#i like thinking about the worst versions of my characters

[peachyprophets-blog]

DROWNED LOVE

How the gods would mourn after the reader died

A/N: Heyy!! I will be working on an alternative version in the next few days, what if one of the gods (who knows heheh) helps the reader to get back to Ithaca (she probably only returns to her family after the events of the Ithaca Saga).

And no, we don't greet happiness with open arms :)

°•○☆○•°

Zeus:

જ⁀➴Would mourn you for thousands of years.

જ⁀➴ Created a cloud that has your shape.

જ⁀➴Despairs because the cloud is not exactly like you. If you are mentioned near him, he would look at the person threateningly.

જ⁀➴Blames others for your death.

જ⁀➴"My beloved, not a day will go by that I won't miss you!"

Poseidon:

જ⁀➴After your death, the seas trembled and for years they were plagued with violent storms

જ⁀➴Tries to carry on as best he can Often argues with Zeus about who is to blame

જ⁀➴Would build you a monument that he would put in his palace

જ⁀➴All mortal women he fell in love with always resembled you in appearance or character.

જ⁀➴"My beloved, may the waves sing you to sleep, no matter where you are"

Hades:

જ⁀➴He mourned most of his brothers

જ⁀➴It tore him apart to see his brothers like this, but he knew it was best for you

જ⁀➴Yet he watched you every day from the underworld

જ⁀➴Even when you died, he immediately welcomed you into his home, but didn't say anything to the other gods.

જ⁀➴"Find peace in your end, rest now little one"

Apollo:

જ⁀➴THIS MAN IS SUFFERING

જ⁀➴He has lost the protégé he loved so much

જ⁀➴It seemed as if the sun wasn't shining as brightly anymore

જ⁀➴He dedicated songs, poems and works of art to you

જ⁀➴What had happened was something he never wanted to happen, he had lost the person he loved again

જ⁀➴He transformed something that had once belonged to you into a beautiful flower that could bloom even in the worst of circumstances.

જ⁀➴"The sun protects you everywhere, my sunshine, bloom where no one else can bloom"

Hera:

જ⁀➴Look you might think she would not be sad, BUT SIKE!!!

જ⁀➴Hera felt very sorry for you, you were just an innocent soul who couldn't do anything about the fate that had befallen you

જ⁀➴Hera grew fond of you and saw you like a daughter

જ⁀➴Hera took out her anger on her husband, how could he take her beloved girl!?

જ⁀➴Hera sees you everywhere, whether under the tree in the Garden of the Gods or in the Great Hall.

જ⁀➴"At least you don't have to put up with my husband anymore, my little girl"

Hermes:

જ⁀➴This boy will hide his sadness behind his usual smile

જ⁀➴He will crack jokes and play pranks on people as usual

જ⁀➴I would say he lives in a world where you are still alive

જ⁀➴He will look at others and think that you are standing right next to him

જ⁀➴He will not accept that you are gone, and the other gods will have to watch the messenger of the gods living in this illusion

જ⁀➴"What do you say Dawling? Oh I love the idea!"

-Peachyprophet

[thebestpartofwakingup]

Most modern-au fanfic writers across fandoms tend to use the modern setting as a way to askew the conflicts inherent to the setting of the canon story, often overall reducing the AMOUNT of conflict occurring rather than just lowering the stakes

And I kind of feel like MGS is weirdly unexplored ground for fixing this common fandom problem? Like there are so many elements of so many characters that range from neutral – heroic within the specific setting and conflicts of the MGS games but would immediately become huge sources of drama in a “normal” setting

Or, put more simply,

I CANNOT believe with all the normal-setting MGS aus that have been written NOBODY has written one centering on the scandal of the Boss’s THREE SECRET FAMILIES

ESPECIALLY with the amount of modern-MGS aus ive seen that are SO desperate to get away from accidentally making Bosselot real actual incest.

Give me teenage Hal showing up at the door step of the most unstable batshit man in America a la Bojack Horseman season 4.

So many MGS characters canonically use the military and war and patriotism to ignore and get away from all the other mounting problems, chaos, and drama. Lean into that. Cobra Unit even breaks apart after WW2 specifically because the Boss and the Sorrow get SO into patriotism for OPPOSITE world powers. And then she — the same woman who could NOT bring herself in 10+ years to tell a GROWN MAN she is PROFESSIONALLY responsible for that SANTA CLAUS is NOT REAL — KILLS HER EX on his immediate request. That is not a peaceful relationship - widow pipeline you writers think it is. A neat end to one relationship to set the foundation for a future, equally peaceful, lesbian relationship. The Sorrow wasn’t even DEAD yet when she and Strangelove met. She KNOWS he can talk to ghosts. This castle of cards was NEVER stable and you, fanfic writers, want ME to believe that pulling the table cloth out from under that castle would make it better??

