#she is love the way i would imagine a godlike being to be love

[mymarifae]

she's so lovely to be honest. hold me

[mistriavalley]

Alex with an insecure chubby farmer (gn!farmer)

Note: Got this idea from @hermits-crab. I also had sm fun writing this! I struggle a lot with my own body image so writing these headcanons brought me some comfort :3

TW: negative body image, negative comments from the past, farmer is insecure, mentions of bullying from the past

Masterlist

Alex has never and will never give you any reason to feel insecure or self conscious about your body. He worships not only you, but the ground you walk on as well and he honestly would have never thought that you'd feel bad about your looks. You're perfect in his eyes. Godlike even

But while he rolls out the red carpet for you, you still can't help yourself. Alex is so athletic and fit and you feel like people are judging you for being on the bigger side. Of course no one has ever said anything regarding that in Pelican Town. On the contrary, when you confided in Haley she praised you and your figure

You still can't help, but to wonder what his friends in the city or from gridball practice might be saying when Alex shows them pictures of you though. Are they saying "you lucky bastard" or "as long as you're happy"? It's eating you up from the inside, but you don't wanna bother your partner with that

And when you guys go on a date or shopping in the city, do the people around you actually stare at you and whisper amongst themselves or are you just imagining it? Nevertheless, the thought alone that someone might be judging you makes you wrap your arms around yourself to hide

It takes an embarrassingly long time for Alex to notice anything and even then he only does, because it's painfully obvious in that moment. Like you're out on a beach date and you refuse to get out of your baggy t-shirt even though you're obviously suffering from the scorching heat. That's when it clicks inside his head and his heart breaks

He walks you back to your farm after the beach date and sits down with you to talk about it. He wants you to trust him with these things and for you to know that you can talk to him about anything. When he hears how worried you are about what others might think when they see "someone like him" with "someone like you" he grabs both your hands and squeezes them gently

After he asks why you'd worry about such a thing, you explain how you've gotten comments thrown at you in the past and how every single one stuck with you to this day. It makes him angry and he wishes he would have met you sooner so he could punch every single person who has made you feel bad

Alex knows what it's like though. His father has made him feel like shit his entire childhood, but you've helped him get rid of these negative thoughts and he wants to do the same for you. There is obviously no pressure, because he understands that you can't shake these chains off in one day, but he'll do everything to make you feel loved and appreciated

That evening and every single one afterwards, he leads you to bed where he showers every inch of your body with kisses and praises. Also due to him working out so much and his lifestyle in general, he knows a lot about the human body. So if you stumble upon a "fitness guru" online talking about how unhealthy it is to do this or look like that, Alex is jumping in immediately to correct the person before it gets to your head

"But my BMI-" "No. Don't. BMI is a faulty system in more ways than just one. I'm not in the green area either, because of the weight from my muscles."

Or when he notices that you refuse to get a second serving even though you're still hungry or when you decide not to order a desert when you clearly want one. "You have to eat if you're hungry, baby. You're doing hard physical work on your farm every single day and your body needs the energy."

"I've gained weight again..." "Baby, listen to me. I'm 100%- no 500% certain that those are just muscles. You're lifting, pushing and pulling stuff on your farm from morning to evening. It's fine. You are fine."

[raina16]

Perspective

I'm of the opinion that Keyleth's perspective now in the past 30 years is not one she needs to have in the future, even if Vax still remains the Champion of Ravens, or some other position in the celestial sphere. I think much of her anger and pain could be abated if she changed her perspective. Instead of mourning the life they didn't get, appreciating what they do have.

One thing that is a fact is that Keyleth, assuming she was not killed in some way, is going to live a very very long life. This was always an issue, her friends, and Vax'ildan, would die many centuries before her. Initially it even stood in the way of her relationship with Vax. She'd live without him something like 10 times longer than she'd lived with him even if they both just died of old age.

Yes she nominally accepted that but thinking you've accepted something that is 150 yrs off is not the same as living through it. When Vax died would she really have been so accepting and just moved on? Or would she have mourned him for the many centuries to come? What if she never got over it for her 1600 more years of life? How might that affect her personality, her friendships and leadership?

It's only been 30 years since he, not sure what you'd call it, ascended. That's only a very small percentage of her lifetime, something like 2 percent. It's perfectly normal to still be in the "anger" stage. There is no timeframe on grief.

But what about in 500 years when all of her old friends in Vox Machina are gone, when almost everyone she knew from that time is gone, except maybe a few fellow arch druids?

Those ravens would almost certainly be a comfort to her. Just as he meant them to be now. And if he had suddenly stopped sending them, so she could "move on", who is to say she'd have moved on? Maybe she'd have felt an even worse emptiness, maybe she'd start looking for signs in all the ravens (would people start calling her the "crazy"raven lady?)

The same with Vax himself. No he's not with her physically, most of the time, but if things had gone as she'd imagined, he would have been centuries dead already anyway, and her still with most of her life still ahead of her.

But because he's become Champion of Ravens he's still there in some form and she's still loved and someone still remembers her as Keyleth and not only the powerful nearly godlike herself Voice of the Tempest.

Letting Go

I don't think she has to let go. I don't think he has to let go. Not of each other. They simply have to let go of the old dream and move forward as what they are. I think he's perhaps further along that path than she is, in that he doesn't seem angry, but not completely.

Instead of mourning(or being angry, I think it's ok to feel some sorrow for what might have been) about they didn't get, Keyleth could take comfort in the fact that much like her, he'll still be out there centuries from now, and as the ravens showed, still thinking of her too, instead of long buried and completely unreachable for 90 percent of her life.

500 years from now she'll likely feel that way anyway but I think she can get there now if she tries to change her perspective and takes a long view instead of a short one.

Keyleth even now lives a full life, she has family, she got her mother back, she has friends. She can continue to make more friends, though admittedly it's harder in her leadership position and because of her already mentioned extended lifespan, but not impossible. She by no means has an empty life, even if she didn't have a new romantic partner.

If anything she's in rather a better position in that regard than Vax, who as Champion it appears doesn't really seem to get to form new close relationships. He's got the Matron, fleeting interactions with the dead and getting tough with anyone who tries to mess with the rules of life and death. And loving him, being the one who remembers the man inside the mantle, is such a kindness to him as well.

Mythic Romance

Here's the romantic in me, it's bittersweet yes but it's not bad and it doesn't have to be something Keyleth finds so painful.

There's no reason they can't continue to love each other. They don't have to "move on" from each other. From a certain perspective this actually may be better fit for the lives they lead, for the life she was always meant to lead. She was always meant to have a life apart, not one like most people, and in a way it's fitting that her love would take a different course as well.

When she finally passes on, if she becomes a tree, ravens can sit in her branches. Or if she doesn't go the tree route perhaps the Raven Queen(assuming she's still around) would allow her Champion to finally be at rest himself, for Keyleth to be the final soul he greets in death and they can move into the next chapter together.

It's the stuff of legends really.

[beautifulterriblequeen]

hi and welcome, it's new theory time wunce agayne, with I, your host, BTQ, stitching things together that maybe fit perfectly or maybe have no business touching at all: you decide!

Today's post inspo began several days ago when I started playing the Xadia game and discovered some cool lore that I just could not stop thinking about, so here, below the cut for all the spoiler reasons, is a screenshot of what you can find in the game, and what I would love for it to mean!

Topic: How Aaravos was tricked into that mirror prison

Context: We all wonder what happened to Luna Tenebris, how she died, where she went, all that good stuff. This isn't about answering those questions. This is about what she did before she died, and why. If she died at all (yeah that's always the question with Moon beings innit)

If you've played the game you'll know the context for this screenshot:

Ethari says, "Someone with the power to influence the Blood Moon itself used blood magic to become... something else."

and, well,

Luna seems to have disappeared during a Blood Moon. But she might not have died, despite what everyone thinks- she might have just become something else.

Why would she do this?

I'm guessing it wasn't for fun. Something desperate must've been happening. Luna disappeared 300 years ago, hmm, what in the world could've been happening at that moment...?

No, we all know.

You remember the Jailer. She's a human. No arcanum at all. She may be a dark mage, or she may just be a trickster magician. Either way, her whole deal is that she thinks outside the Cosmic Order box - she thinks in ways even Aaravos can't. And human ideas in times of desperation can break a lot of conventions and even taboos - just look at the things Viren, Claudia, and Callum have done when they had to.

So if the Jailer is thinking about dark creative solutions as the only way to trick a godlike Star Touch elf, maybe one of those ways was to get the Archdragon of the Moon to turn into something else, with magic that worked outside the laws of the Moon Arcanum.

We've all seen what Kim'dael can do - her Moonshadow powers and her forbidden magics are available to her at any time, not just during a full moon. Now imagine that ability for a blood magic archdragon.

Yeah.

Why the Queen of the Dragons, though?

I think they needed that much power to combat Aaravos. No one else could've done it with the confidence to succeed. And then there's the whole Moon theme of sacrifice, which all the Moonshadow elves keep demonstrating so determinedly. Surely their dragon queen has the same sentiment, deep down.

This still doesn't tell us what she did. But if she could use her massive illusion/deception powers at any time, they could trap Aaravos in any instant of their choosing instead of luring him to the predictable full moon. And seeing what sort of shenanigans are possible in the game when Moon creatures step outside their boundaries, well, there is certainly a lot of room for surprise there. In several directions. And they'd only have to surprise Aaravos once.

