#it’s about how dependent i am on her

[blurring-poetry-and-idiocy]

Dear S

You make the world more than liveable, but joyful. the world pales next you, riches are nothing when you are here. i would give up warmth, food, and light, all that you would need to keep you here; two halves sitting under the sun and the moon, understood. I wonder how you understand me. I understand you, and i think you know that. I love you as the ocean loves the moon, longing and reaching forever, never tiring. I love you as the moon loves the ocean, pulling and reaching, forever and ever. I love you as flowers love dirt, taking root and giving beauty from humble beginnings; withering and ending only to give back its nutrients to the ground as it ends. I don’t need words, i don’t need explanation, i need you here. Laying next to me, gentle, loving, silent and asleep. When you leave, and i am all alone it’ll all be gray. The most vibrant of blues will become the flower and wither. The richest of reds will fall like angels, like you. I will be gone, I will be gray and gone. I will be the shell left behind as you fade, as a cicada ventures without its past. It will be a life not worth living

Love, Z

[egophiliac]

We ARE going to bring up Captain Amelia. You have good taste! GOOD TASTE I SAY! *aka I just rewatched Treasure Planet and got hit with, "Oh yeahhhhh... that explains a lot!"*

honestly, the Meg/Jasmine/Amelia trifecta tells you 90% about me as a person. (the rest is covered by Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Uranus and, uhhh, I'll stop baring my soul to the world now)

and speaking of Amelia, this is tangential, but like -- there's one Twst comic I have been kicking at for a while where I needed an RSA sports/flight teacher and, uh, well

someday I will wrangle this stupid comic into coherency and she'll get to make an appearance (in the background of a single panel, half-obscured by a tall hat) (but I will know she's there and that's the important thing)

[timeisacircleofangst]

because guys we've all talked about how Curly had to watch Anya die, but he had to watch Daisuke die too

like yes Curly watched Anya overdose but he also heard Daisuke calling for Anya as he crawled out of the vent. He might not have witnessed his actual death but he saw him all bloodied and distraught at being too late to save her

and I just think about how he felt. How guilty he must have been. You just watched the arguably two most vulnerable people in your crew die and you could have prevented it, but you didn't. You were charged with protecting them they were your responsibility but now they're gone and you get to watch

[naamahdarling]

.

[katyspersonal]

who do you think fucked up worse…gehrman or maria?

This is an interesting question, and I kind of didn't think of it before! Time to take a closer look at their crimes I guess. Some of these will be held on the possibilities and 'safe assumptions' though and addressed for the full picture!

1) Both were involved in Fishing Hamlet massacre!

With Maria, we can conclude as much because she discarded her weapons in the well at the place specifically. Her version in the Nightmare realm, a Hunter again, is supposed to be what punishes her, and she is focused on keeping Kos/OoK away from rummaging through. Considering the nature of the Nightmare, as well as the Doll who has spiritual connection with her, it should come from her guilt and regrets rather than.. I dunno, discarding the hunt over natural 'character development' and just picking a cool place to forsaken her past!

Gehrman sleeps better according to the dialogue Doll has after you kill OoK and free it's soul, so if it tortured him so, I think it is safe to say he had to be personally involved too rather than stay back while his students did the job:

They both were involved with Byrgenwerth, following their quest for obtaining the eyes of the dwellers from their skulls, and I suppose cord of OoK?

The thing about this point is that the description is written as though it was Gehrman's curiosity which ruined Maria's "idealisation" of him, or WOULD ruin it had she learned of it! This makes me wonder whether she was really involved in Byrgenwerth all that much, or whether she was aware of the real purpose of Fishing Hamlet massacre beforehand? Her goal, within the Nightmare, is stated to mercy-kill us so we don't allow that curiousity corrupt us to the point of "rummaging through corpse" and similar things, further supported by her visceral attack being an embrace if it is lethal!

I am just saying that here the balance might slightly shift towards making Gehrman 'worse' than her. Maybe she was not aware that it all was not just killing "monsters" but also a pregnant mother with her divine baby, but "well you didn't ask :/". Maybe Gehrman deceived her to use her aid. Maybe he didn't think it would be a big deal for her seeing that Maria was also interested in evolution through talking with Great Ones, and assumed she'd be just as callous about which means to accomplish the goals with?

2) Both were grave-robbing, or at least okay with that!