You think between making lattes at the coffee shop Ocelot is not be inundated with texts and phone calls and emails about how his parents are not abiding by their restraining orders, court mandated drug checks, and psychiatric evaluations? How far do you think veteran benefits go? Imagine how much worse that situation gets if you divorce the military from it entirely because that woman got the codename “Joy” from the sheer euphoria she expressed from *killing people with her bare hands* she essentially invented the concept of *punching people to death* you remove her from a military context?? You think that version of Ocelot is having a simple and peaceful life at the flower shop? You think he’s not being asked to put up bail?

Rule 1 of Revolver Ocelot is he is the way he is because he is the WORST IMAGINABLE combination of “nature” AND “nurture” you think that changes outside of the military? My man is getting his ass kicked by hereditary BPD on BOTH sides.

[nalyra-dreaming]

I just read your ask on Lestat’s turning and I agree that Lestat had the most traumatic turning. And being Lestat, I don’t expect them to hold back in portraying that on the show. (And I hope they go whole hog including all the lookalike corpses because that almost single-handedly made me understand why he is the way he is.) But having just recently finished reading TVA, I’m wondering how they are going to portray Armand’s past, and if they even are. I would hope they dive into it beyond his monologue in season two which I feel was a very PG version of his story. But if Lestat had the most traumatic turning, imo, Armand had the most traumatic life which given its particulars, might be very difficult to show on screen. Do you think it will just be left to that monologue or only referred to? Or will they actually go there? My fear is that I’ve seen a lot of people who think Armand’s monologue was a lie. And I know it’s fiction, and I know Armand has a bad track record with the truth, but I like to give characters (and people) the benefit of the doubt when they talk about their sexual trauma. If they don’t explicitly show his past in the show, will non book readers believe it?

Also what is your interpretation of Daniel saying “where does the bullshit start Arun, Amadeo, Armand?” Is he even questioning that part of his story? Is he signaling that the audience should too? Or is it just a general accusation of bullshit? Assad is so fucking good. His micro expressions absolutely have me in tatters. And I might just be reading too much into them, but I feel like he played that part of the scene as Armand being taken aback by that line as well.

Thank you for your thoughtful responses on this blog. You are my go to IWTV blog. ❤️

💕 Glad you like dear!

Soooooooo - first off, I, personally, didn't interpret Daniel there as mocking Armand wrt the abuse backstory. It's more... like, he collected the lies, right, and then he bid his time, and then, when Armand thought he'd won - then Daniel called him on it.

It was a deliberated affront, a provocation, yes - but I did not see it as a specific thing. Daniel can only go by what he's told - and all he knows is that he's been lied to.

WE, as in the audience, and especially the book audience, we know that Armand let a lot of truth bleed into it all - but Daniel does not know that. And so I would not weigh his words there too harshly, because it is actually quite important for IWTV which character knows what exactly at any given point :)

Armand has had a brutally traumatic life, I think that much is clear, and yes, what we had so far on the show... is the PG version. We will likely get a bit more in Lestat's recollection next season, though it's anybody's guess right now if we'll get another bottle episode or not. I do hope that we will get Armand's backstory in some kind of way... and it might be very interesting indeed to see that contrasted in versions of his, Lestat's and Marius' recount of it.

Because there are these... aspects to it all, which cannot be dismissed I think. As much as Armand latched onto Louis, he did latch onto Lestat as well (or tried to), and that, too, shaped what and especially how he told of certain things of course.

Also, and I know I'm touching a wasp's nest here, but Armand's memory of the few short years with Marius is warped by his hundreds of years being brainwashed in a satanic cult, which tried to paint Marius as the worst. Let me be clear here, I do not(!) doubt Marius did what we would call grooming today with Armand - on the contrary, reading TVA and Blood and Gold I find it extremely clear just how much Marius latched onto the opportunity (even before speaking to Armand, at all) and tried to shape Armand into what he wanted Armand to be.

And I have gone into big discussions on my blog here already, about how I do think the text does, indeed, underline the show's take on "liberties" that were given away by Marius (wrt Armand).

I do think the text supports that.

I also think that Armand... was brainwashed for so long that some of what the cult made of it all... stuck.

We do see that in his behavioral patterns in the books. He's the "coven master" - he cleans up where he is. Keeps cities "safe". Makes the "hard decisions" at times. This behavior is so ingrained in him that he finds it impossible to stop it, at the very least up till the last trilogy. We saw it in the show, in the way he passes judgement on Claudia, talks to Louis about her in the tunnels, loooooonggg after his actual "cult coven" had been destroyed by Lestat.

But the mindset stuck. And it colored some memories, while making others maybe... uncomfortably clear.