(side note: I can see now why Amaya says Moonshadow elves are the worst kind lmfaooo PLAY THE GAME IT'S SO FUN)

This whole theory feels very Moonshadow because even though I have this central nugget that feels plausible, I still wonder about so much more. For instance, what happened to Luna after this? Where is she now? Did she willingly die to keep from turning into a monster? Is she stuck in the spinning water that bears her name on the map? Is she alive somewhere still, lurking? Is she- NO SPOIL ME I JUST STARTED THE GAME. Idk if she's in there or not, shh.

Anyway. I haven't been able to stop thinking about this lore since I saw it in the game. And there's so much more than this even in the small bits I've played so far! If you're into the lore of The Dragon Prince, you'll wanna get this game!

But, serious lore enjoyer face. This one's extremely fun to think about.

[ludinusdaleth]

thinking about fae labeling themselves utterly selfish and accepting it. thinking about them attaching to someone against their belief in their inevitable lonesomeness. thinking about the ways they warp the world as they clumsily & dangerously begin to try to care, choosing just the one they've attached to over anyone else. tousling the world like waves in that unstable Learning of a new kind of love. tousling themselves until they're thrown into an ocean they never knew with a selfless action they never in all their wonder imagined doing.

thinking about artagan, always slightly benevolent, trying to show love to jester, accidentally tipping their lives over by creating an uneven godlike dynamic, but in the end learning to understand his best friend's needs over decades. thinking about ira, exiled from every court for his sickening actions, his progression of love being traincars smashing into each other at lightspeed as his care for fearne collides with his animal instinct of survival from exile & past wars, as a worse war is ignited by him and she who would be his granddaughter.

thinking about artagan kicking jester off of him. thinking about ira using his last high spell slot to save fearne - if not a soul else.

thinking about that line from the song lapis lazuli by the oh hellos, a song i always associated with arti & jester during travelercon, but i cant help but apply to ira in this moment: "but if there's one thing i know, either the growing is slow/or it cuts to the bone/moving too quickly".

[ooosaiteruoooo]

saiki k killing game au??

so hear me out

what if saiko wanted to host a cool event for the third years in pk academy, so he hosted a "killing game" (nobody actually dies, there's like some kind of technology they use to simulate killing someone so there will still be evidence but nobody gets hurt) where each person has a randomly selected duo, and whichever duo wins both people get full ride scholarships..

this would take place on an island, sort of like the island arc from classroom of the elite

(in this au saiki doesn't have his powers anymore (post meteor) and then teruhashi and saiki get selected as a duo, and saiki realizes just how similar she is to him in terms of being smart and overly competitive, and they win easily-- imagine how many times he'd hit us with the "good job teruhashi" throughout

i feel like with saiki being a superhuman genius (i wish they used that more throughout the show) and with teruhashi being genuinely godlike in terms of manipulating social situations they really couldn't lose as a duo... but it'd be so fun to watch him and akechi have constant mind games kind like L and Light

to add an extra layer, if someone accurately guesses who your duo is, both of you will be removed from the game, but if they guess wrong, they get removed from the game.. that way, Teruhashi and Saiki have to guess each others thought processes, something they'd be good at because they both intuitively understand each other so well despite having such miniscule meaningful interaction throughout the series

this would just be such an interesting watch, because i love psychological battles, and i also love saiki and teruhashi's dynamic, so combining both of those would just be so, ugh

[winnower-winnower]

Xivu Arath and Savathun really do just destroy me. The dynamic they have..

What truly kills me about them, and with oryx as well, is that despite what they’ve become, the sheer mass of years and experiences they’ve accumulated, smiles and wounds all around, they never feel like they’ve lost the core of their sibling-hood. I believe Oryx said it best when he reflected upon it:

“Oryx looks at her and for a moment, just a moment, he is nostalgic, he is sentimental. He thinks, imagine the years behind us, the things we’ve done. And yet being old doesn’t feel like a scar, does it? It hasn’t left me dull. I feel alive, alive with you, and every time I step back into this world from my throne I feel like I’m two years old again, at the bottom of the universe, looking up.”

Their character arcs revolving almost entirely around their siblinghood crushes me. They are written in such a way that like, yeah they’re huge incomprehensibly old and powerful “we clap and a star dies” figures, but they’re also still two years old, running off on adventures and smiling and laughing and rough-housing and pondering together. I think it’s beautiful that this dynamic never really goes away. Very little about how they regarded each other changed, godlike powers or no.

Until Oryx died. (Perhaps even earlier, when they all parted ways for a bit. I like to think they still visited one another with echoes every now and then). I also am not sure how much was actually covered in game about specifically Sav and Xivu’s reactions to his death. If there was I’d love to go read up on it if anyone knows where to find it!

That being said, I just. The death of a sibling, an older sibling, someone who you have galavanted across the universe with for longer than some galaxies and star systems have existed, what a shattering thing that would be. I’m a middle sibling myself, and Savathun’s perspective on that matter does intrigue me, but it’s Xivu Arath who I am most drawn to in this matter.

The death of her eldest sibling, her brother Oryx. We have an entire journal entry from her perspective in the books of sorrow that details the level of love and respect she had for him. I can imagine what kind of grief his loss would entail. Wavering, even if just for a moment, beneath the weight of this new truth to the universe, that oryx would not be present for the end of this great journey they started together. To see just how far the rolling strength of the hive, his family, could reach.

And then a further shattering, with Savathun’s betrayal, Xivu Arath is left alone. Completely, totally, alone. The youngest of the oldest gods, the youngest of the most fearsome gods. The most fearsome of the gods, because she is the last of them? Angry angry youngest child outlook on life, it must come through when Xivu comes to properly take the stage in the coming narrative. I want to see so, so much from her gosh.

Need that Xivu and Sav conversation on the current state of affairs, on the loss of a brother and a loss of a sister (for both, respectively) immediately. Angry and seething and oh, so sibling like of them.

[hyenahunt]

Obbligato: Epilogue - 2

Writer: Akira

Season: Winter

Characters: Tatsumi, HiMERU

Proofreading: Remi (JP) & honeyspades (ENG)

Translation: Peace

HiMERU: It was laughable to think the world would change for anyone who wasn't a god.

[Read on my blog for the best viewing experience with Oi~ssu ♪]

Tatsumi: Why did it end up this way? You and I sought to manage a unit where all would be equal, all would be fair, to create an ideal world just the same.

Yet the moment we stepped onto the road that would lead us to such a dream, the bright future we imagined went dark.

Why is that? Did we do something wrong?

While I was hospitalized, no matter how much I asked such questions to God, I received no answer. Not even my faith could save me.

That is why recently, I've taken to unraveling this twisted world by thinking for myself while learning common sense, all so I don't make the same mistakes I did before.

HiMERU: In the end, it was not a dream meant to come true. It was laughable to think the world would change for anyone who wasn't a god.

HiMERU: (The idol industry was built from the ground up by a generation of godlike Super Idols.)

(But of the innumerable idols who have emerged since then, not one has come close to godhood.)

(Not "that Akehoshi," nor "Priest." None who have yearned for it, have driven towards it, have been able to truly replace God.)

(God is dead. I've heard that the one who strove to imitate God, "Priest," met an unfortunate end during the recent SS as well.)

(Deputy Director Saegusa told me as such, being as I have a right to know.)

HiMERU: (I didn't care much for "Priest" anyway. That man replaced God — known as "Godfather" — long ago.)

(I wasn't fond of my parent's house. I ran away and, due to being slightly related to "Priest," came under the care of that man.)

(I have no feelings towards him. I simply learned from him. In truth, "Priest" was little more than a stranger to me — I wouldn’t care one way or another if he died.)

(I have no love nor respect for an imposter who pretended to be my grandfather or great-grandfather.)

HiMERU: (However, Kaname was different.)

(My poor little brother.)

(He was innocent, he simply wanted to be an idol. His mother, the only one who'd ever shown him love, asked him to.)

(He wanted to live up to her expectations. He wanted to be loved more by his favorite parent. That's the sort of child Kaname was.)

(His mother loved idols.)

(So much so that she was obsessed with them and became a stalker of "that Akehoshi," whom she adored most of all.)

(When the news broke out that "that Akehoshi" was married, she flew into a jealous rage and crowded onto the stage when he was performing, calling him a traitor, a lying cheat.)

(You were a complete stranger to him. You weren't his family, a lover, anything like that.)

(You already had a husband.)

(Kaname's mother had an obsessive love, one that drove her mad.)

(Love and faith can do that to a person. And as idols, we unknowingly spread it as well.)

(What a sinful occupation.)

HiMERU: (... As she went mad on stage, she struggled with "that Akehoshi" and fell off the stage.)

(Unfortunately, she died immediately due to a skull or neck injury.)

("That Akehoshi," who was at the peak of his career, fell fast out of favor due to that incident.)

(Due to the coverage of various newspapers and gossip magazines, he was cited as "the absolute worst idol" and put under fire for killing someone onstage.)

(However, no matter how you look at it, it was nothing but an accident. In fact, "that Akehoshi" was the victim in the situation — harassed by a crazed fan whilst on stage.)

(Whatever force was working behind the scenes, it ended with the man being put behind bars and eventually dying there.)

(And so it became a taboo incident within the idol industry.)

(Even now, the fact that he was that woman's son was enough to cause reluctance in anyone who might have given him a job.)

(Those who tout it around as a worthy reason are the very same who can justify their violent acts against Kaname.)

