#just all of them feeding into sliver's self destructive tendencies for years and years and acting shocked when she self destructed

[arolesbianism]

Creating Sliver the world's worst local iterator group

[myfriendscallmecoelophysis]

Ooh! Why not write about Dinite's pov when he first met his zombie champion and what he thought of the skull temple he built? :P

I am primarily a Sparklez watcher so I did have to dabble in spoilery territory to make sure I was getting exactly how Dianite is being portrayed this go around. So spoiler warning to those who don’t watch Toms POV.

Also note, as of now (17 May 2020) I am going with the theory that none of the Gods are good or evil this season, instead all are working with their own motivations and plans to reach the same goal. The goal being to grow into their full capabilities and power with the help of the heroes.

Enjoy and as always

Find me on Ao3:

Selenejessabelle12626 for the tame stuff

Lady-Spieroles for the less tame stuff ;)

~

Dianite had retreated to the sanctity of his lair upon the feeling of power that surged through the air. All three of them knew what it meant. After years of waiting, watching, planning, it was finally time to set their plans in motion. He was under no illusion that his siblings did not have plans of their own. Nor that they thought him without his own. It was all they’d had to look forward to their entire lives. The day that each of them would meet a mortal hero that Mother had prophesied the arrival of. These mortals would be the one who led them to reach their true potential and to grow into the powers they all possessed. 

The flowers in his lair rose to greet him as his power touched them, glowing from within with ethereal essence to light the cavern far beneath the surface. He had been born knowing who he was, they all had been. The three Gods, Chaos, Order and Balance. His urges to destroy, burn, and otherwise reap chaos had only grown stronger with age. Mother, in her infinite wisdom had known such a thing would happen. She’d worked with him to curb these urges when he was younger, to channel his innate Chaos not into destruction but into another facet, entropy. He could be Chaotic in his lack of predictability. What was the least expected thing for a boy who dreamed of flames? A passion for horticulture and botany of course. 

By the time he’d grown and Mother had gone, his tendencies to lean into that persona had caused it to become who he was. The truest sign of entropy, of unpredictability, was the God of Chaos to be sweet and kind, shying away from what all would expect.

He laid a hand upon a crawling vine, feeding it a sliver of his power, a golden glow emanating and illuminating the extent of the cavern. Here was where he’d begun to study the prophecy further. He was not his sister, he did not get visions and glimpses into the realms and dimensions beyond this one, he had no clue what was to come besides what Mother had written. But weeks ago there had been a voice that had called to him, a creature praising him as ‘his Lord’. Ever since that day, Dianite had felt the urge to destroy begin to grow once more within him. But what was he to do? Was it truly his fate to bring about the Chaos that would destroy the realm? Was he to use this inner fire to defeat the evil that was coming? Was all the work he’d done to temper these urges for naught? 

He had much to consider. So much to plan for. And it began with what to do when he finally met the mortal that would lead him to come into his true powers.

It came several days later. The pull at his mind and soul. It fanned the flames in his mind as the voice returned, the same man praising him as his Lord chanting his name. This was it. He was in the safety of his lair, surrounded by his plants that would protect him from any threats that may come to befall his body if this were to be only a voyage of his mind. If Mianite were to come after him once he realized that Dianite had put binding pollen in his morning tea, preventing him from accessing his abilities and going to his own mortal, Dianite would be protected. But when Dianite opened his eyes, he had left his lair behind. 

It was a cave, like his own, except there was hardly a sign of life aside from the three men stood before him.

“Hello.” He said, hoping the man that would be his follower would be the one to step forward and speak.

It was the zombie who replied. Greeting him? It was strange, the way he spoke.

“Where am I?” Dianite couldn’t help but ask. This place was, depressing. Dark except for the glow of lava rock and fire. Where was the life? The flowers? 

Another of the men spoke up, red glasses perched on his face “Hey you seem nice.” He said with a smirk. Was this instead to be Dianite’s mortal hero?

