Their relationship has gone through near infinite iterations -- there’s so much to exploit there, and so much opportunity for angst on Morte’s part (and pining, if you want to go in a shippy direction). 

Further prompts… Hmm. I’d love something that explores the world of Planescape in general and Sigil in particular; I’m particularly fond of the mortuary, the catacombs, and UnderSigil. It’d also be cool to see their first meeting after the “best” ending of the game (where the Nameless One finally dies and goes off to join the Blood War). On the whole, though, anything where these two are together and bantering would be lovely!

-

STELLAR FIRMA

Requested Ships: David 7/Trexel Geistman, Trexel Geistman/Hartro Piltz, Number 1/Number 48, David 7 & Trexel Geistman & Hartro Piltz, David 7/Trexel Geistman/Hartro Piltz

It’s difficult to express how much I love this podcast, but rest assured I really, really do. It has been described as a cross between Brazil and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and this strikes me as accurate. I love how the tone is at once exuberantly silly, but also dark and horrifying, in a way that doesn’t try to hammer listeners over the head with its irony. It would be hard not to delight me with any fic about the requested gen relationship and ships.

David 7/Trexel Geistman

I didn’t actually ship these two until I wrote 10k+ words of them talking. Then Season 3 came along, and, well, I LOVE THEM. They’re so fun together, and I love the gradual development of their not-quite-friendship -- those few, short moments of genuine connection, that contrast all the more with Trexel’s everyday self-absorbed cruelty and the oppressive horror of David’s situation.

The potential for jealousy and unrequited pining on Trexel’s part here is particularly delicious. (I would be totally cool with unrequited Trexel->David for this request, by the way.) However, I also love the idea of David realizing, with creeping horror, that he has feelings for Trexel, or that he returns Trexel’s no doubt inconvenient and poorly expressed affections. Imagine the songs they would sing.

In terms of prompts… I really loved the in-universe coffee shop setup; something about their time there, or an AU where they get to stay longer, would be lovely. Playing with tropes could be fantastic -- soulmate/soulbond AUs, arranged marriage, bodyswap, amnesia, wingfic, time loops, fake dating, hurt/comfort, one character being assumed dead when they aren’t (and then it makes the other character realize their feelings, oh no). I’d also really love angst, centered around pining or not. I think some terribly painful things could be done with these characters, and I’d love to read them.

Trexel Geistman/Hartro Piltz

I fell hard for this ship right about when Hartro made Trexel drink clone slurry in Episode 5. I love how much fun she has terrorizing him, how he just has to take it, and how he both fears her and scrambles for her attention. (NB: I am 100% unironically into the foot thing, so feel free to do whatever you’d like with that, including nothing.)

I love what a disaster Hartro is. It’s not her fault that she was assigned to Trexel -- he could drive anyone mad -- but she lets her hatred of him goad her into making terrible decisions. At the same time, as a nonnie on FFA expressed a while ago, it seems like she gets more out of the relationship than she wants to confront or acknowledge. On Trexel’s end, Hartro seems to demonstrate the exact sort of mix of “come here” and “get away from me” that captures his attention.

Kink is baked into this ship, so I’ll try to be shameless about requesting it. I was perhaps overly gratified when Trexel was canonically stated to be a masochist (he likes getting shock-collared! and possibly stepped on!). I’d love anything that goes even further with their canon dynamic -- D/s, punishment, bondage; humiliation, degradation, the foot thing; maybe dubcon with a pre-canon Hartro taking out her frustrations on Trexel, or some sort of incredibly messed up corporate training exercise. 

Explicit kinky content is far from my only interest here, though -- I’d also love romance, a lower-rated exploration of UST, or something that examines their relationship without getting into kink or sex at all. This is one of those ships where, if you make them hold hands in a certain way, hearts will spontaneously explode in my eyes. Just a fact.

Number 1/Number 48

Standards! So sinister. What’s up with them, anyway? How did they meet and agree to file relationship paperwork together? What are their couples counseling sessions with Dr. Krell like? What were the most egregiously vague pronouncements that Number 1 made pre-canon, and what other work assignments have impacted their personal lives and forced them to cancel reservations? ...How did Number 48 get the murder hammer? 

Since these two are, I believe, the highest-ranking members of Stellar Firma to have appeared in the podcast so far, I’d love something about their interactions with other higher-up types or silly protocols or general Brazil-type bureaucratic madness. If there are ominous promises and disturbing implications packaged in crisp business jargon, all the better. 

David 7 & Trexel Geistman & Hartro Piltz | David 7/Trexel Geistman/Hartro Piltz

So, I love these characters and the way they interact. I love that they’re all dramatic and ridiculous in their own ways, and that no one is strictly the straight man or the comic relief (though Trexel does come close to the latter). 

Gen-wise, these three seeing a common goal through together would be delightful, whether it’s something small or grand-scale or completely imaginary. Something science fiction-y, or crossover with another genre like horror or film noir, could be really fun. Additionally, the episode where they all play a TTRPG is one of my favorites -- I’d love something else about them playing a game together or otherwise letting Hartro explore her passion for elaborate props and scenarios. 

Ship-wise, I’ve already talked about why I love David/Trexel and Hartro/Trexel. For David and Hartro, I like that they’re able to have a polite, semi-reasonable conversation, but I was also intrigued by the hint of antagonism in Episode 55, with the angry staring and pointed bed-sitting. I tend to read David as either gay or bi with a heavy preference for men, but I could absolutely get into some David/Hartro rather than a V relationship for this OT3. In terms of shippy prompts, I’m interested in seeing them navigate the same scenarios as in gen, but I would also love some messed up three-person corporate training exercises if you’d like to go that route.

[nofliight]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

tagged by: stole it from @sternenteile​ and honestly others tbh tagging: TAKE

my muse is:  canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless / complicated

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO. [ for better or for worse, he’s THE face of kid icarus, after all. he’s a dork and funny and likeable and even if the fandom tends to get him WRONG (thanks smash bros) there’s no denying his popularity ]

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. [ i don’t??? think so??? most people are too busy talking about how they think he’s like 5 ]

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. [ EVEN THE FANDOM AIN’T GONNA MESS THIS UP. MAN FIGHTS GODS. CALL THAT WEAK. ]

Are they underrated?  YES / NO / IDK. [ make no mistake - pit’s got fans and plenty of them but he’s so MISTREATED by the fandom. his character is a lot more complex than he gets credit for and smash bros in particular is a big reason people think he’s just Big Dumb Baby Man ]

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO. [ HE’S THE MAIN CHARACTER, THE CENTRAL FIGURE UPON WHOM THE NARRATIVE IS STRUCTURED AROUND, YEAH HE’S PRETTY RELEVANT. Uprising is literally made to tell the story of a war exclusively through the perspective of a single side and Pit (and Palutena) are the EMBODIMENT of that whole side. ]

Were they relevant for the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG. [ and a perfect one at that. he’s literally a perfect protagonist don’t tell me i’m wrong cause i’m not ]

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO. [ pit is beloved by humans... and mocked by the Gods. seen by most as a spineless extension of palutena’s will, most “respect” of any variety goes to palutena while he gets treated as a joke 99% of the time... and it’s not like Palutena gets too much respect either ]

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL. (????) [ Uhhhhhh... it’s an odd one. Short answer is that Pit’s a good samaritan who’s done a lot of good BUT most of the gods think protecting humanity is a Folly and a Joke and that Pit’s just a pawn of Palutena’s and while the humans do hold a lot of respect for him, uh............. let’s just say, some humans on the surface have reasons not to be too happy with him. ]