HiMERU: (Yes, that day that mob surged into the auditorium, they used that fact to erase their wrongdoings and be acquitted for it. I suppose the higher-ups of the school managed that.)

(It's fine to corner and crush someone, since they're the son of a criminal. That's what their superiors decided.)

(When one of the teachers who'd become part of their group told them as much, the Non-Special Students used it as an excuse to get rid of the Special Students they hated so much.)

(They'd never forgiven the Special Students.)

(In particular, they wouldn't allow that abhorrent Special Student HiMERU stand on the same stage as their beloved leader — Tatsumi.)

(So they burst. Their dissatisfaction turned to anger and they weaponized it.)

HiMERU: (That is what happened then. The end of Tatsumi's revolution.)

(Due to meaningless grudges and long-held debts, the ideals Tatsumi held so close to his heart were obliterated.)

(It was, in the end, a dream never meant to come true.)

(Yet, it… is far too cruel.)

(... The woman who ended "that Akehoshi's" career as a Super Idol is dead.)

(But that woman had a husband and child.)

(Her husband had split from her a long time ago, and so he lived alone.)

(But it seems that fans of "that Akehoshi" took to blaming him for the incident, condemning him daily, even though he had cut ties with her; they were practically strangers at that point.)

(Innumerable fans who weren't satisfied with the outcome of the incident took to acting like he was the villain and, due to the constant barrage, the earnest man grew mentally sick.)

(Sick and broken.)

(Taking pity on the man, the Godfather offered him protection on a piece of land he owned. Perhaps he couldn't simply abandon the man, seeing as they had a blood relative between them.)

(Or perhaps he'd wanted to see the broken form of the man who'd been married to the woman that'd stolen his favored "Akehoshi" from him. Who could say?)

(It's too late to ask why; God is dead.)

(The husband never fully recovered, and later was often found half-dead, wandering the premise of the missionary school that would become Reimei Academy.)

(It was as if he was a ghost or the undead, simply roaming about.)

HiMERU: (Maybe it was to atone for his wife's misdeeds, but it seems he was rather kind to the young idols who attended the academy.)

(As he roamed, he cleaned up here and there without being asked.)

(It seems he regained his mind at times, such as when he contacted me.)

(I am Kaname's half-brother. I was one of that man's sons, and so—)

(Kaname and I's father was married to a different woman before he wed the one who ended "that Akehoshi's" career. She had me before she died from illness, as I understand it.)

(As a child, I was fixated on my mother. That's where we're similar; we're brothers after all — Kaname.)

(So when my father intended to remarry someone else, as if he'd forgotten all about her… I thought of him as a traitor. I hated him for it.)

(My feelings worsened over time, and in the end, I ran away from home and left for overseas.)

(I didn't know what had happened to my father after that, nor did I even care.)

(I received letters from him sometimes, but I would throw them all away without reading them. That is why I never knew that he remarried that crazy woman and had a child with her — that he had Kaname.)

(That's why at first, I was perplexed. It couldn't even occur to me that I had a younger brother.)

(However after much begging and pleading, I decided to help my little brother. When I first contacted him, he'd said he missed me so innocently. He called me big brother and turned to me for help.)

HiMERU: (It made me happy, Kaname.)

(I thought I would always live on my own.)

(But I was wrong.)

(Kaname gave to me what my parents had not.)

(And so, I wished to repay him for that.)

HiMERU: ......

(But it was all for naught. I wasn't able to turn Kaname into the idol he'd dreamed so long about becoming.)

(My father asked me to take care of him, and Kaname asked me to help him achieve his dream; I did everything I could to succeed in both.)

(Until that moment, I thought of myself as a great man. I thought I could live alone, that I was strong and amazing enough to do so.)

(However, that failure shattered my self-confidence entirely.)

HiMERU: (... That is why I am here now, working to make my brother's dream come true for him.)

(It's simply for my own peace of mind.)

(I failed. That is a fact which cannot be undone.)

(Kaname most likely doesn't want me to do this, but...)

(That is why this is just for myself and my pride.)

(I'll become the idol that he always dreamed of being.)

(The vision that we created together, HiMERU, will become a true idol.)

[ ☆ ]

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[whinlatter]

i MUST hear your thoughts on "im your man" by mitski and how it's the ginny/harry/sirius trio anthem in "beasts"...must hear

what have you done asking me about this...... a great and terrible mistake........ the air is thick with sirens...........

basically i'm your man is an absolutely perfect song about feeling unworthy and undeserving of the love someone gives you, and a feeling of great dread that one day the other person will realise it and leave. it is - for this reason - so eye-wateringly ginny-sirius-harry coded i simply cannot bear it. that whole album (the land is inhospitable and so are we) is heaven and there are so many songs on it that have been absolutely dynamite for getting the juices flowing with this fic (the frost and star are my hinny anthems for chapter 12  👀)

so i am taking a short dissertation writing break to offer an entirely unhinged rant about i'm your man complete with some mild beasts spoilers because apparently i care a lot about this inexplicably. thank you so much for humouring me!

you're an angel, i'm a dog or you're a dog and i'm your man you believe me like a god i'll destroy you like i am

the first verse plays with the idea that there are three tiers of being - dog, man, angel/god - that all exist in relation to each other. the narrator sings the song to put themselves down. you're an angel, i'm a dog - meaning, i'm lowly nothing compared to your pure divine greatness. in the next line, a twist and advance on that idea: you're a dog (faithful, honest, loyal, loving easily and with such trust) and i'm your man (the one who is responsible for you, who you look to protect and sustain you, who is unworthy of that kind of adoration). you believe me like a god - you trust and believe in my power and ability to take care of you and guide you. but then: i'll destroy you like i am - the only real godlike power the narrator identifies with is the capacity for destruction and ruin.

ok partly it's... you know....... the dog thing because i am very on-the-nose. (obviously sirius as padfoot, but also the distinctions in the wizarding world between beings as the moral civilised entities vs the beasts, the wild and lawless and violent magical creatures). but it's also this suggestion of hero worship and adoration from one character to another, and the object of that kind of love struggling to feel worthy of it and fearing the power it has given them over the other person. it's such a huge vibe for how i'm thinking about these characters !! i feel like it works both for harry and sirius' relationship as well as harry and ginny's: the love and reverence harry has for sirius, when sirius is filled with so much self-loathing and guilt and awareness of his own failings as a parent figure, and the way harry comes to love ginny and think of her as this pure singular light and symbol of all his hopes for a bright and good future, which (i think!) would be a lot for ginny to take on and live up to and feel deserving of. there's even shades of it in how i imagine ginny feels about sirius in the flashbacks - little ginny looking up to sirius like he's a god, hanging off his every word, sirius backing away from being responsible for this child's admiration and desire for guidance from him.

i'm sorry i'm the one you love no one will ever love me like you again so when you leave me, i should die i deserve it, don't i

i mean this is a pure sirius verse imo also with such harry shades to it ('i deserve it don't i' pure ootp harry angst). but i see some of ginny in this too ('i'm sorry i'm the one you love' - her wish that she could just be such cool and chill and easy and trying to live up to this idea harry sometimes as of her as so strong and stoic and able to deal with things, and then her feelings when all that comes crumbling down....)

i can feel it getting near like flashlights coming down the way one day you'll figure me out i'll meet judgment by the hounds

the feeling of being hunted! sirius and harry as wanted men! ginny getting found out and caught in her secrets and half-lies! 'i'll meet judgement by the hounds' god. god

people always gave me love others were never to blame after all you believe me like a god i'll betray you like a man

i think of this verse as the sirius and ginny verse. here the narrator locates the source of their unworthiness internally, not in being deprived of love by others, but in something fundamentally broken and tainted inside them. sirius as a character can't blame a total absence of love for what he's become - he was loved, he blames no-one but himself for the loathing he feels for himself. ginny, too, could not have been more loved, both before the TMR ordeal, but also thereafter - she comes from a family that adores her, she is widely liked and admired; but still, there's something missing in her sense of self. i do not wish to spoil future chapters but yeah this is bit is a Big Mood as we come closer to understanding ginny's war and what it asked of her

in chapters 10 and 11 of beasts, i started to play with this idea of the traitor, of a person who has made a great and terrible choice to betray the people close to them and in doing so revealed a true self that was there all along but lay dormant. so far in the fic, i've tried to thread in a lil drip-drip-drip of questions about the self, who a person really ever is, and about the choices characters make because of their sense of who they are, especially moral choices, in a war and under a regime that must, ethically, be resisted.

of sirius, harry, and ginny, so far it's sirius who knows most about what it is to be a traitor: someone who spent the bulk of his life assumed to be a turncoat, who is consumed by his hatred of wormtail and the memory of his treachery, who can't even begin to grasp the layers and dimensions to his own brother's betrayal, and who fundamentally still thinks of himself as a traitor to his best mate, believing himself to having 'as good as' killed lily and james. harry is the one who's full of trust, throughout the war:

'“No,” Harry said out loud, and they all looked at him, surprised. The firewhisky seemed to have amplified his voice. “I mean . . . if somebody made a mistake,” Harry went on, “and let something slip, I know they didn’t mean to do it. It’s not their fault,” he repeated, again a little louder than he would usually have spoken. “We’ve got to trust each other. I trust all of you, I don’t think anyone in this room would ever sell me to Voldemort."'

