#the symbiotic relationship I have with my own AU and other AU’s I latch onto is scary :)

[hitwiththetmnt]

The symbiotic relationship of an AU and an artist @butterfilledpockets

[xiphiaarts]

Okay, so i've got the fic brewing in my brain. Definitely want it to be Papyrus centric, but I'm considering maybe adding in a love bug Sans as well. Whether Sans is infected or not, I like to imagine that they would have a sibling bond (happy sibling relationship go brrr). That does the raise the question, if both ends of a soul bond are infected, what happens?

OhmygoodnessSSS listen I am not normal about any papyrus (or any sans so either way I'd be insane/POS)

OKAY OKAY SO IM GOING TO GIVE TWO EXAMPLES OF THIS, a romantic affection one based around my selfshipping and a platonic one based around Sans and papy

Two infecteds together in romantic aspect is the perfect and the worst possible couple you can imagine. A lovebugg can't infect a pat (what I call my sona) but pats have their own virus called LuvSick, a relationship between LuvSick and their pat is more controlling than the symbiotic relationship between a skeleton and their lovebugg parasite.

That being said, it makes a pat as obsessive, violent and possessive of whoever they're bonded to, and should they be bonded to an infected skeleton the two (or three in the poly aus) if them will be on top of eachother constantly. They're dependant on eachother for sustenance and are fine living their lives attached at the waists, though they have a tendency to shut down or freakout if their bonded is not around. The relationship is full of the reassurance and affection that both parasite and virus need to survive, but also may result in social isolation or the possible deaths of people around them. They're feeding off of eachother, consistently, to the point where they become more addicted to it than usual and would rather sit in a dark room with eachother than do any thing else. This is also true for parasite infected x parasite infected relationships, say, if you were a sansxsans/papxpap shipper

Now a sibling bond if two infected's is different, and it's likely that one sibling infected the other. Papyri are also alot more susceptible to infection because the parasites that latch onto their souls have more 'bugs' than they're able to give out, so in a house full of papyri they'd all get sick at a much faster rate. (This is because I hc papyrus as just a general power house with more magic than the average monster, so this also translates to his parasite)

A sibling bond would relate to them having a similar relationship to that of a sort of 'hive', they don't even have to look at eachother for their prime directive to be the same and they work together to achieve goals flawlessly, they feed off of each other's bond so they make sure to keep eachother alive and functioning properly, and are quick to ward off threats to their family member. Papyrus would be the hives mobility; carrying sans around, walking/driving places etc, and sans would be the meerkat/turret scouting out danger and destroying it accordingly. Sans Still makes his bad puns that papyrus pretend gets on his nerves, and papyrus still chastises his brother for his laziness at times, but they're basically psychically linked and cling to eachother when their romantic bonded's are non existent or not around. Keeping sick!siblings together is also a way to keep the skeletons off of a romantic bonded's back, but it may backfire and they may both hunt you down to smother you in their joined affections

[finiffy]

Got any 408 aus or headcanons?

Oh anon I hope you know that you just gave me an excuse to toss out every 408 post I have in my drafts

Ok au time. I haven't touched on my old deadraki au so why not. Basic rundown, au where both Kon and Draven died and 408 is left on their own. Because they are a hivemind that continues to grow and die off their memories become more faded with each iteration, this is mostly why they got so attached to Kondraki, they need a 'host' to which they can store and retrieve information from, and because of this Kon is able to control them with his thoughts, it's a symbiotic relationship. Without a host to retain information from they slowly forget, but they don't want to forget and so they take the illusion of Kondraki, it is some form of maybe if they keep his form they won't forget. But of course they are still losing their memories and so their illusion of him becomes more and more distorted until it is unrecognizable.

Then another au, Clef finding one instance of 408 with a broken wing and just not knowing what to do with it or how it got here (he is miles away from the site and currently on a mission that the o5 sent him on, maybe it latched onto him by accident and got injured). But there is no way for him to return it and he isn't going to turn back just for this one little guy. He wants to leave them somewhere but he knew Kon would he on his ass if he found out that he straight up abandoned one of his butterflies. So he just sucks it up, he looks up how to take care of butterflies on his phone (they're anomalous but they are just like any other type of butterflies right?) and some how becomes an unwilling babysitter for a single broken winged butterfly for this trip

Then au where everything is the same but Kondraki has a phobia of butterflies. 408 all still like him the same but Kon is absolutely terrified. But because he is the only person there that 408 will listen to he is assigned as the head researcher of them. Its really something to see Dr Kondraki, this brash and violent man almost covering in the sight of these butterflies.