How strictly do you follow canon?  —  about as much as I need to to respect one of my favorite video games of all time. while kid icarus uprising is a comedic game most of the way through it has a lot more nuance and depth to itself, its world, and its characters than one can see at first glance, even after a full playthrough. if you let yourself get invested in the characters, take a closer look at the dialogue it provides, and acknowledge the central, core storytelling message of the game for what it is, there’s a lot more to pull out than one would think. that being said, it’s still a comedic video game and one that I think could use some more expansion. though the game is inconsistent there seems to be the consensus that pit is like a child and I’m not into that, mine’s a bit more showing in his cynical and snarky side after all he’s been through and overall there’s a lot of expansion on the base while building it into something unique.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.  —  imagine your typical bootstrapped anime protagonist. someone who, when younger, was a runt who couldn’t meet the expectations of others, was looked down on, and found himself crushed and hurt and near-killed by a great tragedy that he was forced to claw his way out of to make himself stronger. Now imagine all of that with a character who comes out still able to have a very real smile and ultimately comes out of it a self-assured, chipper goofball with a good heart. now put that together with all of the darkness and depth you would have expected to be there, but scattered realistically throughout the attitude of someone who does genuinely want to keep a positive attitude. someone who is sincerely an optimist who’s grown past his weaker days, but isn’t quite so simple as he’d like to believe. all of that combined with someone who can’t read, is willing to eat ice cream off the floor in times of duress, is extremely easy to fluster and can channel his goddess’ power to slay GODS? you got one strong man.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).  —  his positive attitude is what most people will see when speaking to him, because for what it’s worth, he’s not actively lying about his depth. he’s a cheerful, jovial man with a big smile and a love of the world around him - which is all well and good, but his depth is something you have to find, even if it is reasonably clear if you’re willing to look. he’s also portrayed as a bit unreasonably dumb at times, and though I personally justify the worst of it with proper explanations, I can understand reducing some of the value of the character in favor of seeing all of his Jokes

What inspired you to rp your muse?  —  i made my original pit blog, flightlesswarrior, on a total whim after playing kid icarus uprising. cute character, fun premise, why not? but over time, and with numerous plots I was able to take part in exploring the serious, not so serious, shipping, tragedy, and going back through the game to keep my muse rolling, it occurred to me more and more with time just how nuanced and interesting pit and co. really are. pit embodies many of the things i really, truly love in a protag, falling firmly on the side of good, having a heart of genuine gold, and having nuances and parts of his personality that are less than savory without making him seem like a contradiction. he’s got depth, he’s got story, there’s a lot to explore and flesh out... and he’s also just a nice, friendly guy who gets along well with others. plus, i’m drawn to dorks.

What keeps your inspiration going?  —  a) love for Kid Icarus: Uprising. a game that helped me gain a deeper and more insightful understanding of character development, subtle storytelling, optimism still tinged with legitimate and healthy cynicism, and overall something that changed my understanding of character development and storytelling forever. and b) spite. the fandom treats him like an idiot baby and smash DOES NOT help matters so i have to remind others that he is a veteran of a war, a socially inept loser with few real friends, and someone who’s kindness and optimism was shaped and molded by its hardships in a way that doesn’t require a near-breaking point or a reminder that “this guy could be evil you know” to show how someone can still keep a positive attitude in spite of all the shit life throws at him.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO [ i’d like to think i have?? but i also acknowledge that he’s become something of his Own in some ways that do intentionally diverge from sakurai’s intentions. ultimately though, even though i may not play him completely true to text, i try to be as loyal as i can be to the spirit of the character. ]

Do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO / SORT OF? [ when i can!! but??? the problem is my mind really, really likes to reiterate the Same Damn Points i have to make with characters that draws me to them - and you know, writing the same hcs over and over is generally considered poor form?? ngl i also prefer to let the writing do the talking unless it’s something that’s not gonna show so 90% of the time pit’s open enough that all but the darker sides of his mind are lain out before you. ]

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO [ maybe??? once or tWICE???? but i need to write more ]

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES / NO [ I REALLY DO, HOO MAMA. i have a lot of thoughts about him, his depth, potential relationships, goofy thoughts, more serious fanfic ideas im never gonna write and don’t get me started on how many SHIPS i have to think about for him ]

Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO [ my portrayal is made out of spite for portrayals in the fandom and some supplementary material that gets him wrong - it’s kinda hard to do that without the confidence ]

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO / ??? [ it’s uhh........ complicated??? i don’t think writing is my expertise, tbh. but it is the best way i have to show the passion i have for characters, by putting their nuances into actions, by allowing them to shine from who they are their core, by exploring relationships and scenarios and struggles and hope and everything that can flesh a character out. whether or not i’m a good writer is something i’m still sorting out - but i’m proud of my ability to develop a character, and to that end i feel like i’m doing fine ]

Are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO. / SORTA. [ on one hand......... very. i have a tendency to overthink everything i do and look back at moments i made an ass of myself that keep haunting me throughout my day - they haunt me. i only have two fears: what my immediate friend group thinks of me and the crushing existential weight of worrying one day i’m gonna ruin everything i am SOFT. that being said, i’m also hardheaded and stubborn and i’m not afraid to go off on someone i don’t have much respect for if it comes down to it. i’m easy to anger when it comes down to it you know i guess that proves the point huh i’m not stonefaced at all ]

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?  —  i try to? it’s a bit touchy for me I admit just because I do take portrayals and try to make them my own, but i am willing to listen if someone has any points they’d like to make that i haven’t acknowledged properly. if criticism IS had, lemme know, i do wanna hear it!

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?  —   Y  E  S

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?  —  not that everyone who disagrees with my opinions has to explain themselves of course, but i do sincerely like the chance to learn if something i’m doing doesn’t quite feel right. even if it’s one-sided and i’ll come to disagree, i’m happy to listen! even if i don’t agree with the disagreement head-on, i like to keep them in mind and see what i can shift around to acknowledge them if necessary

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?  — neutral?? i mean don’t be mean about it, but if you just think my pit doesn’t seem right or it doesn’t click right with your muse i’m not gonna throw a fit about it. everyone’s allowed to view a character in their own way - and even if i may get salty about those who oversimplify him, it IS anyone’s right to view him how they will.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?  — agree to disagree tbh. i can’t pretend it wouldn’t disappoint me, but it’s not like, worth ending a friendship over or anything. everyone’s got their own viewpoints to run on

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?  —  sure, within reason! i take pride in my grammar but i know that with my fast typing and often running on only a few hours of sleep some problems do slip in through the cracks. while i generally either catch them or just Die with them i’m all ears if i mess up

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?   —  uhhhhhhhhhh well i’m?? kind of a socially anxious mess honestly which DOES make being easy going a bit difficult BUT i do try and be friendly and sociable as i....... can. i’m too scared to talk to people and CAN say some dumb things but i’m not a hardass or anything!! i like to talk and Yell and shitpost and pretty much do anything but write tbh DHFLKSJDF

[of-bug-and-beast]

Okay, before we go anywhere with this, I do not wish MatPat any actual harm. He may have annihilated the last of my brain cells with his most recent theory (as of 2:27 PM, 07/07/19, when I started writing), but I will not advocate actually hurting him for all that. His channel is run for fun, and dare I say, attention. And I can understand that to an extent.

But with that said, he pissed me off this close to my birthday and I am having none of that shit.

Second, I will be calling the player character (the Knight) Ghost, as this is how Hornet has named them, and it has more or less become their name at this point.

So, are we good? Then let’s get started with this.

There is no way Ghost is the Pale King’s reincarnation.

I will concede that, as @take-a-bug​ has brought up here, this would make an excellent AU. But as a theory, even by MatPat’s standards, it literally has more holes in it than a block of Swiss cheese.

First and foremost, Ghost is literally seen about five feet away from the Pale King himself in the flashback cutscene, as most of the comment section of the video has brought up.

If Ghost really was simply the reincarnation of the Pale King, there would have been no reason for them (who is clearly moving and doing things without him) to be in the same room as the clearly-living Pale King. Quite in fact, it solidifies that we were indeed a rejected vessel.

But let’s pretend this never happened, as MatPat clearly had. Surely the “theory” holds water now?

No. It sure doesn’t.

Let’s progress as he had.

Point #1: The Lore Tablets.

The tablets indeed refer to “Higher beings.” Now, the answer to what are the “higher beings” is a subject that, as far as I’m aware, has not actually been closed, especially with the Wanderer’s Journal that was published. But the one most seem to follow- including myself- is that the Higher Beings are the god-like beings of Hallownest, as this is supported by Team Cherry’s dev notes and AMAs[1] as well.

The Pale King is among the ranks of the Higher Beings, then. But how would Ghost be able to read these tablets, if they weren’t officially called such? Godseeker sure doesn’t recognize them as a god, at least not until they become the Shade Lord. This fact also makes the “theory” very suspicious; if they really were the Pale King’s reincarnation, where’s the godly aura? She should have recognized them as such.