“Welcome!” The zombie spoke up once more. “Welcome to Minetuga!” There was great enthusiasm in his voice and it was now that Dianite realized that this was the voice he’d heard before. This zombie was to be his follower it seemed. Wonderful. 

A waft of sulfur came from the lava stone and Dianite wrinkled his nose against the smell. “It looks burnt. Ew.” The disgust was less a spoken word and more of a sound that conveyed the feeling.

“This was was the Temple I made for you. To bring you back!” The zombie was saying, apparently having not heard what Dianite had said.

“You made this for me…?” This couldn’t be happening. Of course he would get a follower who thought he would want to embrace the destructive tendencies. Of course! Dianite couldn’t help but laugh in astonishment. It was truly just his luck.

“I made you a skull and everything!” The zombie tried to defend. “You’re currently standing in a demons skull!” He looked offended, shocked even. Well, it appeared entropy was hard at work. Dianite had managed to slap this zombie across the face with his unpredictability. 

“Is it just here? This room?” Dianite asked. What were the chances that his follower not only misunderstood him but was simply inept as well?

“Follow! Look I’ll show you!” The zombie waded into the small pool and swum out of the cave. Dianite sighed but flew after, flying back far enough to see what the zombie wanted to show him. What the zombie had claimed was a ‘demons skull’, was more like a grotesque monstrosity of some sort of monkey creature. It was horrifying to look at, not to mention, literally dripping lava. 

This was not worth it. This was not worth anything. The urge to destroy had grown into a burning flame within him, lightning pulling at his fingertips. He should smite this stupid zombie right now, prophecy be damned!

“Do you not know who I am? This is SCARY!” He yelled down to the zombie. He took a breath to calm the rage building within him and said, slowly so that they would understand. “I am the king of flowers. This, is disgusting.” 

For what it was worth, he looked proper offended, just as disgusted by Dianite as Dianite felt of him. He was already making snide comments to the other two, disrespecting his supposed God without a second thought. 

“I may have powers. But this is awful.” Dianite said. “Is it meant to be a skull?” The zombie frowned and shouted some nonsense about fighting him. 

The fire in Dianite had only been fed by the argument. “It looks like someone who tried to make a skull but failed!” He sneered, chuckling at the zombies expense. The friends joined in, cackling with amusement. 

“You bright me all the way from my heaven… For this?!” He wished this had never happened. He just wanted to be alone with his plants, in his quiet lair, away from this nonsense.

“Heaven!?” The zombie shouted.

“Yes, where all the flowers are.” Dianite explained slowly, clearly this zombie was some kind of imbecile. But he needed this idiot. He needed him even if he didn’t like it. He took a deep breath, smothering the fire and his rage along with it. 

“Maybe… Just maybe…” He had to give the zombie a chance, he had no choice, not if he wanted the true power he was destined to possess. “If you can bring me some flowers, we can talk about working together.” Clearly this behavior was because he was a zombie, it had to be, there was no other explanation. “It must be the zombie in you.” He explained reluctantly. “I don’t like scary things, and you… you have scared me.”

“So. Here’s the thing.” The zombie said. “You weren’t exactly what I was expecting.” Well that was certainly no surprise. It was Dianite’s entire self, be the unexpected, Chaos through unpredictability rather than destruction. “But. I suppose… we can become friends? And get to know each other?” The zombie offered.

“What do you think I was expecting when you brought me out of my flower bath!” Dianite snapped at him. The anger had returned, something about this man left Dianite with an unusually short fuse, far shorter than normal. 

He took another breath. “Friends… Maybe.” Had Mianite and Ianite had this much trouble? Were the other two as inept at his own champion? “Bring me a flower, now.” He demanded, shaking his head. If his ‘champion’ could not do something as simple as this, all was truly lost. 

“YES SIR!” He shouted, swimming away as quick as he could. Well, perhaps there was hope to be had yet. 

