#proper lore write-up… eventually

[aabluedragon]

Convergent evolution is realizing I wrote some flavor of agere way back in 2019 completely independent of others’ examples as one of the first things to break the BotW AU of my main OC out of continuously reliving his past 100 years of imprisonment.

Image circa. 2019

Say hello to Prince Sol Hyrule! Or rather, don’t. Whoever— whatever you’re looking for… it’s… not here. Nothing is here.

The highly abbreviated gist of it is that whatever magic was used for him to become Calamity Ganon’s seal did not seal Sol’s consciousness, leaving him to stare into and practically breathe Calamity for 100 straight years. Nothing but the sound of his own thoughts and memories, chewed and regurgitated until he can’t tell where memory ends and dreams begin. Can he prove that those things happened at all? Eventually, those stop too. In the absence of all things, Calamity’s heartbeat does not cease.

—————

The Beast has no need for comfort — not from the Hero that tore it from its home, much less the King that ordered its capture. The “outside” is vast, greater than anything it has ever experienced, closing around it, surrounding it. The… cabin. That is far more agreeable. Yet it is the den of the King. It wishes to be left alone.

The King returns with a sack heavy with goods — wooden, like the aged-timber smell of the cabin. It does not look. The floorboards underfoot bear the weight of each object — dense, with the mundane timbre of a drinking cup against a table. It does not move. The King murmurs something it does not understand and leaves it to its dreaming.

It does not recall if it had waited for the King’s footsteps to fade, or if the occasional rasp of paper against paper had been with it all along. In its view is a set of blocks. Building blocks, something reminds him. For children to model other objects by shape and structure. And next to them, a wooden creature that rolls towards him at the tug of a string affixed to its snout.

The texture is smooth, more like the slippery grain of the table than the floor. It weighs against the palm, and something possesses him to let go and grasp at another shape. There is no reason to its construction. He is… content to watch as wooden structures rise and fall, rounded edges biting into his skin when it dampens the fallout’s return to the floor.

The insistent grind of wood against wood aggravates, and his heart forces the breath from his lungs in a halting whine. He pauses in his winding of string around his finger. Reins, he supplies. Attached to the bit and bridle of a painted horse. It burns, yet his finger grows cold. The horse releases itself into a rattling canter, colliding noisily against a fallen archway. His throat is tight, another pitiful sound crawling up into his mouth.

—————

I imagine the order of processing his father bringing these toys to him goes something like this:

numbness —> offense(?) —> confusion —> curiosity —> okay FINE

There’s just enough stimulation to keep his mind from wandering towards Calamity, riding that wordless thought-language until he slowly stops bristling at everything that interrupts his dissociation. As for how little he drops, I’d say around 7-9? Somewhere with enough indignance to want to argue with you but without the emotional constitution to articulate it when he’s overwhelmed. I’m very new to all this and am reexamining the themes of my past work rather than writing something specifically for agere or otherwise. Please be patient with me. I’m happy to discuss the topic as well!

With his pronouns, it’s less so a matter of gender so much as how distant he wishes to be from the ordeal of free will. It probably isn’t surprising that the person who harps about costuming and vocal tone enjoys communicating state of mind via something like pronouns, haha… Can’t believe sealing Calamity Ganon seals your pronouns too.

[flamingredanon]

I'll post some general fics sometime this weekend, but I finally got a decent amount done for my Vampire Trio AU fic.

This fic is basically written in the style of a journal by Lord Reginald Copperbottom, viewing the world from his eyes and how he meets and ends up with Henry and Right, alongside some other lore.

CW that this fic will contain occasional references to death and murder, vampires and vampire hunters, mentions of burning at the stake, mentions of a brotherly betrayal (if you know Right's story then it isn't a surprise) and note that this is a Copperrightmin fic

[goddessofblood]

got a lot of things I wanna do after I actually get a new apartment & move in, but none are more exciting than fully comiting to working on Aster & Terra’s games.

[satoruhour]

HIHII hope you are doing well!!!

I have a request but if you're not comfortable writing it's completely fine too!!

Anyways~ can you write something with University professor geto x top student reader??? They have a lot of sexual tension and geto continuously targets the reader in his lectures only for her to storm into his office after a test in which he didn't give her the marks she deserved just so he could piss her off and eventually leading them to blow off some steam together hehe-

HEJSJSH ANYWAYS I HOPE YOU HAVE A GREAT REST OF THE DAY💗💗

-🍒

I GOT THAT DUMB D*CK !

a/n: hi cherry 2! saying 2 because i already have another cherry anon, thank u for waiting for this btw sorry this took so long omggg!!! i wanna make it similar to the short blurb i did here, but ill leave out reader being a camgirl! a lot of lore talk, just a warning

wc: 8k (sigh ....)

warnings: so much lore lol sorry, no beta we die like men, age gap (32 / 24), professor!geto, fem!reader, geto is also a cam worker, masturbation (both f and m), toy use during f! masturbation (vibrator), fantasising, pet names, praise, degradation, use of ‘slut’ and ‘whore’, oral (m receiving, f receives briefly at the end), dumbification (ig?) face-fucking, deep-throating, spitting in mouth, unprotected sex, creampie / breeding kink, cum eating, implied multiple rounds, n*sfw under the cut

no one could really pinpoint the reason why professor geto had picked on you, called you out so much, and why you entertained the incessant questions. it was unbecoming of a prof., he knew, it was never smart to favour one person (negatively, in this case) in a room of bright students who could read between the lines. but he just feels himself so drawn to your furrowed eyebrows and words laced with venom, because at the end of the day, he can see that you aren’t all talk.

you challenge his views and you do it in a way that catches him off-guard. you propose insane arguments that you willingly would die at the grave just to find evidence for; or it could just be because he was staring too much at the way your mouth moved and your eyes expressed everything to pay attention to your words, finding that you were just too beautiful to be chasing a linguistics degree.

this was another thing: geto suguru could possibly have anyone he wanted. he was fine. shoulders pulled back in proper posture, hair either tied up fully or just halfway, and always, always wearing shirts with sleeves that reach his wrist. to that, everyone could see just how bulked the man was, top looking too tight all the time.

geto knew he was fine, too, because on top of (and before) being a professor, he found that he could get a good amount of money by just streaming — camera propped below his neck and obviously tight button-up shirt discarded to reveal his tattooed body, while he has his legs spread and the thirsty, horny comments flooding in on the platform. it’s been a norm by now, started from his uni days where he needed some extra money to support his fees and living necessities.

one year turned into two, two years turned into stagnancy during his third and fourth years (save for a few occasional streams), and up came a little funny graduation stream suggested by his best friend. geto had spent a good half ’n hour talking about his time in university and thanking his viewers, changing up the setting almost immediately by showing hard he was.

[uzum4kisl0ver]: YEAAAH we’re getting to the good stuff, thank u for feeding us so well these few years uzumaki-san!!

[minstash96]: Congrats on graduating Uzumaki-san!! I rmb joining during your third year and found out from everyone u were getting busier </3 but Im glad youre back again!!!

[g_bigdick_s]: fellas is it gay to support your best friend’s graduation jerking off stream

the flood of “yes”’s replying to gojo made the streamer laugh, thankful that his best friend had listened a little and at least changed gojobigdicksatoru to just his “G.S.” initials to avoid people finding his LinkedIn. from there, geto had gotten into the true nature of his stream easily, fishing out his cock to stroke and loving the sounds of tips coming in, the name of his alias Uzumaki continually commented. since then, it’s become a side hustle — finishing his masters, training to become a professor, it’s all natural to him, taking even further steps to make sure he isn’t found out.

exactly, he could have anyone he wanted — a fan from his streaming account, or one of satoru’s regular fwb’s but instead he finds himself drawn to someone else, you, the second year student in his bilingualism and multilingualism module that he has no trouble teaching despite his freshly employed status.

at the start of the week, the gods decided thought it would be funny to delay the campus bus that would take you to the english department for a consultation session with your professor. you couldn’t focus in lectures due to bad cramps, you were behind on your non-major related courses, the bad luck just seemed to seep into one day after another. you had woken up late, putting on a terrible outfit that no one really cared about, except your professor who just had a smirk on his face.

“if you notice, runes were created as they were spoken — spelt as they are said which almost look like ‘pictographs’,” prof. geto switches to the next slide with the runes and their meanings alongside a jumble of symbols that send the whole class into hysterics, “can anyone sound out the phonetics of these runes to me? hint: even though i said they look like pictographs, the first rune is definitely not an E.”

he was known for asking questions during lectures, pleased with anyone that would even try because he knew how quiet lecture theatres could get. he was exactly like that in university, too, letting satoru take all the attention due to the many unknown people in the same room. now, he found that asking the questions was a little entertaining, seeing the way students look back down at their laptops and avoid eye contact. but he doesn’t need to do anything and his body is already turnt towards you. he’s not even pointing physically, which he thinks he’s done a good job of restraining himself.

ᛊᛃᚨᚾᛖᛚ

“the words and names should be as they sound — so ‘s’ or ᛊ should translate into a ‘c’ since they didn’t have a C back then and it’s the closest sound to C. ᛃ can’t be ‘h’ because of the usage of H in hagl . . its pronunciation is different and plus, we’ll spell it how we say it, so maybe it’s ‘j’?” you mutter to yourself, an urge to answer the quickest, always. you aren’t sure where this streak came from, but you’ve been smart always, “sja . . it either can be chanel or channel since there’s a rule you can’t use the same rune twice in succession . .”

professor geto already knows you’d be the first to answer, raising your hand even without looking since you were still calculating the other four letters which you put together fairly quickly.

you take the safest route, “chanel, with one N.”

geto clicks his tongue and sucks in a breathe, “so close, miss (y/n), but it’s because i cheated a little on my part.” you can feel your blood boil and the grimaces of other students when he switches to the next slide and there’s a little grin on his face. it says — ‘there is no distinction between capital and small runes, nor can you use the same rune twice continually.’

“you are right, partially, but i did want to drive home the point,” which he’s sure you already know. “that words with two N’s or L’s or whatever, would only show up in the runic language as only one character.” your face morphs into something of annoyance and the grin on professor geto’s face only widens — that defiant, headstrong nature is something he loved, but the grin drops a little when he imagines something . . out of the classroom. his pants tighten.

you mirror him, clicking your tongue and reluctantly taking down the note in your documents before sinking into your chair — not even chō, you friend, could find the proper words to comfort you. you spend the rest of the lecture, sulking, unwillingly answering his incessant questions with a scowl on your face and a headache forming.

this never stops—

“miss (y/n)?” one-on-one meetings were the bane of your existence, but it was the only way to connect with your professors properly — here, geto calls you to talk about your latest essay where you were the last on the roster. by then, everyone has filed out with nobara waiting for you just outside the classroom.

“don’t have to call my name, i’m the only one here.” you mutter under your breath, and geto feels a little annoying today.

“what was that?”

“nothing—”

he hums, scooting his chair closer once you sit, and while you find the gesture a little weird, you’re overcome with just how good he smells and it only fuels your hatred more. it’s no fair that he’s so . .

“miss (y/n).” you sigh with an apology, frankly not ready to hear how he’d be attacking your essay. it was written on a rushed timeline, you didn’t cite your sources properly, you knew some criticism was warranted as much as you didn’t like to hear it from your professor’s mouth.

“. . you do know you can’t just rely on your brain, right?” geto speaks softly and you feel your heart flutter at his tone. he points to the places where you forget your in-text citations.

“but professor, information about syntax and phonetics just comes like second nature . .” you mumble, ignoring how he closes his eyes and hisses, “and all the sources on the internet say different things.”

“then just find a reliable one.”

you tsk, taking the paper from him and flipping to the next page, “well, i did one here.” the paper makes a sound when you press your finger into it, aware of how close you are. from here you can feel the heat radiating off his body, unconsciously rubbing your thighs together.

“too long ago, needs to be within five years.” geto’s lying through his teeth.

“no, it does not!” you pull back and look at him incredulously. ah, the feeling’s gone, “not in language related papers, at least!”

“but that claim was from the 2000’s, miss (y/n), for all we know it could’ve been resolved by then.”

“then why didn’t you say anything about chō’s scholar article from the 1990’s?” you’re standing up, now, furrowed eyebrows depicting the very thing you feel: confusion, agitation at being treated like this. given you weren’t in the best condition when you wrote this essay, but you still gave it your all.

“her argument was about the interconnectedness between the romance languages — yours,” he punctuates while leaning back in his chair. you don’t like how your eyes flit down to his lap, but you’re forced to look up when he stands up too, “is about the use of ciphers in comparison to an immature language developed on the internet that created in the 2019s. any scholar claim before that would be void.”

your blood boils just like that day. alas, he had a good point, but like always, the gentle slit of his eyes and the all-knowing smile didn’t match the bullying he was laying on you and you despise it.

even! even, as you notice how there’s probably less than a inch between your faces as you puff out your chest to look more intimidating and yet geto suguru towers over you. and even when your heart beats loudly in your ears, feeling his hot breath fan over your own face while you don’t miss how he licks his lips and glances down to yours not-so-secretly.

you swallow at the silence, until there’s the annoying notification of his Outlook cutting the tension and soon you’re snatching the essay from him, walking to where your bag is. although you want to let your anger overflow, all you say is a tame, “noted. thanks, prof” with a glare, eye twitching.

you made sure to slam the classroom door with shaky hands . .

. . but you’re not very good at capping your rage. “i swear to god! he better fucking check his mirror and admire himself because soon i’m going to beat him up so bad that everyone can’t recognise him.” geto’s lips turn up in a small smirk at your flared expression he just witnessed — he just loves your dirty mouth and he finds himself thinking of it more and more often.

chō only can tut, “so you find him attractive?”

“what? how the hell did you infer that from my rant?” you scoff, shoving her to the side, not aware that your whispered outburst is heard as he’s packing up. he simply enjoys looking at you walk away through the glass slit of the door, hips swaying unknowingly.

“bad news, guys,” geto, or rather Uzumaki, sighs on screen, adjusting so the lens of the camera rested just below his collarbones. easily, his chat fills up with a mixture of horny comments and genuine questions, chuckling to himself as he unbuttons his shirt. he feels more like a sinner at this point, suddenly flustered with the confession he’s about to make.

“i think i’ve taken quite a liking to someone,” geto hums, hands going to his trousers to palm his bulge. he had to get home immediately after that, cancelling his meetings for the day. with a single text to gojo, the white-haired man was excited to hear everything about this new person, thankful that his best friend will finally not be alone.