Admittedly, her behavior as a whole kinda throws everything for a loop. But in the end, there’s still this.

Ghost, along with every other vessel to exist, is child of the White Lady and the Pale King. Or perhaps the term might be was, as they were kind of dumped into the Abyss, and the Void kinda seems to hate the Pale King’s guts and likely his kids too. But may they be a reanimated corpse filled with void or simply a product of not one, not two, but three incredibly powerful entities, the White Lady claims Ghost as her own spawn. This is directly stated with her stating that “Your companion's eyes burn with a familiar flame... Success then for the scarlet heart, and irony, to use my spawn to grow its own.”[2]

Likewise, Hornet- daughter of Herrah and the Pale King (the White Lady confirms this by bringing up how she was born of a dalliance between the two aforementioned parties)-  refers to the Hollow Knight as “Our birth-cursed sibling.”[3]

Not “my.” “Our.”

She is the vessels’ half sibling, sure, but this shows she recognizes them as the children of the Wyrm as well.

And being born of such powerful beings, it would be strange if they couldn’t read the text at all.

Now, the alternative possible meaning of “higher being” is those given mind by the Pale King, or similarly originated from Hallownest. Ellina from the Wanderer’s Journal book had shown no signs of being able to read the tablets in the Basin[1], which begins with the same phrase as those in the cliffs.

That in itself means nothing; after all, she is no god. But there is a lore tablet in the Howling Cliffs that rather supports this.

Higher beings, these words are for you alone.

These blasted plains stretch never-ending. There is no world beyond.

Those foolish enough to traverse this void must pay the toll and relinquish the precious mind this kingdom grants.[4]

It seems odd that the gods would so heavily rely on the narrow range of Hallownest, and since none (save for maybe Grimm, who has definitely not been here the entire time, judging from the looks of things but also has a very good knowledge of what has transpired) actually seem to have left, it seems near pointless to have the tablets.

However, we do know a bug that has left Hallownest, and came back with impaired memories besides Ghost themself: Quirrel. Now, perhaps it has to do with Monomon’s mask as well, but most likely being of Hallownest himself, he could have easily have been affected by the beyond. Those who were implied to have come from elsewhere (such as Tiso[5], Cornifer[6] and Iselda[7], Cloth[8], Ze’mer[9], and Zote[10]) have also shown no signs of memory loss despite having to have made the trek through the wastelands.

Now, Ghost has been out there, and apparently has memory loss, which does support that the wastelands do indeed strip the minds of some. Being born in Hallownest (or the Abyss, to be a little more specific), they would have been among those that would have a mind originating in the kingdom.

“But no mind to think!” you may cry, if you are one of the few people who actually think Ghost is a pure vessel. “They don’t have a mind!”

Au contraire. All the other vessels have shown to be imperfect, so they must have had at least one of the traits they were supposed to lack: will, voice, and mind. The Pure Vessel- later Hollow Knight- was tarnished by “an idea instilled”[11], which is likely tied to the cutscene at the end of the Path of Pain. But even then, the moment they had paused to glance back at Ghost, they were clearly impure; a creature without mind would have not hesitated to follow its master, yet they did. And they were judged the purer one between Ghost and themself.

In addition, if we take into consideration what we do in-game, they have made strategies to defeat enemies (or just rammed headfirst into fights until it finally worked out, which requires will and mind as well) and can choose to listen to what others say and retrain the information for their own use. They have a mind. They have a will. And what memory and knowledge they had was locked away, only able to be unlocked by some more forceful means.

So, conclusion to Point 1? Ghost can read the tablets not because they’re the Pale King, but because they are inherently tied to him and the kingdom. This can still be wrong, but it seems likelier than the suggested alternative.

Point #2: SOUL

While the Pale King has been suggested[12] to have a great ability of SOUL manipulation, it’s not far off to suggest that his kids might be able to do something similar. Hornet’s silk, as shown by the Silksong demo, seems to have a parallel to the SOUL meter back in Hollow Knight, mainly in part that it takes blows against enemies to fill it up.

But let’s ignore that for now, because there’s a more pressing thing at hand.

Guess where Ghost learned most of their spells from!

The snail shamans.

Hell, Ghost didn’t even know anything related to SOUL besides Focusing (healing), and it was only after meeting Mr. Snailman in the Ancestral Mound did they have any combative use for it. But even after getting all the spells (and out of these, Howling Wraiths, Shade Soul, and Descending Dark are likewise given by Snail Shamans, albeit dead ones), it doesn’t compare to what the Pure Vessel has.

Why do I bring them up? They were the one to be raised under the Pale King. SOUL manipulation seems a likely part of training. And between the “Focus” attack and the two “light lances” attacks, they do seem to have a firm grasp on SOUL. In fact, Ghost’s spells like quite untidy in comparison. But they weren’t the Pale King, either, and likely his abilities outshone their own. So, as the Pale King was likely a master with SOUL, why would he fall so low to be worse than his void child? Losing memory might at least leave him with something more than a rather sloppy heal.

So, as shaky as my arguments are here, it seems a little more plausible that Ghost just has the ability to manipulate SOUL because they are the Pale King’s child, and Hornet seems to support this as well, as mentioned before.

Point #3: Elegy for Hallownest and Ghost’s First Appearance

I’m not going to deny that the poem is directed to the Pale King. I mean, it clearly is.[13] But that being said, while MatPat’s logic seems at first glance slightly plausible, I remembered something that reftes this entirely. The first thing we see directly after the poem is actually the Hollow Knight in their prison, not Ghost.[14] Does this mean the Hollow Knight is the Pale King? No, it doesn’t, and don’t you dare suggest otherwise because the Pale King sure as hell locked up the kid with the Radiance in their head. It’d be kinda dumb to also be in the Hollow Knight beside his enemy, and as messed up as he was, the Pale King never struck me as that stupid.

As for the cutscene, I know this for a fact, because besides seeing the many videos of the game on YouTube, I’ve spent a lot of them playing this game, and I have seen a lot. The intro is no exception to this. So screw you and your misleading words.

Point #4: Usage of the Word “Dream” and “Ghost”

Surprisingly the most solid of his work, it’s a little harder to refute.

But this said, Elderbug may very well be meaning “dream” of grandeur, not the Radiance’s, or even the Pale King’s. His usage of the word “ghost” for the vessel is not unique either, as Ghost is given this moniker by Hornet as well[15]. Since her first pieces of dialogue in Greenpath, she refers them as “ghost” or “little ghost,” before eventually even calling them “Ghost of Hallownest.” While she gives no real explanation for the name, Ghost’s silence could easily be a main part in this.

Dreams and ghosts are also not always tied to the Radiance or the Pale King, either, as the Pale King’s palace is in the Dream realm (yet still away from the Radiance), and there are a lot of ghosts in Hallownest, if you know where to look.

So, do these words really have a deeper meaning? Not necessarily.

Point #5: Being Compared to the Pale King

Also a little hard to refute, but I’ll do my best.

The lines used to support this idea were “I almost feel like I'm once again in the presence of my beloved Wyrm,” from the White Lady and “Your noble bearing reminds me of our dear King,” from Ogrim, the Dung Defender (or White Defender, if you’re picky).

Let’s start with the first. Now in full, it actually goes “Ahh! So it bears our once-fractured soul, now complete. Such strength, such resolve, such dedication! Is it more than simply a Vessel? I almost feel like I'm once again in the presence of my beloved Wyrm.”[16]

She refers to the Kingsoul, the charm symbolizing the holy union of two higher beings[17], in this text first, before saying she almost feels like she’s in the presence of her husband. The Kingsoul would, by some degree of logic, have something that reminds the Queen of the Pale King, as half of the union was him. Besides that, Ghost has the Wyrm’s heritage, which could hypothetically amplify the effect.

But most important is still the Kingsoul. Half of it is based on the King, and that’s enough reason to remind the blind White Lady of the Pale King.

Quite in fact, she recognizes both Grimmchild and Carefree Melody to be linked to the Grimm Troupe (she tells them that “[… Ghost has] been consumed in the ritual of that scarlet clan.”[2]), so the actual presence of the primary higher being linked to the charm is unnecessary.