The more Dianite thought about it, perhaps this zombie had potential. He’d had expectations of who Dianite was, maybe because he was the god of Chaos innately, or maybe instead because he’d met another version of him before? Ianite had spoken in passing of the visions she had of the other worlds, never in much depth, but she’d given him strange looks on occasion after mentioning other worlds. Was it a case of mistaken identity? Did this zombie think he was the same as another version of himself, was there a version that had embraced the Chaotic desires and this was what the zombie had expected? 

This was to be his fate it seemed. His powers and urges had only grown since the arrival of these mortals and if this was what it took to reach his goal, then so be it. 

I’m sorry Mother. It appears it is time for me to embrace my true nature.

His champion returned, presenting him with a simple poppy, nothing exciting but a flower nonetheless. The others were still there, present and eager to see how else Dianite might break whatever vision they’d had of who he’d be. He would have to be quiet about this. He enthused upon the flower, distracting the others with easy flirtation. But he touched the mind of the zombie, an easy task with his newfound strength.

“Shhhh… I am here to help you. Shhhhhh.” The zombie’s eyes widened but he said not a word. 

He needed to distract the other two further, keep them away while he spoke further with his champion.

“Can you get me a cake?” He asked of the one called Captain. He’d already brought forth his own flower ( a beautiful peony compared to the zombie’s boring poppy) and Dianite could feel his sisters touch upon him, this was her champion it seemed. Well. Ianite was no fool, this man would be the one to be cautious of. 

“I don’t know who you are…” Dianite spoke telepathically to the zombie as the Captain swam away to make a cake. “But let’s have some fun.” 

The zombie agreed with enthusiasm, unhearing of the taunts and mockery sent his way by. 

“I’ll await your instruction!” He said into Dianite’s mind, easily keeping up the telepathy while bantering with the other two. Practiced with secrecy then, that would come in handy. 

“Anyway, kids… who are you and why am I here?!” He knew the answers of course, but he was interested to hear what they might know of the situation. “You need to tell me what this world is.” “Where did these islands come from?” The menial chat had done its job, both the Captain and the other one had dispersed elsewhere but he needed them to stay elsewhere. 

“This is our world of Mianitia.” The zombie said. Out loud though he spun a tale of his arrival and the Captain’s soon after, both of them running from a plague upon their homelands. 

“What is your name boy?” Dianite asked, he grew tired of referring to the zombie as such. 

“They call me Syndicate.” Hmm, interesting, but good enough.

“Wanna do something?” They’d begin with general mischief. It had been sometime since Dianite had allowed his chaos to bleed with destruction. 

“Yes!!!” Syndicate replied, dark eyes nearly lighting in excitement. “What are we doing?”

Dianite had glimpsed a magnificent quartz structure in the distance, a temple to Mianite no doubt, it would be a fitting prank to follow up on the binding one he’d pulled on his brother earlier. 

“I have put some TNT in your inventory. Go and blow my brothers Temple up. I am blocking him from this world.” after a moments thought he gave him even more. Then watched as with little more than a smirk, Syndicate flew away to do the task he’d been assigned. Yes. This one would do nicely with a little bit of guidance. 

The sound of explosions echoed across the archipelago and Dianite gave a smirk of his own. Yes. He would do quite nicely indeed.

[hothian-snow]

A psychological analysis of fanfiction: why writing can be a great way to self-reflect and process trauma

Back in high school I remembered my English teacher saying that books in general can be categorized into two types: windows and mirrors. Windows are something that show you another world, whether it be giving you a glimpse into a culture you are unfamiliar with or a book that lets you walk in the shoes of someone whose identity is different to you. Mirrors are something that reflects the current reality, forces us to inspect ourselves at our very best and very worse. Of course, there isn’t a hard line between these two types but this analogy stuck with me for years and years.

Now, I’m actually a published poet irl although novel writing is still something that is beyond me. Still, my experiences in writing had reaffirmed that in every piece and character that I create, I always inject a part of me into it. It may just be a small sliver, but you need an ounce of sincerity in your fictional creation should you wish to make them feel realistic.

