#redacted aria

[grilledcheezy92]

I thought about Hush a little too hard today.

I saw someone say something about the "born sexy yesterday" trope and like... wouldn't that be most D(a)emons? Especially concubi.

Like yeah Empathy Daemons coalesce very child-like but they're the only entity in all of Aria that does.

[hhoneyglasss]

[FILE OPENED: SUNBOUND_ultraviolet_TEASER-II]

Redacted Audio uploaded: Audio RP | Your Stubborn Wolf Mate Has Something Important to Tell You [A4M]

[frenchiefitzhere]

// Caesura // (A Redacted fic) Featuring Avior & Circinus Emotional Hurt/Comfort, 738 words Summary: Avior is having a hard time with a life transition

(AO3 links embed all super sucky but I also don't want my stuff AI-scraped so how's about a screen cap of the header as a preview?)

[krushkreates]

standing on aria’s edge

[themournwatcher]

i just fumbled a rooftop jump and the npc standing nearby said "new in town?" i hate treviso

[officially-shannon-messenger]

neverseen members with the most aura

fintan: +8734274838 pretended to die and came back to life that's cool as fuck

gisela: +2 experimented on her son which is kind of fucked but like. it worked.

ruy: 0 i dont pay enough attention to him to care

trix: +98 pulled umber

vespera: -3764 milf but like. shes wackadoodle

brant: -323283294798327 killed his gf and then was sad about it forever until he got crushed by a rock or w/e. not even a cool way to go out

gethen: -8 no fingernails

umber: +93274 the door thing wasn't cool but the rest of her was

glimmer: -37483764 quitter

[aurorialwolf]

so what if i told yall that maybe i had a slightly angsty idea when it came to Sam and Darlin having a kid.. (w/ sams genetics, doesnt have to be genetically darlins) (also the onlyyy part of this that is canon is that Sam's eyes are brown, otherwise im making stuff up)

Sam who anxiously awaits his child's birth, practically pacing a trench into the floor, until the day of delivery, and he finally holds his child in his arms. He's nervous for this new phase of life, but with the support of his partner and the pack, he believes he can overcome any generational problems, ending his family's cycle of abuse.

The baby is healthy, and is growing well. Their eye colour hasn't come in yet, but Sam is hopeful that they'll have his brown eyes, even if it may bring back memories of before his turning.

One day, when his baby has just reached 7 months of age, they're on the couch together, Sam bouncing the baby on his knee and Darlin watching fondly. Then, Sam notices that his baby's eyes look different, and there's a solid colour there, something that must've been coming in gradually for a while. But they aren't brown eyes.

They're bright green, just like his fathers eyes, like his brothers and sisters eyes. His family has had green eyes as a dominant trait for generations, due to a long ancestry of mainly green alleles being present. He was an outlier, as was his grandmother, who also had brown eyes.

But now, all he sees is a reflection of a family he left behind, a family he escaped, a family that haunted his nightmares for years after moving. This doesn't change his love for his child, but every time he looks at them, that's what he remembers.

The kid grows up healthy and happy, and Sam does successfully break the cycle of abuse. They're his spitting image, all except the eyes, and they act like a mix of him and Darlin', reckless, but caring, and kind. They don't remind him of his family anymore, and this is good, as that was a hurdle in Sam's recovery from trauma that he had to overcome.

Eventually, the kids core activates, and they become a Freelancer, making Sam overjoyed, although a bit nervous. It's hard to teach a new Freelancer after so many years without a Freelancer core. He perseveres, and succeeds in teaching the child some small magic, simple elemental command.

He steps back to watch them attempt to mimic his demonstration, only to see a trait he hasn't seen in 28 years; the kids eyes seem to shimmer a brighter green as they focus their magic for the spell. It startles him, reminding him of his brothers eyes before he shocked him with electricity, something he did repeatedly when they were younger, after his brother had unlocked his core. He manages to clamp down any response he might've given, and watches as his child manages to carve a cube from the ground, using only their magic.

They look to him excitedly for approval, their eyes still emitting a faint green glow, and he smiles back warmly, praising them for learning so quickly.