[g_bigdick_s]: TELL US! TELL US!!!! TELL US!

but professor geto is lost instantly, imagining you as he massages his erection. thinking about your anger transforming into pleasure, into obedience for him as he forces your mouth down on his cock. oh . . how’d your mouth and hands feel, how’d your pussy feel.

geto groans, already removing his dick from the constraints, and pumping it to full length. he doesn’t even talk much, only the endless comments and tips reminding him he was still on live. spitting on his hand, he wraps his hand around himself again, thumbing the tip and hoping it’d be your tongue swirling around it.

what would you look like on your knees, taking each inch of his cock down your throat? would he be able to wipe the defiance off your face? would he be able to fuck his smart student, dumb?

“you need a good destress, woman,” chō suggests over the phone, voice a bit uneven due to it being stuck in between her shoulder and ear, “go on camstar or something, i’m sure you’ll find something hot there.”

“chō, i am not going on a porn streaming website! i’ll very much settle for my smut fics, thank you.”

“boo, don’t you get bored? i get that normal adult industry videos are super inaccurate but . . when was the last time you’ve watched an unfiltered, unedited jerk off vid? that’s the hottest.”

you scoff, “yeah, like you would know, miss complain-whenever-you-get-dick-pics.”

“that’s because it’s unsolicited! plus all the men who send me pics have ugly dicks. if anything i’m more open to get unsolicited pussy pics rather than consensual dick pics at this point.” your friend nonchalantly says, spreading her fingers to look at her manicured nails, “but anyway, prof geto is on your ass too much lately. maybe he wants to get in your pants?”

you don’t recoil at the suggestion as much as you expect to and you’re puzzled at that — “please never say that again.” just as you’re saying this, you’re typing in camstar.org even though you told yourself not to but deep down, you know that you’ve been craving more than just twitter links and porn with plot stories. on the front page, you’re seeing a video thumbnail of a guy with a fairly big . . feature, countless tattoos lining his body while you can catch a faint glimpse of his long hair in the dark room — it’s the only one that draws you in, other streams merging into a blur.

chō’s voice fades off when you notice just how popular the stream is, cursor hovering over the title (“just a ramblefap, need to release some tension”) almost tempting you to click.

“okay, will get back to you,” succumbing to your needs, you shamelessly grab your vibrator just as she cheers into the phone. you can hear that’s my girl! on the other side as you stifle a smile, bidding a goodbye before you settle into bed. from there, you do what you always do: relax for a few, slow your breathing, get yourself wet a little—

click.

The stream you have attempted to view has ended a minute ago. We apologise for the inconvenience caused. View more livestreams below:

you shove the vibrator under your pillow and bury your head into it, screaming.

“i mentioned in yesterday’s lecture that Latin evolved from the dialects of the Italic peoples of ancient Italy, or Latium, a region in central western Italy. over time, Latin absorbed elements from other languages, such as Etruscan and Greek, and it became the main language of the western Mediterranean.” professor geto rambled on in classic geto fashion — it was his passion that made him so easy to listen to, as with the many enamoured girls with googly eyes and the guys who wish they could carry themselves the way geto did.

you’d say the same thing: his love for his subject of study made him attractive — charming even — as much as you didn’t want to admit to your friend, but you’d be more open with your attraction like everyone is if he wasn’t—

[9:52am, (y/n) -> chō 💟] so fucking annoying and cocky and picking on me all the time!!!!!! im soooo sick of him im so serious omfg ....

but today, he’s looking less at you and more at other students, or even marvelling at the terrible paint job of the classroom as he goes from slide to slide. he talks about the derivation in which French separates from Latin, borrowing similar spellings and meanings from the old language while separating the way they are spoken.

“French is the most divergent of the romance languages because of strong Gallic and Frankish influences. The Celtic Gauls spoke a language similar to Old Dutch but adopted Latin as the Romans invaded Gaul.” you don’t even have to look at him to get him thinking of lewd things, spiralling into his fantasies ever since last night. geto is a little fatigued, too, having lost sleep over his fucking student which he just can’t help bothering. excitement at having you in class before is now turning into dread with every week that passes, and this week is just one instance.

“uh— i-i know you guys aren’t well-versed in either, but with your knowledge of both languages,” geto pulls at his tie. he feels hot, “discuss with your tutorial groups, the differences between the two and list down examples. just come up with one difference, but preferably name a few instances.”

[10:01am, (y/n) -> chō 💟] wish u were here im so bored 😭😭 profs acting so weird today tho

[10:01am, chō 💟 -> (y/n)] is he looking hot and bothered, nervous ??? like he wants to cry? im tellin you he wants you fr

of course she’d come out of her sickness-induced sleep just to bother you about him having the hots for you.

[10:02am, (y/n) -> chō 💟] you’re so ... i swear pls shut up he may want me but i do NOT want him

[10:03am, chō 💟 -> (y/n)] not even while you were just ranting about how his side profile looked a little too good in lecture yesterday?? anyway i hope you’ll be able to get that nut tn 🙏🏼 that guy on camstar sounded hot asf

[10:04am, (y/n) -> chō 💟] ikr i cant believe i got cockblocked by a fuckin livestream ending 💀 thank you fr i need it atp

“any progress here?” he comes out behind you and you slam the phone so hard you give the both of you a scare while your other friends exchange giggles with each other. what you don’t know, is how his arm is positioned upon the back of your chair and his whole body hovers just beside yours. you’re threatened to look, but you know if you do, you’d be falling deeper into the pit that you promised yourself not to fall into.

“yup, we’re just discussing things about how in terms of grammar, French has conjugation but almost no declension. but— uh, it rather uses word order to express some of the intricacies that Latin expresses through word endings.”

you can see geto nod from your peripheral, “good. good answer, any examples to show me?”

your friends nod towards you since you’re usually the one with all the information about different languages. they aren’t foreign to the way geto keeps calling on you to answer him, too, so you shouldn’t have any problem with this, right?

wrong. you’re stuttering through your answer, turning your head finally and being met with the sight of prof geto looking down on you like a deer caught in headlights. you think that being in lecture theatres, sitting near to the back and your hatred in general has desensitised you to the beauty of your professor, because being under him like this makes your core pulse uncomfortably and your voice shaky.

“. . hm? what was that?”

“i was uhm— saying how— uh,” the way geto nods at you makes you more nervous, painting you as someone who someone who had all bark and no bite, but the other knows very well that you had a nasty bite. you’re smart and witty, pretty, hot as fuck, and if anything, it’s taking everything in geto not to bend you over and show you your place in this very classroom in front of everyone, too.

“little lady got nothin’ for me today?” geto purses his lips and lets his teasing side take over, an easy-going smile taking over his features that you just want to kiss and slap off at the same time. wait.

“i didn’t get enough sleep because i was too busy trying to rewrite the damn essay you said i had outdated and missing sources for,” you speak through gritted teeth, feeling a mixture of arousal and pure rage for the man hovering over you.

geto juts his lip out in a pout, face getting dangerously close to yours and challenging you. he just hopes your two friends won’t say anything, “well, darling, if you picked an easier topic to argue about, you wouldn’t be doing that, would you?”

“well, sorry i’m always trying to outdo myself. are you, professor geto? what with your boring suits and black and white slide designs?”

you click your tongue and turn back to your phone to pull up your chat with chō while geto takes a deep breath, desperately hoping the hard-on wouldn’t show through his slacks. your other two friends only giggle even more at the exchange, because for the rest of the class, professor geto is on edge, unable to teach coherently.

[11:17pm, chō 💟 -> (y/n)] YOU DID WHAAAAATTTTT...???? GIRL YOU SAID THAT???!!!!!!

[11:18pm, (y/n) -> chō 💟] bro what if i get expelled.. i shouldnt have but he was pissing me off so much... i did put an apology in the end tho

by then, you’ve already submitted your rewritten essay, putting in a short note at the end for your behaviour in class. although you don’t take it back, you’re still trying to play it safe especially with how much you paid to get into university. you scroll along camstar, bored out of your mind and hoping to find something as compelling as the inked guy from last week, but nothing really draws you in. until you’re refreshing the page, and just like the previous time, the popularity of that same bulking guy seems to push his video to the top.

and finally, before you’re clicking into the video, you check out his profile: in his early thirties, started this account when he was 24 and in university. you smack your lips at that — he’s been doing this for almost ten years? that’s dedication. in curiosity, you scroll down his account, seeing the progression of which this guy built up his figure and tattoos that litter his body. he’s kept the same format, camera showing his body chest down until you’re lazy to scroll more, a little disappointed in not being able to find any indication of his face.

you think that maybe you saw a glimpse of that wrist tattoo that matched the tattoo on your professor’s wrist, but you could just be imagining things.

“alright guys . .” the man on the screen huffs, clothes already discarded to get straight to the point, and you’re recording a small snippet of the same guy you told chō about. “had a rough day today.”

the onslaught of comments going i can make u feel better!!! Take ur anger out on me Uzumaki-san makes you sputter and laugh, sending that video first before you’re taking another. your attention is stolen for a moment, seeing chō react with emojis to your video message (“let’s see what emails i got today, huh?”), but the structure of sentences that the man speaks soon brings you out of jollity and into shock.

“how cute, an essay sent straight to my email.” geto wants to do anything but look at emails right now, but ever since he’s gotten your rewritten assignment, it’s all he’s wanted to check out if it wasn’t for the many meetings and errands he had to run today. “yadda yadda . . oh?”

“i’m sorry for today’s lesson,” purposely pausing to leave out his name, geto continues on, “i shouldn’t have reacted in that way no matter the situation.” a smirk forms on his face while your body fills with dread. in your panic, you pull up your own document whilst catching all of this on camera, tracking each word as the man on camstar.org continues to say out your apology word by word.

and then bit by bit, you’re making out how the man behind the camera might, just might be your linguistics professor. the broad shoulders, the jawline, the long hair, the manspread . .

but even with your heightened combination of excitement and revelation, you don’t click away, blindly sending the video to your friend and then shamefully digging under your pillow to grab your vibrator.

“teaching people is so difficult sometimes, guys,” he grunts, pulling down his underwear and revealing his already hard cock. he lets out a shaky sigh as he wraps a hand around his shaft, “you usually get the people who won’t do any work, the ones who are absent half the time — usually they go hand in hand.”

professor geto laughs and you twitch at the lovely sound. “but . . there’s this one girl . . in my classes— f-fuck.”

you’re entranced, watching your professor masturbate in front of thousands of people who possibly didn’t know a thing about this man while you try to get your jaw off the floor, “who is entirely different from these categories.”

“she’s smart,” geto groans out and you watch transfixed as he starts to pump himself, hips grinding up into his palm, “she’s so smart that i’d want to get to know her one day and just talk about anything.”

“s-she’s so fucking attractive, too, you guys won’t even— oh goddd . .” you feel like you’re being watched, so you’re careful with how you’re putting your vibrator to your core and once you start it, the moan that leaves you lines up with geto’s deeper groans. it turns you on so damn much.

with his head tilted back, he’s long gone as he moves his hands faster and faster, the slick noises of his pre-cum and spit mixing in together — geto only wishes he could act on his desires once the course was over, but knows you’ll probably be mortified at the prospect. at least here, he can imagine that it’s your mouth or cunt doing all the work.

“s-shitttt . .” the professor sounds out, hissing when he thumbs his tip and even more pre comes spilling out and while you watch, you’re hypnotised by the beautiful moans in its perfect cadence and the thickness of his cock. by now his chest is heaving and he’s holding onto his bedsheets so tight you wish it was your thighs.

“i want to fuck her silly, fuck all of those stupid facts out of her head and get her dumb on my cock,” geto whines, hips fully bucking up now while you press your vibrator deeper into your clit. you’re left wondering how his mouth would feel, to shut him up by pressing him into your cunt until he can’t breathe, soak his stupid fucking suits, “want to hear her moan my name.”

you whimper at all the things professor geto swears he wants to do to you, grinding into your hand while he speeds up as well. he doesn’t speak, simply stroking himself as he thighs tense up and he squeezes his shaft with head full of visions of you in terribly lewd positions, making disgusting sounds, and all for him. it isn’t long before geto cums with a loud drawn out moan, shooting his cum onto his torso with a sigh before taking a sticky hand to his lips, licking it off — “i’d want to see my cum dripping out of her one day.”

that sends a chill down to your core, biting your pillow before you release softly all over your hand and vibrator; you spend the rest of the night watching professor geto’s other videos.

[12:32am, chō 💟 -> (y/n)] oh. OH..........

“i should’ve just taken an off-day today, i do not want to get back our results.” chō rubs at her eyes and temples, wanting anything to do with the return of test marks, but unfortunately it was the week after midterms and it was inevitable, “don’t need to ask you though, you’re probably not worried at all.”

“trust me, i am,” you bite the inside of your cheek. it’s been at least . . two weeks after that whole debacle, and despite your intense vents with your friend and the continuous picking on by prof. geto, nothing out of the blue was happening. except, maybe, your growing physical need for your professor and your simultaneous, increasing hatred for him.

“it’s only midterms — you don’t need to worry too much since it doesn’t contain a high percentage. what you should be focusing on are your finals. we’ll work on your shortcomings and mistakes here so you guys will do the best when the time comes.”

and when professor geto comes around to hand you your test, all you do is glare up through your lids, taking it from him before feeling your whole world crumble.

“a B+?!” your mouth gapes open at the blatant 65/100 mark that glares back at you. you know that you would’ve gotten anything but a 65, willing yourself to study harder and harder just to rub it in his pretty little face that you weren’t falling behind in his class. at this point it’s got to be personal, so soon, you’re packing up your things angrily with the intent to storm his office after your other classes.

it’s late in the afternoon when you finally finish your other tutorials on a short fuse, him clearly getting ready to head home by the darkness of his office when you shove your way through the door.

professor geto is sat in a laid-back position, tie hung on the hooks installed in the office and a few buttons are unbuttoned, revealing the very familiar tattoos you’ve become acquainted with.

“to who do i owe the pleasure?”

“cut the crap, prof.,” you scowl, using your foot to slam the office door close. despite the late nights being buried in your sheets, you won’t let yourself be treated like this, “i deserved anything but a 65 on midterms.”

geto tilts his head, sitting up and gesturing out to you; you realise he wants to see your test paper.

“ah!” with a finger, he makes a show of finding for your obvious mistakes which was minimal — but the way he marks obnoxiously tells you everything you need to know, “here. your comprehension of the similarities between Latin and Ancient Greek was too surface level, you didn’t explain why—”

“i. did!” you press down into the paper like the first time, leaning over his table and reading out the exact answer you wrote just a few days ago, “here, since your blind ass wants to act like i wasn’t answering the question.” you push yourself into his desk more, eyes levelled with his. you dare him to say something smart.