This one is a little less obvious, but Tomb Prospectors were not the first to go to the Chalice Dungeons! ...It were actually Willem, Dores and Gatekeeper lol:

BUT ALSO it were Old Hunters! We can see the remnants of it by Old Hunter Vitus being one the summons in Chalice Dungeons, hear Gehrman encourage us to go into the Chalice Dungeons to become stronger as via "tradition" of the Old Hunters,

and the fact that one of the things that torture Maria (again, remember that Nightmare Realm is Hell that punishes) is a Chalice:

(A video ( x ) for a better look at the Chalice from a figure)

I'd say that it is not very nice to disturb the undead Pthumerians just struggling in remains of their civilisation! Interesting thing: we can conclude they are even staying there to protect the Great Ones or their remains!

There has been some sort of civil war between ancient great-ones-respecting Pthumerians and who late became Cainhurst nobles! Maria, ironically, fell onto the side of "entitled guys" descendants! But yes, I could see why bullying zombie guys to get more history and archeology relics from them might not seem like much for her at start. Experience in the Fishing Hamlet likely retroactively ruined this period of her life for her: delving into Chalice Dungeons was likewise 'not leaving the corpse alone'. The remaining Pthumerians were right having some honour and dignity. So, that came to haunt her in the form of Pthumeru Chalice. Gehrman is.. well he's here too I guess dfshfdhs

3) Both knew a little too much about Laurence's shady business and did nothing?

Old Hunters used to be friends with Healing Church's Hunters and even had their workshops located close to one another! Gehrman was friends with Laurence and Ludwig, who are both quite strongly involved with Moon Presence (Ludwig's sword and guidance, Laurence's affiliation being known since Byrgenwerth times), as well as the key figure in creation of Hunter's Dream:

This was most likely a bait-and-switch, seeing how the cord itself is still in the real Workshop, and not in the grasp of Moon Presence (unlike, say, Wet Nurse taking Mergo's cord)! I think the purpose of creation of the Hunter's Dream was to "buy time" for the research conceived by the scientists! Remember: Gehrman was known to have "madness of curiosity" that Maria resented, or at least would resent had she known! He might have been fully aware of what Laurence wanted to do and support it! My point here, that with such proximity, he must have known of all Laurence's crimes and agreed with them!

Maria was at least overseer of the Clocktower's Research Hall, which, again, was just beta!Choir.

This last line IS a bit confusing, because it makes it sound as though the nerds looking for the Eyes Inside and the Blood Ministers got split. Laurence and Ludwig make it weird, as Moon Presence is also an Eldrich creature and Ludwig is for sure full of eyes! What also makes it strange is that Choir, and then School of Mensis, are both upper echelons of the Healing Church, but Laurence is supposed to be above both of them.

I think this can be worked with! Let's say what if Choir formed after Laurence's death, which also happened after Maria's death, and Vicars after him were somewhat "powerless" and walked over by Choir and Mensis, only leaders in the name! But that still leaves the bit that the mentioned "division" happened after Choir was formed! Maria and Adeline, however, are locked to the existence of the Research Hall, so, the timeframe when doctors and blood ministers were 100% working together! We find the Eye Pendant that opens the access to the Research Hall in Laurence's hand, and human Skull of Laurence on the platform that hides the secret elevator to that Research Hall. Again, by the Nightmare Logic, they must be connected with Laurence's sins: he started this research, or sponsored it, or was overseeing it, and so on.

This point is not an absolute thing though, because one or both of them might be freed from guilt here. Maybe Gehrman was not as informed and agreeable as we could assume and Laurence did lead him around? Maybe Maria wanted but could not do anything being caught in the web of complicated connections, blackmail and risks for the people she cared about?

4) Both are willingly involved in questionable practices (Maria with research, Gehrman with the cycle of Dream and Hunt)

This point I feel like transcends the morality a little bit, as it touches the matter of 'it is bad if you do it, but it is also bad if you DON'T do it'. I really love Soulsborne universes for having guts to say "you can't win, just pick your poison", but I think it is still worth addressing!

It is up to interpretation in which quantity Maria is involved with the Research Hall! Nothing states whether she founded it, joined in the research later, stepped in and turned the tides (ba dum tss) of the research, or simply was a caretaker/nurse/etc of the broken mess while Research Hall was getting ready for a bit of rebranding. She can be very guilty, or she can be barely guilty but in either case if that was her "redemption arc" that was a pretty bad way to go about it. ...or was it?