“No, I think you’re like James,” said Lupin, “who would have regarded it as the height of dishonour to mistrust his friends.” Harry knew what Lupin was getting at: that his father had been betrayed by his friend, Peter Pettigrew. He felt irrationally angry. He wanted to argue, but Lupin had turned away from him...'

ginny, of course, knows what it is to be betrayed - by her first real friend, by her own brother. but i just think these two final lines, the twist on the first verse, are such a huge huge mood for drawing some of these ideas to the surface as the plot inches (v slowly lol) forwards - the idea of a character who has had every faith put in them by someone who loves and believes in them, who fears that they wll buckle under the weight of it and betray that love and trust in terrible ways. to betray you like a man - for the great moral sin to be something inherent to no other creature or being but man - is just such a powerful cool as shit line that is really gettin me going for writing the next bit of this fic.

wow i didn't even know how much i cared about this song but turns out it's a lot???? troubling for me!

[dearmagenta]

i think Juanaflippa would be the the happiest child there and here's why

imagine you was taken by almostly divorced couple which do not know how to care about kid. They arguing, screaming at the eachother bad words, beating eachother up and trying to close you in the room for a long-long time (a live of an egg is much shorter than human's which means the time would go slower for them).

and then

suddenly

they come back! Pale as hell for some reason, taking you with shaking hands and saying something about knowledge! They suddenly care and scream then you are not around and they screaming not at you, you heare they scared for your life. They suddenly care about you at that moment of your life then you think they hate you! They talk to the weird bear-godlike creature and TAKE YOU WITH THEM on adventure and taking photos! You can go around, chase a rabbit a bit, help your fathers with whatever good thing they do! Get dragged in some kind of secret where you proudly accepts that your mom is now a part of mafia team! Your mom even gives you a gift to keep!

They love you! And they love eachother again! And in that adventure you even come out to your parents and thet accept that too!

Even at the start it was harsh and weird and turned out good! And at the end of the day your mom leaves you with father to go home (and she gave you a choice where to be even) while being on hibenrtantern thing! Which is important for your mom, obviously!

so the point is she started with bad happenings and then ended up in good habitat for a kid to be. There's no way Juanaflipa isnt the happyest child.

[spectascopes]

ink sans is always so weird to me bc it's just sans. I wanna imagine a whole cast of undertale characters who all have differing opinions on the AUs and which ones should be nurtured vs others and given godlike influence. Ink!Undyne would spend her time protecting and loving Underfell bc everybody is fucking badass there while Ink!Sans that's actually Sans would be conniving in a metaphysical metanarrative way to get people to make AUs where nothing happens and everybody is happy and also his brother is the most popular character and not him. Ink!Papyrus would be the morally gray Creature that Ink is, and he'd be very bound to his duty to do whatever the fuck it is Ink does. Protect creativity or whatever like sorry that's a Papyrus job and he'd be so Ambiguous about it. And if they use uh soul paint to feel emotions Sans would be tricking his brother into consuming more happy paint by putting it in his grilled cheese sandwiches. Ink!Toriel puts on a show of being very open and kind but she slips all of the Error baddies money to destroy AUs where Chara is the Biggest Worst Evil In The World bc she can't stand seeing such a bad take. These thoughts cannot be unique or inspired but I wish it wasn't all just Sans all the time (also as evidenced I know jackshit about Ink Sans n what the fuck he does fjrocieifjej)

[spacemonkeysalsa]

BG4 brainstorm

I know they've already got a bunch of it written and outlined or whatever, but I can't turn my brain off, so I'm just going to talk exclusively about the way in which I'd like to see BG3 characters and events incorporated into BG4, if they are even going to do that-

First off there's-

The Stuff That Doesn't Need To Come Up In The Narrative Right Away But Let's Establish The Underlying Assumptions Shall We?:

The white dragon born dark urge managing to overcome Bhaal and defeat the elderbrain, in the end, but with a somewhat uneven series of good and bad choices at their back.

Minthara is probably dead, though I’d love it if she was still around and you absolutely can get away with that, narratively, thanks to the patches.

On the other side, Halsin, Dame Aylin and Isobel are probably alive.

Astarion and Gale are both alive and may or may not be the god/godlike versions of themselves.

Karlach and Wyll are alive and still in Avernus together (unless the DLC drops and we have Blade of Avernus/Fixing Karlach's engine adventures between the games) not explicitly as a couple though, I'd leave that ambiguous.

Lae’zel and Shadowheart are in love (this is both the most specific my post-headcanon gets, and entirely non-negotiable) but spend a lot of time apart because of respective responsibilities. Lae’zel can be a diplomat or a freedom fighter, but Shadowheart is a Selunite living with her parents on a farm and overcoming her fear of wolves by also raising some wolves alongside her adopted Githyanki son.

What Larian did with legacy characters from the earlier game was smart, in that they didn’t overuse them or reveal too many details about what they’d been doing in the interim, so like, we’ll keep it basic, leave a lot up to the imagination, but the writing around their appearances and roles in the story would match the above info.

Starting with origin characters, I think there’s potential to include familiar faces.

First Familiar Face - Githyanki egg all grown up. He shouldn’t be called Ptaris, because this is kind of assuming that the path where he ends up with that name doesn’t happen. For now, I’m just going to call him Egg, as I can sort of imagine Lae’zel using it as a slightly mocking but ultimately affectionate nickname, and miss “I picked my own name” maybe sort of leaving it up to him.

Egg - as I would write him, would have spent some time on the astral plane, like one of his moms and so his age is kind of a ??? because time is different there, and Egg would have also spent some time living with one of his moms on the farm. There’s sort of an obvious characterization available here. Where does he belong? Who are his people, really? You could write him confused and conflicted, or you could take the route I like and say that he was raised by the two most perfect people to help him understand that. He has his half-elf mother’s compounding knowledge of temperance between seemingly conflicted forces, and disparate elements, and his githyanki mother made sure he grew up confident and sure of himself and proud of his incredibly unique heritage. Also, these two states of mind aren’t totally mutually exclusive, cognitive dissonance is a major part of life, and an appropriate coming of age theme. I already love Egg. In keeping with the idea of temperance, I’d put him firmly in the true neutral category.

Second Familiar Face - Mol. Like. Just give me more Mol. What a great character, I’m so stoked imagining her grown up. I would write her as our team warlock, even if Raphael has been eaten by Mephistopheles. She can still do eldritch blast and the works ever since her pact with him. She’s pretty concerned that the implications of this are that Meph is her true fount now, and she wonders if he knows, or if there’s some small bit of his power he’s not aware is being lent out to her, and what he’ll do if he ever learns of her existence. She keeps these worries close to the chest though, instead projecting nonchalance that comes off as careless and callous during the earlier parts of the story, before she opens up. Probably neutral evil.

Third Familiar Face - Arabella. I’d make her so, so weird. Her magic is druidic, so she’s probably our druid, but you could easily get away with sorcerer or a secret third thing and I wouldn’t be mad. As a fully grown woman she speaks with the annoying esoteric air of a dryad and personifies inanimate objects, and is constantly carrying on conversations with animals when left to her own devices. She and Mol do not get along anymore, though they still care a lot about each other and there should be some cuteness about their history and childhood as buddies and little lost refugees together. Chaotic good.

I think you could get away with including all three in the main party, even early game, but I wouldn’t do more than that. New original characters are potentially more important and I would have the plot and the bones of the game be more closely tied to these totally new faces rather than relying on sequel energy. Even if all three games exist in the same universe and share themes, elements, and some characters, they don’t really feel like direct sequels and I think that’s a good thing. The only reason I think you can get away with using these three kids from the third game like this is because as adults, they’ll be completely different people, to the point that the story would have to reintroduce them anyway. The fact that they have any connections to the events of the past games doesn’t even really need to be explored beyond the kind of high-level backstory stuff that affected everyone in the world:

Arabella: “Remember when Baldur’s Gate almost got destroyed by an Elder Brain?”

Mol: “Yeah, that was wild.”

Egg: “No, I was there, but I hadn’t hatched yet.”

Mol: “HOW OLD ARE YOU?”

Egg: “Ugh, it’s complicated.”

I would probably continue with the often fun but at times vaguely serious “kill all the gods and masters” themes from previous games, and use this as a way to get everyone into hell for a portion of the game to go toe-to-toe with some archdevils, and also as an excuse to get Karlach and Wyll in the game (it's hard for me to get too much into this idea tbh, because I'm still hopeful that they'll be lvl13-20 dlc that involves Avernus, in which case, all of this is resolved and idk where to go from here with those two as I'm sure it would be affected a lot by how all that theoretical dlc content turns out, and I'm like so invested in going to Avernus with Wyll and Karlach).

And, Legacy character time!

Lae’zel I think could be our Jaheira analog, meaning she’s a previous origin character who I think could join the main team and be a party member for a chunk of the game without breaking anything. I would keep it until later though, but make it about as simple as recruiting Jaheira, in that it feels almost compulsory if you just follow a common path and progress the game.