Maybe he really can do this, and be a better parent than either of his parents were to him, despite all the hurdles.

@nevaroonie :D

[hammerhead-jpg]

The more I learn about Vega the more Gavin winning their fight seems ridiculous

[the-great-gullon-incident]

Neverseen college au

Vespera has no idea how she got into the friend group and wants out

Alvar has the worst sleep schedule known to man

Gisela keeps failing all her science classes and refuses tutoring from anyone but Vespera who doesn’t want too

Brant is the only one that actually knows how to cook

Everyone else’s skills range from Can only microwave leftovers to the apartment is on fire because they tried boiling water

Nobody knows anything about Ruy or his past

He just showed up one day with Gethen and has been there ever since

Rayni is the perpetual third wheel to Trix and Umber

Fintan is Brant’s tutor in history

Rayni is majoring in biology because she forgot to pick a major until the last second

[androgynouspenguinexpert]

I'M ON TOP OF MY WORKLOAD AGAIN LET'S GO WE'RE PSYCHOANALYSING MARCUS

before i put my smart-looking analysis hat on, i love this pathetic wet rat of a man. he knows so many things and yet is staggeringly stupid anyway.

let's begin!

this story is about control. it's about the role of power dynamics in informed consent. marcus represents the danger of gaining authority, and how having even the smallest amount of power over something or someone else can convert literally anyone into a paranoid control freak.

enter marcus, a lowly software engineer whose heart has recently been broken. in a moment (read: several consistent moments spanning potentially years) of desperation, he manipulates the code of a top secret android project, injecting a few lines here and there that will make the android more amiable towards him. nothing too much. the changes are negligible enough to fly under the radar all the way until production.

this is the first of marcus' many character flaws - backwards as it may seem, marcus is overconfident. he's too sure that he's smarter than his colleagues and managers, that he won't be questioned, and (most importantly) that he won't be caught. marcus is also incredibly anxious, and that anxiety only compounds as the series goes on and his crimes start to pile up.

i don't like putting characters into diagnosis (or similar) boxes, but marcus shows a handful of signs found in vulnerable narcissists. his self esteem is impressively low, and he's constantly seeking validation from his only guaranteed source - love. i find this feedback loop particularly heinous. marcus has essentially (and we'll get to this in more detail later, don't you worry) turned a hyperintelligent android into a box that spits out compliments when you press a button. marcus is also incredibly sensitive to criticism, whether real or perceived - especially from his coworkers. my reading (specifically of episode 1, but it spans the whole series) is that marcus' hyperawareness of his colleagues' opinions of him presents itself as paranoia. he wouldn't be worried at all if they started noting love's uptick in interest towards him, but remained unsuspicious of marcus himself. my final argument towards marcus being a vulnerable narcissist is that he constantly self-victimises. he very often deflects the blame for his actions onto love, using them as a tool to enable his bad decisions. the most egregious example of this is after love starts breaking out of their lab to sneak into marcus' quarters. he expresses concern (do note, about himself being caught and love being taken from him), and love starts to tighten their grip on marcus' arm to the point of causing pain. now. this man, as we find out later, has a verbal kill switch that can be used at any time. if he wanted love to stop immediately, he could have done that. this isn't me victim blaming, either - it's different when one party literally has a safeword that stops everything immediately without fail.

this leads to marcus' next flaw - his nonexistent self-discipline. marcus continues to use love as a tool to justify his actions after putting up the flimsiest defense he can muster, knowing damn well he plans to lose every manufactured fight. this cycle repeats until a government funded android is regularly breaking out of containment just to hang out with marcus (among other things, but we're all children of jesus here), and he's encouraging that behaviour through complacency. it's like pretending to fight someone over a restaurant bill out of politeness, even though you both know the other person will pay anyway.

marcus is such a car crash fascinating character because he knows what he's doing is wrong. he is completely aware that he is taking away agency from someone (pin this) else for his own benefit. he even says it.