Fauxsefka turns people into Celestial Emissaries so they physically can't become beasts instead, and is even stated to be a hero / heroic researcher by Miyazaki:

First, I don't do Death of the Author (in terms of interpreting media I mean, not in terms of a style of writing)! Like, nope. Never. It is just not for me. Creator's word is the final for me; Fauxsefka is the good guy in the story, apparently, and it makes sense considering the fundamentally broken place characters are in! Maria has similarities with Fauxsefka: not only both of them have Cainhurst roots, but also both of them seem to favour 'Stars' line of evolution for humans!

Whereas other patients are afraid of the horrors of the Deep Sea, a concept Miyazaki could not get over well into DS3, Adeline desires them! Other patients seems to have gotten it right, and you can see one of them also clings to Maria mentally to "not drown"; Adeline "didn't understand"! The balcony that Maria wants Adeline to go to so she can forsaken the Deep Sea and seek something "happier" holds unique kind of patients who can shoot cosmic arcane spells:

Herself, Maria is associated with these lumenflowers: their petals are all over her boss arena, and the way to her lays through a much bigger batch of flowers, where Living Failures, other 'Stars' Kin are, whose song lyrics also feature lines 'ave stellar' and 'ave Maria'!

So, how this is different from what Fauxsefka is doing, who is stated to be as much of a good person as possible within this context and with the burden of her knowledge? Fauxsefka was doing more or less rinse-and-repeat practice, with maybe a few patients not surviving the procedure but we don't know what happened: maybe that person was already at the brink of death and she tried to make them live like this.

^ This guy I mean. Maria, on the other hand, is in the time period where the doctors and scientists were only testing the waters (BA DUM TSSS) (ok I will stop) and it was not SO certain what was at the stake, what were the alternatives, what was awaiting the humanity. It is even possible that the beasts problem was not yet bad to the point of "you'll either become a beast, be eaten by a beast or become a Kin, humanity is DONE for!" ! This was an unethical research at the cost of real people! The weight of Maria's sin here really depends on the interpretation, though

As for the cycle of Dream and Hunt, this is complicated and lingers on one's interpretation of what the purpose of the Dream even IS! Its existence provides two things: 1) a hunter who is immortal for the night, thus can sustain the beasts with efficiency like no other, but also effect the continuity of the night ( x ) and 2) supposed sustenance to the Great One Flora of the Moon, who holds the hunt as a concept!

I used to be a bit more set on the idea that if beasts are not sustained and hunted, they will simply overpower those who are yet humans and eat them! It is a self-feeding cycle of people needing to self-defend from beasts, thus having to consume the blood as urgent means of healing and power-up since beasts are too strong, thus risking to become beasts themselves because the blood they consumed during that hunt corrupts them. So, the Hunter's Dream would be a good thing, as it'd help to 'buy time' during nights of the hunt in which not only beasts are more active but Great Ones too! While the Dreaming Hunter holds everything together, the greatest minds of the Healing Church can efficiently study the ways to end beasthood, or ANY problem of humanity, once and for all! It is just better to throw the hunting resources on the Dream, so the scientists don't worry about the beasts and can focus on research. However, I almost forgot that:

This implies that had there not been Mensis Ritual ongoing, people WOULD have the chance to simply 'wait away' the beasthood problem. That, since Rom is not stopping Mensis Ritual but just conceals it, what really makes the inner beast within everyone who consumed the blood inevitably come out is Mergo's cry that draws the Bloodmoon close!

So yeah, the point about Hunter's Dream being helpful for the research of evolution still stands, especially under assumption that the deal with Moon Presence helped to bring more Eldrich Arcane close for "feeding" her. The point about how if the beasts are not hunted they'll simply eat everyone, though, is vague. It is safer to assume that the Hunter's Dream and Research Hall both are both example of hubris of man even if approached differently. Attempts to draw in something dangerous and horrifying, but it is "justified risk" because if you manage to 'tame' arcane/blood, sure, humanity will prosper!

Like... yeah, sure, there IS dangerous and undesireable nature of man that ruins everything and might or might not still linger in humanoids' genes after Loran. But did humanity ASK any of you guys to keep trying to fix it with so many victims and sacrifices? Like, was it WORTH it?