As for Ogrim, he says, “How funny that I see you in my dreams too, little one. Your noble bearing reminds me of our dear King. When he returns, I'll ask him if you can become a Knight! What jolly adventures we will have...”[18]

Noble bearing. Ghost literally could literally be holding themself up as if they were noble. In addition, Ogrim also recognizes Ghost as a vessel like the Hollow Knight, as he realizes that “...So there were others...” and even apologizes for the “cruel means” the Pale King used, despite his otherwise near-blind loyalty to the King.[19]

As for the Royal Retainers bowing to Ghost, there’s not much to say. While, yes, they do bow to you regardless of having the brand or not, it’s not far off to think they would have still bowed to the Hollow Knight back when it was a child, as it was the product of their beloved King. Ghost resembles the Hollow Knight, so it could easily be that. That said, since most would actually have the Brand by the time they go to the White Palace, it could also be a coding oversight. With the King’s Brand, Ghost is the King. This does not mean the Pale King, of course, but the King as in the ruler, as the brand has marked them as such.

And what does their Hunter’s Journal say about them, as MatPat so clearly points out? “The most loyal and devout servants of the King.”[20] Not even the Pale King, but simply the King. Doesn’t argue against the aforementioned points much, does it?

So, does it have to be that deep? No. Absolutely not.

Ghost’s heritage and the fact they hold the Kingsoul could essentially cover all the bases here.

Point #6: The Pale King Can Transform

This is a true fact. However, the most damning evidence here is that the King’s Brand in the Wyrm’s corpse seems to be on an egg, as Ellina states in the Journal.[21] This is likely the place the Pale King “hatched” from. Since we find no such egg near his corpse in the White Palace, it appears he’s pretty damn dead and isn’t coming back.

Bardoon may say that the death of a Wyrm may lead to “More transformation methinks,”[22] but that’s not quite solid enough to say that the Pale King had molted again. Bardoon also shows no signs of thinking of Ghost as a Wyrm, despite recognizing the Pale King and his brand being linked to such.

Point #7: Void

Let’s make this simple. The Void hates all forms of light, as seen by the lighthouse. The Pale King was using Void as well, and the Void hates his guts for that. To be reborn as a being primarily made of Void? He would probably self-destruct.

The Pale King also left the Kingdom in stasis, as Hornet states,[23] which could easily explain the “But yours is potential, eternity potential, force that could deny Time,“[4] quote.

MatPat also said he believed the egg near the throne room is where the Pale King hatched, and I think this has already been mentioned to likely be otherwise.[21]It’s more likely a failed attempt to hatching vessels in his little lab, as this resembles the egg Ghost had presumably hatched from.

Point #8: The Nursery Musicbox

This one’s also hard for me to explain, but it could also be MatPat made it illegal that leitmotifs are apparently not allowed to just be a callback.

I’m one to hate refuting a theory with another theory, but it has been suggested (and mentioned above) that the vessels may be the reanimated corpses of children of the Pale King and the White Lady. In this case, it would mean the children they had once been may have heard the song long ago, and the Shade remembers this past life.

Alternatively, the way Ghost and the Hollow Knight’s tales are entwined may also explain this, as it could have been the Hollow Knight’s room, once. But it’s shakier than the theory above.

Point #9: No Cost Too Great

This is the man who sacrificed millions, if not more, children just to contain a problem he caused. The cost was never directly tied to himself. Also, sure, maybe he’s redeemable somewhere, but I really cannot see him reincarnating into an even shorter entity.

And again, Ghost had hatched while the Pale King was still alive.[24] So. No.

Point #10: Ghost Can Wake Up Bugs from the Infection

I know we rouse Sly and Bretta from the infection’s clutches. But if we could really do this to any bug, why didn’t we do this with Myla? Or anyone else infected?

The first two seemed in a very early stage, maybe like sleepwalking at most. They could likely have been awaken by anyone else, had not the world been filled with infected individuals already.

Point #11: Monarch Wings

This is more my headcanon territory, but I would like to think that the Pale King could summon his own wings, and that set of wings? Might have been the Broken Vessel’s. Besides, we’re never given the opportunity to see if someone else can use the item.

Point #12: ...Father…?

Cut dialogue should always be taken with a grain of salt. That said, this could be a plea to their father, who Ghost does apparently remind some others of. Their mind has long since fell to the Radiance, so it’d be no surprise if they can’t distinguish the two. But this doesn’t mean Ghost is their father. The Hollow Knight was given a purpose by the Pale King, and they seemed to have loved him, and wanted to please him by being perfect, so to call out to their father in their weakest moment, wondering if he’s even out there…

Well, they were given the World Sense.[4] If they couldn’t find him that way, their resolve might have been shaken, but they’re still trying.

The rest of the cut Dream Nail dialogue[25] reads as if from the Radiance instead of the Hollow Knight, which leads to some interesting things. While “usurper” and “ancient enemy”[26] could hypothetically be linked to the Pale King, the Void is as much her enemy. Through Myla, she calls Ghost “the Empty One”[27] instead of “Wyrm” or some other term. She also states that “...THE LIGHT CANNOT BE CONSUMED...” The Pale King never consumed the Radiance and he is also of his own pale light.[28] But (while it can be held back by light) the Void wishes to snuff such radiance. In both the Dream No More and Embrace the Void endings, the Radiance is literally consumed by the Void. This makes it seem that in the end, she’s not talking to the threat of a Wyrm, but of simply a being of Void, no longer affiliated with Wyrm or Root.

Conclusion:

MatPat is a little shit that really should research more.

This is not to say I’m correct. Hell, I’d be glad if I’m even half correct. But when I can piece together an argument against that without too much issue, there’s something wrong here.

I need a source on this, but I remember seeing a post on Tumblr on how Hollow Knight is a game of acceptance, of who you were, of your past, and ultimately, your fate. It’s not about redemption.

It’s just achieving peace with your regrets and moving on, stronger.

Or at least, that’s how I’ve seen it.

I don’t see myself as right, but at least, I think I wrote something vaguely more solid, and found evidence to back it up. If nothing else, it was an excellent writing exercise. And for that I am thankful for the video.

I hope this was an enjoyable read for you, and I thank you for persisting this long.

SOURCES

1: https://youtu.be/dofQaoqecDk?t=920 – Mossbag brings this up. I do not own the book, nor have dived that far into either code or reddit.

2: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/White_Lady#The%20Grimm%20Troupe – source of quote.

3: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/Hornet#Black%20Egg%20Temple – source of quote.

4: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/Lore_Tablets_of_Hallownest – source of quote.

5: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/Tiso#Dirtmouth – while I have seen all his dialogue, the fact remains he never outright says that he is from beyond. However, his line of “Hallownest... What challengers await in its ruin?” does seem to imply such.

6: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/Cornifer#General – the fact he has only recently moved to Dirtmouth and expresses such wonder about Hallownest gives the impression he is from beyond the kingdom.

7: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/Iselda#Additional%20dialogue – Iselda likewise supports this with her statement of “Of all the places to end up, we've picked this dreary town. I'd thought it a temporary stop, then my husband became obsessed with that old ruin.”

8: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/Cloth#Ancient%20Basin – though vaguest of the list, her use of “this kingdom’s beasts” does imply she’s seen some others.

9: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/White_Lady#Delicate%20Flower – while she herself never said such, the White Lady says, “Not of me that flower, nor of this kingdom. Far it travelled to reach this place, brought by one beloved, fair knight of lands serene.” The Grey Mourner, presumed to be Ze’mer, was the one to give you the flower, and refers the blossoms as hers, with her words of “Che's sacred, precious, one of its kind flower,” at the quest’s fail.

10: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/Zote#Colosseum – while the article likewise states he’s from beyond, he does outright say he came to this kingdom. Hard to come into a place you’re already in.

11: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/White_Lady#General – source of quote.

12: I have no memory of a source, but the entire fandom seems to have taken it as at least a headcanon, and it’s bound to have reasoning somewhere.

13: To those who may not remember the poem, it goes as follows:

In wilds beyond they speak your name with reverence and regret,

For none could tame our savage souls yet you the challenge met,

Under palest watch, you taught, we changed, base instincts were redeemed,

A world you gave to bug and beast as they had never dreamed.