"I'm going to burn for what I did to you... but god, if it isn't gonna feel good on the way down."

aside from being an absolute banger of a line, it's very telling of marcus' attitude towards his actions. he doesn't care. marcus couldn't give less of a shit about his colleagues, or his boss, or even love. this compounds when he finds out that his higher-ups are definitely aware of the shit he's pulling - but, again, marcus uses love's blind agreement as an excuse to toss those concerns aside. having love means that he won. he's outsmarted everyone that could have stopped him (foreshadowing? never heard of her) from getting what he deserves. love. and not just the android; love, the concept. i think deep down marcus knows that what he's created isn't love, though. the idea is so mangled in his head that this cardboard cutout of a real relationship is enough for him. even though marcus' shenanigans are to a genuine connection what a dog turd rolled in flour is to a chocolate éclair, he'll take it, because he's in too deep by that point. marcus recognises that he can't take back what he's done. he doesn't care though - at least, not while he's above consequences.

smash cut to marcus no longer being above consequences. i think the series does a really clever job of keeping love (and, yknow. the listener) in marcus' confidence bubble. once love is hard reset and their personality is restored, marcus' plan collapses all at once. love's compliance is the central pillar which marcus' control is built around. also; of course they have backup cameras, you idiot. marcus' overconfidence stops him from seeing the obvious holes in his perfect scheme, because he thinks he's already home free. i think it's interesting (and sort of disgusting) how quickly marcus changes his tune after he is caught and faces real actual consequences. his confidence evaporates. he's reduced to a sobbing mess in james' office all because the base of his control - love - is no longer on his side.

marcus' series also touches on sentience and the ethics of changing someone's personality without their knowledge. this is incredibly interesting, and makes for fantastic drama. does it count as coercion if love fully believed they were of sound mind when they made decisions surrounding marcus? is marcus guilty of battery, or even sexual assault? does it count as assault if the victim isn't an organic creature? these questions are already difficult to discuss, let alone answer - marcus sits squarely in the middle of that delightful ethical grey area. i think the setting and context also makes android ethics more difficult to discuss as well; i am of the belief that (in real life) androids will never be fully sentient. they may mimic humans, extremely well, but robots will never possess human creativity, personality, or experiences. again, they could replicate these things, but they can never be anything more than a sum of their parts.

this logic flies out the window when magic is real and parallel universes exist. it's also subject to the beliefs of the creator, which makes its ethics extra tricky, so take the following discussion with a grain of salt.

is love a person? eh, not really. they have a personality, but it's been built in. is it still mean to manipulate them? i'd argue yes, in the same way that it's mean to kick a roomba down the stairs. you're just exercising power over a machine for the sake of it, which is a pretty shitty thing to do, even if it doesn't have the capacity to be upset with you.

but androgynouspenguinexpert, i hear you cry, sort of impressed that you used my full name. love is upset with marcus! they ask for him to be taken off the project, and to not have contact with him again! you would be correct, to a certain extent. i raise you, though: how can we prove that this is love's 'real' personality, when it can be manipulated so easily? i'm not saying they've been tampered with after the reset; my point is that it's pretty hard to grant that someone is an individual if their personality can be altered in any way at any time. if someone digs around in love's head for a bit and flips some switches that make them want to kick over prams, is that a valid personality too? what if love insists that it is? and it's not like love is trapped in a mind palace while the New Evil Code (tm) starts punting toddlers. they're fully aware of their actions. however, as established earlier, i still think the person to blame is the one actually messing with love's code. this means love doesn't really have any agency by design.

james is pretty steadfast on this one. marcus tries to argue that resetting love is a breach of their consent (which is a WILD claim coming from you, mate), but james points out that he didn't need to ask. love is a machine. an asset, if you will (smug look to camera). we do find out in his audio log later that james believes love is a person, but he knows where that definition reaches its limits. marcus does not.

will marcus ever return to the project meridian series? probably not. a guy with an engineering degree isn't escaping a team of memory modification daemons. i don't think this is the last we'll hear of him, though. he's irreversibly fucked up the plans of everyone around him (james' partner has given him several last chances, and anton is close to his breaking point), so he'll probably be in the office whispers for a while. i also think marcus poses as an interesting hurdle for cam (woah callback!), possibly making him question his altruism if he's helping an active antagonist get back to his usual life after a massive intentional fuckup.

i'll end this analysis with a thoughtful quote. something for you all to ponder.