I thought writing casual fanfiction might be different. I mean, fanfiction is fun, it’s a safe space, an open world sandbox for you to play around in. When it comes to SWTOR, my characters are mostly an escapist fantasy. In the current fic I’m writing (which I don’t think I’ll ever publish unless I manage to polish it up one day), Yennevyr Dosal is based of Yennefer from The Witcher mixed with a Critical Role AU of Jester Lavorre where she grew up with her mafia boss father, Babenon Dosal, and helped out in his crime syndicate. Yen was fun to write. She was intelligent, spitefully machiavellian, and straight up badass.

But as I started to develop her, flesh out her flaws and motivation, she became real. She became a mirror, an unintentional reflection of the ugly bits of me which I never wanted the world to see.

All her life, Yen had henchmen fighting the dirty battles for her. She’d had bodyguards protecting her. Now, she’s alone. In a scene which I just wrote where her master ‘abandoned’ her in the middle of a stressful mission, her master simply wanted her to prove to him (and to herself) that she was strong enough to survive without depending on anyone else. He wanted to remove her tendency to choose ‘flight’ rather than ‘fight’. He wanted to teach her the difference between self-preservation and cowardice.

Turns out - although I wanted Yen to learn that lesson too - in that scenario, all I managed to write whilst keeping her in character was to make her learn that she was completely and utterly alone. Her master’s tactics had only reinforced how she had no one to turn to, no one she can trust to be there for her and support her when she needed it the most. In my fic, the force is an echo chamber of what you feel, a feedback loop that turns fear into terror, anger in to wrath. His abandonment turned Yen’s anxiety and feelings of being alone - her unaddressed depression from losing everyone she loved and no longer having anyone to rely on - into an all-consuming despair.

Her master had intended for her to have a mental breakthrough, to discover how to siphon power from emotions of yearning, of wanting to win beyond anything else. He pushed her into that not-so-metaphorical corner because he wanted her to feed off that sense of determination and desire to succeed, to truly understand why “through victory, our chains are broken”. Instead, all she learnt was to how to harness that feeling of hopelessness and turn it into a self-destructive source of fragile strength.

I then began writing the scene where Yen’s master - Darth Kharopos - had that ‘oh shit’ realization that yes, he’d make a coward no longer afraid of death but it was only because now, she welcomes it, and is now passively suicidal. Cue Darth Kharopos hurrying to fix the mistake he made. He too had a moment of growth wherein he realized that no matter how much shit he’d been through (which is a lot... you don’t wear an respirator 24/7 and have a bunch of untreatable scars on your face for nothing), it is different and incomparable to what his apprentice is going through.

Whatever he went through, he knew the risk of being Sith, he understood the dangers of his missions and the enemies he may make on his path to power. Yen never had that choice. The life she previously enjoyed was ripped away from her and she was forced to adapt to a new world that rejected her. Moreover, when his first mother passed, he had his father. When his father died, he had his half-sister and second mother. Yen had no one, and she now believed that her master was truly the sink-or-swim type who’d leave her to die alone if it meant that she was unworthy to live in the first place.

He won’t lower his standards for her, but it is irrational to expect her to behave the same way as his other apprentices did when her baseline and theirs were very different. You can’t train an ex-slave the same way you’d train a Sith whose parents taught them to recite the Sith code the moment they could speak.

This, ladies and gentleman, is when I realized I’ve been projecting so hard onto my OCs. All I wanted after going through some bad things was to have the people responsible for those things realize their mistakes and make some attempt at making amends. I wanted those who had hurt me to feel remorse. I wanted people to try and understand, even if they may not be capable of complete empathy. Forgiveness won’t come easily, but I want to believe that people can change for the better, that the cycle of abuse can be ended. That even among such a stereotypically evil faction, there is good. Maybe this is why people like me are drawn towards the more ““ toxic”” and ““problematic”” setting such as the Sith Empire in the first place.

It seems, escapist fantasies can really shine a light on the things you wanted to escape from. 🌹