This show, which is so unafraid to put its fingers into proverbial wounds... will likely not shy away from making his and Marius' relationship a hot mess with all facets. Yes, Marius will groom him, abuse him. I don't think they'll shy away from at least insinuating the whippings, I mean the Dubai bedroom had whips and dog bowls?! They will not shy away from Armand loving Marius, either. And they will not shy away from Marius loving Armand. They will not shy away from Marius saving, abusing, and, in a way, dooming Armand. And they will not shy away from the cult muddying the waters even further with their brainwashing.

I think Armand believes what he told (other than the tale of Lestat which was clearly a little fantasy, lol) in the Louvre. I think that is what... is still there, what is, in a way, tangible history, not lost to the decades yet.

I also think all bets will be off when Marius shows up - because, as in the books(!) - that leaves Armand reeling, for... decades actually. Especially given Marius' interference in his personal life (Lestat, Daniel, Sybille, Benji...).

And I hope, and here I come back to what I would like to see onscreen - I HOPE that some of Armand's past will be resolved in "our" current time, made clear unmistakably. That the show will dare to confront whatever story they wish to lay out for Marius and Armand in the present, and have them find a way to navigate through that. Confront past stances maybe with modern sensibilities, for example. Because that, too, is a issue here, and about to become a big issue, with the arrival of the ancient vampires, who just ... don't quite think like the modern vampires do, at least some of them.

And it would do the show well I think if they would dare to go there (even though I think this would make the fandom an even bigger mess *laughs*).

I said it before, I like, and get Armand, though he frustrates me, also :) But he has had a shit life, and tried to cope... as best as he could. As they all do. And his story deserves the same... let's call it gravity, as the others'.

[ronqueesha]

A youtube reaction channel I like watched "The Fly" this month, and it got me thinking about blorbo thoughts.

It occurred to me, that if Sarit had been a little more careful with her experiments, she might not have gone on the run from the United Colonies authorities. She would not have tried to lay low in a small independent mining operation on Vectera, and she would not have stumbled across the artifacts and the galaxy-spanning adventure that opened her eyes to so many new things.

A Sarit who did not accidentally fall into the greatest adventure in the galaxy would have ended up a lot like Jeff Goldblum's character in The Fly. Not so much with the gross body horror stuff, but with his ego and narcissism. His self-centeredness and intellect overcoming his basic humanity.

Well... maybe a little gross body horror stuff. Sarit without a found family to give her love and support, as well as her deep bond and eventual marriage with Andreja, would have allowed her obsessive madness to continue unchecked. More parts of her organic body would have been cut out and disposed of, replaced by perfect and efficient machines that would ensure she never had to suffer with a broken body again.

Rather than how Cyberpunk generally keeps it mechanical augmentations in a basic human form, I could see Sarit not caring about retaining the original shape of the human body she dislikes so much. She would be obsessed with efficiency and the full capabilities of technology melded with her mind. I could see her looking more and more like a Warhammer tech priest the longer she was allowed to let this go on.

(art by Nictanova)

All that being said, however. Sarit isn't nearly as practiced as a Warhammer tech priest or a Cyberpunk ripperdoc when it comes to replacing body parts with machines. She's just a mad scientist with a spooky lair with robot assistants. It's very likely that a Sarit who never when on this life-changing journey with her Constellation family would have simply died on her own operating table after one operation too many.

[cabeswaterdrowned]

I can understand someone not liking Gansey that much but I Can Not imagine calling him boring. Sir that’s President Freak of Clowntown right there…

[royaltea000]

you mentioned the demons strike back (2017) and even though wukong's demon monkey real form is scary as fuck, it also got me hnnnghhhhhhhhhhhh thAT RASPY DEEP VOICE , JESUS!

Too fucking true - listen. I may have found the human version soooo fucking hot but I am a monsterfucker first and foremost those longass fangs they gave him got me titillated and afraid at the same time smile at me again monkey boi 😳

[destructive-delight]

something that's been becoming increasingly clear to me this year is that i don't actually get bsd at all...

[randomnameless]

Something really bothers me about Sothis. She's treated as a wise being, Byleth’s mentor, the one who keeps calm when other people panic or get emotional and yet not only does she never really censure Edelgard aside from calling her arrogant (which Edelgard herself admits), she saves all her scorn for Rhea. Even when she's about to disappear she's saying Rhea did SOMETHING suspicious to Byleth, and she has nothing bad to say about Byleth killing her in Safflower. What lesson are we supposed to take when the character closest to speaking with the Word of God (the trope) has only bad things to say about Rhea and never recants?

Anon (?),

All pretense about Sothis, the Sothis Byleth interacts with being a "wise being" vanish with this line, spoken just before she disappears :

I may not have acted like a goddess, but...it was certainly fun.

Gremlin!Sothis knows she hasn't been acting as a Goddess, she's been ignoring/shirking her responsabilities but, hey, who cares, at least she had fun.