Shadowheart would work nicely as our Minsc analog, in that she could be introduced as a very late game party character, essentially starting off as a lvl 12 cleric of light, as Selune intended, and I would make her recruitment more complicated and involve a side-quest. A rough idea for that side-quest would be trying to successfully get a message to Selunite allies, asking for aid. If you manage to meet the requirements and your messenger isn’t killed—and I think it would be fun if there was some randomness to it, like maybe a background constitution check that just mysteriously triggers when you cross into a certain area, and if it passes, it means your messenger (wherever they are) safely made it, and if it fails, they didn’t. So, I would let Shadowheart have a big damn hero moment and ride into a battle (on the back of one her wolves, why not) and join in the fight as an unexpected ally. From a play testing point of view, it would be especially fun to set up a certain fight so that waves of enemies arrive, and there’s a point where most people get overwhelmed and that’s when she shows up. But, for extra complication, if you don’t have Lae’zel or Egg with you at the time, she shows up for the one battle, saves your ass, then fights you if you’re responsible for either of their deaths, and if they are in your party, then you have to pass the roll, and play the whole thing for family drama.

Gale and Astarion, if you wanted to go with their bad endings, then Gale becoming and god and Astarion ascending would be the canon and there’s a lot to work with. Or, if you wanted to go with the good ending, then Gale is professor Dekarios and Astarion would either be an adventurer or leading the spawn in the Underdark. Professor Dekarios could easily just be a helpful mentor-type. His participation in shenanigans can be limited to a side quest or two, an Elminster/Volo like series of cameos etc. He’s a good adventurer when he has to be, but it’s not really where his heart is and we always knew that. He’s a wizard in his tower/in the classroom, but sure, he’ll lend a helping hand as he still remembers how valuable a service that can be. As a silly goose, I’m tempted to write a Volo/Elminster/Gale scene that involves all three of them very wine drunk and arguing about something absolutely no one else could hope to understand.

God Gale I can’t resist making him one of the baddies. It’s sad, but it feels appropriate. If he’s now the god of ambition then he failed to learn a pretty fundamental lesson during the course of BG3, and Tav/Durge who didn’t help him out with that failed and should feel bad. Offense absolutely intended. The logical conclusion is that Gale has become exactly the sort of god that once threatened and made his life miserable, especially since his antagonism towards Mystra with this ending seems to just be couched in pure unexamined hurt, and pettiness rather than a real understand that even as one of the “good gods” she wronged him, and she was wrong from the beginning and that there might just be something inherently bad about having and wielding this kind of power, at all.

He doesn’t get that, but it’s a bit due to wilful ignorance, I think, so I’d continue that and I wouldn’t make Gale knowingly the big bad. it just doesn't fit his character. You have a mortal avatar/chosen, some very ambitious enemy who Gale is helping, without a clear understanding of exactly what kind of schemes he’s backing. He’s too removed to really understand that he fucked up, and by the time he figures it out, it’s too late. Necessarily, his presence like this would be minimal, maybe we don’t even know for sure that he’s involved in any capacity until quite late, and even then, I’d make getting an actual appearance from the guy, pretty hard fought.

Astarion would be our other antagonist, and I think you can get away with going in any of the three different routes with him (Ascended, Spawn Adventurer, Spawn Dad) and make him an antagonist regardless. It would more be a matter of setting, do you want a quest in a big gothic castle or at a fancy party? A totally new location where he can turn up unexpectedly? The underdark? Setting might be the deciding factor, but his behavior and his role in the story could more or less follow the same pattern because the degrees of difference in his personality as ascendant/spawn are workable. That’s the thing about being a neutral evil aligned character—it’s maybe the broadest category as far as D&D character rep goes. He can get away with doing basically anything and still remain in that alignment because it takes an extreme act of unhinged evil to shift his alignment towards chaos, and anything good he does can still be dismissed as a cheap “pet the dog” moment by everyone who is unwilling to admit that he might have some capacity for redemption in him.

I would not make him a big bad antagonist though, because why would he ever bother, what’s actually in it for him? And I would want to create a route where he can join your side, but I wouldn’t have him join the camp/party in a permanent sense, at most you could do a Dame Aylin thing and keep him around and available for additional dialogue, a later quest or two.

In any case, even at his most antagonistic, Astarion isn’t truly ambitious. In BG3 he’ll ascend if he gets the chance, he'll try and run the city as long as the network is all in place already and it's not too much work, but he was never going to go out of his way to set all that up and he’ll settle. You could easily tie his story together with God Gale, if you wanted. “Ambition gets you stabbed to death by your spawn—of course none of this shit was my idea! I didn’t have a choice!” He was always quite good at delivering overdramatic ( but more often than people want to admit, totally valid) justifications for his behaviour, so I’d use that again, to utilize him to his maximum anti-hero/anti-villain potential.

He’d make a great red herring villain in the story, like let everything—including his old allies—think that he’s some mastermind (and let bg3 fans freak out a little that they've characterized him wrong), or that he’s more involved and more willing than he actually is. Then story beats slowly reveal that he’s a smaller level antagonist, pressed into the service of the bigger bad by circumstances/fear/whatever. It brings back bad memories. He’s pissed about it actually, doesn’t want to be doing any of this, has maybe been planning his own escape/betrayal for a while now. The player can ignore all that and just kill him here, or they can help him and see where things go if you give him a chance to ally with you against your common enemy. Fans can then continue their very stupid argument about whether he’s a hero or a villain, and we know that arguing is what truly makes them happy, so everyone wins.

A possible later quest could tie with Mol, if Astarion is the vampire ascendant, because in that scenario they are both in a weird ambiguous state where Mephistopheles is maybe their master or maybe not? D&D lore arguments continue?

Doing all of this would obviously be a lot, but I'd be thrilled if some version of any one of these ideas appeared in bg4. Assuming, I ever stop playing bg3 long enough to get trully invested in bg4 eventual existence.

[ill-say-this-fast]

Hi! Idk if you're still taking scarletsilver/maxicest asks but I'll just shoot my shot I guess.

Idk if I'm alone in this or not but one of my biggest maxicest headcanons is that if Wanda didn't magically create her twin babies... she still would have had them... with Pietro. (Ya know what I mean).

I know, I know, I know. There's plenty of reasons why it sounds illogical. BUT! I feel like if Wanda never loved Vision (or just said "frick it" and just elopes with her brother) or if she really really REALLY wanted to have babies (the 'traditional' way) and asked Pietro... you know that man is 1000% gonna go with whatever his beloved sister wants whether he likes it or not.

Another reason why is because I want them to raise my boys Thomas/Tommy and William/Billy. Especially our lil speed. Baby boy deserves all the nice things. We already see how Wanda interacts with her boys as their mother-not-mother. But imagine if Pietro was their actual dad and how he would interact with the boys?? So many possibilitiessss

And if Wanda and Pietro did raise them, they would also train/mentor Billy and Tommy with their powers early on which would probably make them more powerful or at least more in control in their powers.

Anyways, sorry for the rant! Just wanna know what you'd think of this headcanon of mine and anything you'd like to add really! :)))

I'm never not taking asks, thanks for sending this!

i love having them all as a family. for tommy especially. the kaplans are good parents, but tommy never got to have that and that sucks because wanda loved him so much the whole time and ughh they could have been happy. i would love more wanda and tommy stuff in canon or otherwise. but i also love pietro being more a part of tommys life. not sure if pietro is more competitive or concilliatory with him? bit of both probably. seeing himself in tommy and whether that creates friction or pride or pity.

like in 616 i feel like they have major old cat vs new hyperactive kitten energy and idk if that would be the same if pietro helped raise him from birth but i do love it. pietro's slightly put-on long suffering exasperation and tommy's overwhelming need to annoy this one guy in particular but underneath pietro's really fond of him and tommy's looking for attention and for someone to appreciate him and care that he exists. but they should also get to have stupid fun at high speeds (and together cause i imagine its usually pretty isolating).

in 616 i go with the headcanon that billy and tommy are pietros genetically, like wanda made them as if they were his, but it was still done magically and he just had to see it from afar. theyre the children she always imagined having, the ones she really wanted. so i have no qualms about just making them fully biologically his in AUs, its the way the rebirths and subsequent life experiences affect their personalities that i have to work around.

im working on (slowly) a 616 post childrens crusade fic where the two of them sort of readopt tommy. and they form this kind of nuclear family but dont talk to each other about it really because theyre all afraid the others will reject it. 100% happy ending they get the family they were supposed to have eventually.

also something i probably wont write but have as an idea. a very lighthearted fox xmen au where billy and tommy exist and theyre like 12-14 and pietro (peter i guess) has to keep juggling his job of Saving the World(tm) with dealing with whatever bullshit the boys have done. like the phoenix force is out of control and we need to do something to stop jean from destroying the world, but billy really wanted to see a dinosaur and now theres a time rift in the garden and pietro cannot let his coworkers find out about his children and their godlike powers, so he's bouncing between some really deep placatory conversation with jean and trying to find enough cages to put all the velociraptors in before wanda gets home and finds the house in a mess.

[wetcatspellcaster]

Can I get into the "hugging Rose" pile pretty please 🥺 By now I'm thinking we need to put sticky notes everywhere in camp to say we love her, cherish her, she is valid in her feeling, she is needed because she simply exists, she is beautiful, she is gorgeous when she is silly, and that we want to hear of her worries, her troubles, and her happiness. It will take a village to make her think she is valued, but we will make it work. We, and therapy (now I'm imagining the couple therapy, where Astarion and Rose scream at each other that the other one needs it more, while therapist plans to buy a house because it will take them years to sort this mess)

This chapter had been the warmest hug and a cup of tea on the coldest day. And a little targeted, because damn. Thinking your problems are so small compared to others, and it being a reason to hide them, thinking it does not warrant attention and help? And then, when it accidentally gets out, panicking, but everyone is supportive and offering to help? And it's terrifying? Too close to home. Poor Rose. Keeping all that fear to herself, when she had people who would understand her like no other, is a hard pill to swallow.