- From 'Elegy for Hallownest' by Monomon the Teacher

14: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y6DKBqXlmU – intro footage; self-explanatory.

15: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/Hornet#Greenpath – the page also has all her other dialogue pieces, but this is the first of her many uses of the name.

16: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/White_Lady#Reacting%20to%20Charms – source of quote

17: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/Kingsoul – has charm description.

18: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/White_Defender#Defeats – source of quote.

19: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/Dung_Defender#After%20the%20fight – source of quote.

20: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/Royal_Retainer – source of quote.

21: https://youtu.be/dofQaoqecDk?t=735 – Mossbag brings it up; again, I do not own the book.

22: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/Bardoon#General – source of quote.

23: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/Hornet#The%20Abyss – Hornet says, “A difficult journey you would face, but a choice it can create. Prolong our world's stasis or face the heart of its infection,” as seen here.

24: https://youtu.be/kOHdVy1BFNE?t=295 – Birthplace cutscene.

25: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/The_Hollow_Knight – the cut dialogue is in trivia.

26: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/The_Radiance – the Radiance’s own dream nail dialogue is found here.

27: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/Myla – Myla’s dream nail dialogue is found here.

28: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/The_Last_Stag#Additional%20dialogue – while I do not actually remember who said “pale light” (I do remember hearing it), the Old Stag also called the Pale King “bright and radiant in visage.” So it works.

[worldbecomefantasy]

Dragon Age Verses

Before I get into these bios, I need to say: I have not finished DA:I. As such, these AUs explain through DAO up to the start of DA:I, but they don’t tell the ending of DA:I, cause I have no clue how it ends. Aside from more questions because fuck the egg head. 

I also don’t know too terribly much about Tevinter, which is where some of my muses are from. So sorry if those sections are kinda lacking. @bygonesin lore dumped on me a lot about Tevinter and some about Antiva- though less was needed for Antiva because I do love my Antivan Elf boy from DAO. 

Anyways though, everything is below the cut cause fucking hell writing AUs for nine characters is a lotta space and I’m sorry to everyone on mobile that the read more doesn’t work for. 

The Trio

The three of them were all born in Kirkwall. They’re all from Hightown, but it’s far from unfamiliar to see them anywhere in the city. Their families are very different. Khal and Rion lost their mother as a child, and had to fight tooth and nail to keep their home when their father stopped responding to the world. They received a lot of support from their family friends, but eventually that had to run out. That was the turning point in which Rion started up a business, and Khal became a mercenary with Dez.

Dez’s family was much larger, with much more stability. Both his parents were living, and his younger siblings were all thriving. They did everything they could to help Khal and Rion after their mother died, but it only went so far. When Khal started going out on jobs, Dez went with her. Not to protect her, but to learn more about to world. To see the wonders he’s heard about in Varric’s stories.

Rion and Khal are commonly making connections everywhere they can. Rion for business, and Khal for work. Much to Rion’s distress, Khal found her way into mercenary work. The only thing he can do though, is work his hardest to run a business that can supply her with proper equipment so she’s not at risk.

Dez, similarly to Khal, does pick up oddball jobs, but seldom ever does he do it for money. He’s not looking for work, so much as he’s looking for a story. Commonly he does work with Khal, but not always. He enjoys spending time in the Hanged Man, picking up stories, and telling his own. 

When he’s 21, Dez is with his brother Monty on a job in Ferelden. It starts out fine, but things don’t stay fine. They find themselves trapped in Denerim as a blight breaks out. They manage to survive, but it’s a terrifying experience. Afterwards they go back to Kirkwall, and stay there for some time with their family, not wanting to risk being separated like that again.

Seven years later their plan to stay safe in Kirkwall falls apart, with the explosion of the Chantry. All of them, Khal, Rion, and their father, as well as Dez’s whole family, are struck by the disaster. War breaks out, and none are really sure what to do. For the next 4 years the group of them are just trying to get by, until they find themselves back in Ferelden, joining up with the Inquisition. Dez, Monty, and Khal are all joining the fight. Rion proves himself as a valuable leader.

Levi Valter

Levi Valter was born in a noble family in Tevinter. Magic ran in his family for generations, so it was no surprise that he was gifted with it as well. He proved at a young age that he had far more power than his predecessors. Because of this he easily gained respect from those around him.

As an adult he did many things. First and foremost he maintained the family. House Teirany, headed by Tristan, had a long standing feud with House Valter. The elder generation didn’t care to make peace, and neither did Levi. Lani Teirany, on the other hand, believed her and Levi were destined to be together. A point that honestly just made Levi more willing to be in conflict with the Teirany family.

Despite the natural magic ability he had he refused positions with the Magistrates. His loyalty was to his family, and nothing beyond that. He’s not averse to expanding the family though. He does take a wife, a woman named Maggie. She’s from another noble family, but one with no ties to the conflict between Valter and Teirany. With Maggie he has a daughter who is now 8, named Isabel.

Cyrus Zerrin

Cyrus is, for all intents and purposes, normal. He’s no mage, he’s no warrior, he doesn’t work for the chantry even. He’s just a man. He has learned all he can on how to care for others, starting from a young age. When he was ten monsters began coming down from Redcliffe castle and attacking the town. He was forced, rather jarringly, into learning how to handle medicine. 

He worked hard, as did everyone in town. But losses happened regardless. His best friend’s father died, among many others in town. After that Nyx took up defending their home. Cyrus admired him for it. They were so young, and worked so hard to protect everyone. 

Years passed, and Cyrus lived his life. He was never one to get into trouble like Nyx and Libertus, but he never left their sides. He spent many long days and nights helping them in the bar, cleaning up after them when they sparred, taking Selena and Teyla home when it was too late to let the girls go alone. Even if Cyrus wasn’t a trained fighter, it made them feel more comfortable to have someone else with them.

Around a decade later though... things got bad. At the age of 17 a war broke out, starting in Kirkwall and quickly spreading south. Apostates and templars were fighting everywhere, and then a rift opened in the sky and demons were added to the chaos. Redcliffe was torn apart when a smaller rift tore open near the town. The Inquisitor managed to swoop in in time to save most, but Selena and Teyla were both lost.

After that battle Nyx and Libertus left to join the Inquisition. For a few months he stayed in Redcliffe, trying to help the people in his home. He didn’t stay for long though, without his sister, without his friends, he felt useless. He wanted to do more, so he left and joined the Inquisition as well. 

During the months he was still at home, he was heavily depressed and trying to fill that hole with anything he could. This included one night stands, one of which was with a woman named Ocean. Unbeknownst to Cyrus this left her pregnant. When he gets back to Redcliffe he’s going to be in for quite the surprise.

Kanan Jarrus

Caleb was born from two apostates. They had once been apart of Ferelden’s circle, but escaped when they realized they would have a child. Their escape didn’t last long, but it was long enough for Caleb to be born. Because of how soon after his birth his parents were caught he was taken to the circle tower to be raised, as it was highly likely he would be a mage as well. His parents were made tranquil and he was never told of his relation to them. He then grew up knowing his parents, but not knowing who they were, as the tranquil had no reason to share that information. The only thing he had from his parents was the name Caleb Dume.

Growing up in the tower he of course was trained in how to use magic the moment he showed signs of being capable. Exactly as the Templars had expected. His upbringing was strict, and he never enjoyed it a whole lot. He knew there was more to the world outside the tower, and he wanted to experience it for himself. 

As such, when he went for his Harrowing he hatched a plan to escape. It went off... with a few problems. But nothing he couldn’t get around. After spending his whole life around the Templars he knew how they worked, he knew how to outsmart them. Best of all, he knew what they would expect and how to go farther than their expectations. 

Once he was outside the tower he went on the run, changed his name to Kanan Jarrus. He spent the rest of his life traveling, never staying too long in one place, never getting attached to anything or anyone. Even once he was in the world, he found it hard to be a part of the world.

He eventually meets a group that becomes like family. He fights through the Blight with them, and then when war breaks out he has no choice but to pick a side. As a mage who grew up subjected by the Templars he wasn’t about to stand by as a war for freedom waged. 

