#so now ive somehow made a system where there are. a couple of implications of a few things.

[ask-indigo-park-swapped]

Hey Mollie, how common is magic in this world?

I suppose it depends on how you'd define magic? I can't wave my hand and have fire come out, but Ruta, as a mechanical Vessel, can probably add a flamethrower into its arm and do just that. Impossible is kind of hard to define when so many different people can do so many different things.

(Do gods count as magic? They aren't common, but...)

I suppose the closest thing to magic is Artefacts? It's an object that's made to do weird things, like how Salem makes potions that can make you stronger or faster! Or that whistle in the Valley that Lloyd went to! Making Artefacts is a skill anyone can learn, so I guess it can be called common - but really skilled Artefacters are golden geese rare.

[plantwalkingamongstmeremortals]

Hi :) for the ask challenge : 1, 4, 7, 11, 15, 21

Obviously you don't have to answer all of them unless you want to :)

1. How long do you hc the travel time between Divinity’s Reach and Lion’s Arch?

I am VERY BAD at time and distances to be honest, something like a couple weeks by foot sounds like a decent distance between two major cities (esp considering how much of kryta is western europe and that doesnt seem completely incompatible with real life western europe) but i have a lot of trouble picturing how much that is, and tbh i'd need to add hundreds of villages and quite a few minor towns in between anyway to get something that feels like RealityTM.

Funny answer is the game is 100% of the reality of tyria. You CAN do the one-hour walk between LA and DR. the whole world is smaller than france. Not what i believe but really funny to think about.

4. How much smarter than everyone else are Asura actually? Is it all just hubris and in the end they just have a better education system?

YES IT'S JUST HUBRIS. The "some species just are Better at x" fantasy trope definitely is rooted in real life racism and i hate it so i really believe that all differences are cultural (because the implications otherwise feel kinda gross). And considering how high and mighty they are about it, them not sharing the education and science cuz "nah you humans/sylvari/charr/norn definitely are too stupid to understand" makes sense, but hopefully with everything that's been happening, asura seeing others make super cool tech and stuff, they'll realize that everyone will profit if they share their knowledge on a deeper level >:3

7. How does an average Sylvari’s average day look like?

im bad at average help. more seriously they don't feel like they have a structured work day like we do (and i assume most other races do too bc that's the vibe they give. gotta work in the fields or make tech or idk what). Maybe the Socialist Utopia where they come give a hand at the Necessary Jobs for a bit (just thinking about how the dream might mean everyone Knows how most of those work?) and then just chill out doing the hobby they feel called to. Overall i think they have a lot of ~empathy~ and respect of other individuals' liberties so theres not much being forced on others and people can just vibe however they want without having to stress about paying rent or shit like that.

11. Are magic abilities learned or are people born with them? A combination of both?

Mostly learned i think! There might be some biological stuff that might help somehow, like how some people learn how to draw way faster than others, and some others struggle A LOT but if the world has magic, i'd let anyone learn to channel it! And I think the way gw1 works might support it, with all the profession trainers who teach us skills..... The captured elites might be some form of "i saw magic used this way, so i am learning from seeing my magic used against me"? I really feel like i'm making shit up on the spot im sorry but also what did u expect from this idiot /lh

15. A headcanon about a minor race, like Quaggan or Dredge.

theyre all perfect. thats it. (more seriously i don't have that many thoughts about any of them i just think we should Learn More). Oh and considering the prev question: yes a necromancer quaggan is a posibility. Baby quaggan walk, followed by corpses, i love ♥

21. Mallyck. Other Trees. Mordremoth’s blighting trees… Are the Sylvari not unique?

hhhh so i was a bit no when i saw the question at first but ive been Thinking so. LETS RECAP THE DATA WE HAVE.

Apparently a dev confirmed malyck did Not Come from a blighting tree during a live or on reddit or whatever i can't check ever gw2wiki source okay, which confirms that whatever the most complicated answer to the question i come up with is most likely true.