Then here is some 408 thoughts

During a containment breach and they aren't able to eat their normal sugar water, does Kon allow them to eat from the corpses laying around or even from his own blood and sweat. Probably actually, it's their other choice in food than sugar water

What happens if one of them becomes disabled, do they still follow the flock? If one of their wings were damaged it would be difficult to follow. If one isn't able to camouflage themselves or something went wrong and they can't turn into illusions what happens? Do they get kicked out?

What do you think happens to instances of 408 dying like not their whole colony but just one butterfly (because if they have the same lifespan of normal butterflies it will only be a few weeks). Do they mourn? It's not like its a different butterfly or a friend, it is still them. It's like losing a strand of hair, nothing is different because the majority is still there and you can't differntiate one from another since they are all one being

When Kondraki wants to sneak them off site and to take them around, 408 would take the form of when Kondraki was a child (he showed them a picture of himself as a kid and they perfectly copied it). They also act way more spoiled, (trying to hold his hand, get carried, etc) and behave like a child even though they are centuries old probably. Kon probably taught them sign language too so they can communicate with him in this form

[lilium-tenebris]

So this is a long rant about Lillian’s morale code, the Crest of Lovicelle’s secondary functionality, and the nature of Grima in this weakened state and how it colors Lillian’s relationship with it. Under the cut cuz boy am I going to get going long on shit. Yeah, this is really long but it’s also really important so *shrug*.

So the first thing I need to make somewhat clear about Lillian is she is not objectively a morally good character, not even close. In her interactions she has been exceptionally kind and friendly (to the best of HER abilities) in most cases and that is genuine. But a nice person is not always a GOOD person in the morale scale of things. Lillian only obtained a concept of good and bad from the occasional children’s book and what not and so her grasping of it is very vague and her ability to understand the IMPORTANCE of that sort of thing is low.

She isn’t evil though, in a typical 9 alignment system she’s a type of neutral though that can vary which of the 3 from route to route. For example Crimson Flower being the only route she becomes OVERLY zelous about the cause itself she becomes Lawful Neutral with Edelgard as the ‘law’ so to speak. In the school phase and many others she’s chillin more at a True Neutral. With the exception of Crimson Flower, but this still applies in it, Lillian is Loyal to PEOPLE not ideals, concepts, a morale system, anything.

She has striven her whole life to be accepted, you would think being the object of worship of a cult would give that impression but it doesn’t in her case. During her time in the Grimist Cult she was ISOLATED, other than strange dehumanizing worshiping rituals she was denied seeing any of her caretakers for any length of time BECAUSE it would humanize her. They did not want a little girl they wanted a god.

Coming to the Church of Seiros was NOT much better for her, and though it’s objectively a step up because of the way it made her feel she views it as worse. Once her connection to Grima came to light and the nature of it’s energy being restrained by her she was simply dehumanized in a  different way. She became basically treated like an artifact, a fragile urn with an evil spirit in it to be set on a shelf to keep the spirit at bay. Anyone with even an inkling  of who she was or what was going on wound up treating her like the plague in order to avoid being the one to crack or shatter the ‘urn’ in this metaphor.

She was only able to spend time around certain people that way such as Professor Hanneman helping him with his research, yet, even there she felt as though that was because of her crest. She was welcome there only because she was an interesting research subject, once again, not a person, whether that reflects his true opinion isn’t known to me and I’ll handle that on a person by person basis RP wise, yet, in the end it’s how she comes to FEEL about it just the same.

Then this years students come in and she manages to connect with Gabriel ( @sol-chorus ) my other character. That helps, he helps, but, Gabriel has his own problems and struggles that make him biased against other students, the houses, and just the system there under based on his experiences with his own crest. Not to mention he is not AWARE of everything listed above as she has been ordered to keep that ‘burden’ to herself as it is ‘hers’ to carry. So he doesn’t realize when he talks down about her joining a houses when she mentions it he’s pushing her into this cycle of isolation he doesn’t know ANYTHING about it.