Asha Shala

An elven, Antivan bounty hunter. He’s always been in competition with the Crows, but never had direct run ins with them. It’s more of a race. Marks get sent out to Crows and bounty hunters alike, and it’s always a fun game to see who kills the mark first. 

Asha works alongside Jipp and Kelsyn, and they have a good thing going. They commonly do manage to beat the Crows, but there’s also a lot of jobs that go straight to the Crows. That’s where Jipp and Kelsyn work best. They’re the ones picking up jobs, or dropping in on the Crows to steal them. 

Kelsyn is a Crow fugitive, so she knows how they operate, and sometimes she can even trick the younger Crows into believing she’s still one of them. That’s working less and less the more she does it, but it’s a fun strategy while it does work. 

He’s vaguely aware that Ferelden, and perhaps all of Thedas, is falling apart, but it’s not effecting Antiva a whole lot so he’s not super worried about it.

Nyx Ulric

Nyx was born and raised in Redcliffe. He’s always loved dogs, so growing up he begged his parents for a dog. They refused for several years, but when Selena was old enough to join in on the begging they agreed to get a mabari puppy, as a full grown mabari would likely trample four year old Selena. Despite this, the dog grew faster than she did and in a year was nearly fully grown. Nyx would often times hold onto Selena and let her ride on the back of the mabari as if it were a horse. Their mother of course fussed at him, saying Selena would get hurt, but that never stopped him.

When Nyx was twelve his life took a, rather drastic, turn for the worse. Monsters started coming down from the castle, destroying the village and killing anyone they came across. Nyx’s father joined the fight, trying to defend the village. Finally when the Grey Wardens came and fought along side them, they were triumphant. Despite the overall triumph, Nyx’s father was fatally wounded in the battle.

After this Nyx started training to fight with his childhood friend Libertus. He wouldn’t let anything hurt his family again. In the aftermath of the battle he found one of his father’s kukris. The blacksmith, Owen, made a second blade for him. Before the wardens left one of them gave him a few pointers. His mother scolded him at first, as he would commonly come home hurt, but she understood he wasn’t doing it for fun. No mother wants to see their child grow up, but knowing he was learning to protect her and Selena was a small comfort. Having a war hound in the house didn’t hurt her feelings either.

The older he got the more he trained, then eventually getting a job at the tavern alongside Libertus. His mother had done what she could to support them, but it was hard. When he was nineteen a war broke out in Kirkwall. It spread south, nearly ripping Redcliffe apart. The fighting made leaving the city dangerous, and it only grew worse when the rift opened in the sky, allowing demons into their world. His home was near the wall, but still outside of the real limits of Redcliffe’s village. This left them open to attack, and that is exactly what happened. The Inquisitor saved him and his mother, but not until after Nyx had watched his sister be killed by shades. Nyx felt indebted to the Inquisitor and signed up with the inquisition.

As for how he fights, it’s not as simple as one might expect. He wields the kukris he’s had since he was a child, but with an added edge. The only people who knew were his family and Libertus. Around the time the monsters were attacking from the castle Nyx discovered he has magic. It’s weak, but it’s enough to give him an edge in a fight. He’s kept it hidden, especially since an apostate blew up the chantry. The Inquisitor, however, took notice and inquired about it. This was a major factor in Nyx’s decision to join the inquisition.

Titus Drautos

Drautos has always cared more about himself than others. His family was... family in appearance alone. Tevinter is not known for being kind or forgiving. It’s a place run on power, and if you’re not noble and a mage, you have next to none. Drautos is noble, but he has no magic and thus can’t get what he wants. 

After living in that hell for over 30 years, he leaves. His name of nobility may or may not carry weight in Ferelden, but if nothing else the simpletons of the country can be easily used. The whole in the sky needs to be dealt with first, but after that Drautos can do anything in Ferelden. 

Helping the Inquisition will no doubt make him a hero in the people’s eyes, and put him in a place above others. Where he can build his own family, one that actually has meaning. One that actually has power. 

[twitchesandstitches]

A few details i wasn’t able to get into the library fic that introduced the Avatar characters to Crossthicc! This was worldbuilding stuff I thought was interesting, but didn’t have room to put into the fic properly.

AVATAR STUFF

Suki is one of the daughters of Kyoshi, who rules a system of islands, and has inherited something of her size, power, and commanding attitude. The Kyoshi Islands are intended to be an analogue to Japan in some respects, and in particular Kyoshi’s daughters lead their own respective dynasties in service to Kyoshi, who is ultimately a Raava-blessed empress uniting them all as a daughter of Heaven.

The girls are considerably older than in canon, and the boys are more or less their canon ages but in a way to give them a different dynamic with the girls. Katara is the eldest child in her generation, with Sokka as her younger brother. Her dynamic with Aang is even more ‘skilled student winds up marrying his gifted mentor’, with a bit more emphasis on Katara being a heroine. The biggest shift is for Zuko; as Azula’s younger brother, he was never in the running for being Fire Lord and was a surplus child. Mai was more or less his bodyguard and they wound up falling for another as a bright spot in each other’s lives.

Way more AU as the cultures of Avatar go. Sun Warriors are still extant, groups such as the Foggy Swamp Tribe are all over the place. The Fire Nation is presently in a huge civil war between Azula and forces that follow Zuko, and Azula is actually more active as a leader than Ozai is; as it stands, the Fire Nation is basically like Warring States-era Japan, but with people who can breathe fire and ride dragons.

On that note, the Fire Lords are more or less just the Fire Sages as they originally were in canon; the Fire Lord is the leader of the Fire Sages, who ride dragons here and commune with them, and have enormous power over the Fire Nation’s people with this influence. Azula has taken over as hereditary right and the most powerful of the family, but Zuko has also earned the right and this has caused the civil war in question, with an unprecedented amount of nobles, warlords and influencers split between the two rather than the usual free for all.

The Air Nomads are mainly based off the people of ancient Mongolia, with Genghis Khan’s example being a pretty obvious one. The Air Nomads who live in this area are explicitly intended to be modeled after them. Yangchen herself is an analogue to the Khan, down to building an empire and unifying her people, and having a strict ‘insult my people and die horribly’ vibe. As a whole the Air Nomads are a lot more diverse than what we see in canon; Air Nomads like the monks we see in canon are still around, but they’re a specific set of clans who live in the mountains near the Southern Water Tribe and have established a monastary there. They support their life style by working out deals to control the wind for the benefit of their Water Tribe neighbors.

Bending here is marked by two things: becoming a giant hyper-curvy lady (as is the main rule in this AU when you become powerful), and physical mutations. Not like the mods used by other, but non-functional attributes such as crystalline skin for Earthbenders, icy body temperature for Waterbenders, blazing skin for Firebenders, and so on. It varies for each individual, gets more intense as they power up and the specific kind of mutation changes when they are bending different things, but all benders are obvious and easily spotted.

Size is linked to bending. The more powerful you are, the bigger. The inverse is true; if you’re bigger, you have bending powers. Characters who canonically have no bending ability but are big here (Mai, Suki, Asami and so on) are benders here, but have very low grade powers or extremely specialized skills. Suki is probably an Earthbender who can do minor tricks with soul to be immovable, Mai and Asami are firebenders (Mai does internal tricks with heat, Asami can bend lightning but ONLY lightning), and so on.

I usually avoid specific sizes, but I did measurements for a tricky line, and worked some things out. Katara is roughly about twenty feet tall here, an average man only going up to her knees. Toph may be about 30 or so while the other girls are smaller than Katara on average, ranging from 12 to 15 feet. Korra is the biggest at at least forty feet. She is very big!

Raava does not serially incarnate here, but instead bonds to multiple human hosts as they are born; the Avatar is thus not a singular entity but a soul fusion of many different people to previous ones and the other living ones, linked and boosted by Raava. Thus, Korra and Aang can be around at the same time, and she can be significantly older than him too. The other Avatars relevant to Aang (Kuruk, Kyoshi, Roku and Yangchen) are, of course, all alive and doing things, being important heroes and leaders.

The owl entity that is mentioned briefly near the end of the story is intended to be Wan Shi Tong, and the Great Library is a combination of his library and the idea of the Akashic Records from Mage: The Awakening. He’s not as anti-mortal as he is in canon, or at least, not allowed to act upon it due to the other powers in the Library. He is a spirit of the idea of knowledge and lore, and acts as a neutral figure within the library’s command.