And I wonder if even after this Astarion plans to Ascend. Like, here is before him an example of bravery, Rose, who says yes, once the tadpole is gone, I'm back to being miserable, and it's fine. She can deal with it, not having a godlike demonic power. Or is there no self averseness? Or is he like "yeah, no, I don't want to be like that"? Because who knows what is happening in that brain. I mean, they encountered so many people who got so corrupt with power, and he lived under Cazador, so perhaps there is literally nothing left in that brain but desperate need to feel safe no matter the cost.

Their nightly cuddle was so sweet. The "let's put on a pause that disagreement, because you need a hug right now" just 🤌🤌🤌 I was afraid the reveal of Rose illness will end up in more arguments, but there is still little brain left in that vampire's head!

Thank you for this chapter. It was so nice to see Rose comforted and acknowledged, assured she is still the part of them, they still love her. Even Lae'zel! That was a nice surprise!

And congratulations on submitting your thesis!

Astarion/Rosalie couple's therapy is actually a hellscape of an idea and I'm living for it :')))) there's a reason Zethino offered love trialling for free, and she's not even a professional

Chapter 14 was partly to ensure that the angst got broken up by some comfort (I will be endeavouring to give people nice things in Act 3, even though Act 3 gave me nothing to be nice about) - but I did also think that the only way to develop the relationship ahead of the end of Astarion's questline was to simply have them reach a point where they're both too tired to fight so they put their argument on pause for a bit... so that's what happened here!

It'll be two chapters until we're back to Astarion's POV, but I think the pause here also happens purposefully on his part so he can recalibrate. Like yes, him being nice to her and absolving her of the shame of lying is a selfless act and a genuine attempt to comfort, and I don't want to undersell that. But the only way I can imagine that working in my own head in this point in my characterisation of him if it's not also motivated by his new need to control and adapt his persona or presentation to the situation. The thoughts I hinted at in Pieces are certainly happening, but rather than have another argument or act rashly in the moment when you're still potentially operating with inaccurate information... instead I imagine there's a slightly selfish desire (however unconscious!) to bide his time and fully learn how to accommodate this new context!

As for Lae'zel, I imagine her seeing Rosalie's courage as her only strength, so learning it comes from the mindflayer of it all was probably a lot to process. But she's right, it makes her uniquely suited for leadership in this one particular situation!!

(Also laughing that the chapter feels targeted, making a magical allegory for high functioning depression SEEMED like a good idea back in 2021...)

[ashkav]

(About your post about the relationship between Sam and Amelie/Bridget) GOD, RIGHT?! The relationship between them is insane and so complex, I really wish that it will be explored in DS2. Can you imagine being raised by this like, goddess of destruction and extinction and not knowing about it, and then finding out that you have to be the one to kill her to save humanity, all the people you've just started to develop relationships with, to provide a good world for your daughter, but... That's still your mom. That's your sister who comforted you when you were a scared child.

I think that Amelie is such a fascinating character, because she's so hard to pinpoint- she offset the balance of the whole world to save a child she accidentally killed in the process of developing a way to save humanity and decided to raise that child both to atone and provide Sam with the best life she could after killing her parents, but ALSO as a human killswitch that will be forced into talking her out of wiping all life on Earth, which is such a huge responsibility for ANYONE, and Sam didn't even consent to do that! You can make compelling arguments for both "she's a monster" and "she meant well".

I feel like she's almost kinda outside of human morality in some way, because, well, can she even be considered "human"? I think that yeah, kinda, but the burden she was forced to bear warps her, in a way, to the point where she cannot be fully seen throught the conventional spectrum of human morality. I mean of course, her using Homo Demens to kill tens of thousands of people is undeniably an evil act, but when you look at her as someone who is pretty much biologically destined to wipe out at least millions of people (given that the post-Stranding population numbers are much smaller), you can see how she would see that number as pretty much nothing in a cosmic scale. Not that it justifies it but you know, optics.

And she's this godlike being who has a very close relationship with this one paticular human, her favorite out of all people in the world, one who she raised since infancy and manipulated on a molecular scale (like you've said). She has done so much harm to him, irreversably warped him to the very core, but she undeniably loves him. Sam's her baby, her little brother she comforted and looked after- this god of destruction still shows a human side. She has absolutely traumatized Sam and she clearly feels guilty about it, but she probably thought that it had to be done, to give millions of humans a potential chance. Just as the BBs are used as sacrifices for the chiral network, Sam (a former BB at that) was used as one both for the network and humanity.

I love that the trailer of DS2 (the first one) has the dreamcatcher hanging off the celling as one of the first visuals we see. I REALLY hope that the aftermath of Sam's relationship and goodbye with Amelie will be one of the main themes of the game- and I think that a compelling argument can be made for Amelie "putting a piece of her soul" into Lou at the end of DS1, but I don't want to bore you 😅

(Sorry for yapping, but I'm going through death stranding withdrawials and this post scratched an itch. I adore talking about the lore and themes of this game, even if it is often overlooked 😅)

ohghug thank you so much for the big long ask im dying to talk about this too and you have given me so many things to respond to and build off of. i will literally never be bored of DS analysis.

i also hope she is directly in DS2! i think its pretty much confirmed she'll be there at the very least in a 'haunting the narrative' kind of way considering Higgs seems to be leading a cult with her as their messianic (?) figure, but Sam deserves some sort of resolution that isn't a desperate goodbye on the beach. i personally need him to have a screaming crying confrontation with her able to RESPOND to everything she's done. like you say, Sam must have the most complicated and tangled feelings about Amelie bottled up inside him and he deserves the chance to get some closure on at least some of it beyond 'your sister-mom doomed herself to her own personal hell to save you specifically and coincidentally also the rest of humanity, and her final act was to bring your baby back to life.'

i want to hear more from Amelie so bad. how does she justify herself? how does she consider her own morality in the grand scheme of things? what we do know from the first game is extremely interesting but even her relationship with Sam, the one thing the game spends so much time establishing and drawing upon for Amelie's reasoning, is so thin for most of his childhood! i want to know so much about the intricacies of how she ticks, how she justifies what she does to literally the one person she loves most in the whole wide world! it's not completely unjustifiable, just the same as it isn't completely justifiable, but i'm so so curious as to what angle she uses to approach this moral problem.

and i completely agree that she probably isn't even on human morality levels, but does Amelie think herself beyond it? what are the implications if she believes herself to be condemned by most human morality spectrums? does she even care? if she was asked, would she lie? i mean, she's a politician, so she must think about these things. as you said, optics, but is she so far removed from humanity to fundamentally misunderstand just how deplorable her actions might seem to others. even when she's rushing through justifying herself to Sam, it's not particularly... strong. it weak because she genuinely doesn't see a need to justify it further, she doesn't know how to be any more convincing than that, or because she wants Sam to judge her as harshly as possible so he'll agree to be the trigger to her very elaborate assisted suicide?

and it's interesting you bring up biological destiny, because i was literally just thinking about the conspicuous lack of Bridget's parents. obviously, Amelie is formed by spiritual mitosis and not really birthed, but Bridget never once mentions her own parents or her own childhood even as she spends so much time discussing Sam's and her own parental role. people usually draw on knowledge of how they were raised when they become parents (which has awful implications considering the shitshow of Sam's childhood) but the effect of this big empty space no one brings up makes Bridget feel like an entity who spawned fully formed, knowing her purpose immediately. actually, i don't think anyone ever talks about the parents of the extinction entities. can they have parents? are they born at all? their birth must be effected in some way by the eternal umbilical cord, and that parasaurolophus Heartman showed us a picture of must have had issues in the egg considering the yolk is usually absorbed through where her umbilical was. maybe she was just birthed by the universe, maybe all extinction entities were, and that where their umbilical connection leads back to. but imagine being Bridget's mother. imagine being (or at the very least feeling) responsible for creating the end of the world in human form. we already know the umbilical connection is extremely important in Death Stranding, touching a BB's allows you to share it's powers, it ties BT's to the world of the living, carrying a DOOMS afflicted baby gives you DOOMS too. what would it feel like to carry the Extinction Entity?

i imagine pretty fucking awful, if Lucy is any example to go by, and she only had DOOMS which is literally just a very minor form of Amelie's dreams. i wouldn't be surprised if Amelie's own mother committed suicide/ went insane/ was otherwise distant from her, but the implications of such trauma from Amelie's early life makes me think very hard about Amelie potentially inflicting similar mother trauma on Sam in the Bridget form to act out her own fantasies of the comfort she never received in the Amelie form. and that would be fucking INSANE and also make so much sense. I agree she probably does feel guilty about the trauma she's giving Sam , but i think more than justifying it as for the greater good, she desperately desperately needs someone to understand her to form a connection, and she would absolutely inflict it on him if she thought they could grow closer because of it. it would develop Amelie's inability to actually understand Sam as a person (her insistence on Sam reconnecting, the amount of times she says 'i know' something about him without ever listening to him adamantly refuting it) because she's so blinded by what she expects him to become from her conscious or unconscious conditioning. she expects his trauma responses to be like her trauma responses, but she literally doesn't know enough about humans to realize children aren't all the same malleable ball of clay and have their own intrinsic personalities and quirks from birth (and i think this is probably the way she justifies her treatment of BBs in general. like "what do you mean children are people, they're obviously children." she recognises inherent tragedy in the death of a child, but she doesn't actually understand that children are more than potential-people.) obviously this is literal grasping at straws theoryposting here, but the point is i need Sam to grill her with surgical precision on screen and i need to be able to watch it and make notes.