The wiki says the seed for the pale tree was a blighting tree seed stolen by Ronan but the source seems to be an artbook i don't have so idk if it's the wiki people extrapolating because i can't check. so first let's assume it's the case: NOTHING is stopping anyone else from having stolen a seed too and planted a tree and theyre all kind of cousins (sylvari/mordrem/other tree ppl) which is very cute and that feels like the most canon-compliant explanation of malyck bUT it's not fucked up enough to my taste so i'm gonna say (for the sake of argument at least idk which option is alex-canon yet) the pale tree came from just something else. Ronan and Ventari planted a lil gay tree and some sleeping mordremoth magic made it Alive (because we need plant dragon connection anyway (we couuld fuck that up but that sounds like too much work for now)) but there were too many good gay vibes so the tree ended up making overall nice and very gay plants. WHICH MEANS. there's nothing preventing sleeping mordremoth power to just vibe with trees that are supposed to be significant in other ways and awaken them to make lil plant beings.

Downside to all this is why haven't we seen them in HoT, BUT maybe they were too far away. Maybe a chaotic neutral quaggan planted a cactus in elona and mordremoth made choya because of that. Idk man.

[radioactivedelorean]

Life Support

based on this doodle by @martymxfly because I’m a sucker for Marty angst

The words “life support” had always had awful connotations for Dr Emmett Brown. The implication that the human body could reach a stage where it was unable to sustain itself was a terrifying concept. The body had hundreds of methods of dealing with almost anything that nature threw at it, but the idea of having an external, inorganic system to sustain life when the body itself was unable to do so was simply unnerving.

That's why Doc felt sick to his stomach when he received the phone call.

It had been about eight days since Marty had left to go on a family holiday to Miami. Doc had assumed that the teenager, while he was somewhat reckless with a complete disregard for his own safety, would have managed to stay healthy and alive while on holiday. Marty had called him every other night, just to prove that yes, he was fine and Doc needed to stop worrying so much. When Doc's phone had rung that night, however, he'd been rather surprised to hear George's voice rather than Marty's. That phone call continued to play over and over in Doc's head as he paced up and down the airport terminal waiting area.

Doc hummed quietly to himself as he worked. He was busy assembling some contraption that would hopefully act as an intrusion prevention system, allowing only himself, his family or Marty to open the door to his garage. He was just soldering the thumbprint pad to the main motherboard when the phone rang.

“Hello?” Doc asked casually, trying to continue soldering with the phone wedged between his ear and his shoulder.

“Dr Brown? It's George. I'm afraid we've got some bad news…”

Doc felt his stomach drop. In a split second, the soldering iron was down and turned off and he was gripping the phone with both hands. There would be no other reason as to why George would be phoning to tell him bad news instead of Marty unless the news was about Marty. “What is it?!”

“There was an accident, a-at the theme park. Marty, he - he was on one of the rollercoasters a-and part of the track was faulty and he - the cart crashed.”

“Oh my god… where’s Marty?! Is he okay?!”

Here, Doc heard George take a deep breath. “... Marty was rushed to the hospital. He's been put on life support…”

“I'll be on the next flight there,” Doc had said before hanging the phone up, cutting off George's reply.

That had been hours ago, and Doc was still pacing restlessly around the airport. His flight was still yet to arrive. He had essentially run from the garage to the house, explained the situation to his family before packing a bag and rushing to the closest airport. He'd bought a ticket for the next flight to Miami and spent the last three hours pacing up and down.

Eventually, Doc's plane had landed and he had boarded. Now, instead of pacing restlessly up and down the terminal waiting area, he was sitting in a chair on the plane, his knee bouncing in agitation. He was getting odd looks from the other passengers, but by this point, Doc couldn't care less. All he cared about was the remaining several hours between now and arriving at the hospital in Miami.

The flight seemed to take days. Takeoff itself felt as if it took about three hours. Doc couldn't have been more relieved when he finally stepped off the plane onto the tarmac, going to collect his bag. After yet another hour in baggage collection, then an hour's taxi drive to the hospital, Doc was finally entering the hospital.

Almost the moment he stepped through the doors, George McFly rushed over to greet him. “Dr Brown! I'm sorry for the short notice, I -”

“George, it's okay,” Doc assured him. “I don't care about that. Where's Marty's room?”