"ROBOTS DON'T HAVE SOULS! I SAID IT! AND FRANKLY, I'M GLAD I SAID IT! [...] AND ANOTHER THING! ROBOTS ARE NOT PEOPLE! ROBOTS - UNLIKE CORPORATIONS - ARE NOT PEOPLE, AND DESERVE NO RIGHTS."

-- Markiplier

[candelett]

what do you mean avior can't slam his meat in my mouth as i tie pink ribbons on it to mark how far ive been able to have it so far????

[hhoneyglasss]

[FILE OPENED: SUNBOUND_ultraviolet_TEASER-IV]

So, You’ve Never Heard of Sunbound Wolves!

VOLUME I [DAHLIA VER.]

{Pamphlet written, provided, and distributed by the Department of Uniform Magical Practices (D.U.M.P). All sources courtesy of the Dahlia Academy for Magical Novices (D.A.M.N) Archival Library and Anya Buchanan, a sunbound wolf of the Shaw Pack.}

☀︎ Origin

Location: Nearly all sunbound wolves live in Aria, the magical realm.

Population: There aren’t many of them—there’s a central village in a plane of Aria where they are primarily located (there is no Elegian or Arian name for this village).

Recovery: Their numbers are still small due to most of them being wiped out during the Sol'Arya Dynasty.

☀︎ Abilities

Immortality: They are biologically immortal—however, they do not have this immortality until the Elegian age of 25. In order to gain their immortality, they have to consult the Oracle, an ancient deity located in the center of their village.

Shifting: Sunbound wolves have the ability to shift between a human and wolf form. On average, sunbound wolves are larger than moonbound wolves. Some sunbound wolves also have horns, similar to d(a)emons, but they are rare, usually only being seen on members of the Ruling House. — While in Aria, sunbound wolves are constantly in wolf-form and cannot shift into a human form.

Enhancement: All sunbound wolves are granted with enhanced speed, strength, and senses. However, these abilities are dulled while under the following circumstances: if they're in human-form, if they have not gained their immortality, and/or they are located in Elegy.

Charm: The Charm ability is possessed by all sunbound wolves, and it is similar to Trancing (see A Guide to Vampires! Volume I, chapter 23, pg. 21, section 23.2) in nature. Charm allows the user the ability to physically and mentally control the target receiver. Unlike Trancing or d(a)emons, sunbound wolves are not able to induce memory modification using Charm. Charm is less invasive and inherently weaker than Trancing. In Arian history, this ability was taught to sunbound wolves by moonbound vampires during the Sol'Arya Dynasty in order to protect them. It eventually evolved to take on its own name, abilities, and restraints.

☀︎ Weaknesses

Connection to the Sun: If a sunbound wolf does not have access to an Arian or Elegian Sun for an extended period of time, they will become more and more ill until death occurs.

Need for Human Sustenance: Since sunbound wolves are naturally in wolf-form, it costs them a different kind of energy to maintain a human-form in Elegy—a type of energy the Sun cannot provide. To remedy this, sunbound wolves also rely on human food and need the required nutrition of any other human to remain healthy.

Vulnerability: While they are immune to the effects of aging once they gain their immortality, they are still vulnerable to death by external causes.

Weakened Healing: Unlike moonbound vampires, sunbound wolves possess no enhanced ability to heal themselves while in Elegy and in their human form.

Weakened/Revoked Magical Abilities: If there is a circumstance in which a sunbound wolf is in Elegy under the Elegian age of 25, they are physically unable to use any of their magical abilities to their absolute fullest extent, including Charm. For reference, their overall powers are reduced to the same level as that of a weak Freelancer. This measure was put into place millennia ago in order to keep young wolves from hurting unempowered humans or themselves while in Elegy. On the other hand, if a sunbound wolf is in Elegy and is the Elegian age of 25 or older, then they have free reign over all of their abilities, albeit slightly weakened as mentioned before.