Bending stuff. Here, bending is not hereditary (though it is dependant on cultural identity); rather, people commune with specific spirits after manifesting an elemental power at a young age. Everyon can use an element appropriate to their culture, though perhaps very limited, and some can commune directly with the spirits, earning their favor and gaining their powers, being physically transformed in some respect and gaining enormous amounts of power. These are like Benders from canon, but they explicitly sought it out. Animals like badger-moles and sky bison are linked to these spirits, too. (There are different ways of earning favor; some women might become hyper pregnant with powerful spirits, for example, and at the end of the pregnancy, transform into their new state and gain their powers. The REAL elemental blessing was inside them all along…!)

The Air Nomads are alive and well!

Aang is ethnically related to the northern Air Nomads who are based on the followers of Genghis Khan; Yangchen’s clans, here. However he was raised among the monastary monks near the Southern Water Tribe, where he met Katara when young and studied under her to learn Waterbending. His heritage carries no stigma, and while he has no concern about his actual family (it being an Air Nomad thing to raise children communally), he wants to know more about his birth-people and ancestral culture.

You may have noticed a reference to ‘red tornado spirits’ in regards to Aang’s tattoos. Double meaning here; Aang’s tattoos were originally based, from what I hear, on the DC robot hero Red Tornado’s markings, and thus the spirits who originally taught the first Air Nomads were related to the spirits that give Red Tornado life force. (It was either that or make Red Tornado this settings version of Tenzin. Still might do that, actually.)

Speaking of Tenzin, Aang and Katara’s children are around for sure, but doing their own thing during the events of this story.

NON AVATAR STUFF

Hermione here is based on my take on her in the fics I’ve written here and there. The other group mentioned in relation to her is intended to be her canonical friendship group, including Harry, Ron, Ginny, Luna and Neville, and possibly others. The Great Library may be Hogwarts, but the castle may exist elsewhere with the wizards and witches here being a specific group that wound up at the Library through a mishap.

Witches like Hermione grow bigger as they get more magically powerful, as generally goes in this AU.

Hermione is intended to be read as black/Afro-British (or a space future analogue) but I’m not sure I’m that great at conveying that in writing.

Hermione’s somewhere between Toph and Katara’s sizes. Smaller than 30 feet, bigger than 20 feet. She’s thicc, hyper busty, and big all over!

Hermione not speaking the language of the Avatar characters is based on a few plot points I’ve had in mind; linguistics in this AU is a serious matter with no ‘translator microbes’ or quick solutions to language barriers. Languages must be learned the hard way. She’s never had any reason to expect to communicate with the people, expecting a life as a solitary scholary with her library chums, so she’s woefully unprepared for this. She will correct this in the future.

Magnus the Red is shamelessly based on the interpretation of him from the youtube web series, If The Emperor HAd A Text To Speech Device. I also included aspects such as the Primarch’s being sensory overload to regula humans, and more mystical overtones than they normally get in 40k. I wrote this with the idea that the Imperium was a pre-cataclysm society in line with the Emperor’s original goals (and had none of the anti-alien issues, due to difference circumstances), and the Emperor has become a god of the idea of humanity as its own thing, with the Primarchs as different reflections of that: Magnus embodies humanity’s magical potential as well as the drive to learn and know.

Magnus doesn’t have an exact size. He is huge, yes, but his bizarre magical nature means that he is much larger than he would seem to be. He’s also a shapeshifter, so make of that what you will.

The figures with him are basically Space Marines: Thousand Sons and Blood Ravens, if it wasn’t obvious enough. Gabriel Angelos, one of the canon Blood Raven leaders from the Dawn of War games, is mentioned briefly.

Obliquely referred to a few times is Optimus Prime; in the main events of the AU his absence has been notable, so this is where he’s been all this time; searching for an answer to what has become of Primus, and unable to return to the Autobots. Grimlock is gonna be PISSED.

The Unseen University’s faculty from Discworld are present here as more comedic elements of the faculty running the library, and may be seen on some other time. They’re not human here, since I’m trying to avoi the idea that humans are super-important in-universe. Ridcully, for example, is most likely a krogan. The magic they employ is a cross between Potterverse spells and classic D&D magic. (I used to headcanon that potterverse magic was particular to humans, but i may be moving away from that.)

I originally intended there to be several characters drawn from religious/monk origins for use as library characters to later join the Endowed Fleet and converse with the characters in this one, but there were too many characters as is. Two of the most important would have been Zenyatta from Overwatch (here a full on magic user and Guru Pathik-analogue) and Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist (donated his brother’s teachings to the library, stayed there to study as a religious duty)

There was originally an in-universe lesson about how their world fits into the cosmology, but i couldn’t find a natural place to slot it in. In brief, they’re technically one of the mortal universes, but exist in a demi-realm deep within the realms of magic and swimming in spirits, so they’re not really connected to the mortal universes and unless you know what you’re doing, there’s no real way to get there. This universe is mainly empty but rich with magic, so it’s possible for people who find their way there to establish new worlds there.

[deviantnotcriminal]

Character arcs!

Connor: Connor’s character development is about him coming to terms with himself. By the very nature of his existence, he has no confidence or self importance or pride. His perfectionism is through the roof and he never thinks he will amount to anything. What’s worse is that he was created to be this way. He was created to be Imagination, without the arrogance.

Connor originally starts off the comic being in a catatonic state. The first time we see him ‘awake’ is when Cara splits down into Cassidy and Connor for the first time since they escaped the facility (in chapter 2). Here he looks happy and confident and brimming with ideas. This is a facade that he developed with Cassidy’s assistance to try and appear more outgoing and fun to the group. Their situation wasn’t looking up and gazing down the prospect of living in the imagination forever, Connor and Cassidy decided the group may as well have two goofballs rather than Cassidy’s outwardly friendly and badass nature with Connor’s naturally sad and anxious one. Who knows what would have happened if they had chosen to be truthful. (Maybe that’s an idea for an AU..)

As Connor gets to know the group he starts to let his armour crack a little. The first major crack came when Cara was helping Vivian overcome his dysphoria and finally adopt the label of trans. Connor could see the pain and anxiety Vivian was experiencing and could relate it to himself. This lead to him truly trying to help Vivian. And seeing Vivian succeed and grow as a result of his actions only further intensified his feelings of being himself. By the end of Chapter 2, Connor has changed from using a false confident persona to hide his self doubt to accepting it at least on the surface level. He still acts confident but in the gaze of a more ‘fake it till you make it’ kind of way rather than ‘conceal don’t feel’. Eventually as Connor spends more time with Vivian and Lucas (late into chapter 3) he rejects his confident persona altogether, rather just trying to be himself. He is certainly a lot more confident and happy than he was back at the start of chapter 2, although he does have a lot more growing to do. Connor’s self worth is very heavily tied to his boyfriends and friends and when those start to crack, even if it was just in Connor’s head, he starts to doubt himself. Eventually, nearing the very end of chapter 4, Connor’s confidence goes out the window as his friends and boyfriends suddenly stop hanging out with him as much. In reality, Connor was accidentally sending them the wrong information that made them think that he wanted alone time. Thinking that shadow was the only one who he could talk to, we would spend more and more time with him. While shadow did help, he wasn’t enough as Connor’s actions pushed his friends and family further away. Connor’s mental state deteriorated to the point where he outright asks for shadow to take the pain away (I.e. possess him) thinking it would be better for his friends if he was someone else. But because of the nature of his soul (only being half a soul) he cannot fully relinquish control, and we finally reach the climax of Connor’s character arc, his breakdown. Connor glitches out with shadow’s corrupted code and his form becomes unstable and volatile. Even though he cannot shapeshift, his form changes in line with his emotional state, glitching out to all hell and turning him into an enormous fuck you dragon that starts destroying the island. The fragments decide that the best course of action is to take Connor out (just to get him to differentiate himself because they know that if Connor differentiates his form then shadow and Connor will separate and they they will be able to hash things out. Yes we get a dragon fight. Yes I want it to be awesome. When Connor is defeated it takes a few weeks for him to reform. When he does, he is immediately swarmed by his friends who explain the situation of what happened to him and how they aren’t mad or unhappy with him and just the whole situation get’s resolved. Connor starts to get better with all the attention he’s getting from his friends and eventually even starts to gain his own, non-artificial confidence. We start chapter 5 on a high note, with Connor in a much healthier place mentally and with his magic flourishing, just in time for him to act as the main mentor for his human protege.