“well, your explanation of the six cases in Latin left out the locative, the last one, and there were some problems in the conjugation that the test asked of you.”

“bullshit. show me, if you’re so confident.”

professor geto knows he’s hit a dead-end. he was telling lies, full of it, but he’s enjoying every second of the anger that translates into your features, of the growl in your voice. he leans back further the more you close in on him.

“nothing, right? so tell me, do you hate me that much?”

geto simply laughs, crossing his arms and reminiscing on the many nights he’s spent doing anything but.

“quite the opposite, sweetheart.” the name catches you off-guard for a moment, but your sour face returns soon enough.

“then what the fuck do you think you’re doing, picking endlessly on a student?”

your professor sits forward, prompting you to cower back. you think it’d be good to bring up whatever he’s got going on on camstar.org but you’ll wait to a good moment before you say anything about your trump card, until geto snaps you out of your stupor by towering over you. the sheer difference makes you swallow.

“because i like seeing you flared up and angry and mad.” professor geto surprises you with each second, the nonchalance in which he said it, the stupid, attractive smirk on his face. now’s the time.

you compose yourself, thinking of the best way to phrase this, “you know you’re not entirely safe, either, you know. i could report you with the frequency in which you’re picking on me.”

you point a finger to his chest, thinking you could get him to lay off immediately with this as much as you were hoping he wouldn’t. the attention was unwarranted but not entirely . . terrible, “that wouldn’t look so good on your record, right, Uzumaki-san?”

you relish in the surprise that seeps into geto’s pretty features but it’s a short-lived victory when he goes back into a relaxed state, expression neutral — “so you know.”

“know . . what?” your professor pulls away and walks around his desk, finally in close proximity to you like he’s always wished.

“how badly i want you.” he whispers, but doesn’t go past that, rather letting you figure everything out for yourself.

“‘. . fuck her silly, fuck all of those stupid facts out of her head’, right?” you mumble softly, not admitting to even chō that you had watched that livestream over and over enough to memorise the few sentences. geto wraps an arm around your waist to tug you closer, faces so close that you could just shut him up.

“go on.”

“you want me to go dumb on your cock,” professor geto mutters a correct which undeniably sends a thrill to your core.

“you want to hear me to moan your name.” “—want to hear her moan my name.”

a small smile spreads across his face (even if you left out the most important thing) as he finishes his own sentence with you, eyes clouded over with lust and your scent and he’s positive he can smell your soaked panties from here if he tries hard enough.

“that’s right.”

“sooo . .” by god, you fucking hated the man, but seeing someone stroke their cock to just the thought of you — how could you pass off such a good opportunity? “do you prefer professor geto, or suguru?”

geto groans at his first name usage, setting you on his desk and presses himself into you at the sound of papers flying to the floor, stationary falling to the ground. he can only hope no one walks in. he’s fully hard, loving how your legs naturally spread for him.

“whatever you want, baby.” and after, it’s all history with the way geto crashes his lips into yours, letting you pull at his jacket and shirt, practically ripping open the buttons to see his tattoos that you’re begging to see. slowly, he lets you trace them while he kisses down your neck, roughly pulling your sweater off of you. you have the cutest tits, packaged nicely in your bra which he has no trouble taking off. there’s a small sound that escapes his mouth when he unclasps your bra and your breasts come falling out.

“didn’t tell me you had such a nice pair . .” you giggle.

“yeah, like i would straight up tell my professor that.” with a hand, your hand follows the ink of his dragon that wraps around his body and torso, right down to his happy trail, “but i mean, you get the honour of seeing it now.”

with a squeeze to his bulge, you whisper, “maybe i’ll let you fuck them next time.”

geto lets out a little moan, “fucking minx,” before he latches his mouth onto your nipple, kneading the other greedily. a soft moan leaves your mouth as you knead his erection, a culmination of your combined groans in the quiet office. soon he’s giving attention to the other, a hand trailing down into your panties where he rubs your clit to test the waters, and he smiles into your skin at the way your hand falters and your head hangs forward.

“p-professor . .” it’s clear geto can’t wait, because he pushes a finger into you easily with how dripping wet you are, panties showing a dark patch of your juices. “s— so thick—”

“i know, baby, gotta stretch you out,” a soft pop! is heard as he comes off your nipple before he meets your lips in a sloppy kiss. he shoves his tongue into your mouth the moment he pushes a second finger in and he swallows your moans, letting you feel around his body to dig your nails in — it was just too damn much.

“so— suguru, your f-fingers, they’re so—” even with your protests, your hips grind up against his thick fingers that are pumping in and out of you, taking every last piece of fire in you as you succumb completely.

“what, miss (y/n)?” geto memorises the exact way all your previous blazing words are reduced to mere mewls and whimpers, alongside your pleas for more, more, more.

“i need something—” you whine when he pushes all the way inside, stretching your cunt so well as you clench around him like a vice and sucking him in, “i wanna make you feel good—”

you get at least a little resolve in the time it took you to say that, drunkenly unbuckling his belt before pulling his cock out. his tip is positively leaking, fingers curling instinctively in your pussy and your moans mingle together again.

“c’mon, prof, please?” geto tuts, reluctantly removing his fingers from your cunt which he wish he could spend more of his time in, but gives in to you as you switch positions, pushing him against his own desk. from there you’re going to your knees, marvelling at the cock you’ve watched on your very own screen.

“better than you imagined?”

you roll your eyes, “shut up or i’m blue-balling you.”

geto exhales forcefully, cut off when you put your mouth gently over his tip. you suckle on it like a pacifier, swirling your tongue around the mushroom head and looking up at him through your lashes; the sight is heavenly. the hair from his bun had fallen out, framing his pleasure-filled face, and the veins on his arms pop out so much from how harshly he’s grabbing the wood.

“f-fuck, baby . .” his words are lost once you start bobbing your head, encasing his shaft deep in your mouth as you suck and lick and slobber over his thick cock, using your hands to stroke the places you can’t reach. a choked moan weasels itself out of geto when one of your hands deviate to play with his balls, squeezing lightly at the sack while you continue to lick the underside of his length.

“take me like a slut, don’t you?” geto says breathlessly, fingers going through your hair to gather the strands into a makeshift ponytail, cradling your head to guide your mouth, but he soon starts to thrust into your waiting mouth.

“want me to fuck your dirty whore mouth?” your professor asks and you hate how much it turns you on as he brings you off to let you breathe for a moment. you stick out your tongue, big doe eyes just pleading to be used as your hands anchor themselves down to his belt loops.

“y—yes, prof., give me everything you got,” geto hums, seemingly satisfied with your answer as he taps your tongue with his tip, cock so heavy and thick it makes you whine a little before he shoves it in without warning. the moan that rumbles deep in your throat sends vibrations up his body and he starts a pace immediately.

“that’s it, that’s it—” you breathe through your nose as geto face fucks you, two hands covering the back of your head as he thrusts into your throat. your mouth’s just so damn warm and tight it has geto groaning non-stop while your eyes start to well up with tears. he uses you like a cocksleeve, abusing your throat each time his tip meets with it.

“fuuuckk— yes, yes, your throat’s so—” geto tilts his head back when he buries his cock in you, the deepest he’s ever been and your nose meets with his pubes, the smell of his musk and sweat making your eyes roll back in pleasure. suguru is all grunts before moving again, the gagging, gawking noises filling the small space.

“mmhm— mmf!” you moan around his length, trying your best to move your tongue along the underside of his cock. a hand goes down to quell the growing need of your cunt, slipping a finger or two in.

“dirty girl just can’t think straight when she has a— s-shit— cock in her, huh?”

you hum in agreement, eyes fluttering when you feel his tip twitch in your mouth and geto spills right into your throat with a long moan. your lids flutter close, taking as much cum as you can before coming off with a deep breath. strings of his cum and your saliva connect you to his cock, the lewdness of it all showing clearly in how sloppily you sucked your professor off.

“open.” and you show your tongue still full of his cum, taking the opportunity to lean down to let a ball of spit fall from his mouth. it drops painfully slow to your tongue, closing it only when you hear the rasp of swallow, “good girl.”

“think i’ve kept you waiting for too long, need to be in you,” geto brings you up by your upper arms, propping you up nicely onto his desk where you already start to leak into the wood, “do you want me to be in you?”

“only if you promise to stop picking on me, prof.,” you pout. really, a changed girl once you get some cock, huh?

“but you’re too cute not to bother, baby.” your pout deepens and geto feels a tug on his heart. oh, you were too adorable, knowing you’d kill him the next time he mentions this. he hopes they’ll be a next time.

“i mean it, suguru,” you murmur as he uses his tip to play with your juices, smearing it around your cunt. “treat me like a proper person.”

“can i at least treat you like a slut behind closed doors?”

you bit your lip, he’s asking for a next time, and who are you to reject him?

“whatever you want, professor,” you wiggle your hips along his cock, hoping for some friction which he grants to you with no problem, “use me. treat me like your cum dump.”

geto hisses at your tightness and your words as he bottoms out in you. he’s had your pussy once and already cannot get enough of you, moaning each time he moves in and out of your cunt. your walls hug him so snugly, sucking his cock in endlessly.

“baby, baby, baaaby . . your pussy’s so fuckin’— good—” he grunts into your ears, hips starting to thrust slowly into you. he swears he can see you in your tummy, asking you to look down, “look at how deep i am in you, sweetheart.”

you moan at just how big he was as you glance down, but you’re more focused on the way your pussy spreads for him, the cute veins on his length as he moves in you. you’re leaking so much that it’s effortlessly, the way he rams into you.

“sugu— suguru . . mmfuck—” geto groans upon feeling you rub your clit, your own hips bucking needily into his own as your juices start to drip down his balls. this was everything that he hoped would happen; your features morphed into pleasure, you descending into stupidity just from some dick, feeling your pussy, finally.

“hear yourself?” your professor proposes the question and you’re confused for a moment until he slows down and you whine at the sudden change, brought to attention just how soaking you were. the soft shlick, shlick, shlick sounds take your breath away, as with the translucent sheen of your juices coating his cock.

there, your professor resumes his pace, “hear how fuckin’ sloppy this pussy is for me. listen to her,” your senses are all overwhelmed: by how he hits all your sweet spots, the sweat on your back, your fast-beating heart and you let out a mangled whimper, “yesss . . that’s what i like to hear.”

geto smirks at how you can’t even answer, picking up his pace into a regular one. with his cock buried deep in you, you have no choice but to let your body move with his thrusts, jerking each time his balls meet your ass noisily.

“is this what the little lady needed? just some professor cock to get her to not be so damn uptight!”

“y—yessss . .” you’re delirious, “yesyesyes, suguru!” you squeal when he holds your legs up and pushes your legs into your chest, tongue lolling out at the deepness that he was in you.

“fucking slut,” geto mumbled, hips turning sloppy with fatigue taking over, but your cunt was just too good to stop, “where d’you want me to cum, baby?” he knows you’ll answer how he wants you to, especially after watching his livestream—

“i-inside— inside, pleaseplease,” the circles on your clit are messy, now, chasing your high more than ever, but your pussy is grasping onto him like a vice, prompting groans deep from his throat. “want your cum dripping out of me, prof—”

those words alone has geto shooting his load with a strangled grunt, switching to shallow, quick thrusts to pump you full of his cum. it comes out in hot, thick spurts, filling your insides more and more until it spills out the sides and you follow soon after, whole body convulsing from the intense orgasm you can’t stop shaking violently.

“take it— that’s it, attagirl,” he whines out, stroking his length to make sure you’re getting every last drop out of him, “take all my cum . .”

geto is sure he’s getting old by the way he feels lightheaded, having had to hold onto the edge of the table for a minute — but in that 60 seconds you’ve stumbled off the table and laid your chest over it, perking your ass up where your pussy continues to leak hot, white cum.

your professor takes one good look at your ass, hands going up to knead at them and spreads your cheeks. with his tongue, he eats his cum out of you, making your jerk at the sensitivity.

“oops, i’ve cleaned you up of my cum — guess i gotta give you a couple more loads,” geto props a leg up, eating you out, “it’s only right since my brightest student has suffered so much at my hands . .”

tagging @arminsumi @shidouryusm @suguruplsr @crysugu @slttygeto @suget @sonarspace @marimogf @hannzai &lt;3 ok gn

[cupcakeshakesnake]

HELLO UM-

Your little Harbour PotC AU gives me absolute life, just for the record. Even tho i am very very late, thank you for making it :D

There is a headcanon I got that wouldn't leave my brain after looking at your art, originating from that one conversation between Beckett and Jack where there were some implications about canon being everyone’s previous lives. Whether this is actually a part of your au or not, it got me thinking eheheh

Theoretically, (perhaps in an au of an au, if this headcanon contradicts your lore,) what if your au and canon were the same 'verse, just several hundred years later? And what if not everybody were on their second life?

We obviously have a sprinkling of supernatural stuff, so what if the secretly-a-goddess Calypso and immortally-cursed Davy Jones were the OGs that they were in the films? Like, Davy Jones maybe came back somehow (as per movie 5's end-credit scene lol) and took back the role of the Dutchman's Captian after Will went back to Shipwreck Cove. All is good.

He learned his lesson now and actually does his job of ferrying souls. As times changed, so did his ship, in some magical way. She's no longer a sailing ship, and he'll always miss that, but he doesn't mind all that much. His crew usually only stay for that 100 yr contract, so he's seen plenty of sailors come and go. Eventually, he even hires living mortals. Less people die at sea, so by the 20th century, Jones takes a mortal job as a fisherman (or whatever his job is in your au) as well.

Whether or not he knows about the whole reincarnation thing doesn't really matter; the day he employs a familiar man by the name of Bill Turner, he chalks it up to coincidence. Even if Bill has a son named William, well- it's been 200 years, perhaps it's just a really really big coincidence. Either way, it doesn't matter to him.

It's not until he's docked in a small, out-of-the-way harbour, and three troublemaking kids sneak onto the Dutchman that he finally realises. Bill's boy, on his own, is just a matter of coincidence. Those three, together? It's unmistakable. And as bothersome those three pirates were, so long ago, I'd like to think that he looks back on that age, on those people, with some kind of fondness.

(Until he discovers they can be the most INFURIATING little gremlins he's ever met in all his centuries. But he'll find that out later.)

Anyway I drew it :D Have my humble, scribbly offerings.