I know this verse has some, uh, complicated relationship regarding duty and responsability, but Sothis basically telling the player that she didn't act as she ought to nor fulfilled her duties and responsabilities and yet isn't that miffed because she had fun instead, immediately writes her as someone who's not wise at all, or supposed to be taken seriously.

For what it's worth, I think Nopes!Sothis is wiser/closer to what her role as the "one who watches over Fodlan and its inhabitants" was supposed to be than Houses!Sothis, but then, I also think Houses!Sothis was written as an accident, because I refuse to believe KT and IS picked the most toxic mother of the franchise (and that's saying something when Blazing Blade offers serious competition!) as the mascot of the game.

Doylist wise, it feels like the devs designed her as the plot device that makes Byleth special, who teases a bit about JJ Abrams' mystery box. But then she and the box vanish in the second part of the game and no one really gives a fig about it. She's the quirky and sassy overpowered loli that somehow became a trope after OPM introduced Tatsuki but bar that, her role in the plot is basically being a Mc Guffin and a source of power.

Hell I just wrote a bit about it, but Rhea's main motivation to bring her back wasn't deemed "important enough" to be added in the game, per Word of God ( = the devs!). Aka what prime!Sothis was able to do and revered for wasn't important enough to make the cut :/

So it tells you, imo, enough about what Sothis was designed to be for Kusakihara'n'co.

Minor tidbit though, in that last scene, she says she doesn't know how Rhea managed to make her exist in Billy's body, but she doesn't call it "suspicious".

I agree about the, uh, say, oddity of her not commenting at all about Rhea's fate in CF, granted I think that was corrected a tiny little bit in Nopes in AG, where she comments on Dimitri and Felix's relics iirc, but she still can't say a thing in the "proper plot" whenever she has to fight Rhea, Flayn or Seteth.

If you use her as a bonus unit though... she has lines for them, where she's generally happy/glad to fight by their side, which is the bare minimum (or what we would call here "le minimum syndical") for a game where she has her memories and can somehow act on them (because she definitely has them back just before merging with Byleth, and yet, won't tell them a thing about the Agarthans or her children).

Sadly, given how Nopes was developed as a what-if AU, in FE16's proper canon*, we indeed have Sothis not giving a flying fuck** about her daughter and whatever Seteth and Flayn are to her.

*save for SS's ending : Sothis finally deigns to talk to her daughter if Byleth wants to shag Rhea, but it happens off-screen.

**TFW Sonia cares more about Nino than Sothis cares about Seteth in FE16!

[mostofthingsmostofthetime]

Just finished the show a few days ago, so that's why I'm only just posting this now.

[francy-sketches]

I'm gonna have to work on my final project non stop for like a month straight bc I procrastinated on it too much fuck my stupid baka life

[wellhungspeaker]

sometimes i feel a little weird doing fandom-y things for rhps (because ive never been in a fandom this small before also because it just feels a little weird sometimes) and ill doubt myself and think "does everything NEED a fandom?? scoffs" even though. im hyperfixated super crazy style.

but then i remember that i have no mouth and i must scream has a fandom and i realize that life (fandoms) finds a way and if there is at least one person who likes something, there's probably going to be fanfic about it and some kind of ship WILL be involved

[theprincessandthepie]

ough. just watched some fanvids that got me thinking about an old fandom of mine.

[andthebubbles]

tfw you're deliberately making yourself so attached to your fictional characters to combat loneliness

anyway i miss them. i was just writing them yesterday lmao

[new-eyes-extra-colors]

Is Shaun Nora's child? If so, does she view X6 as family due to his closeness to Father, or just as a friend?

shaun is nora's biological child, yep, and post-institute when asked she says she has two sons (referring to shaun and synth!shaun--but a minor plot point in my fic is that she doesn't tell anyone about synth!shaun being a synth. if pressed for details, she just says her eldest passed away recently and that typically shuts down any further questions).

oh, edited to add bc i don't think i was clear: she treats synth!shaun as a son too. she takes to him straightaway. he's still a child who views her as his mother, and she still wants to be a parent. they have a good relationship.

she does view x6 as family, but in a found-family sort of way that doesn't have anything to do with them sharing dna. she thinks shaun calling himself "father" is extremely--i think paternalistic is the right word, and she emphatically does not approve. she feels family is a lot more than genetic material, and so is parenthood, which relates back to her family situation mentioned here.

she and x6 grow close as they work together and kind of outside the bounds of father's knowledge. x6 is a smart guy and figures out nora's still working for the railroad, and for his own reasons keeps it to himself, and nora's aware that if she actually reported how snarky and independent x6 is, he'd be sent to reconditioning. so their relationship is tense for a while, but eventually grows genuine and very close.

i think outside of nick, x6 is the companion she's closest with by the end of things.

[chromaticroses]

self care is blocking v3 haters ☺️🙏

[mansplainmanipulatemalewife]

Having a normal one