So that’s where she winds up by the time she is pulled into the 3h main story and conflict by SOMEONE from one of the houses reaching out a hand. In most cases (minus one AU) the students have no IDEA about who or what she is or where she came from and she’s treated as a classmate, a weird classmate, but she’s not the strangest one certainly. And the more the first half of the game goes on the harder Lillian latches onto her classmates, her house, the Professor etc. she is finally somewhere where she’s considered a person. However, warnings from the church sill put her back remind her ‘what’ she is and that juxtaposition of that still haunting her against her new friends and allies is maddening and it takes her minor bitterness towards the Church and inflates it to a silent boiling rage. To the point that she won’t go in the Chapel, like, if she was implemented int he game during no months of any free time, in the WHOLE game would you find her anywhere near the chapel.

In a route such as the Blue Lions, she at least comes to accept a church that is at least fully under Byleth’s leadership, but, she still has lingering resentment for Rhea (who survives) and the old church for what she was put through.

Of course all of that brings us around tot he source of this, Lillian was born a Grim Witch, she was born this Generations Vessel/Host of the weakened spirit o The Fell Dragon, that has been falling deeper and deeper into weakness over the Millennia between this and anything else I’ve written for this lore. It will be centuries before the dragon’s soul can gain enough energy to even try to exist outside of a host again. This puts LIllian in a different position than previous hosts, it does not wish to destroy her, or rather it could not do so even if it wished because that would leave it right where it started. Instead it pursues a more ‘symbiotic’ appearing relationship with her. Because she has been able to hear the voice since she was a small child even when she was ALONE she was connected to the dragon and could hear it frightening and overwhelming as it was. As the conflict breaks out in 3H the Fell Dragon seizes that and Lillian’s new found attachments as a weakness. It may not be able to regain it’s strength and be rid of her but it can use her to decrease the wait time on it rebuilding it’s strength in the long run.

The Crest of Lovicelle acts as a simple magic attack increasing Crest for mechanics but, it’s secondary feature is to act as a road a channel between the dragon and it’s host allowing the host to borrow some of it’s power. However, Grima being ultimately driven by a desire to break free in centuries hence and destroy the world as it is known will not do something like that for free. In order to use this functionality of the crest and activate it’s ‘Breath of Ruin’ factor. This taps into Grima’s base energy and essentially allows Lillian to disintegrate something, walls, people, anything lacking in the kind of divinity Grima possesses can be destroyed by the dragon’s raw ruin factor. However, in order to open IT’S end of the channel Grima requires one thing in return. For each time it’s power is to be borrowed through the crest this way, it wants a human soul. It does not matter who or from where any soul now is able to help the creature regenerate it’s power faster from it’s current weakened stasis. And the point of everything above is to say this: Lillian in some ways is not OPPOSED to using this power, sparingly.

If these people who have finally made Lillian feel like a human being, people who have accepted her are in enough danger she will cave to this offer of power time and again. If her back hits the wall and she can see no other way to protect her house/side she’ll pay the price, one enemies soul (or if desperate enough a simple stranger’s) ceasing to exist is worth the price of admission if that borrowed power will save those she’s come to love. The only thing that effects this use of it is how OFTEN she uses it, for example in Crimson Flower there is a very ‘ends justify the means’ attitude through that WHOLE route and I could see her using this not nearly constantly but maybe 5-8 times throughout the WHOLE five and a half year war (maybe once in the academy phase it depends). Where as in say an Azure Moon Route where that sort of thing may not be as ‘acceptable’ to her allies she may only use it once or twice.

This is more or less despite her reasons for it objectively evil as an action itself, someones soul CEASES to be, it is GONE, they are something worse than dead. She is WELL aware of this fact, don’t doubt that she  is aware not only of this but, that each time she leans on the dragon like this, it becomes a little stronger and she damns some future generation a little bit more. She knows these things she understands them from an objective concept, she can write them on paper and explain them in words and yet-

She doesn’t FEEL them. At least not int he way most people would, she is not REMORSELESS not even close any time she uses this ability it shakes her and she may even isolate herself for a while to try and cope with the evil she commits. But she has a very ‘it had to be done I had no choice, i couldn’t let something HAPPEN to them’. Her allies are worth it, her friends are worth it, these people who would welcome her are worth any suffering, after all she was BORN a monster that is not going to change just because some people are kind enough not to see her that way.

That is what she believes that is what her ENTIRE rearing as a child has brought her to have resonate from her very core. Lillian is a very nice person, if you become friend or ally she would do anything for you to repay that kindness.

Emphasis on anything.