(I feel bad about running away with this, even as just a headcanon-of-an-au, please don't take this as a 'you should do this' lmao, it's just me adoring all of your content it makes my brain go brrr you are amazing thankyou!!!)

This is so lovely 😭😭😭

The idea of Calypso and Jones being the same ones from canon but just... having had a lot of time to chill down and have a second chance is so??? Imagine what Jones must be thinking looking at those kids... this is so bittersweet (but mostly sweet)

I'm sorry it took so long to respond, I wanted to write a proper reply expressing just how much I love this but couldn't get around to it. Hope you don't mind me posting this publicly; I need everyone else to see this as well.

[venomous-qwille]

Ghost in the Machine

This is the master post for Ghost in the Machine links, character refs and FAQs.

I will try my best to keep this post as up to date as possible.

What is Ghost in The Machine?

GITM is a DCA AU and a fic set in the retrofuture (2055ish) long after Fazco has shut down. An eccentric collector has been acquiring versions of the Daycare Attendant animatronic from closed locations around the world. The story involves a reader character who has been brought into repair the original post-Ruin DCA from the games, and hijinks ensue. There are also ghosts.

Where can I read the fic?

GITM is currently being posted on Ao3, and is updated every three weeks on Saturdays. The fic is being beta'd by the tremendously talented @bubbiethesaur. You can read GITM here!

There is also a podfic, which you can find here:

Updates to the podfic will be sporadic, so please be patient &lt;3

Where can I see the art?

On this blog I use the #gitm au and #ghost in the machine au tags for GITM related content. If you are looking for art of a specific character, they also have their own tags: #misuta moon #nova #soleil #clip.exe #sunspot mk1 #fool eclipse #ruin eclipse #sombra #sunflower #mr sandman

FAQ~

Why haven't you answered my GITM ask?

One of three reasons: 1) your ask was too spoilery* 2) I'm waiting to answer it with art 3) ADHD

*spoilery includes but is not limited to: any questions about dual-AI or XYZ character's sun/moon variant; questions about character backstories and lore; questions about characters that have not featured in the fic yet (e.g Nova, Sanii, Harvest, Sunflower, Sandman etc); asks speculating about potential future scenarios (don't get me wrong, I love these asks, but I can't answer them!)

Where are all the Moons?

Read and find out. Seriously. There are at least 5 Moons who are core to the plot but I'm not going to talk about them, no matter how nicely you ask!

Does XYZ character have a Sun/Moon counterpart?

Some of them do, some of them don't. The dual-AI stuff is majorly plot related. If I'm not talking about someone's Sun/Moon counterpart, rest assured you will find out eventually. I won't be spoiling any of it on tumblr though :)

Can I create fanart of GITM?

Yes yes yes please do and please tag me when you post it so I can see it/reblog! If you are unsure if something is ok, please ask.

Can I create fanfic of GITM?

Super flattered about this. I have a longform answer to this question which you can read here. But tl;dr yes you can, please tag/credit me, do not spoil/try to write the lore, and please do not write GITM au (e.g mafia, mer, medieval). I have my own plans for this stuff and I would prefer to release the designs/stories in my own time. If you are unsure if something is ok, please ask.

Can I create NSFW GITM content?

Until recently I had blanket perms that allowed NSFW GITM content. I'm updating this to let you guys know I'm no longer comfortable with people making this content. Back when the community was small, I felt differently, but as time has passed a lot has changed and I've found myself becoming increasingly anxious about it. If this boundary changes again in the future, I will update this FAQ.

Do you have character refs I can use?

There is a collection of art 'refs' for each character on the Misutamojis discord. Latest link here.

There are no proper call-out sheets/refs currently, but I have a huge body of art for the characters on this blog which should give you more than enough info for most of them. I will get around to creating proper refs eventually, in which case I will link them here.

Where can I find the playlist?

I update the spotify playlist fairly regularly, if you have any music recs you can send them over in an ask! You can listen to the playlist here!

I've heard there are secret GITM drabbles, where can I find them?

I used to post frequent drabbles from future chapters in the DCA Palooza discord, I have recently deleted the majority of them as people were going back and binging them which hadn't been the intended reading experience. Anywho, this question probably refers more to the spicy drabbles (which people have very kindly made a lot of delicious art for). These are still around! You just need to access the spicy channel and do some digging.

Is there a GITM discord?

Nope! There is a server for GITM emotes and a busy thread in the DCA Palooza, but currently I don't have any plans to make a GITM-centric discord community. If that does happen in the future it's likely I will simply convert the emotes server (Misutamojis).

It finally happened, I converted Misutamojis. You can join the GITM discord here.

Can I smooch the robots?

Yes.

All of them?

All of them.

[weirdunclegamer]

Was laying in bed and starting having Thoughts™️ about something in AC6 and while I don't normally do this, I figure I should try just... rando talking about stuff on my blog.

I found it very amusing and interesting (strongbad voice; amteresting), how AC6 decided to use the term Raven in its new AC timeline. Its explained to us (eventually) to not just be one pilot's name, but a title that many pilots of a somewhat bygone time had used, a title that supposedly stood for their sense of freedom.

It's pretty obvious what the metatext is there, its using the Raven title from earlier AC games... and giving it a sort of mythologizing that the term likely sounds like it has irl to new players who, coming to the series new, and seeing all the old fans reawakening to the bell of a new game, heard the wistful, nostalgic tales of playing the games back in the day, of being Ravens for the first time on the old consoles.

And even irl that title faded from its original use, obviously because the game series slowed down then went on a full decade hiatus. But it actually faded in the games as well. In AC4 the pilots are no longer called Ravens, but Lynx. A change I remember personally feeling a bit bummed by at the time even. In AC5 (a good game and I will not tolerate the meatheaded hate it gets), you are uniquely "the mercenary" instead of holding a shared title, further diluting the very idea of the titles.

It was one of those sorts of things I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about. On one hand I feel like they should've just gone back to calling the pilots (or maybe just certain affiliations) Ravens in AC6, a way of going back to the roots, since AC6 is a proper reboot. But on the other hand I can appreciate the metatext, which def feels very FromSoft to do, weaving a sense of the real world history of the franchise into the lore of the new era. Either way, it is especially amusing, because it all stems from a funny quirk of the progress of video game technology; the problem game writers came into when voice acting was added to games, wherein it was impossible to account for the names a player would name themself, so they had to find ways to write around characters saying the players' name, in games where the player names themself.

Its a thing I feel people mostly associate with the more "modern" era, with epic adventure create-a-character games like the Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, or, of course, the Souls family. But its been a thing since as early as the PS1. Before voice acting was whole-game prevelant, when all the dialogue was text, you could just insert that bit of code to put in the players' chosen name into the npc dialogue (for true immersion, or to name you're pokemon stuff like "I" or "You" or "Farts"... also for true immersion), but now... well I already said the thing about the voice work. Coming up with a title to call the player (Dragonborn, Courier, Commander Shepard, etc etc) has been a popular way to handle the problem... which seems to be almost satirized in AC6.

Despite everything I just said about the use of Raven in AC6, the player character has like two scoops of nicknames the other characters call you; 621, hound, raven, buddy, tourist, G13, freelancer, wallclimber, wormkiller, liberator of rubicon... pretty sure there's others I can't remember. That might've just been a side effect of how the characters are written vis-a-vi the players' in universe muteness, but knowing From, its very likely to have been a sort of good natured ribbing about the fad both in their games and others.

The use and challenge of use of players' getting to name the protagonist in games is one of those fantastic things that mostly only exists in video games.

[mikachusblog]

Aria lore!

I have posted Aria before here and here, but I wanted to have at least one post dedicated to his lore and backstory on my blog! See it as a proper introduction kinda.. though it'll mainly just be me blabbering.. you can read about him under the cut! ໒꒰ྀིᵔ ᵕ ᵔ ꒱ྀི১

Aria Nazari, gen 5 of my legacy, 17 years old, he/him, half persian. Bisexual, currently in the closet.

Traits: party animal, music lover Aspiration: aspiring party planner Home: evergreen harbor Likes: piano, singing, snowboarding, streetwear fashion, high energy sims, deep conversations, tattoos, dyeing (frying) his hair, 80s rock, being the center of attention (but only when it's positive), manga, videogames, carrot cake Dislikes: public displays of affection, small talk, the color yellow, shrimp, cucumbers, being told what to do, the smell of scented candles

Bio! Writing this made me realise i made him go through sm this poor kid

Raised by parents consumed by addiction, Aria and his two older siblings had to fend for themselves, growing up under very poor circumstances. He keeps minimal contact with his siblings in present day.

Aria was put into a foster system at age 10, following the death of his parents. After being placed into his first foster home, he met Mable and Nathan at school. The trio quickly became inseparable.

Mable is Aria's closest friend, the one person he confides in. Nathan was his first in a lot of aspects; his first love, first kiss and first relationship. Before this blooming love got the chance to develop any further, Nathan passed away in a motorcycle accident. This marked the end of the few years of genuine happiness in Aria's life.

He bounced between various foster homes, his charismatic spirit and histrionic personality disorder masking the scars of a deeply traumatic childhood. His journey took a turn when he was placed with a new foster family, a couple determinded to offer him warmth and stability, albeit for just one year.

He was hesitant about attempting to get close to them, as he knew how easily his previous foster homes had dropped him. Conflicts and strained relationships followed, as Aria's behaviour was far from exemplary in high school. His foster parents Deryn and Xin Yi's love for him however, remained.

Mable kept in contact with him throughout the years following their separation, but the two didn't get to see each other again until their senior year of high school. They reunited at age 17, when Aria moved back to Evergreen Harbor to live with Deryn and Xin Yi purely by chance. He told Mable about the nature of his relationship with Nathan, which came as no surprise to her. She literally had her suspicions since day 1.

Aria met his next love interest, Niamh, at a party. Immediate attraction and easy-flowing conversations followed. He eventually asked her out on a date. Despite Aria's initial trust in his ability to move on from Nathan, frequent panic attacks and feelings of guilt proved the opposite. Niamh confronted him on the night of prom with a false rumour about him cheating on her. He hesitantly went along with it despite it being untrue, thinking it would be an easier and less painful way out compared to coming clean about his relationship with his dead friend. Didn't go as planned obviously, both of them were heartbroken and Aria got his ass beat by Niamh's best friend Nika.

He is currently prepping his uni application with Mable. The two are aiming to go to Britechester together.

Some random facts

Music has always been an outlet for Aria, ever since his elementary school teacher introduced him to the piano. He's a talented singer too!

He's afraid of death and the dark.

He smokes and grows his own weed but stays away from other drugs.

He picked up babysitting as a side gig, partially to avoid raising his foster parents suspicions regarding the money he makes from selling weed.

[monstersdownthepath]

A collection of Fey entities

A little different from my usual "a collection of..." posts. Making statblocks isn't my forte, surprisingly; I can, but ADHD Hellbrain kicks in and typically prevents me from actually finishing them, my energy and motivation running out typically by the time I need to select feats. A few of the creatures on this list are victims of that very phenomenon, but rather than letting them languish in my drafts forever, I figure I can share what I DO have in the form of lore and some basic ideas.

So, here's a bunch of fairies!

One of them I was going to write down, the Harvest Lords, are a concept I've developed too much for me to put here; they're a group of Archfey with proper domains and Boons, and thus will get their own post. Eventually.

Warnings: There are unsanitary themes in the Brughyorb Gremlin spot, as well as Totagoda. The final entry (Rotten Crick) deals with themes of animal death and allusions to animal torture, dealing specifically with sea life.

Brughyorb Gremlins (CR 1/2 Chaotic Evil Small Fey) are small, round, filthy creatures that are almost all mouth and stomach, resembling fleshy cauldrons when they fully open their mouths and scamper about on their arms and legs, and are thus also known as Cauldron Gremlins, Burplings, and Bowlbellies. Their grinding teeth and powerful jaws are best suited for plant matter (wood is a delicacy to them), but they won't hesitate to feed on whatever carrion they manage to find, even though the majority of what they eat isn't actually digested.

Brughyorb Gremlins hold most of what they shovel into their maws in the first of their two stomachs, where their pungent gut juices fester and melt their food into noxious sludge so malodorous it's actually acidic. Slow and unbalanced even when they're empty, they lay in waiting for an innocent passerby to cross whatever hiding spot they've holed up in before leaping out with a wet shriek, and when their victim inhales in order to scream in surprise, the gremlins unleash a horrific belch directly into the victim's face. Overwhelming nausea is the most common result of such a sensory assault (though especially unlucky ones may catch the fatal Filth Fever), victims disoriented not only by the scare, but their entire world becoming overtaken by an indescribably vile stink, preventing them from fighting back as the gremlin takes whatever it wants from them and scampers off into the shadows, cackling with terrible glee.

Though they're larger than most gremlins, Brughyorb Gremlins are just as cowardly and prone to fleeing whenever someone even moderately well-armed comes along. If a foe proves especially dangerous and their burps aren't cutting it, they'll loose the contents of their stomachs to form slick, acidic pools that carry an eye-watering reek with them to trip up and potentially even kill their pursuers, either immediately through acid damage or eventually through disease. Being directly disgorged upon is an experience so profoundly unpleasant that most beings subjected to it immediately switch careers into something that will prevent this incident from ever happening again... though the fact a Brughyorb's stench is nearly impossible to scrub away and lingers for many weeks means the horrible little beasts can easily track the scent of their past victims in order to get them again.

Despite their foulness, their gut juice is an alchemical reagent highly prized by alchemists for its ability to break down and, with a bit of tinkering, ferment just about any organic matter, making them highly desirable for anyone hoping to create not just powerful acids, but potent fertilizers, fermented foods, or alcohol. Alchemists desiring the gremlin's gut juice, of course, rarely risk seeking it out themselves.

----

Tintink Gremlins (CR 1 Chaotic Evil Tiny Fey) are also known as Nail Gremlins, Sharpener Pixies, Hammerlings, Nailbiters, Sharpies, and other such names. While most fey fear the touch of iron, Tintink Gremlins collect the substance in earnest despite being just as vulnerable to it as any other fey. Contact with cold iron burns and pains them, but rather than shrinking away from it, they revel in it, with many of them boldly wearing sharpened points of cold iron for the specific purpose of terrorizing and bullying other fairies, as well as protecting themselves from being bullied or terrorized by others.