you could never bore me with the implications of the Lou-Amelie connection. never. this has been on my mind since day one, and i really do not think it is an accident that our first look at Elle Fanning is her in a mask. all the masks of the first game lead back to Amelie in the end - Diehardman's black mask was Bridget's first, Higgs only started wearing his gold mask after becoming radicalized by her - and i think Elle/Lou's golden mask is going to follow the exact same pattern. and then her strings...

i am literally unable to imagine what the end game of this connection will be. there are so many ways it could play out and so many angles kojima could bring to it if he so wanted. i really hope it's not that Amelie used her god powers to fuck with time and some part of her without memories reincarnated as Lou because i can only imagine the torture of raising your own mother. it would just seem... selfish, i guess, for Amelie to walk back her promise to bear eternal solitude, even if there is something deeply tragic about her doing it to be close to Sam again. something very Orpheus and Eurydice about it, but like that myth, i can't imagine it ending in anything except tragedy. at the very least Sam deserves happiness, even if Amelie objectively doesn't (and probably can't be without access to Sam, which would probably drive Sam miserable.)

plus Sam deserves to have at least one meaningful relationship that wasn't engineered for him by Amelie in some way.

[pomegranarchy]

Have You Any Faith? Chapter 5: Reluctance

wordcount: 3,422 content warnings: alienation, again. coping with family loss link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47796682/chapters/122165881

---

reluctant: adjective re·luc·tant

1: feeling or showing aversion, hesitation, or unwillingness 2: having or assuming a specified role unwillingly

The Wordsmith stares down at her shellwood carving. It looks like a bird, but only if someone were squinting at it from a distance and happened to have one eye.

"I don't think this is working," She admits.

Hopper takes a look at her sculpture. "Why not? You're holding the knife just fine, and you're doing better than most first-timers."

She's thankful that he mentions nothing about her concealed hands, despite it making the task harder. He may be the person in Gravel she most closely considers a friend, but not even he has an idea of what lies beneath her layers. Surely, he'd consider her larvae-like at best. Monstrous at worst. Sighing, she brushes a wood chip off of her lap.

"This doesn't resemble anything in my head. If I didn't know what it was supposed to be, I don't believe I'd recognize it."

"It's alright. That's why you asked me to help you, isn't it?" Hopper gestures to his own sculpture with the tip of the carving knife.  "What are you trying to make? Maybe I can tell you how to get it closer to what's in your head."

The Wordsmith bites her lip. How much can she describe without having to explain the concept of warm-blooded creatures? Or having an internal skeleton?

"It's… a creature from where I come from. They're called birds."

"Birds." Hopper repeats. He rubs the bottom of his face, considering. "What do they look like?"

"Well, they're… shaped and behave like maskflies. There's a lot of variety to them, but they're all covered in feathers. Feathers are…" Here, the Wordsmith pauses. What makes the most sense to a bug? "A feather is made of a thin shaft, like a flexible piece of carapace. Attached to either side are hundreds of tiny soft fibers. They look a bit like fuzzy antenna, but they're firmer and used for flying."

Hopper makes a noise of acknowledgement. When he doesn't immediately reply, the Wordsmith can tell he's trying to imagine feathers. She spends the silence wishing that the chairs in his home were more comfortable.

"Do you like these birds?"

"I think they're alright. They can be very pretty. It's… it was my father, who liked them. Loved them, really." She taps the sculpture's uneven head.  "We both loved to watch little things, I think. He would spend his time birdwatching, and used to tell me about the birds he'd spot. Where they went to build their nests, or if he'd seen one splash about in a puddle. It wouldn't surprise me if he'd ever considered becoming an ornithologist."

"What is a orin… tha-loh gist?"

"Ornithologist." She pronounces the word clearly, enunciating each syllable. "It's a person who is well-studied in birds. Ornithology being the word for the study itself. I think studying the little things sort of ran in our family."

"What's your little thing, then?"

"Oh, mine is…" The Wordsmith hesitates. "Bugs, actually. The ones that don't talk, like tiktik and vengeflies. Where I come from, bugs are smaller than even those, and meeting another who could understand you was… rare."

Impossible, actually. But it's not like Hopper needs to know that.

"Hm. It would be, if our King's influence couldn't reach you. Your home sounds too far away and strange for that."

The Wordsmith wonders what the hell that even means. Is every bug in this kingdom so loyal? She considers the way Tiak speaks a bit overzealous, but maybe that's just the standard way to refer to the royalty here? Almost reverent, and as if they had godlike power. She's not sure how she feels about that. Does feudalism exist here? Nevermind. It's not as if she's in a position to figure that out. Instead, she shrugs.

"You're right in that. To me, this place feels very strange."

"Hmm. How did you travel? Walking? You wouldn't have stag beetles to carry you around places, I'm guessing."

She gasps. "You have stag beetles? That's a species I was wondering whether lived here! They have such beautiful and impressive mandibles, it's a--"

"Woah, there!" Hopper waves his hands in front of him, laughing. "You're awfully eager to see a bug of your type, aren't you?"

"Ah…?" The Wordsmith blinks at him, then finds herself blushing furiously. "No! No, I didn't mean to-- oh no."

Hopper only laughs harder at that. "It's alright! It's alright, we all have wants. I can't blame you for them. But I should warn you, stags don't have very impressive mandibles at all."

"They don't?"

"No, I'm afraid you're chasing after the wrong type of bug."

"I swear that's not..." Yeah. He's not going to believe that she wasn't lusting after a big beetle. The Wordsmith sighs with disappointment, dreading when this conversation falls into Gravel's stream of gossip. "I see."

Hopper chirrups, tapping his leg against the floor. "Ah... well, for your bird, I think there's a pretty easy solution." He waves a hand, gesturing for her to hand it to him. Carefully, the Wordsmith cups it in her palms and deposits it in his grip. As he takes it, Hopper turns it over. He nods at it, then at her. "It's like your dreamcatchers. They don't have to be pretty and perfect in order to work. It's what you feel when making it, right?"

The Wordsmith stares at him, then back at her ugly little sculpture. She's not sure what he means by 'work,' since they're only grass and string. It makes the village folk feel better, though. Enough that Tiak does his best not to outright beg her for extras to give to traders.

She nods. "Right."

"Then think about how much your father loved birds. I'm sure he would love that you made him something to make him happy, and tried so hard." Hopper holds up the sculpture to the lumafly lantern in the ceiling, illuminating it better. The Wordsmith watches him. With a different perspective, it does look nicer. Maybe it isn't a very good sculpture, but… it's not like the point is quality. The point is to remember, and to love. Beneath her mask, she smiles wistfully. She imagines giving it to her father, explaining it's supposed to be a heron. Then they both laugh over how wonky it looks, and he sets it on his windowsill so it can look outside.

"He would." She holds her hands out for it. "I think I'm ready to show it to Humi. Thank you, Hopper."

"Of course!" Hopper chirrups, delighted. As he sets it in her hands, he stands. Together, they step outside. The walk to Humi's-- home? Shrine?-- is shorter from Hopper's house than her own. There isn't yet a name for what Humi's old home has been turned into. In a way, the Wordsmith believes the bugs of Gravel are waiting for her to provide one. She searches her mind, and decides she'll tell Hopper once they get there.

The place hasn't changed much. If anything, it's only become more cluttered. Some objects have spread to the worktable, work-in-progress bracelets, carvings, and drawings. Finished pieces are pinned to the walls and stacked precariously on the main table.

The Wordsmith's hands cradle her sculpture.

"Place it anywhere there's room," Hopper mumbles idly. "Maybe we should get shelves in here…"

"I was thinking," The Wordsmith starts, "about what we should call this place. It's not quite Humi's home anymore, is it? Not her's alone, anyway. It's a bit of everyone's; the people that are remembered here, and the people that remember them."

Hopper looks up at her curiously. "It wouldn't be right of me to say I wasn't waiting for you to decide on that. What have you got, Wordsmith?"

She smiles a little at the title. It's yet to feel like herself, but she's come to accept it as truth. "Gravel's memorial. A memorial is a place that's dedicated to remembering a person or an event. This memorial-- Humi's memorial-- would be dedicated to the people important to Gravel."

"Ah. Yes, that sounds right. Where do you get all of these words? It's as if you have an endless store of them."

The Wordsmith shrugs. "Some of them were taught to me. Others I taught myself."

It's a true enough explanation, while avoiding the details that would invite further questioning. She leans over the table, and places her sculpture down. For a moment, she simply stares at the heron. She brushes her hand across its beak. Hopper remains quiet, giving her the time to reminisce. Eventually, she stands straight. Just as she opens her mouth to speak again--

"Wordsmith! Woooordsmith!!" Tiak bolts inside, startling the two so badly that Hopper falls over. The Wordsmith yelps, holding an arm out to Hopper before flinching back. Tiak continues to jump and flail about, arms and antenna waving erratically.

"Tiak!" Hopper barks, rolling about on the floor. "What's gotten into you?"

"There's a bug asking for the Wordsmith!"

"And? Help me up, boy! My legs aren't so spry anymore!" Hopper holds his hand up agitatedly. Tiak squeaks apologetically, crouching in order to tug Hopper to his feet.