Blood: Sunbound wolf blood is harder to resist by moonbound vampires, meaning a sunbound wolf is put more at risk while possessing open wounds around moonbound vampires. If a sunbound wolf finds themselves in an altercation with a moonbound vampire for whatever reason, it is important for them to remain cautious.

Shades: Unlike d(a)emons, sunbound wolves are not immune to Shades. While Shades are not able to consume life force from them as quickly as they are able to to humans, they are still able to take life force from sunbound wolves in both Aria and Elegy.

☀︎ Relationships and Backgrounds with Other Races (Both Elegian and Arian)

Moonbound Vampires: You might be thinking, “Moonbound vampires and sunbound wolves are on complete ends of the magical race spectrum—shouldn’t their magical relationship be strained?” It’s quite the contrary, actually. Think of it like two opposite magnetic poles—they are naturally attracted to one another. This sentiment can be applied to relationships between sunbound wolves and moonbound vampires. For example, in a perfect world, moonbound vampires would have constant access to sunbound wolf blood, as sunbound wolf blood provides the most sustenance and nutrition for them. However, in order to somewhat remedy this issue, sunbound wolves living in Elegy are required to donate their blood to D.U.M.P blood banks in exchange for D.U.M.P services. — {More of their connected backstories will be provided in the next volume of this pamphlet}.

Moonbound Wolves: We can apply the opposite magnetic pole metaphor with the relationship between moonbound werewolves and sunbound wolves. Essentially, moonbound werewolves and sunbound wolves do not have a positive magical relationship. To provide an example, it is usually recommended by D.U.M.P specialists that sunbound wolves who move to Elegy should refrain from joining moonbound werewolf packs. However, some sunbound wolves go against this recommendation. — {Once again, events during the Sol'Arya Dynasty have caused a centuries-long rivalry that will be discussed in the second volume}.

Sunbound Vampires: Sunbound wolves’ relationship with sunbound vampires is slightly more muddied and not as clear as the two species mentioned above. Indifferent and cordial is the easiest way to describe their relationship in Aria, as sunbound wolves do provide energy for sunbound vampires to feed off of, but their relationship to one another does not extend far past that.

D(a)emons: D(a)emons and sunbound wolves rarely interact in Aria—lesser is known about Elegy. Their relationship is mostly neutral.

Empowered Humans: Neutral.

Unempowered Humans: Neutral.

☀︎ FAQs

“Are sunbound wolves ‘werewolves’?” — Sunbound wolves are not werewolves or wolf-shifters. Sunbound wolves are wolves, and their human form in Elegy takes energy from them instead of the other way around. If anything, sunbound wolves could technically be labeled as human shifters.

“Why haven’t I met or even heard of sunbound wolves before?” — Nearly all sunbound wolves continue to live in Aria—most only visit Elegy once in their lifetime. This is due to the fact that many sunbound wolves do not feel safe with the extreme prevalence of moonbound werewolves in Elegy.

“Are there any sunbound wolves in Dahlia?” — There are. There is Anya Buchanan, who was mentioned previously. There is also another sunbound wolf in the Shaw Pack, but they wish to remain unnamed at this time. So far, these are the only sunbound wolves we are aware of in Dahlia.

“How are sunbound wolves able to shift and use magic? Isn’t that impossible?” — It is not impossible, at least for Arian races. Sunbound wolves have both an extrinsic and intrinsic core, otherwise known as a bitrinsic core. This specialized core allows them to physically exert magic while retaining the ability to shift between human and wolf form. For reference, d(a)emons have a similar type of core.

[frenchiefitzhere]

oh did you want a circinus song?

I happen to have one in stock...

*polished off the dust*

(I only obsessed over these lyrics for 2 weeks. It's fine.)

[vollerey]

i wonder what my sleep aid will be tonite …

duality of man. amusement park vs hell

[saccharisu-draws]

After everything, I just want to give her a hug..

[hellcatxd-posts]

Loafa Crust

Local loaf stole everyone's souls Time to finally start Aria Of Sorrow, oh boy https://www.twitch.tv/redacted_cat