Tintinks are obsessed with the collection and the sharpening of metal pins, tacks, screws, caltrops, and especially nails, pilfering such items from workshops, lumberyards, factories, and even homes. Loose items are of course the easiest for them to get, their tiny backpacks and leather aprons full to bursting with stacks of nails they sweep off workbenches, but they're also prone to using hammers, crowbars, and pliers sized for their tiny hands to wrench fasteners from whatever surface they're embedded in. Their hoarding slowly but surely destroys furniture, floors, rafters, and eventually entire structures one stolen screw at a time, fleeing only when the infested building collapses entirely.

Even when they're not destroying buildings, Tintinks are horrid menaces. Their wretched claws, coarse palms, and rough tongues can shave metal with the ease of a whetstone, and they use these to sharpen whatever points they get ahold of until they can pierce the thick leather of most common shoes or gloves... and they lay them out in preparation to do exactly that, cackling in wicked glee whenever someone impales their feet or hands on their sharps collections.

They are quite dangerous for a gremlin, capable of causing terrible wounds and even deaths if they're sufficiently motivated, but they are easily caught and removed by those who can take advantage of their fairy quirks. Their obsession with sharpening borders on an irresistible compulsion, and many Tintinks have been caught and exterminated by fey hunters leaving out piles of dull nails, bent forks, and chipped knives, which the gremlins cannot help but sit down among and work on, leaving them vulnerable to ambush.

----

Steraba (CR 2 Neutral Good Diminutive Fey) are also known as Honey Fairies, Porridge Pixies, Mice Fey, and other such names. They resemble miniature humanoids with mouse-like features such as dewy eyes, rounded ears, long tails, paws, or combinations thereof (sometimes to the point they're just anthropomorphic mice), scarcely larger than the pests they resemble. Despite their appearance, Steraba are not pests themselves and are in fact one of many helpful fey known as House Spirits, and can be a genuinely helpful force in one's home... if one forgives their tendency to pilfer easily-missed items left in their field of vision.

Steraba make their homes in mouseholes inside occupied buildings, living among families of mice (never rats, they despise rats) which they take great pains to keep safe, healthy, and out of sight of the mortals with whom they share a space. Their lives are spent going on frequent, exciting 'raids' with their mice families (whom they can both communicate with and easily train), scampering unseen through homes like a spy trying to avoid being spotted by guards as they run missions such as 'read the next chapter of a book,' 'steal the button,' 'get to the grain stores,' 'slay the attic spider,' 'push out the rats,' and other such objectives. Between missions, they engage in surprisingly elaborate crafting projects; anything inedible they steal is used to decorate their tiny homes, if not by itself, then as part of a greater project. Unknowing families may have entire miniature art galleries in their walls!

Like most House Spirits, Steraba dislike being seen or acknowledged, and spending too long looking at one or talking about its existence aloud with one's family or neighbors is a sure way to drive it off completely. Even more than this, harming a mouse is a grave insult to the Mouse Pixies, who may respond by pilfering valuable or treasured items with Mage Hand, performing acts of vandalism with Prestidigitation and mundane tools, and even causing painful or humiliating household accidents against repeat and grievous offenders. Treating the mice with the calmness and respect one would treat a neighbor, however, will see a household blessed by the tiny pixies who use their talents--magical and mundane--to slay more harmful pests, drive off more malevolent fey, and provide just as well for their "big families" as they do the "small families." A Steraba can magically turn a single grain into a whole loaf of hot bread or a bowl of nutritious porridge that's filling even for a Medium-sized creature, letting them stretch the most meager of food stores for days or weeks on end, and can conjure small amounts of honey, sugar, and jam each day to assure the meals are never boring. A Steraba who has lived in a home for many years and established a positive relationship with its big family may even begin gifting the mortals with pieces of art it has made, which act as good luck charms so long as the owner takes care to say it was a 'gift from my neighbor' if they are ever asked where the trinket came from.

----

The Filoxenia (CR 11 Neutral Medium Fey) are humanoid fey with golden skin and hair like stalks of wheat, so rare that it was believed there was only one for quite some time. These are fey many cautionary tales are spoken of, fey for whom the Laws of Sacred Hospitality are absolutes and generosity is the holiest of virtues. These fey take on the shapes of beggars, wanderers, and vagrants of various ancestries as they travel the world in the search of kindness, visiting the lowest muckrakers in their hovels, to the meager homes of farmers, to the mansions of nobles and royals to test their treatment of visitors. How, exactly, they perform their tests always varies, but it almost always begins with a simple request: Shelter, just for one night, and a meal of whatever the host can provide, just enough to let them see the next dawn.

The Filoxenia cannot be identified while they're in disguise, their own magic thwarting magical attempts to pierce it; the most reliable way to tell that you've encountered one is the gentle smell of honey and wheat which accompanies them, a scent they take pains to hide with mud and dusty clothes or, in rare cases, perfumes, but which they can never completely cover. Even if you know, however, it is in your best interest to play along and not allow it to sway your decision! Treating your new guest as you would any other is part of the test.

These fey exist to test mortals in their proficiency with and knowledge of the Laws of Sacred Hospitality, and each one has different means of both testing and rendering judgment. More lawful Filoxenia typically treat their task with the utmost of seriousness, and have a mental checklist they gradually move down during their stay in a mortal's home where failing even one step fails the whole test. More chaotic Filoxenia are much more likely to act as unruly guests, assessing the patience of their host, making gradually more unreasonable requests to see just how far the host is willing to go and rendering their judgment based on the host's breaking point; too soon (strict) or too late (lenient) and they fail.

The reward for passing their test is often simple but always beneficial; they may arrange for a parcel of valuable gems to be delivered to the host, repair flaws in their home, or magically enchant a tool or piece of furniture the host owns in a way which will always be useful to them. Impressing the fey may cause them to perform feats such as keeping the host's food stores full for a year and a day, blessing the host with a boon of good luck and health, grant them a useful magical item, blessing their livestock with health and virility, or introducing a helpful House Spirit into the home... but for all their potential blessings, their curses are the stuff of legends and horror stories.

Providing the bare minimum of hospitality is one thing (which earns the stingy host naught but a bowl of gruel or perhaps a new pair of socks for their trouble), but treating the Filoxenia poorly or, most damnably, rejecting their plea for mercy and assistance at one's doorstep? Such a host would be lucky if the worst thing that happened to them was the death of their livestock. An especially offended Filoxenia, such as one physically harmed by the host, can go as far as to curse an entire household to experience grave misfortune which, eventually, will lead to the death of all within in no more than a year.

----

Totagoda, the Uninvited Guest (CR 13 Chaotic Evil Large Fey) is a unique fey entity, an object of both scorn and amusement in the First World and a downright blight in the Universe whenever he deigns to enter it. He is a wild combination of a bloated toad and a gluttonous goat, standing on his back two legs as a man does, with three bulbous eyes always surveying the area as he searches for his next meal, the remains of which are added to the breathtaking tapestry of reeking stains over his clothing and skin.

Totagoda is a gluttonous, wretched beast of a fey, his primary modus operandi involving taking the shape of beggars, wanderers, and vagrants, hoping to gain invitation into the home of unsuspecting mortals who do not realize just what's standing at the door. Unfortunately, as one may surmise from his title, he is quite liberal with determining what qualifies as an 'invitation' into someone's home, with even strained conversation or simply holding a door open for too long becoming cause for him to push past his unfortunate host and slip inside. Only slamming the door in his face and refusing to speak will cause him to move on. Once inside, he takes a seat at the kitchen table and bullies his hosts into providing for him, often relying on the victim's fear or good manners (or both) to prevent them from seeking aid even as he wolfs down whatever food (or anything close to food) they can provide.

Victims of the Uninvited Guest quickly find themselves eaten out of house and home as his loud demands for food grow ever more violent and unreasonable, his monstrous form gradually revealing itself as he gorges himself. By the point he's revealed as a true and literal monster, it's far too late for his host, with him threatening their belongings, their health, or their very lives if they don't comply, the foul fey holding their treasured belongings or even their family members hostage to force their hand. When all the food in the house is exhausted, victims are forced into the marketplaces where they're expected to spend all their remaining money on a further banquet for the fey. Victims who can give no more may find themselves ensorcelled and forced to provide against their will, butchering their livestock, pets, or their unfortunate neighbors to feed Totagoda, until eventually he grows bored with the current fare and snaps up his host whole and alive with his massive tongue, moving on and leaving any surviving family members nothing but a destroyed home and horrific memories.

Sending out invitations to a party or celebration when Totagoda is stalking an area is a dangerous affair, because no matter the intended celebration, one can be assured it will end in tragedy and horror; many malevolent fey have, in fact, wielded the Uninvited Guest as a weapon by gifting him invitations to the party of a rival or hated enemy. When feeling especially peckish and shameless, he will use the public nature of taverns, restaurants, markets, and other such spaces where food may be found to barge in and begin stuffing his face, using threats, charming magic, or outright mystic domination against the owners, forcing them to ignore his crimes until they become too great to rationalize even with his spellwork clouding their minds. He prefers the 'thrill' of forcing his way into the homes of helpless mortals who cannot seek aid to feed him, using public eateries as a last resort, as he despises the concept of experiencing consequences (which is why he flees the First World as much as possible; he has made many enemies among Archfey and Eldest). Despite his considerable power and unnatural resilience, Totagoda is a coward and a bully, and at the first sign of any trouble (even trouble he could easily deal with) he is more likely to flee than fight, flinging his disease-ridden, acidic dung and unleashing nauseating belches at any pursuers until he can finally escape.

----

That Old and Rotten Crick, (CR 15 Neutral Evil Medium Fey), also known as Rotten Old Crick (and variants thereof), the Devil Fisherman, the Demon Angler, the Barnacle, Captain Hook, and a thousand other names with varying levels of fear or vitriol, is among one of the strangest denizens of the First World. Appearance-wise, he is a humanoid being, though not a hint of true flesh can be seen through the coverall-clothing of an angler that he wears; what isn't covered by clothes is studded with barnacles or coral growth. His vest is adorned by countless hooks, flies, whatever equipment he wishes to keep on hand rather than in his beaten up but magical tacklebox (the Artifact known as the Tomb of Karaphas), and extra parts for his Artifact-level fishing rod and primary weapon, the Tidepool Reaper. His face (if he has one) perpetually hidden in the shadow of his fishing cap, and he speaks with the smooth cadence of a devil and maniacal purpose of a daemon.

Nearly an Archfey in terms of power, Rotten Crick does not seek influence and remains outside of whatever political nonsense the others have going on... though his actions have a great many Archfey and even one of the Eldest furious with his very existence. Rotten Crick, you see, despises all life in the sea, especially the lives of any creature which could be called a 'fish.' His absolute hatred for all sealife has earned him a many enemies among waterway guardians and sea-dwelling fey, but just as many allies, though not for the reasons one may think; many stories circulate across many worlds of a mysterious angler approaching a fisherman or sailor with promises of rods, reels, baits, hooks, and nets which will assuredly catch enough fish to feed not only them, but their families and the families of their neighbors as well. Indeed, Rotten Crick has no animosity towards most mortal life, and is actually quite amicable, willing to help any down-on-their-luck man on the coast fish enough to live, or even make a business! There are rare stories of him going out of his way to save fishermen whose lives are endangered by the sea... but it is all for the singular goal of eliminating as many fish as possible and inspiring others to do the same. He will sit with other mortal anglers for many hours, fishing alongside them and making occasional, casual conversation, but anyone who knows what they're dealing with is advised to keep it casual, because any extended conversation with him will gradually turn towards alarmingly enthusiastic diatribes on how terribly fish suffer when hooked and dragged from the water, or disturbingly thorough explanations of the many deaths caused by sea beasts all over the world, in order to justify their torture and extermination.

He doesn't even eat any of his catches, enraged by the very idea of putting a fish in his body. If there is no one nearby to gift them to, he either abandons them on the shore to rot or, if feeling especially spiteful, slices them apart with fillet knives and hooks and leaves the disassembled bodies for the birds. He holds no love for creatures he calls "betrayers," which includes dolphins, whales, and seals, such unfortunates earning swift and terrible ends by his hands. Intelligent sea beings, especially merfolk, are in danger of torturous disassembly while still alive, as he draws sadistic joy from hearing their cries.

Why, precisely, he harbors such irrational hatred for sealife is something he has never explained to anyone who's asked, and likely never will. At the very least, any grand and far-reaching plans he may actually have to depopulate the seas of Golarion are slow going, if they're happening at all, held back by the sadism and hatred which drives him; it has been explained to him many times (primarily by daemons) that he could efficiently depopulate the seas by way of pollution, poison, and industrial expansion, but his hate is so great that he seems to prefer the more visceral, personal approach.

[thatringboy]

A Body Built for an Undeserving Soul, A Boothill Theory

My definitely sober thoughts while grinding for the eventual Ruan Mei rerun and writing some robinhill have led me to a startling train of thought. I’ll do my best to sound sane as I say this, but the 18 minute discord voice memo I originally made is definitely anything but. Spoilers for Boothill’s backstory, character stories, and other lore, and no I’m not really gonna be citing things because it’s 3 in the morning and I’m high. If at any point I say something that isn’t really supported by canon, please be nice i’m a little silly boy

Anyways

I don’t think Boothill is a Pathstrider.

Let me cook, please. Here’s my reasons why:

The way he talks about Aeons and Paths

The way his body is designed

And 3.

Enjoy the madness below the cut

So, there’s not really a proper way to word any of this without it being an ADHD word vomit. Bear with me. Please.

Penacony has been a fantastic update for those of us waiting for worldbuilding. We’ve learned a LOT about the many factions in the cosmos, the true nature of the IPC, the powers of the Aeons, and that the Paths are tangible things in the universe. The Luofu arc opened up a bit about this, but since it was so focused on The Hunt and The Abundance and The Permanence, we sort of fell back into the same story beats as the Herta Station arc. Either way, Penacony has been amazing for little lore bugs like me.

So what does this have to do with the wild claim that Boothill somehow isn’t a Pathstrider?

Let’s touch some grass for a minute and consider our places in the irl universe. Hi, I’m Perseus, a young transmasculine white adult guy from South Texas who grew up reading too many Rick Riordan books and now has a complicated relationship with both the christian god and the greek gods. It’s an autism special interest of mine to learn about the greek pantheon and while I don’t know everything about it, I’m a silly little guy and can recite fun facts about dozens of gods. I can also recite fun facts about the christian bible and christian mythology because I was forced to study christianity when I was younger. Nice to meet y’all. Now, when I, Perseus, talk to people about the various religions I know a thing or two about, I infodump. A lot. I think I once ranted about Dionysus for 20 minutes before my sister told me to shut up. It happens.