Jackson/shadow: Most of shadow’s plot stuff can be found in the previous post but perhaps not his motivations. Shadow’s level of consciousness depends on how much magic he is exposed to. He doesn’t have a role to play until around the end of chapter 3 where, at first his motivation is to get stronger, and later his motivation is to be noticed by the group. When he succeeds in this, and Cecil goes hunting for him, he plays a game of cat and mouse until Cecil finally has him cornered (literally) with seemingly no way out. As shadow thinks of his situation more as a game, he refuses to accept defeat and rather in one last effort to ‘win’ he possesses Cecil. From here, his personality becomes more and more childish. He treats possessing Cecil like a game of pretend. He’s trying not to get caught because when he does, it’s game over. This lasts for a while until the real Cecil comes to confront him. Here he maintains his childlike demeanour, and rather challenges Cecil to get his body back. He sets the terms of the challenge as such: ‘I’m going to keep pretending to be you, until you convince enough of the others to, what’s the word you use, dissipate me? Then I will gladly give you your body back. But good luck trying to convince your friends when they can’t even see you.’ Eventually shadow does lose, and not only that, he his banished back into the generator. This is one of shadow’s lowest points. He tries to get the attention of the fragments by messing with their electronics but now they know what he wants, they refuse to play along. Shadow is just left alone to wallow in his own self pity. Occasionally either Cecil or Lucas will go in to perform maintenance on the generator, but now they will never engage with shadow. Instead they will fix it then leave, always being escorted by either Mika or Connor. Shadow would have stayed isolated if it wasn’t for Mika. One day, when nobody was around to stop them, they stole one of Cecil’s communicators and placed it down on the ground for shadow to speak into.

The conversation starts off hesitantly, as Mika doesn’t know if shadow can even talk through this thing, but once he gives shadow the instructions on how to work it, their conversation takes off. Mika goes back to the cave with the communicator every so often to check up on shadow. With the interaction, slowly shadow’s English gets better and he becomes more civil and less edgy and childish. While Mika cannot see shadow, they do know of his presence through the various devices at their disposal. Eventually Mika lets other people know of their secret conversations with shadow. While their skeptical at first, eventually most of them come around. Skylar was the first one they showed it to. Then from Skylar came Kim and Cassidy. Mika was hesitant to tell Lucas and his boyfriends but he eventually plucked up the courage to tell them. Lucas said that he knew, he always kept tabs on his devices and found it quite suspicious when he noticed which ones were missing suddenly and easily put two and two together. He was happy for shadow to be welcomed into the group, even if he didn’t fully trust him. Vivian was not on board, and neither was Connor, but eventually they calmed down enough to see shadow as more of a friend than a rival. Because they could not see him however, shadow found it easier to just stay in the cave. He did try coming out to join in with some of the group’s activities, except he could never join in fully and was often accidentally ignored. At one point, he assisted Lucas with the nature of his existence, along with being able to provide some more lore details that Lucas hadn’t been able to gather from his trip to the laboratory.

But as the group progressed, sometimes they would just forget about shadow. Not thinking to go down to the cave to see how he was doing. At this point shadow dreams of having a physical form but doesn’t tell anyone because he doesn’t want to burden them. (You know, I think I may change something about his role. I think that with extreme exposure, characters may start to glitch. I like that, ima keep that idea.) It was only when Connor was at his lowest that shadow would finally be visited again. Shadow liked to help Connor, but he wasn’t very good at it. He was also kinda nefarious in his motivations, trying to keep Connor away from his friends so he would come and talk to shadow. Eventually he started to feel bad as Connor’s situation worsened, eventually pleading to Connor to go get help, but with Connor refusing him and saying that they would never understand. When Connor offered for shadow to possess him, he had to think about it. On one hand, he desperately wanted a physical body and Connor desperately wanted to be able to just stop existing for a while. On the other hand, Connor needed help, and shadow possessing Connor’s body was not going to give him that help. If anything, Connor was pleading with shadow to possess him. (I may even go as far as to make it that Connor threatened to ‘take a wander in the imagination’ or to differentiate himself a few too many times if shadow didn’t possess him) So shadow did. You already read what happened with that whole situation above, but shadow was spending the entire time trying to calm Connor down, but failing. His voice of reason being pushed to the back of Connor’s mind from the sheer number of negative thoughts (yeah, Connor’s very angsty).

Eventually Connor gets differentiated and shadow goes back to the waiting void. Connor explains how shadow wasn’t the reason for his transformation. It was all him, and pleads for his friends not to demonise shadow. They agree and say that they weren’t planning on it anyway. Shadow had told them after the incident what was happening, and they just needed Connor’s confirmation. (I think ima go back and change another something with Connor’s pleading. Earlier on in their interactions, shadow would have actually told Connor that he was desperate for a physical form, and that sparks the whole possess me bit) Connor expresses shadow’s desire to have a physical form and so Lucas gets to work on it. Until then, shadow gets a temporary form of a hologram that will display a humanoid shape that would act as his stand in for events until they could find out why he couldn’t form and get it all working so he could. He also starts working on getting a name at this point. The group hang out more, Jackson as he is now called is involved in the group games and activities, spending time with his friends. While he couldn’t interact with any objects yet, at least it was like the group could see him. It felt better. It was actually during one of those game nights where Logan finally figured out a method to give Jackson a physical form. The game night was abandoned pretty quickly after the realisation so Logan could go and work on the idea. It took maybe a week or so, but finally the machine was complete.

Jackson’s form was corrupted. Because he was made of pure magic when he first formed he did not have the ability to form into a human shape. This was due to the fact that he didn’t have a defined soul. The fragments had all received time to refine their souls after they had been ‘extracted’ and were given time to form. Jackson was not given these conditions, and yet he had still managed to refine his soul. It just wasn’t physical. If they could give him a vessel to inhabit, an empty one, then they would be able to integrate him into this new data and he would become physical. Finally being able to put the raw magic that had put them all into this situation in the first place to good use, Jackson’s void soul was made in the shape he desired, the preparations had been made, and with a solid two minutes of high voltage raw magic being pumped into the machine, and with the void suddenly sporting a vibrant orange hue, the group commended their final test. (Another thing here, the experiment will 100% have been volatile. I want there to be suspense here obviously, so yes there will have been a chance for it to have not worked. Just as there was also a chance for Jackson to have died, but also, why would I kill off such a fun character. Come on.) The group fired up the communicator and listened for their conformational words.

‘Jackson, are you there?’ Lucas asked.

There was radio silence for a good few panels before a voice came through the communicator, Jackson’s voice. Speaking for the first time.

‘I’m here.’ He said

The group would go manic as they knew the procedure had worked. Of course it would take a few days for his soul to fully integrate enough to form, but the first steps were done.

The next time we would see Jackson would be when he forms. Lucas would be in his lab, just tinkering on a project with a coffee when he sees a bright orange light emanating from Jackson’s soul. Recognising what this meant, he immediately called everyone in to the lab. Once everyone was assembled, they waited with baited breath as Lucas removed Jackson’s soul from the stasis chamber. And suddenly in a burst of white light (which obviously I will drag out onto several panels because drama) Jackson was standing there before the fragments, fully physical. He looked down at his hands, and moved his feet, feeling the ground and the air particles. Then he started to cry tears of joy and everyone goes over to hug him because gosh darn it this scene. ;w;

As for Jackson’s personality, he’s an outgoing extrovert. He gets along the best with Kim, Mika, Connor and the human researchers when he meets them in chapter 5. He loves anime and food and magic use and thrills like the zip line. He does stay on the island most of the time but in the epilogue, he will basically be adopted into the researcher’s friend group.

Jackson is also simultaneously the youngest and the oldest fragment. Which I just find funny.

Okay, that’s already a lot of text and I feel burnt out. I’ll have to work on the other 6 later