"I'm sorry! It's just, oh! Wordsmith, it's like one of your stories!"

"What?" She says. "Tiak, you ought to calm down. Let's step outside." What’s gotten into him? Sure, Tiak can be a bit excitable, but nothing so extreme as to knock people over. It begs the question of what kind of story he thinks is going on. She sends her memory through the ones she’s told, as if it’ll help any.

"But-- okay! But quickly, quickly!" He dashes outside just as fast as he came in.

"That boy…" Hopper grumbles, brushing off his wings. The Wordsmith sighs sympathetically, following close behind. Even if she knows he’ll be fine, the fall worries her. Just outside, Tiak paces about in a tight circle. As soon as he sees them, he jumps up.

"Wordsmith!! Do you know how important this is??"

She fights to keep the annoyance out of her tone. "No. You have yet to explain what this is about."

He shrieks. "It's a high class looking bug! He came in on the trader's road, but he's got fine clothes and a shined up carapace! He said that he's from the palace, and he kept asking if this is where the Wordsmith stays, and if someone could go get you because the King is asking to see you!"

The Wordsmith laughs. "A king, wanting to see me?"

This is like a story! Imagine royalty wanting anything to do with some random stranger. Covered in rags and old dirt, no less.

"That's what he said!! And he said it was very important, too!"

She starts to giggle, only to realize that Tiak is being serious. This isn't something he would dare joke about. Coming to her senses, she presses a hand against the bottom of her mask. What would a king possibly want from her? To demand citizenship, maybe? But why take notice of her specifically?

"Did… did the bug say why?" She asks.

"It's about your dreamcatchers! The Wordsmith who makes the dreamcatchers! He said that the King wants to see you, and heard that you lived here in Gravel!" Almost desperately, Tiak waves his hands about. "Please, you need to see him!"

"I… alright, Tiak. No need to repeat yourself. Take me to see him."

"Yes, Wordsmith!" Tiak scurries off without so much as a warning. The Wordsmith watches him for a second. Even if she started running now, she wouldn’t catch up. Given that the result will be the same, she glances at Hopper.

"Don't wait for me. Maybe in my younger days I could keep up, but now my joints are too brittle for big leaps. I'll catch up." He waves her off. Accepting this, the Wordsmith starts after Tiak.

It takes a bit longer than she expects. Mostly because Tiak rushes out of sight too often, then has to come careening back for her once he realizes that she's behind. He has to duck back and wave her forward out of a deadend, or to explain she went down the wrong road. She didn’t think Gravel had so many paths. Through it all, she can’t tell if he's annoyed with her or merely frantic.

Eventually, they reach the edge of the village. Standing in the road is a bug dressed in a white cloak of some kind, long antenna stretching from his head. Around him are a few curious bugs, trying to prod him with questions.

"Come, come! Here! Here, look!" Tiak skids to a stop, waving back and forth between the white-dressed bug and the Wordsmith. "This is them! This is he! Wordsmith, meet…?"

"Tymm." She initially resists the urge to raise her eyebrows, then realizes no one can see it behind her mask.

"A pleasure to meet you, Tim. What brings you here?"

"I come from the White Palace." His wings buzz a little, ruffling the cloak laid over them. "The Pale King wishes to see you, to talk about your dreamcatchers."

"They aren't mine," she clarifies. "They're only something that I've helped bring here."

Tymm doesn't seem to acknowledge this, simply waving a hand in the air. "Come with me."

"Right now?"

"Yes. The sooner the better."

"I see. Allow me to say my goodbyes, first." Of the bugs assembled, she sees Thea gasp and press her hands against her face.

"You'll be returning." Despite his impersonal tone, the Wordsmith is offended. Why the rush? Can’t a king bear to wait a few minutes longer?

"Even so, I don't wish to abandon the bugs that have welcomed me into their homes." The Wordsmith bows her head a little, then turns to Tiak. He stares imploringly up at her.

"Don't delay, Wordsmith! Don't you see? This is like one of your stories! You're off to see the Pale King himself, and he'll have you marry him or the Queen, and you'll be a monarch yourself!"

The Wordsmith blinks. "I don't… think I should come between their marriage."

"I don't think that's a problem," Tiak says, oddly reminiscent. "He did make that arrangement with the Queen of Beasts! And you said yourself how important the spiders are! Someone as talented as you will fit right in!"

"Is that so…?" The Wordsmith cautions, uncertain of what to make of that response. Is the king polygamous? Does the queen not mind, or is she as well? Who is the 'queen of beasts'? A spider, presumably, but what arrange--?

"The Pale King wants to see the Wordsmith about the dreamcatchers alone." Tymm interjects, a hint of agitation in his tone.

"Or he could marry you to somebody else!" Thea cries. "Imagine that, the King himself making your marriage official! What an honor to have the Wordsmith as a spouse. A union blessed by the Pale King!"

"What's this about marriages?" Hopper says coyly, arriving just in time for embarrassing assumptions. "Wordsmith, I never expected you to be so open in your interests. Now is hardly the time!"

"No one is marrying anybody," Tymm says, now clearly annoyed.

"That's right," The Wordsmith hurriedly agrees. "This is to be an unromantic visit."

Thea sighs disappointedly, but she doesn't know why. Previously unnoticed, Lu peeks out from behind Hopper. Something is clutched against her thorax, hidden by her arms.

“Then let us go,” Tymm says.

"Wait!" Lu cries. She fidgets, ducking behind Hopper. He pats her back reassuringly, and she peeks out again. "Before you go?"

Her tone is so hesitant, so sweet, that it reminds the Wordsmith painfully of her youngest cousin. Only a baby, when she had first seen her.

"Of course,” She says, with as much compassion as she can muster. “What is it?"

Lu hesitates, remaining behind Hopper. But eventually, she steps out. In her hands is a small, round object. Slowly, she stretches her arms out to present it. The Wordsmith crouches down, looking at it carefully. It looks like a shellwood pin. There's a design etched into it, resembling the faces of various bugs. She thinks one is meant to be Hopper. The little one in the front is clearly Lu. The Wordsmith smiles, charmed by the wobbly, inexperienced lines.

"It's very cute. Do you mind telling me what it is?"

"It's a gift! So that you can stay safe, like you made me feel safe. I know it's not finished, but… I want you to have it, before you go." Lu stares down at the ground, unable to look directly up at the Wordsmith. Her heart aches.

"Oh, that's so kind. But I… Why don't you finish it for me, for when I come back? That way when you give it to me for the first time, it'll be done."

"But…" Lu glances at the object. "I don't… I don't want you to forget us."

Ah. The Wordsmith answers with as much reassurance as she can.

"I won't. I promise. You've all been very kind to me, and I would never forget the bugs who've helped me.” She places a hand over her chest, trying to summon as much sincerity as she can. The eyes of the other bugs rest on her, bid into silence by the exchange in front of them.

“Besides, I won't be leaving forever."

"Still… you can…" Lu looks up with shining eyes. "You can keep some of me with you. So you won't forget me."

Before the Wordsmith can answer, Hopper steps up.

"Come now, Wordsmith. You're a gift to Gravel. You deserve a gift in return." Hopper holds out for the object. Lu gives it to him, albeit reluctantly. He pats her on the head, then starts to run a finger over the carved lines. "This has care in it. It's meant to make you happy and keep you safe. And Wordsmith, I think you've more than deserved that much from us. You've cared for us, after all."

"That's right!" Thea cries. She sidles up next to him, holding her hands out. Hopper gives her a look, but passes it to her without a fuss. Once it’s in her hands, she presses her face against it. A kiss? The Wordsmith wonders. She hadn’t realized these bugs did that as well.

"There. For you to think about when you get lonely! You'll know we're all here to support you."

Tiak bounces up and down, waving his arms as if they’ll lift him off the ground. Only once it’s been passed to him next does he settle down.  

"Yes!” He cries, hugging it against his thorax. “We'll never forget your stories, and you'll never forget our faces!"

Hopper extends an arm for it, and Tiak gently passes it back. The item is returned to Lu. She clutches it tightly, staring one at a time at the bugs who touched her gift. Then she nuzzles it over her forehead. After a final, long, thoughtful stare, she speaks again.

"Yeah! All of what they said. You can keep us with you, and you won't get lonely or anything."

“Then I would be a fool not to accept it. Would you do me the honors?” The Wordsmith smiles, though she knows nobody can see it. Gently, she holds her hands out. Lu’s antenna perk up, and she beams at her, dropping the item in her hands. There is silence as the Wordsmith turns the item over in her hands, examining it. "Thank you. This is so very sweet, and I… I'm flattered that I've come to mean this much to you all. I've done my best to earn my keep here, and to help where I can. I never expected anything more than basic needs in return. Thank you, all of you."

She looks down at Lu.  

"I'll make sure to keep it with me, okay? It'll be my good luck charm. Then when I come back, you can finish it and it'll work better than ever." She grips it tightly, feeling her affection twinge at her cheeks. When was the last time she smiled so hard it hurt? For just a moment, she thinks the charm shimmers with life. Better not to lose the dear thing. Assuming it to be a trick of the light, the Wordsmith merely affixes it to one of the hanging pieces of fabric covering her. Lu bounces in place, nodding eagerly.

As she stands, Tymm gestures for her. "We should get going. There's a Stag Station we can take."

"Of course." With one final goodbye, the Wordsmith departs. “Thank you all, again.”