Now focus back in on the important topic: the fictional cyborg with jiggle physics. I’m working purely on memory, but I’m pretty sure when he first meets Dan Heng and Pom-Pom, he does go on a spiel about the Aeons and Paths as he tries to prove his identity as a Galaxy Ranger and Acheron’s identity as Not a Galaxy Ranger. The way he describes The Hunt, The Nihility, Emanators, and Paths, it all just sounded… i don’t know, canned? It came across as very emotionally disconnected, even as he talked about The Hunt, but he was saying all the right words. Like someone who studied a religion but isn’t actually a part of the religion. 

On its own, this means absolutely nothing besides just reminding us of his home planet’s hostile takeover by Qlipoth-worshiping IPC workers. If you haven’t seen the post yet, I really recommend reading the So, Honkai: Star Rail made a cyborg cowboy... an INDIGENOUS cyborg cowboy. post by @ahworm I’ll link it here, please check it out because it recontextualized a lot of how I viewed Boothill’s actions and mannerisms

So the way Boothill talks about the Path he should be a Pathstrider of sounds more like an encyclopedia than a follower. Now, maybe this can be explained by the fact that Galaxy Rangers aren’t the most zealous bunch, especially when standing next to the Xianzhou Alliance who worship Lan as a deity more than The Hunt itself. The Galaxy rangers are the opposite, they are hunters first and last regardless of what Lan in THEIR “greatness” does.

But if Boothill is just a normal Galaxy ranger (whatever that means), then how does he recognize the Jade Abacus of Allying Oath instantaneously? Dan Heng’s barely put the damn thing on the table and Boothill’s already jaw on the floor amazed. One could make the argument that, well, Boothill’s a well-traveled guy, of course he’d know the most valuable artifact to his Path. To that, I say: there’s more to it.

Boothill’s main accusation against Acheron in the beginning is, what? “An Emanator that shouldn’t exist.” He talks about The Nihility and Device IX the same way he talks about The Hunt; learned and detached in an agnostic way. He’s aware these are real concepts and beings, he’s crossed paths with an Emanator of Elation before so he can’t deny the existence of literal gods in the universe

We also know that it’s canon in the star rail universe that there are planets who haven’t heard of the Aeons before, like Sigonia - Aventurine’s planet. Instead of Aeons, we know the Avgins worshiped the goddess Giathra Triclops. I’ve seen the argument that Giathra is just another name for Xipe since THEY have three faces, but Aventurine’s flashbacks are very clear in showing that the worship of Giathra was very different from the worship of Aeons. We don’t know much about Aeragan-Epharshel, but from how the IPC described the indigenous people as needing civilization and other disgusting things (not to mention how they forced a synesthesia beacon into boothill when he was maybe like a teenager? And then his brain nearly broke from the influx of information?), I think it’s safe to say that the tribes of Aeragan-Epharshel also didn’t follow any specific Aeon.

But Aventurine is now a Pathstrider of Preservation, so why can’t Boothill be a Hunter Pathstrider too? Well, dear reader, allow me to bash my head against the wall trying to form words. Aventurine doesn’t believe anything about the sovereignty of The Preservation, just like the rest of the Stonehearts. He has his agenda, and if he has to play Preservation to do so, then he will. I think Boothill is the same, which is also why I can’t wait to see what happens in the upcoming quests with the two of them in the same room. That being said, Aventurine’s Preservation powers only come from his Cornerstone, crafted by an Emanator of Preservation. It’s how he and Topaz and Jade can all be such different people but all be classified as Pathstriders of Preservation, the sheer proximity to an Emanator’s powers canonically give them powers equivalent to actual Pathstriders.

So… what about Boothil? This leads me into my next point: Boothill’s cyborg body. By looking at his Character Story Part 3, we learn that Boothill VOLUNTARILY became a cyborg to become stronger. He literally shed the skin and name from an ancient, dead tongue to become a real loaded gun. His voice lines in combat talk about death a lot, his name literally is in reference to a graveyard - this man cannot wait to finally die in some sort of blaze of glory and vengeance. I say that with a little bit of sarcasm, but Boothill designed his body to be a weapon. 

In a lot of parts of the USA, it’s illegal to even insinuate that you have a firearm as that constitutes as the crime of  “armed robbery”, even if you don’t even have a gun. The threat alone is enough to warrant a higher penalty. But Boothill is already a great shot with a gun, why does he also need augmented teeth and crosshair eyes and hips that can fold his body into any sinful shape he needs? Because the threat alone is enough to give him power over his prey. Almost as if he’s compensating for a lack of magic godly powers. He needs to be able to keep up with even the strongest IPC goons, to pierce their Preservation shields with his bullets so that he can get closer and closer to Oswaldo Schneider.

But how can I prove that Boothill doesn’t have any Path magic? Well, let’s take a spin around his character model. What’s that thing sitting snugly against his exposed asscheek? His pistol? But that’s not weird, Perseus, most cowboys hold their guns there!

But what other playable character has their weapon on their actual model like him?

There are so many in-game cutscenes showing that, canonically, the Pathstriders summon their weapon from some sort of unseen storage or hammerspace. I like the term hammerspace, let’s use that. The playable Pathstriders all use hammerspace to easily summon their weapons. None of them actually carry their weapons on their model. Even Welt Yang has scenes of him summoning his herrscher cane (I’ve never played hi3 please forgive me for using incorrect terms) from his hammerspace. But not Boothill. He has his arm gun and he has his trusty 9 millimeter pistol on his little slutty hip. His idle animations involve reloading his weapons and putting them back on his person. No particle effects, no vanishing tricks, just a man sticking his tongue out to catch a bullet for a snack.

So what have we learned?

Boothill doesn’t have an emotional connection to his Path, it most likely is just the Path he figured met his needs and decided the philosophy was good enough

Boothill’s body is designed to perform specifically to kill Pathstriders, especially sturdier Pathstriders of The Preservation

Boothill either can’t or won’t use the same hammerspace the other canonical Pathstriders use

Each point by themself means nothing, or can be chalked up to unique character designs. But together? My intoxicated mind theorizes that Boothill is not a Pathstrider, merely a broken man trying to play the game according to the rules of the oppressors that colonized his planet and bombed his tribe into reservations and the dirt. Thank you for your time.

[xx-disco-inferno-xx]

thats right yall its time for another shadow-centric sonic au

its also a long one so ill put the lore underneath the cut (my writing isnt the greatest right now bcuz im tired and ive been writing for almost 12 hours straight lmao i can no longer create proper sentences)

debating calling it Sonic 4D Blast because hey reference

Everything is pretty much the same (wow how original, right) but on the ARK, when Black Doom gave Gerald his DNA, Gerald accidentally created a 4th dimensional entity. No one knows how or what to do about it. Gerald just did his stuff with Black Doom's DNA, turned around, and there was Shadow (named by Maria for his lack of a shadow). Shadow was able to successfully cure Maria, and when Gerald's reports indicated so, GUN became suspicious of the almost miraculous turnaround and started investigating.

Once they found out about Project Shadow and what Gerald had somehow done, they regarded Shadow as a top priority threat and began developing experimental technology to counter Gerald's "weapon" in secret.

It took a few years of observation to make sure Maria really was cured, and during that time, she and Shadow became extremely close. Most of the scientists on the ARK either feared him or were cautious around him, though, not quite sure if he could be fully trusted due to all the uncertainty around how he worked.

Eventually, GUN decided to launch a raid on the ARK. Everyone onboard was given sufficient warning that the shuttle was approaching thanks to Shadow, but no one knew why. Once onboard, they immediately began interrogating the scientists and searching for Project Shadow. A soldier shot at Maria in an attempt to get them to cooperate, but Shadow revealed himself and stopped the bullet from hitting her. (im tired pretend theres a conflict escalation here) One thing led to another, and Shadow ended up getting a gold ring forced into his wrist - the experimental technology GUN had been developing the whole time.

It was a set of four golden rings meant to confine Shadow to the 3rd dimension, and while one didn't do it immediately, it slowed him down enough for the soldiers to get the others on him, trapping him in a 3d form and shooting Maria anyway to punish him for acting out.

yap yap yap the rest of the scientists are massacred and Gerald is arrested as per canon event. Shadow is also taken into GUN custody and tortured in a variety of ways, under the guise of scientific research (green line down torso on ref is a scar from vivisection), all while being in indescribable pain from being confined to the 3rd dimension. For 50 years, this is an on and off thing, and he is kept top secret, only known about by some of the highest clearance agents.

Eggman, looking through GUN's databases for anything that could be of use to him, finds one of Gerald's old reports that slipped through the cracks, and begins the search for Project Shadow. The events of SA2 happen, and after Heroes, Shadow is able to break free from the confinement of the Inhibitors, finally freeing himself from the 3rd dimension.

i think theres more id usually add at this point but my brain has literally clocked out so ill just add more like tomorrow or whenever. but basically now shadow just kinda chills like that one homie you see every once in a while

[i-write-hurt-not-comfort]

in the defence of Ruki Mukami - why Ruki's trauma has just as much influence on his actions as everyone else

i am sitting in the chemistry library at uni right now and am going to spend my time on the most useless task ever to avoid doing anything impactful. please don't take this too serious because i can't write meaningful character analyses.

so i've seen a ton of stuff around, because i know Ruki's not one of the best loved characters in the western fandom. well, of all the characters, i see nearly the most Ruki hate. and obviously everyone is entitled to their opinions, whatever. but what DOES bother me is the reason.

a lot of people say that Ruki's trauma doesn't correlate to his actions, or explain abusive behaviour in the same way that the other characters' do. and i would die for Ruki and we know this, but i've thought about it a lot and i have a Theory as for why some people seem to view his character this way. (i have also studied neuroscience at degree level and learnt about trauma and synaptic plasticity)

to summarise for those who perhaps haven't read all the games (my sources for all this is basically Ruki's MB, DF, and LE), Ruki was born as an only-child in Romania to a rich family, and his father was revealed to be a politician during the Ceaușescu period in Romania. they had a lot of servants, all of whom Ruki learnt from a young age to abuse. he admired his father very much and looked up to him, and his mother was good to him and was close to his father. it would seem like a very good, perfect family - although i'll briefly discuss later why this wasn't necessarily the case.

unfortunately, in the DL universe lore, Karlheinz and Ceaușescu were buddy-buddy politicians, and Ruki's father was eventually chased out of his position. during his downfall, Ruki's father became an alcoholic and began abusing Ruki's mother, verbally and physically. Ruki saw a lot of this as well: somebody he looked up to, admired and trusted, becoming an abusive monster in a very short period of time. i think that's part of why Ruki overlooks Karlheinz's crimes and sees him as a good father anyway.

not only that, Ruki's mother - once again somebody who nurtured and cared for him - turned out to be having an affair. and shortly after that, his father committed suicide: something Ruki actually walked out on.

that in itself is a lot more traumatic than i think people consider. a lot of the DL characters have long-term trauma, but intense sudden trauma, such as your "perfect" life falling apart due to an alcoholic, abusive father killing himself and his mother having an affair, has similar psychological impact. remember, these are people who were supposed to care and nurture him, he trusted them a lot, and they both abandoned him abruptly in very extreme ways. that's the number 1 root of Ruki's trust issues. he's been seen to cut Yui off entirely because he's scared of becoming his abusive father.

similarly, living in a "perfect" household as a spoiled only child can be inherently traumatic. i don't know about you guys, but i've met some (only some, not the majority) of very, very emotionally constipated spoiled only-children. a lot of children showered with materialistic affection are missing key emotional maturity developments. their outlook on life is very narrow and they lack the emotional components of attachment; this is part of why Ruki is quite emotionally immature.

not only that, but growing up as an abusive sociopath to "lower" members of society such as servants is a form of abusive on his parents' behalf. they did not teach him proper world awareness. some children are born as psychopaths etc, true, but the majority of "sociopaths" (diagnosed as ASPD) are that way because they were not taught remorse as a child. Ruki would've learnt to treat his servants that way because that was how his parents did (and we see his father being a dick to the servants in LE too i think), and that in itself is inherently traumatic too.

imagine then, with very little capacity for remorse or a concept of societal hierarchy, being thrown into an orphanage. Ruki is a dick to everyone, yes, but the shock of having everything you know challenged suddenly and without explanation or support is going to cause further trauma. i think people just don't like to consider the fact that a lot of "sociopaths" (again, ASPD is the correct label there) were victims too. he went from being the "master" to being "livestock" and that's going to very rapidly alter your young brain chemistry, entering a "master" mindset as a defensive mechanism. that's why he gets angry/upset/confused when it's challenged.

Ruki has a fuck ton of PTSD as well - he's the only character who i've seen literally throw up MULTIPLE TIMES when experiencing flashbacks.

but i think people generally know that, perhaps not thinking about it as deeply. my Theory as to why people don't seem to see this as being as "extreme" as the other boys' trauma goes further than that.

diabolik lovers follows this dynamic between the Sakamaki's vs Mukami's, whereby Yuma, Kou and Azusa (Yuma and Kou more strongly) have this mindset of "the Sakamaki's can't have trauma because they were rich" and obviously as readers, we're supposed to be like "um, no, the Sakamaki's can have trauma too" because they do.

with that said, Kou and Yuma do successfully get to Subaru/Laito and Shu's heads respectively with this narrative. especially Subaru and Shu who get really fixated with this "i was a spoiled, privileged kid" and because of that, naturally we, as readers, lean towards feeling sorry for the Mukami's especially.

obviously, Ruki is the odd one out when it comes to the Mukami's. he had a sheltered upbringing whereas the other brothers were fighting for their lives in poverty/on the streets, victims and witnesses of the civil war and orphan crisis. Yuma particularly pushes this "Ruki had it easy" notion too, and i've definitely noticed that a lot of people who don't particularly like Ruki tend to fall towards that.

this idea of "not enough" trauma has enough to unpack as it is and we won't do that to, but personally i think that all of Ruki's abusive actions are justified. no, they are not an excuse. none of the diaboys' behaviour is excusable, but i think Rejet did quite a good job of giving them enough fucked up backstory to make us as readers at least understand why that might be how they act.

and from what i see, it seems to be Ruki who people think is the exception to this the most, because his trauma isn't in the same vein as the rest of the Mukami's. the "rich people can't have trauma" narrative gets pushed so hard that i think people forget 1) it isn't true and 2) Ruki went through a ton of fucked shit as a kid, and i don't think any of his actions made me feel any differently than the other diaboys' awful behaviour towards Yui.

you can find Ruki boring, not interesting, or just not your type. but he very, very much has "sufficient" trauma to explain his toxic and dominating actions. thank u for coming to my TedTalk.