This point is closely tied to 'knowing Laurence's bad antics and doing nothing', yeah. Maria didn't seem to like blood ministration very much, as she disapproved of Adeline becoming a Blood Saint, but she also didn't even approve of blood antics of her own clan! I am not sure what would be her opinion on the Hunter's Dream had she lived to the point when it was created, just that she herself is not willing to ever hunt, so I am leaving this point aside. Is this just blood ministration that she opposes but proximity with a Great One Moon Presence would be something she can see the potential of? Or would she and Gehrman have a pointless cat fight about whose methods are better when they are both hubris of man? In both versions they are 'guilty'! Besides:

In the end none of THIS matters either and everyone was fooled ( x ). The blood offering is a blood offering in any way; whether it is through spilling blood violently during the hunt, or offering the blood's 'red' with how celestial Kin all bleed red. Moon doesn't care what paints it red, in the end.

___________________________________

My conclusion is: both of these characters fucked up almost equally! I think the balance shifts just a little bit and Maria is slightly better than Gehrman since she had some limitations set on how far she was willing to go. Her motivation was not in "curiosity" but strictly in helping humanity, even if in unfair ways, which is apparently not the case for Gehrman?

I'll say this though, NOW I am hooked on the idea of Maria and Gehrman being petty "rivals" ideologically (for as long as they could before Maria's own demons caught up with her). Especially since neither approach is better than the other and they are both cringe loosers! Again, lost comedy gold over Fromsoft making Gehrman's tender and warm feelings for her before and after her death plain. What is not lost, however, is the fact that the two should just kick Laurence and go home :pensive:

[cream-and-tea]

oh pallas and agnes power dynamic you really are SO unbelievably fucked,,,,,

[little-shadow-club]

I think the best part about Jinchul in SLr is the fact that they kept dropping small details here and there about just how extremely serious he is about protecting earth, but you dont get the full picture until you get to meeting him that you are just like "oh wow hes gone off the rails OKAY!"

Although I think the part that drove home for me that he was just, not thinking sanely would have to be when he proposed the choker bombs on Villains to be wrapped around their neck. Or you know, when he just gave full on permition to Taeshik and other people to go ahead and kill villains and pay them for that. I mean, its obvious when you hear it from me, right now, that Jinchul was obviously crossing the line way before we got told directly that 'yup hes not well mentally.' but considering most action manhwas and, just the general vibe about action fantasy has about stripping criminals from human rights and simply letting them die a gruesome death (heck even SL had bunch of those moments) I was like "oh yeah Jinchul is just being hyped as this hero of justice following along Jinwoo's steps to guide people"

BUT NO, instead Daul really said "This man is suffering a past trauma that he constantly relives in his dreams, he fears everyday that the war hes seen will come back again, porbably even worse, and for that he wants the world to be prepared. Hes on constant alert, hes choosing to take extreme measures for the sake of humanity, the lonelyness he has held for so long has not made him stronger by any means but instead so much more insecure becuase now the only person he has in his life is basically a god, unable to protect earth anymore as he has always done. And as the only one who knows the past he is consumed by the pressure of doing everything he can in order to not let the earth descend into chaos. He cannot even choose to have the past erased becuase those memories just refuse to leave him, and even if he did have the choice, he would NEVER want to erase them, no matter how much its poisoning his mind, no matter how much he suffers. Becuase he's just a man."

And thats just without the shipping goggles off, with them on it just hurts , it just hurts. To Jinchul, Jinwoo is a friend, a family, a hunter, a hero, a god-- his only one-, a monarch, a human, a survivor and the entire reason the world still persists. (While also not mentioning hes the sole reason of Jinchul's trauma since the more he spends with Jinchul the more hes afected by his aura. same to what happened with Ilhwan.) Brother hes MORE than codependent on that man than anyone of us will ever be.

[the-red-hoodlum]

killing people who don’t get an animals consent before touching them &/or ignore when animals are visibly uncomfortable with being touched.

[dailykugisaki]

Day 223 | id in alt

Maki thinking some very unsorcererly things over a piece of damn cheesecake.

(Read from right to left💥)

[manasurge]

@hollythame omg I didn't think anyone would notice me mentioning that alksjf. I wanna reply properly to the ask either tomorrow or saturday when I have more time so I can have time to add some doodles to it as well to my response.

[brionysea]

I still have no idea if karen wheeler is even aware of el's existence as mike's girlfriend. do they think her name is el or jane?

[falmerbrook]

What is the worst thing your OC does in their story?