“This way.” George led him down the hall. The pair headed up a couple of floors and down another hall before George guided him into a ward and gestured to the first door on the left. “He's just in there…”

Doc took a deep breath, before slowly going inside. The sight that met him was somehow worse than anything he could have imagined. Wires seemed to come from everywhere, trailing all over the floor and the bed, leading into the various machines surrounding the patient. Marty was pale, his dark brown hair a starking contrast to the white sheets and his ghostly skin. He had dark, blue-ish bags under his eyes and his lips were parted slightly. An oxygen mask rested over his face, helping him breathe. His bare chest was covered in electrodes. A steady beep emitted from an ECG monitor by Marty's left shoulder. The boy's arms were heavily bandaged and a few thin blankets were layered over him. A stand with two IV bags, one of a clear liquid and one of what appeared to be blood, stood just behind the ECG monitor, with two thin tubes trailing down to the bed and into Marty’s arm via a cannula. The teen looked far worse now than Doc remembered ever seeing him before, including after almost getting hanged by Buford in 1885.

Doc rubbed his eyes, wondering when on Earth they had started to tear up. He took a few deep breaths in order to muster up enough courage to move his feet and sit down in the chair beside Marty’s bed. When he took the teen’s hand, it was cold and still. Not that he held Marty’s hand often, but he always remembered it at least being warm, not like this. Marty, understandably, didn’t react in the slightest to Doc’s presence. The ECG monitor beeped away in the background. Doc brushed his thumb gently, back and forth, over the back of Marty’s hand. It was almost physically painful to sit there, gazing at his once so lively friend hanging onto life by mere threads, his only hope of survival being the machines he was so thoroughly hooked up to.

“Marty…” Doc eventually broke the silence with the word, spoken so softly it was hardly a whisper. His throat was dry and felt as if it was blocked with a painful lump. More tears stung in his eyes, but he made no effort to wipe them away. There was no point; Marty wasn’t conscious, and wouldn’t be able to tell. “Listen, kid, you’re stronger than this… you can make it, I know you can. I didn’t spend the last eight years teaching a kid who gives up, d-did I?” Doc’s voice cracked as he spoke, words trembling through the sobs he held back. It was rare that he found himself in such a state. The last time he’d been so upset was when Verne came down with a horrible fever when he was three. Of course, that had been back before his return to the present. There had been little to no available medicine then, and Doc and Clara had simply had to do their best to make sure he recovered. Now, Doc was equally worried, despite the advanced medical aid available.

It was no secret to anybody in Hill Valley how much Doc Brown cared for Marty, and vice versa. Sinc he’d returned to 1985, with Clara, Jules and Verne in tow, the town had been a little more accepting of his strange antics. The numbers of insults and cold looks he’d received beforehand had dwindled until it was rare that he received any kind of negative response. Marty had been relieved to see that. Sure, the town still wasn’t truly welcoming to Doc’s presence, but having his family around him did encourage the general public to be much more discreet when it came to their disapproval.

Marty had always stood up for Doc, regardless of the situation. Whether it had been some old lady in the mall, calling Doc a creep, or a group of Marty’s peers, ganging up on him in the street and shouting insults, throwing rocks or cans of soda. Marty had always chased them off, even if it meant he put himself well within the firing line of any of the abuse. More than once, Marty had turned up at Doc’s place after getting cornered in the hallways at school. He’d tried his best to hide the bloodied lips or black eyes. Regardless of his efforts, Doc always found out and had spent many afternoons patching the boy up. It was these incidents which left Doc with such a strong paternal instinct over the boy, alongside their friendship. Doc knew that Marty received this abuse as a result of their friendship, and the guilt would forever sit with him. Marty did whatever he could to assure him it was okay, but they both knew that the guilt would sit with Doc for the rest of his life. Doc felt as though it was his duty to protect and care for Marty as a means of atoning for the fact that the abuse was his fault, to begin with.

Even now, as he watched the steady rise and fall of Marty’s chest, Doc still felt that fatherly instinct, telling him to stay there and guard over the wounded boy as he healed. It was what had brought him from Hill Valley to Miami in the first place. The moment he’d found out that Marty was injured, he knew he had to be there for him. He continued to stroke Marty’s hand with his thumb, even though he knew the teen wouldn’t be able to sense it.

“Come on, Marty,” Doc encouraged softly. “I know you can get through this. Just hang in there…”

Marty’s ECG monitor continued to beep softly as Doc watched over him.