[deletarius-draws]

Baldur’s Gate 3 ~ “Harmonious Ardor”

Solus Aximand (Tav) & Lae’zel

So this piece took me the most time to touch up, originally it was supposed stay in a sketch to inked phase of the two, but then of course I decided to explore other possible additions to the piece. Such as background ideas, I knew for certain they’d be in the Astral Sea somewhere, so I looked into a few references, firstly being from an entirely different game. “The Siofra River” in Elden Ring, that underground area where the ceiling looks exactly like that of a cosmos, with stars and misty Nebula. It’s one of my favorite places in the game, the ruined architecture, white bark trees and ghostly figures that roam that there. This inspired the initial execution of the piece, then after setting the scenery of the background and adding a few things, I looked for more references of a cosmos, in other franchises as well as actual photos of space to further ground the foundation. I looked into Warhammer 40k’s Warp photos too, but of course, if one is familiar with 40k’s lore on the warp, I personally thought, “Nah… Far too chaotic of a depiction, lovely illustrations, but it wouldn’t mesh harmoniously with Sol & Lae’s tranquil & loving embrace, the center piece of the whole thing. I did want to convey the passion through certain use of colors however with just as much peace, respect and unconditional love the two have for one another. So finally I delved into some actual dnd Astral Sea references, browsing through the otherworldly and spiritually inspired illustrations, especially the older edition artworks. Eventually I came across Astral Plane lore and did a bit of reading as I absorbed what I could from the reference images, which helped with painting in proper colors for where the two are currently. Taking Color Pools and other atmospheric lore of the Astral Sea into consideration. I’ve currently been in a sci-fi fantasy mood for quite some time, again. Which helped bring the overall piece together here, I’ve been writing up my own lore of my world’s Astral Plane, keeping the drive to finish the piece alive. Of course I’ve also taken inspiration from the game itself from the screenshots I took while the party visited the Astral Plane for a few moments during my playthroughs.

They are on a floating landmass amidst other floating islands and debris, I honestly can’t say if this is before or after the wars against Vlaakith. Personally I’d like the think it’s after but it is also possible it’s some time in the middle, as they would also find and cherish the moments of repose and peace. The constant fighting, deepening bonding and venturing, the two stay as close together, only splitting if they tactically must, usually if not always in the same general area they reunite. Solus and Lae’zel prefer to be inseparable, they move and fight as one, they know this, that they are indomitable together, but if need-be, will separate, only to always rejoin shortly after during strategic planning. Being just as monumental in combat separately, ensuring the two do not ever fail to return to the other’s embrace, in their own love language they call this, “Our Eternal Return”.

I greatly appreciate you if you read all that, I usually don’t write out my thought and creative process, but it does help to keep the drive alive. I had more but thought this is long enough, I’m still writing head canon of the two as well as fleshing out Solus Aximand (one of my Tavs) as his own character more. I really appreciate the likes, reblogs and eyes that see my work. I’ll be in the shadows working on more in the meantime.

[askdacast]

Life Series SMP/Eyes and Ears AU Thematic Discussion + Theorycrafting (pt. 1)

WARNING: Extremely long post

Kachow what’s poppin fellas, I’m back at it again talking about boomer block Youtubers and their surprisingly in-depth improv series. Now that the Life Series’ 5th season has finally concluded, I’m back on the lore train and poor Scar is left to suffer the consequences, and Martyn’s concluded yet another lore stream, I decided to compile a long master post of lore notes and theories about what we have so far.

Obviously all the ‘lore’ of the Life Series is purely unofficial; Grian has not approved any of it as being actually official/set in stone for what he intended the series to be. Most of it has been us in the crazy fandom extrapolating their really good storytelling, and also “semi-canonized” by Martyn in what he calls the Eyes and Ears AU (and this post assumes you are familiar with it). As someone who’s been a fan since the beginning way back in 3rd Life, I’ve pretty much hopped on the lore train since the beginning as well (if casually) and enjoying all the different extrapolations/analysis/angst written around the players. Rather than just theorizing lore details in a vacuum, however, I’ve always liked imagining the lore based around the reoccurring themes, symbolism and arcs we’ve seen across the series. I’d been bouncing my various thoughts and theories around these themes for a while, and finally I decided to compile my notes together.

This post is basically my imagining what the Life Series/Eyes and Ears AU story is “about,” as if it were a fleshed-out, long-running and story-driven tv show. Initially this post started as simply a gigantic “Eyes and Ears Theory,” me trying to sus out my own theories/ideas of what the Life Series’ mysteries were based on Martyn’s lore. However, considering that Martyn is ALSO writing the lore on the fly, and I have some details I would interpret differently or change, this ended up less a ‘theory’ and more ‘me writing an entire AU/interpretation of the Life Series as a whole.’ My intention is NOT to ‘correct’ Martyn’s lore, nor to claim my theory as the ‘right’ interpretation; rather, this is my personal interpretation of what the Life Series story is about, based on information shown in the original SMP and in Martyn’s AU.

One last disclaimer: I am ONLY drawing on lore details from the Life Series, Martyn’s lore streams, and Minecraft EVO, and also references to the iRL creators. I am not drawing on any story from other SMPs such as Pirates or Empires; there may be some Hermitcraft references here and there.

This is going to be very long, and a multi-parter, because I can’t summarize to save my life. And I promise I’ll come up with a proper name for my series of posts another time. If you’ve stuck around to read, I thank you.

Part 1: The Overall Plot + Understanding the Watchers

Recap of official lore details

Although Martyn hasn’t given specific details on the Watcher + Listener species (he hasn’t come up with a name yet), we know the following details for sure (from EVO, lore streams etc.)

Watchers + Listeners + The Council are all deity-like beings of the same species, and they all consume human emotions

The Council are the upper ranks/possibly leaders, whereas the Watchers + Listeners are separate factions

The Watchers are at LEAST two high-ranking members of the species (the two dots being outcast from the wider circle, as is their logo)

The Watchers were behind Minecraft EVO, where they gave all the players tasks (much like Secret Life) and eventually ending in them fighting the Ender Dragon separately

While the Watchers may not have been evil in EVO, they certainly became so AFTER, when they began to crave more negative human emotions, viewing them as “tasty” (Martyn’s words), s p i c y

They first kidnapped Grian at the end of EVO season 1, turning him into a Watcher to possibly have him join their ranks, but he’s gone rogue after realizing what their plans for the Life Series were, and plans to rescue his friends from them

The Life Series was the Watchers’ ploy to trap the players in an infinite death game where they betray and cause each other pain, all to harvest their negative emotions. Grian, in defiance to this, takes control as the ‘game master’ to make the whole thing…well, a game, so that his friends can enjoy, have fun and ease their anguish. In Martyn’s words, this is like “pouring ketchup all over the Watchers’ sundae.”

The Listeners (EVO season 2) are an opposing faction to the Watchers who disagree with their methods, although why is unknown. They’ve attempted to contact some players (e.g. Jimmy) before back in EVO in order to oppose the Watchers, but it’s not known how successful they were. They’ve also tried to swap in players in the Life Series before (e.g. subbing Lizzie and Gem for Pearl and Cleo in Lim. Life) in order to sneak them in and try to subvert the game. The Watchers kidnapping Gem for Secret Life is partially in retaliation to the Listeners. The Listeners may not be good and may have nefarious intentions also, it is as yet still unknown.

There’s potentially a third faction, the Speakers, but very little is known about them and Martyn doesn’t want to elaborate on them yet.

Okay, but what are the Watchers even after?

"Accept your fate."

From here on out is my real conjecturing/theorizing. The main question on my mind has been why are the Watchers doing what they’re doing? Obviously Martyn has confirmed that they are malicious deities who find negative human emotions tasty, but this raises further questions. Why exactly do they desire such emotions, or need them to survive (if they do, anyway)? Why do they favour negativity, when the other members of their species consume a wide range of emotions? They were confirmed to be outcast in some way from the other factions for this ploy, so what does that say about them then?

The whole species fundamentally do not understand human emotions (or perhaps do not even possess them)

This seems to me the most logical conclusion. These are powerful deities who can create miniature worlds/dimensions, life, and time to an extent (death loop). They should theoretically be self-sufficient, so I doubt that their consumption of human emotion is for survivability reasons (i.e. I don’t think Watchers will literally die if they don’t consume emotions, the same way humans die without food). What seems more likely is that human emotions bring them some benefit to their intelligence or power that they’d otherwise be quite non-functional without. (Think like the demons in The Promised Neverland, who regress to feral natures/lack of sapience if they don’t eat humans)

The Watchers’ powers and their lab-rat experimentation on the players gives a huge vibe of not being able to understand human emotions in an involved way, but only from a distance. They know methodically things like murder and betrayal cause panic and anguish, so they enforce these experiences through the game, mechanics like the Boogeyman, the Secret Tasks etc. But they don’t really know internally why these emotions come about the way humans do. Being above time, they probably don’t understand why the funny small animals have so much attachment to their transitory experiences and memories (more on this later).

world's angriest pumpkin

The Watchers are Losers, Actually

Going further, don’t you think the Watchers have a very misanthropic mindset all around? “Anguish and panic are s p i c y.” They conversely have a complete disgust for positive emotions, and can’t stand Grian making things fun for everybody. It almost feels like they have the mindset that only things like hatred and fear are exciting, bringing motivation and life to the humans, whereas things like happiness and fun are ‘useless’ because they don’t bring about the same results. Let’s also not forget their name – Watchers – and that Martyn’s confirmed them to be symbolically based off us, the audience. It’s almost like a commentary of the worst of the entertainment industry, of an audience who crave watching anything and everything to satisfy their own desires, even at the expense of the privacy and safety of the entertainer. Given the current state of the internet and social media, I don’t think I need to elaborate how awful things can get.

In other words, I believe the main motivation the Watchers are eating humans emotions is because they WANT to understand and ‘take into themselves’ such emotions. I don’t think they’re totally emotionless – Martyn does portray them with moments of glee and anger. But their understanding of emotions is superficial (self-centered, if you will) at best. As deities with no needs, being above time, they have nothing to be afraid of and nothing to feel sad or anguished over. It’s a boring, dull and empty existence. And that’s precisely why they’ve set up the Life Series game: by kidnapping a few humans and putting them through the artificially constructed wringer of panic and betrayal, they think they can create a human farm of such rich, complex and exciting emotions, all for themselves to enjoy at their own pleasure and fill the void they have.

(Listeners’ side note: If all that is the philosophy of the Watchers, it’s probably not difficult to see how/why the Listeners oppose them. The Listeners likely disagree that negative emotions are the most optimal state of humans, and unlike the Watchers do not think human suffering is just tasty popcorn one can eat at one’s pleasure. Their name – Listeners – implies they’re a more sympathetic faction, as in they listen to one’s troubles and heart rather than take delight in suffering at a superficial level. But if they are the same species, it’s very likely they have the same lack of instinctive understanding of human emotions that the Watchers do, and this could cause…problems.)

Why turn Grian?

All this is also why I believe the Watchers kidnapped Grian + turned him into a Watcher in the first place. Firstly, if they were going to concoct their plan to trap humans, they needed a collaborator from the humans in the first place. Secondly, and most importantly, this collaborator was going to be their only direct source of how human emotions work/feel like, and therefore what were the most optimal conditions needed to ensure their death game would generate the most pain and anguish. They picked Grian because he’s always the ‘leader’ of the SMP players, the person gathering and organizing everyone, so logically, he is the most ‘representative’ of the humans, and the one with the greatest ability to control them.

Of course, it’s also true that Grian was a little $#@% throughout EVO and actively rebelled against the Watchers’ tasks, so making him their collaborator might seem strange. Ignoring the meta reason that the ending was written to explain Grian’s exit from the series. But I figured in this case, they considered the benefits more than the costs. Grian’s chaotic nature is not unlike the Watchers’, considering how much he loves causing pranks and trouble to others. So, as a huge oversight, they think Grian is just like them: he loves to see people suffer, so they think. Additionally, the Watchers are desperate to understand how Grian gets his fellow humans to follow him and do what he asks with little effort. You’ll notice the Watchers have very direct, authoritative ways of trying to wrest control (e.g. the tasks, “do this or you fail”), and they get very petty and upset when people rebel against them (re: Scott’s refusal to be the Boogeyman, their motto is a very demanding “OUR WILL BE DONE.”) They see Grian’s charisma as yet another aspect of human emotions they fail to understand and thus WANT to possess for themselves.

Pictured above: The Watchers, coping and seething

Of course as we know, the Watchers believing Grian would help them is a major oversight. Becoming a god doesn’t just fundamentally change who Grian is, and he definitely doesn’t want to consign his friends to an infinite death loop of suffering. That being said, I don’t think Grianhas truly gone ‘rogue’ so much as taken as much advantage as possible of his ‘deal’ with the Watchers. We can guess the Watchers promised to him some kind of control/leadership over his friends’ circumstances as long as he worked for them, which led to them giving him the keys to the Life Series. In other words, so long as he fulfils their requirements of things being a death game that will generate ‘food’ for them, and lets them revive everyone each loop, he gets to decide how the games go.

And we know exactly what Grian’s done with this: he created the green-yellow-red lives system, he creates a fun gimmick each season, he inserts himself into the game as a player, all to bring out the best and most creative side of his friends rather than the worst. The Boogeyman probably is the only gimmick the Watchers added on their own initiative (re: Martyn’s POV in Last Life) in order to make things more spicy. Probably Grian’s conversation with the Watchers each time goes, “hey, I got an idea on how to bring out the most creative ways for everyone to cause pain in each other, [comes up with some bullcrap justification for the game’s fun mechanics].” I like to think the Watchers were going to make the death games even more vicious, cruel and competitive, but because of Grian’s wrangling he’s convinced them that a slow burn from joy to horror creates better results, and they tolerate it as long as they see him useful.

Memories and Emotions

There is also one BIG detail of the Watchers’ plan I’d like to mention: Martyn claims that the Watchers do NOT erase the players’ memories. At the end of each season, they consume everyone’s emotions so that there’s no more angst/ill will towards each other, and they start each season afresh. The players remember what’s happened in past seasons, but they don’t continue to hold the pain and negative feelings they had towards each other.

I don’t buy this, for numerous reasons.