What is your OC’s ‘‘darkness moment’’ in the plot?

Dealer's choice on which OC for these!

Does your Vestige cross paths with Darien? (Which, like, *obviously* in the game mechanics, but do they have any sort of opinions/relationship outside of that, I guess.)

I think I'll do both Stellar (Nerevarine) and Elisere (LDB) for the first two!

What is the worst thing your OC does in their story

Stellar: He likes to think and act like he's this morally bankrupt bad boy, but he is not. Deep down he wants to be the good, celebrated hero, so he has pretty strong moral convictions and really can't bring himself to violate them. Probably the stuff he got up to as a teen was his worst, however. Prior to being shipped to Morrowind he was invovled in organized crime (which is what inevitably got him thrown in jail). Since he was young, he personally mostly did minor petty stuff and specialized in theft, but he was 100% an accomplice to much darker crime, and the specific event that got him caught invovled him crushing an old guy under some crates to distract the guards chasing him.

Elisere: Conversely, at the start, Elisere likes to think of her as this beacon of justice when her morals are actually pretty fucked up. Her initial intention on travelling to Skyrim was the (very unrealistic, emotionally fueled) goal of killing as many Nords as possible just because she hated Nords. She never actually got very far with this given she was caught literally at the border, so I wouldn't say that counts (although she probably took out a few random dudes during the initial commotion at Helgen). There is certainly a lot of only-kinda-justified killing under her belt, but there probably isn't one singular moment of "worst", rather a general shittiness of her character at the start of the game's story.

What is your OC's "darkest moment"

I'm going to interpret this as more their lowest moment, since a grimmest/most unethical interpretation would be pretty similar to the first one.

Stellar: After Caius suggested he might be the Nerevarine, Stellar got real pissed off about it (having been quietly wondering it himself, but he didn't want it to be true), took the money he had made from Caius, and travelled to Black Marsh with the intention of leaving Morrowind behind for good. Once he got there, though, he was slapped in the face with the reality that the local tribes didn't see him as a Saxhleel, and since he had basically no cultural connection to the Saxhleel it was unlikely he'd ever be truly accepted by anyone there besides of other outsiders. He felt like an outsider there, but didn't want to go back to Morrowind either.

Elisere: When her mother and grandmother died within like a week of each other. Her grandma was the only person in her life she felt fully open and comfortable with, and with both of them gone her whole family was a bit of a mess. She also saw them as her one connection to her snow elf heritage, so losing them was like losing a whole family history to her. It was the inciting incident to make her impulsive move to Skyrim.

As for my Vestige (Atena) and Darien, yes! They are buddies! Atena's "canon" alliance is the Daggerfall Covenant, so she goes through all the quests with him in Glenumbra, Rivenspire, and Bangkorai (and beyond. I also like to think they spent at least a little bit more time together casually outside of the game quests). Her first impression was that he was endearingly eye-roll worthy. Not interested in his flirting but definitely saw him as a friend. She's generally up to befriend anyone and everyone and recognized that he was worthy pretty quickly. He was type of friend you keep at arm's length to not get caught up in their hijinks but who you happily will listen to their stories about them after the fact. They get a lot closer leading up to the final assault in Coldharbour though, and especially during Summerset. Because of her memory issues, she doesn't actually think of him that often, but when she is remined of him it hits her like getting hit with a truck.

TYSM FOR THE ASK!!! It gave me some very interesting stuff to think about! <3

[theladyfae]

42 / lost brilliance, rita dove

[caitlynmeow]

Being in the middle of two sisters, Cassandra never catches a break.

When it’s about getting things done, it’s always “the older two” which means her and Bela.

When she gets into all kinds of trouble with Daniela it’s always “the younger two”.

In one instance, Daniela is excluded, and in the other Bela is excluded. Her? She is always there and she’s never excluded from either responsibility or mischief.

[ayrennaranaaldmeri]

Weisshaupt mission definitively proving that da is at its sexiest when it's wardens and yet here I am feeling an unbearable amount of salt because we walk through a FUCKING WARDEN LIBRARY and they could've put in a fucking NOTE about the HERO OF FUCKING FERELDEN IN THERE. SO GLAD THE FUCKING JOINING CHALICE WAS RECOVERED FROM FUCKING OSTAGAR THOUGH.

[neige-leblanche]

i honestly think the stress of my job is bad for my health tbh