For one, Martyn has confirmed the Watchers ARE capable of removing people’s memories. The one memory they have outright altered was the ex-EVO players’ (Martyn, Jimmy, BigB etc.) memory of what happened to Grian: they don’t remember that Grian was taken to be turned into a Watcher, and instead remember it as him either going missing or dying after the Ender Dragon fight. All this presumably to not give away the Watchers’ schemes and to ensure they still listen to Grian as if nothing ever happened.

More importantly, however, memories are vital to humanity’s emotional experience and mental health. I am not an expert by any means, but there are studies showing how people with amnesia, PTSD or other conditions affecting memories have flashbacks/emotional reactions to trauma they don’t remember consciously. The Watchers have (supposedly) done something far more simplistic yet fantastic by just eating up everybody’s emotions. All this, even though they see humans as emotion factories, constantly able to generate emotions just by existing, by their ability to draw and create meaning through emotional experiences, and by creating memories – the clearest embodiment of a mortal’s attachment to time (which if you remember, I believe the Watchers have no concept of).

You cannot just tell a human to stop feelingcompletely (under normal circumstances anyway), but especially not if they remember something very very traumatic.

Besides, there ARE clear instances when some of the players remember the events of past seasons and are STILL not over them! Impulse and Tango still being bitter/distrustful after Bdubs betrayed each of them separately, Cleo distrusting BigB for the same reason, Scott referencing Flower Husbands a lot, Pearl feeling betrayed by Cleo/Scott when they supposedly broke up the Gaslight/Gatekeep/Girlboss trio at the start of DL, Bdubs’ “I wanna be your favorite son” in Secret Life, the list goes on. Note that I’ve only listed negative/bittersweet instances; there are plenty more cases of the players remembering past seasons and alliances positively which the Watchers may have ignored. The point is, if the Watchers truly consumed everyone’s emotions to the point of a clean slate, they haven’t exactly been thorough. Nor do I think it’s very conducive for them either – don’t they want players to have enduring, unending, unresolved pain, the sweetest of all (to them)?

No, I think the Watchers HAVE been erasing/suppressing the players’ memories – they’ve just been very selective which ones. Martyn’s said that the Watchers do not care what families or connections they separate so long as they get the people they want and the plans they want. I’m going to assume the players in my theory/the Eyes and Ears AU are exactly the same as their CC counterparts. In other words: they’ve stolen Grian away from his wife. They stole Martyn away from his and his daughter. Ditto with Skizz, Impulse, Tango etc. They stole Scar away from his family. Joel and Lizzie are the only couple they didn’t separate, perhaps because they needed both for their plans, and also so they can inflict the most torture on them by ripping them away from each other, over and over again. And in order to ensure the complete submissiveness of the players to the game, the Watchers have taken away their memories of their past lives, their families, basically anyone who isn’t a fellow player in the game. The Watchers don’t erase the memories of bonds between seasons, because it’s a pain to have to teach the humans how to play all over again, but they erase any memories they find disadvantageous to keeping the game running.

They might even go one step further: while they haven’t erased the players’ memories of who each other are (so as to not cause confusion), they do try to suppress important memories. Things like how they met, the times they confided in each other after a bad day, cried on each other’s shoulder, laughed in each other’s successes, the times they hung out with each other’s families. Imagine the different alliances constantly gravitating to each other, but never being able to remember why they care about each other so much. Imagine Bdubs’ “Come on, you know you and I go way back!” when trying to justify taking Cleo’s stuff, and Cleo laughs back, even though she can’t quite remember what exactly Bdubs has done to warrant that. Imagine Joel or Lizzie trying to remember why they loved each other so much.

They fight and kill some of their friends, and protect others, because…because why again? It’s for survival value, surely, so the Watchers whisper. It’s because the strong must congregate with the strong and leave the weak to die, surely. It’s because Martyn’s always been a loner, and always will be, and should remain so. So they tell him. So they whisper, this is a deathmatch for a reason.

Grian’s Fundamental Rebellion

I think all this is the real reason Grian is rebelling against the Watchers. The most immediate reason is obvious: he wants to free his friends from this death loop. But the deeper reason as to why he’s rebelled is that the Watchers are torturing and robbing his friends of their humanity. They’re taking a tight-knit group of friends who love and would do anything for each other, and turning them against each other in a cruel and unescapable death game. On TOP of this, the Watchers have constantly messed with their heads in order to make them obedient and submissive to their schemes and the worst of their human nature, trapping them in fear, pettiness and paranoia. Of course Grian is upset. Of course he wants to save them from this fate. It’s an insult to who he knows these people to be.

This all leaves Grian in a pretty precarious position. While outwardly the Watchers want to make him a lackey as the “game master”, both he and they know he really wants to save his friends (they probably see it as their ‘cattle’ showing a bit of resistance, which once again they need to suppress). And while on one hand he’s making the games fun to ease his friends’ pain and bring the best out of them, this is just a hotfix rather than a real solution. In order to really rescue the players, Grian’s got to get them to rebel against the Watchers as well. Refuse to play by the rules, by the expectation that they must murder and kill without mercy, without any attachment to their alliances or past friendships. Make everyone like Scott refusing to be the Boogeyman, or Skizz constantly trying to be wholesome (until the bloodlust gets the better of him anyway).

Ironically in order to achieve this, Grian’s best bet is to try to jog everyone’s lost memories of each other and the things they lost, both good and bad. But ultimately, this is going to make them (in the short term) suffer more. This is where you can insert all your Desert Duo/Flower Husband/whatever alliance you like most angst. But more practically, I like to imagine when “the cameras” are not watching, when Grian knows no one will notice or catch him, he sneaks around to the different alliances, even the ones he’s not part of, to ask them how they’re doing, if they remember anything from the past etc. (in a meta sense, the players edit and cut stuff from their videos all the time; who’s to say he isn’t trying to catch a quick chat while everyone’s mining?!) It also reflects in why Grian is constantly trying to make alliances with different people instead of just gravitate to one person, he needs to check on everyone and capitalize on every single opportunity. (besides the meta reason, being that cc!Grian wants to be creative, and sticking to the same person all the time isn’t very entertaining from a content creator perspective)

One last detail about the winners: I don’t have much to say about the fragments yet, because Martyn (sneaky boi) hasn’t yet revealed the significance of the fragments nor of their healing, although he has hinted Bad Things™ will happen if a player gets too fragmented. But I do think the winners are important: with the game finished, they give Grian a very short window of time to talk to one person directly, without Watcher interference. They’re always the last to be killed/swept away/revived by the Watchers, and I can imagine there’s a brief period of time when their souls are being transferred to The Void w/e where Grian can step in and interfere. In my theory, Grian passes on some sort of clue/push to the winners, as like a subtle message about what they can do to stand up to the Watchers. I’ll detail on what I think these individual messages were in part 2. Needless to say, 3rd Life was a traumatic experience for Grian for many reasons, but the nail in the coffin was the fact that he won, and therefore there was no way for him to pass a message onto anyone.

Conclusion

Hooooooo jeepers that was long @A@; Thank you so much for your patience reading this if you made it to the end, I really appreciate it. As I said, I’ve had these lore ideas bouncing in my head for a LONG time, and with the end of Secret Life I couldn’t get out of my head the different trends/symbolism that was popping out of an improv series. It honestly speaks a lot to how genius our favorite block dudes are at improv, that they can turn their improv nonsense into a coherent narrative. I really wanted to try my hand at fleshing out such a narrative, and with Martyn constantly drip-feeding lore to the fans, I had more than enough material to not just put out guesses but construct something a full XYZ. As I mentioned, I enjoy workshopping themes and characters a LOT more than just worldbuilding or “what if this or that” details in a vacuum, hence why I’ve written all that I have, so this was a fun exercise for me all around!

Next time in part 2 I talk about Character Development™, or character specific notes and details I’ve noticed and extrapolated from what we’ve seen of each individual player, as well as what their different arcs across the seasons mean for them within the lore. Stay tuned for another wordbarf!

Bonus list of works I was inspired by for this loredump:

Log Horizon

The Promised Neverland

Danganronpa (ironic as I’m not really a fan of this franchise, but the first game has an otherwise solid premise which I found really similar to the Life Series)

The Fate franchise (when Martyn asked “what’s Fate?” on the latest lore stream, let me tell you I couldn’t stop laughing; NO MARTYN DON’T GO INTO THE WEEB RABBIT HOLE)

Various amazing animatics from the Traffic fandom: Earth, Bang!, most of Melloz Heist’s works, and of course all the amazing fanart

Way too many conversations with my friends about fantasy species

[desire-mona]

heard we were making house ocs and ive had a dingus floating around in my head since january so i FINALLY got around to actually making a proper ref sheet. i present my silliest

Dr. Nanette "Ninny" Amesbury :3

more under cut !

big warning lore n backstory n stuff is very bare bones and not all the way there cuz im #lazy

birthday is vague but lets go with ~35 circa s2

if i had a nickel for every oc i had who had absent parents and was raised catholic by their grandparents, id have two nickels. unintentional that it happened twice i sorta forgor the other one's lore for a bit and now its stuck so ummmmm sorry laney. wont be going into childhood bc i havent come up w that yet and honestly i dont care to!!! yada yada yada catholic guilt but not in the chase way bc she hasnt left the church n likely never will

ummmm relationship chart + template

lets just quick go over some relationship highlights cuz some are def more important than others

wilson: mr president a 4th ex wife has hit the james wilson. when were they married? ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 😁

but they were married for like. 3 years? YES it ended bc he cheated but nin also wasn't the best either her ass was literally never ever there she was ALWAYS at work (like more than normal doctor amounts of at work - only came home to sleep and even that was only 4x a week(also worked at a different hospital))

tw suicide for next part bee tee dub

a big part of the beginning of their relationship was (big surprise) wilson's attraction to what he THOUGHT was neediness but was literally just nin wanting (and trying) to kill herself lol. once the magic of all that went away (perceived independence thats rly just #bottling shit up) he was just kinda like oh :/ its not cool to have a mentally ill wife anymore :/ i was expecting ramona flowers :/ or whatever. so infidelity impact font, hijinks and moving away for [amount] years ensue before nin being hired at ppth as the head of pediatrics. brief fwb situation w wilson Again b4 she finds out shes a lesbian at the end of like. s2.

oh yeah she also tries to kill herself again once she figures it out (see catholic guilt mention) but its cool she lives

cuddy: GAAAAAYYYYY GAAAAYYYYYYY GAY!!!!! DR AMESBURY WANTS TO FUCK THIS WOMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! its one sided tho boooooo cuddys briefly like Wait ? just b4 nin moves away at the end of s6 roughly but shes already. thats done its not happening.

kutner: dont even fucking talk to me. i dont wanna talk about it. im gonna talk about it.

so kutner (like the slut that he is lowkey but society isnt ready for that) asks nin out just after he gets hired and shes like ermmmmmmmmmm! but sensing his loser aura she (still deeply closeted) is like hey haha i dont swing that way sorry !!!!!!! but its ok they become super mega best friends and get nerdy together

i like to think they listen to weird al together OH YEAH NINS THE BIGGEST WEIRD AL YANKOVIC FAN IN NEW JERSEY

and then nothing bad happens!

if youve seen this post about the little writing things kutner got after he croaked then hooray here's nanettes

they make me so fucking upset.

anyway as i stated above nin moves away after s6 for a bunch of reasons. 1) thanks obama 2) a big part of what contributed to her suicidal ideations n such was the fact that deep down she didnt ACTUALLY know what she wanted to do w her life. u may be like she doesnt. want to be a doctor ? NO she doesnt thats just what she did to get money to eventually do what she wants. whatever that is. something something feeling lost in life and unable to reach a goal when u dont even know what the goal is something something. also persistent depressive disorder but like spoon in kitchen.

idk what shes gonna end up doing after she moves but id imagine she shows up for house's funeral so i cant just be like lol nobody gets to know! im thinking painter but idk IDK guys her lore is ROUGH

thats it if u have questions ill answer thanks

[crabsnpersimmons]

hi @uwuinhell!

i have a bit of a long answer to this, so i hope you don’t mind me replying as a post, just in case anyone else is curious

the tl;dr is: i'm planning to write a fic for this AU, but i'm happy to read your fic as well with proper credit

first thing is: i’m overjoyed by the positive response to this little AU! it’s definitely been occupying my mind as i’ve been studying (Eclipse is notably the most distracting) so i’m glad there’s an interest in such a simple premise—i was honestly hesitant to call it an AU at first by how simple an idea it is

that being said, i’ve been hinting at it a bit in some of my tags, but i am planning to write a fic for this AU it’s still in the planning and drabble stage, but there is definitely a story that i’m hoping to share. unfortunately, i am currently attempting to speedrun a 2 year program, so my time is short—and my leisure time is split between my other competing ideas and inhaling other people’s creative works to revive me after my daily readings

i will say that the AU has evolved quite a bit since my initial drawings—new designs, more background info, and a healthy dose of lore and trauma for the entire main cast—so there’s a lot i’m excited to share with you all

THAT BEING SAID, i am always eager to encourage other people’s creativity and i am so honoured that my little doodles can inspire people to be creative. so i would absolutely love to see your fic, i just ask that you:

credit me if it uses my designs and ideas; and

send me a link so i can read it, because i will read it and i will treasure it and do a silly little dance

in case anyone's curious, here are some not-too-spoilery notes about what i’m planning:

the working title is “New Do, Same You” (honestly still iffy about it—it fits the story but it doesn’t quite ring well, we’ll see if i keep it)

it’s a slice of life story about how we respond to change, dusting ourselves off and moving forward, while carrying the baggage and fragile trinkets that define us

off the top of my head, these are some relevant tags: Slow Burn, Romance, Polyamory, Hurt & Comfort, Drama, Slice of Life, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Kissing (eventually), Humour, Possessive Behaviour, Healthy and Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Inferiority Complex, Body Dysmorphia, Existential Dread, Fluff, nothing NSFW

will likely default to a T rating, but will bump up to M for heavier topics

it will definitely be more than 5 chapters long. i don’t have an estimate on how long the fic will be. it's nothing too grand but i do know it will need quite a bit of time in order to properly explore all 3 of the boys and Y/N

there will be a Y/N, and Y/N has some lore, but other than some key backstory and key areas of development, i try to keep them gender neutral and as ambiguous as possible

i’ll be sharing the updated designs and some drabbles here when i have time—as soon as i can! (a little sneak peak is actually scheduled to post sometime today!)

i’ll also admit that this is my first time planning to write such a big fic and the first time i’m considering sharing it with other fans! my writing muse is very shy, so please be patient with me

in the meantime, please accept this (admittedly outdated) doodle of the boys: