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jazlynriddle · 2 months ago

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Welcome to your life - Pt 2:

Acting On Your Best Behaviour Ch 11:

Summary:

They'd seen it in their fellow orphans often enough to recognise the pattern and were now forced to admit, despite their hopes to the contrary, that Isidora had likely suffered similar side effects.

No… they'd always known she had. The Keeper had just wanted the power that Ranrok had, enough to convince themselves that they would be able to handle it better than that naive woman.

With the start of the Keeper’s sixth-year in Hogwarts, comes a whole slew of headache-inducing challenges from the most unexpected of places. Between insignificant pests throwing wrenches into their plans and tedious teenage drama, that the Keeper is entirely unprepared for, they wonder if they'll make it to their NEWTs without losing their sanity.

Or worse, Ominis or Sebastian.

Warnings: Sebastian x MC x Ominis! Drug Addiction! Spoilers! Slow-burn corruption! Dark content! Fucked up 1800s orphanages! MC has no love for Anne or Solomon! Dubious happy ending (it's happy for MC, Seb and Ominis at least).

You can also read on AO3! (chapter specific warnings below)

Notes:

Warnings: Non-consensual drug use. Not on Sebastian or Ominis or the Keeper! Don't worry xD

Due to the fact that we don't know anyone’s birthdays, I'll just say that the Underage restriction is lifted on the 1st of January of a kid's 17th year of life.

A random NPC comments in the game that he expected Sebastian to be from a "more posh" town than Feldcroft, which leads me to believe that Seb acts a little more aristocratic either thanks to Ominis' influence or to fit into Slytherin or both. I think it's probably both, plus he likes reading complicated books.

"And… that's one week without magic. Lovely." Sebastian sighed as he set his luggage down beside the couch.

"Well, at least next week, we'll all be considered seventeen and will be able to use magic outside of Hogwarts for the rest of our lives." Ominis chuckled, carrying his luggage over to the table instead.

"I want to drop by the castle first." The Keeper placed their luggage by the bed.

"Already?" Sebastian grinned wryly, not particularly surprised. "Guess I can't blame you for wanting to see how far it's come."

"I'd tell you to rest, but I know how much you've been looking forward to seeing our home." Ominis sighed, shaking his head. "So, just try to get back before it's dark, at least. Remember, you're still recovering."

"Think I'm already recovered, but I'll make it quick. Promise." The Keeper chuffed softly, taking a few brisk strides across the room to place a quick kiss on Ominis cheek, getting a partially resigned smile in return.

"I'll help you unpack a bit first then." Sebastian nodded as he crouched beside his bags.

"Thanks." The Keeper smiled, stooping to give Sebastian a kiss on the cheek as well, as they passed him on their way to the door. "I'll see you guys later."

"Later!" Ominis waved a hand in the air lazily as he dug through his own bags.

The flight to Dìon was cold but uneventful, and the Keeper staved off their impatience to see the grounds in person for the first time in four months, by basking in the freedom of not being under surveillance. Their powerful thestral's wings carried them through the fog bank surrounding the castle grounds and there it was.

Dìon Castle, or at least what it would eventually be. From Sepulchria's warm back, the Keeper could see the tall walls, snaking up along the hill in two layers of solid and intimidating defence. It looked even better than they'd hoped, and they hadn’t even started building the actual castle.

Under the cool winter afternoon light, the frost-covered outer walls glittered along the parapets and over the battlements. The Keeper could imagine those yet empty gatehouses and baileys lined with enchanted armour and statues made to defend their home.

The Keeper felt their heart thrum in excitement. Soon, this dream they’d had would become reality.

As Sepulchria flew over the rampart, the Keeper was pleased to note the thin coat of snow lined along the finished walls. An indication that the Machicolation were working as intended and preventing too much snow from piling along the tops of the parapets.

Guiding Sepulchria into a gentle descent, the Keeper was satisfied to see that the amount of space they'd designated for the landing strip was adequate for a comfortable landing, and they swiftly dismounted as Tynx approached.

"Welcome home, Master." Tynx bowed respectfully. "It is a relief to see you in better health."

"I see that construction of the walls have concluded. Were there any complications?" The Keeper asked absently, still marvelling at how majestic and towering the walls were, especially now that they were on the ground.

Hogwarts was amazing. The first time they'd laid eyes on it, the Keeper had been rendered speechless, but this was so much better, because it was theirs. These walls were theirs, this was going to be their home. If someone had told them two years ago that any of this would happen, they'd have laughed and called that person a lunatic.

It was like something out of a fairytale, to love and be loved, to have a safe place they could call home. Something they'd never even bothered to hope for. The Keeper swallowed thickly, suppressing the unexpected swell of emotion in their chest.

Bloody hell, if mere walls were enough to make them all sentimental, how was it going to feel when the castle was done? The Keeper thought dryly to themselves. They couldn't wait to find out.

"Surprisingly, not as much as I had anticipated. Usually, in this region, winter would have started in late November." Tynx hummed thoughtfully. "I was certain we'd be forced to halt construction of the walls till the end of winter, but we managed to complete them before snowfall began."

The Keeper blinked, their attention returning to Tynx as he spoke. It took them a moment to push aside their emotions and properly process his words.

"Ah yes." The Keeper nodded. "I would say that it's most likely due to the geography of this hill."

Tynx tipped his head to the side curiously and the Keeper gestured towards the mountain behind the castle grounds.

"Past the mountain behind the castle, is the ocean. Which means that, the air coming from that direction is cold and humid.” The Keeper waved their hands to illustrate. “It then moves upward along the mountainside, where turbulence strips the cold water vapour from it, carrying it into the clouds, leaving the warmer air to roll down to us.”

The Keeper raised a finger. "This means that the castle enjoys a warmer temperature than the rest of the Scottish Highlands during freezing winter. Fortunately for us, the dryness of the warm winds aren’t an issue, since the area is kept humid by the lake and neighbouring waterfall."

Tynx nodded in understanding, humming curiously. "Does that mean that the castle will also be warmer in the summer?"

The Keeper shook their head. "Thanks to the cool mountain water from the waterfall, carrying excess heat down to the lake, the temperature will naturally even out as well during the summers, ensuring that the weather here remains temperate all year-round."

"I see that Master chose this location with much foresight." Appreciation flickered in Tynx's eyes. "Thank you, for explaining."

The fact that other elf owners wouldn't have, didn't need to be said, and the Keeper snorted in derision. "Only an idiot would be so insecure as to need their subordinates to remain ignorant."

Tynx coughed in an attempt to hide his amusement while the Keeper shook their head and began walking towards the tent covering the opening leading into the underground.

"You and Tibsy have been living inside, correct?" The Keeper asked as they lifted the flap slightly to enter.

Tynx nodded as he followed. "Yes, we prepared a room for ourselves underground as you instructed and moved our things inside before flattening the lot and beginning work on the walls."

"Good, I'll come by for a more thorough examination of the walls in a day or two with Sebastian and Ominis. And, next week my partners and I will have access to magic again and can help with the excavation." The Keeper spoke as they descended the stairs leading underground.

"Yes, Master." Tynx nodded again, though the Keeper was more occupied with walking down the stairs cautiously, since there were no handrails preventing an inconvenient accident.

The initial excavated area was already nicely walled up, with lanterns placed along the walls for light, and the Keeper could see a neighbouring tunnel where the elves were excavating, as well as a host of shovels lined up against the walls. They then poked their head through an open archway into another room on the walled-up side, to inspect the elves' temporary living quarters.

"Master!" Tibsy greeted with a bright smile as she noticed the Keeper's entrance. "Welcome home!"

The Keeper nodded in acknowledgement, pleased to see that the elves' room looked sufficiently large enough for them to live comfortably, and that they had two decent sized beds, as well as several boxes of supplies near the back.

"I'm glad the two of you seem to be doing well." The Keeper responded approvingly. "I would appreciate it if the two of you could prepare dinner while I make my way back to Feldcroft."

"Of course, Master." Tynx bowed and Tibsy nodded vigorously, before the two elves popped away.

As soon as they were gone, the Keeper took a more careful look around, noting the many blueprints that were hung up on the walls and laid out on the floor. They were pleasantly surprised at how neat the place was, despite the developmental state it was in. They would commend the elves on that later.

The Keeper carefully sidestepped the blueprints to reach the boxes in the back, opening them up to count the amounts of supplies within them. While they weren’t entirely sure how much food elves needed to survive, they estimated that creatures of such small size should be quite healthy with this quantity of consumables spread across a week.

Truthfully, the Keeper wouldn't have been surprised if the elves hadn't been taking proper care of themselves and was relieved to see that that wasn't the case. Having confirmed this, the Keeper turned to leave the underground, the sun was already beginning to set.

They'd have to hurry if they wanted to keep their promise.

As the front door of his house slid shut behind him, Sebastian took a deep breath and began making his way across the path towards a nearby bench where two identical girls were sitting, with an open magazine across their legs. He purposefully allowed his shoes to crunch in the snow as loudly as possible to announce himself and came to a stop a few steps away.

Come on, look up. Sebastian urged internally as the girls continued to peruse the magazine together indifferently. Damn it, are they deaf? They’re supposed to ask ‘can I help you’ or something. Do I really have to start talking first? Ugh.

Great, now he had to think of a way to start the conversation. How did the Keeper approach him again?

Ah, right, with a stare. Sebastian abruptly remembered the way his partner had simply hovered a few steps away from him in the Slytherin Common Rooms, gazing at him curiously until he asked if he could help them and then they just nodded silently! Must have been difficult for the Keeper honestly, having to adjust to how normal kids behave after growing up in the Muggle world.

That had been a close one, Sebastian had never been one for socialisation and had almost shooed the Keeper away until he’d recognised them. They'd been such an enigma that his curiosity had overpowered his preference for keeping to himself, and even his dedication to seeking out a cure for Anne.

Conversation with them had come easier for Sebastian than it did with most people too, the Keeper had been polite and evasive, but also quick on the uptake, in a way he'd appreciated.

Sebastian didn't much like awkward atmospheres, so he made pleasantries as much as necessary to keep things amicable and to keep his reputation up for appearances sake. People tended to be more forthcoming with information when having a pleasant conversation, but it was always tedious when he had to discuss uninteresting subject matter, especially in order to fit in with the Slytherin house, which consisted mostly of aristocrats.

The only person who'd ever managed to hold long conversations with him had been Ominis, though he didn't often entertain Sebastian's speculation on subjects that he was uncomfortable with.

The Keeper's quick and open mind had been a joy and a balm when he'd felt abandoned by Ominis. When everyone, even his best friend, had given up on trying to save Anne and given up believing that Sebastian could. It had been the first time he’d looked forward to every interaction with someone so much. Though, it was probably thanks to spending so much time engaging with Ominis and the Keeper alone, that his social skills had gotten rusty.

The only time the Keeper’s actions had ever really given him pause was when they’d cast the Imperius curse on Ominis. Though he now understood that it had been as much for Ominis’ benefit as it had been for Sebastian’s, at the time it had turned his stomach to watch his best friend’s pale eyes empty of life.

He shook his wandering thoughts off. Well, with the Keeper out, that leaves Ominis. He’s good at talking. Hmm… he’d probably start with something he knows…

"Hey, er Nadia and Amina, right?" Sebastian greeted with a smile, trying to push aside his discomfort. Wait, those were their names, right-

"Huh? Oh, yeah, hello Sebastian." The twin on the left answered with some surprise, looking up lazily from the magazine, which appeared to be an edition from Witches Weekly, while her sister just eyed him with a bored expression before turning a page absently. "Need something?"

"Nothing much, just thought the two of you seemed a little cold, something keeping you ladies out of the house?" Sebastian shrugged, waiting as the two girls exchanged a glance.

Merlin's beard, this was awkward as all bloody hell.

"Mum decided to turn the whole house upside-down looking for something or another." The left twin finally began, followed by the right twin. "Kicked us out before we could grab our coats."

The two girls sighed in unison, their weighted breaths coming out in puffs of mist.

Sebastian coughed to cover a laugh. Well, at least that made his job easier. Honestly, Ominis would have been more suited to this, even the Keeper’s business-like approach was better for striking up conversations with strangers. Pity it was his house, so it was more appropriate for Sebastian to hand out invites.

"Sounds rough, want to pop by for some tea then?" Sebastian asked, struggling to conceal his scowl at the bland and disinterested stares the girls threw at him. He quickly followed up with. "Your mother, Mrs. Ndiaye, has been kind to me, just looking to return the favour."

The twins exchanged another long look, and Sebastian supressed an irritated sigh. Thank Merlin he and Anne hadn’t been the type of twins that couldn’t think on their own, though he had to admit that part of his irritation was because he envied these girls for still having the bond that he’d lost.

A moment later, one of them shrugged and the girls nodded together. "Sure, why not."

Sebastian sighed internally in relief, well that takes care of that. Eagerly spinning on his heels, he led the way back to his cottage and opened the door for the girls.

"Please, make yourselves at home." Sebastian waved them in politely. Hopefully they wouldn't take him literally.

"Oh, hello, and who might we have here?" Ominis asked airily from the table where he and the Keeper sat with three cups of steaming tea already on the table.

"Amina Ndiaye." The twin on the left nodded politely while the twin on the right gave a half-hearted wave. "Nadia Ndiaye."

"Pleasure to make your acquaintance." Ominis replied with a gentle smile.

"You two look cold, come. I can't say if our tea will be to your taste, but at least it's hot." The Keeper smiled disarmingly as they stood to fetch two cups and set them on the table before filling them with tea from the pot.

"Thanks." The two girls spoke in unison as they took the offered seats and cups of tea politely.

"These ladies apparently were temporarily evicted from their residence, and I took the liberty of inviting them to tea." Sebastian explained as he sat down beside the Keeper, before taking a sip from his own cup.

"I imagine it's difficult to live with fickle parents during the winter." The Keeper gave the girls a wry sympathetic smile.

"You're telling me, I swear that woman is mental over those stupid earrings." The twin on the left sighed irritably. "They're not even that pretty or expensive."

The Keeper's eyebrows shot up. "Earrings? My goodness Amina, I'd have thought only something worth a hundred galleons would be worth tossing one's child onto the streets."

"If they were worth that much, I'd have sold them by now." The other twin snorted before taking a few sips of her tea with a sigh. "Imagine what we could buy with all that money."

"Do your parents not give the two of you much allowance?" Ominis asked innocently and Amina snorted, lifting her cup to her lips to hide her expression, drinking her tea instead.

"That's putting it mildly." Nadia grimaced as she set down her empty teacup, a mildly vacant expression beginning to settle over her face. "Dad's great but he doesn't even make enough to put us through Hogwarts."

"The two of you didn't graduate from Hogwarts?" The Keeper frowned, looking genuinely concerned and even Sebastian wondered how real that expression was.

"We had to drop out in the middle of fifth-year to help our parents out. They couldn't afford our school fee anymore." Amina sighed, her eyes glazing over. "Was so embarrassing."

"I see, sounds awful." The Keeper nodded sympathetically. "How did the two of you meet Macnair and Selwyn?"

"We were in the same class with them." Nadia answered, her voice slightly distant. "They helped us out when half of dad’s beasts died during a really bad winter, lent him the money he needed to buy more animals to keep the business going till he could pay them back."

"Is that so… hm, how do the two of you feel about them? Do you like them?" The Keeper asked with some amusement.

"Not really, we're not exactly top in class, but those two buffoons make us look like honour students." Nadia snorted. "They've been bugging us to go out with them since we were in third-year."

"Yeah, wasn't very nice having to thank those simpletons and agree to go out with them after they helped our dad out." Amina agreed drowsily. "They can't even tell us apart."

"But they helped us out, so it's hard to say no, and it's nice when they buy us expensive stuff." Nadia nodded with a heavy sigh, this was clearly something that had been weighing down on her for a while. "Feels nice sometimes, having two rich idiots after us, living out here without any future."

"Yeah… without NEWTs or OWLs, we can't go anywhere. I do love tending beasts with dad, but I’m not sure I want to live like this forever, so I don’t really know if I want to break up or not, you know?" Amina looked just about ready to cry and Sebastian felt mildly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken.

When did this go from testing Veritaserum, to a therapy session for a pair of gold-diggers?

"Do you two think that the boys might break up with either of you?" The Keeper asked, glancing towards the timepiece on the cabinet counter. They probably had under five minutes or so left.

Nadia glanced at Amina, her eyes still glazed over as she returned her focus to the Keeper, her face flushing slightly. "Well, we actually were thinking that the two of them might be losing interest in us…"

Amina's cheeks reddened as she sniffed, her eyes focusing on the Keeper as well. "Y-yeah, they've been doing nothing but talk about you and follow you around…"

The Keeper's eyes widened and Ominis promptly choked on his tea, while Sebastian's breath wheezed sharply through his windpipe as he fought to control his laughter.

"That's- uh-" The Keeper found themselves completely speechless for the first time in years. "W-wha- why would you think such a thing?"

Amina's eyes drifted away shyly. "Well, you do look… really… nice…"

Nadia nodded reluctantly. "Even though you're- you know… enough to well, maybe get them- I mean, they're not very bright…"

The Keeper stared incredulously at her while Ominis sniggered. "Well, she's not wrong there, it's a wonder those boys realised that they liked Amina and Nadia in the first place."

The twins nodded in agreement, both having trouble looking the Keeper in the eye while they struggled to find words.

Seeing that the Keeper’s brain seemed to have stopped working, Sebastian cleared his throat and stood. "And on that cheery note, perhaps it might be a good time to see if your mother has found her earrings?"

"Yes, that might be prudent, teatime is almost over besides." Ominis agreed sagely and the twins immediately nodded.

"Y-yes, it was very nice to speak with the three of you." Amina nodded sheepishly as she stood as well, her eyes starting to clear.

"The tea was very, erm good." Nadia looked a little bewildered as she got to her feet unsteadily. "Sorry for just, well, unloading all of that…"

"Ah, ahem, yes, don't worry about it, I'm told I'm easy to talk to, Nadia." The Keeper smiled enigmatically, and the twins seemed to relax slightly in response. "It was lovely speaking with the two of you and I wish you all the best."

"Thanks for inviting us to tea." The twins replied together, smiling bashfully as Sebastian opened the door for them to leave.

"Good day to the two of you then." Sebastian tipped his head politely as they walked past him.

Just as the twins stepped out through the door however, two all too familiar and unpleasant faces showed themselves just a little ways down the road.

Sebastian's eyes widened in recognition, before an even wider smirk spread across his face as he leaned against the doorframe, enjoying the brief flash of horror on the bullies' faces before they instantly warped into anger.

The Keeper sighed as the girls left the room, rubbing their forehead tiredly. Well, the three drops of truth potion they'd dripped into the twins' teacups beforehand had worked.

The rest had been a bit more than they'd bargained for, it wasn’t like they were unfamiliar with being an object of desire for their appearances, but the Keeper was extremely certain that that wasn't the case here. What an absurd conclusion to come to.

"Oh my, that’s unexpected." Ominis chuckled beside the Keeper, and they hummed curiously. He tapped a finger to his ear. "Listen."

The Keeper turned their gaze towards the doorway where Sebastian was still standing, his pose exuding confidence and victory, his body language almost taunting. The sound of raised voices drifted on the wind to the Keeper's ears and the smirk that soon stretched across their face mirrored Sebastian’s.

"...in there with…" That sounded like Macnair.

"...nice people!" That sounded like Amina’s lighter tones.

"If… really… visiting us, why… over here!?" And that was Nadia.

"...not like that!" Selwyn, definitely.

"Argh!" And that was both of the twins.

The Keeper snorted in amusement, lifting their own cup of untainted tea, and taking a deeply satisfied drink from it while they leaned back comfortably in the plush single-seater couch. That couldn't have gone any better.

The shouting carried on for several more minutes, and the Keeper could hear Sebastian feigning innocent nonchalance when the bullies turned on him. A few moments later, the sound of heavy steps crunching across snow began and the voices faded.

Until finally there was silence and Sebastian took a step back into the house.

"Ah, now that was a great show." Sebastian sighed contentedly as he closed the door behind him. "After that thrashing, I doubt those idiots will be welcome here this holiday. Got the Quaffle and the Snitch in one!"

The Keeper snorted, their eyes following Sebastian as he returned to the table. "An unexpected boon."

"Couldn't have timed that better." Ominis agreed with a chuckle. "Though, I almost feel bad for Selwyn and Macnair."

"Imagine flunking your NEWTs and repeating seventh-year for two girls who don't even love you." Sebastian sniggered as he settled back in his seat.

"Sad existences indeed." The Keeper drawled.

For a few moments, Sebastian gazed at his half-filled teacup contemplatively. "Hey, do you- um, that is…"

The Keeper hummed curiously as Sebastian stammered uncharacteristically. Ominis smiled in understanding.

"Do- would you like me to- well, to drink some?" Sebastian finally got out.

"What, tea?" The Keeper asked in confusion.

"Not- well, yes, but I mean tea and Veritaserum." Sebastian coughed and looked the Keeper dead in the eyes. "I know you have a hard time trusting, so…"

"I would be willing to as well." Ominis nodded.

There was a brief moment of silence, before the Keeper snorted. "And waste two doses of Veritaserum? Pass, it's unnecessary."

At their unspoken declaration of trust, Sebastian's face lit up with a brilliant smile and Ominis blinked several times, his eyes suspiciously glossy. While the Keeper finished their tea, trying to remain outwardly unaffected by the boys' joy.

I mean, Ominis knows Occlumency and as such, could easily resist Veritaserum. There is simply no benefit to be had from accepting that offer. Besides, the Keeper shrugged internally, they were in far too deep.

At this point, if the Keeper needed truth serum to trust their lovers, they might as well kill the two boys right now.

Notes:

Ominis: Try to get back before it’s dark. Sebastian: How would you know it’s da- ack! Keeper: Of course, Ominis. Sebastian lying on the floor KOed. — I don't know what you guys will think of it, but my partner thought the last line was really sweet and I thought Sebastian offering to take truth potion was very sweet. Like, to Sebastian, he is offering to take Veritaserum as a show of trust, and to the Keeper, if he offers then it means that they have nothing to gain by taking the offer.

And that whole "Ominis can resist it" is just an excuse to themselves, like justification for them trusting the boys instead of accepting the offer, which is tempting because they normally wouldn't pass up such an opportunity.

Sort of, "I'm not being naïve, there's just nothing to gain", and then they couldn't even come up with a reasoning for not taking Sebastian up on the offer and just side-stepped the issue with a mental redirect that sounds more in line with how they view themselves.

Like, trying to shift their mental tone back to their usual thought patterns because sweet and trusting feels so weird to them xD And the Keeper definitely didn't go to Dìon just to check up on Tibsy and Tynx because they were worried about the elves. Absolutely not. Unfathomable.

Also, I found a video collection on YouTube of every single one of Sebastian's and Ominis' voice lines datamined and have been going through them, and I feel like you can really see how not-okay Sebastian was with the Imperio thing the whole "So you wouldn't learn Imperio earlier, but now you'll learn it to use on my best friend?" and "Imperio? No, that's insanity."

There's a bunch of unused dialogue in it too that I'm totally gonna use to add in-character-ness for this fic xD Can you believe there are lines like "Hold on, I shan't let death come for you!" and "Damn it, stay with me! Don't give up!".

Duuuuude, we could have had Sebastian react to us dying!? How could they take that away from us!? ToT

If anyone is interested, these have been pretty helpful with keeping the tone of the boys as in-character as I can xD https://youtu.be/yxYM1_T9lG8?si=B77Rimp2ReHgCpSS https://youtu.be/wB9yNFBUcyc?si=VaHzBzE7R4XGbDsa

Also, apparently one of the recent patches fucked up Hogwarts Legacy so companions only say one bloody line with the Companion mod. I swear, how does Avalanche keep breaking the game with every patch? First they permanently break Rackham's Trial, and now the NPCs. The greatest thing this game succeeded in, making these characters feel alive when exploring with them, and they ruined it.

I hope this goes without saying, but I do not condone the Keeper and Sebastian's violence and apathy towards the woman and her suffering. They are simply a product of their circumstances and the character I'm following with this story.

#hogwarts legacy #ominis gaunt #sebastian sallow #gender neutral mc #mc x sebastian sallow #mc x ominis gaunt #sebastian x ominis #sebastian x ominis x mc #hogwarts legacy fandom #hogwarts legacy fanfic #hogwarts legacy fanfiction #fanfic #jazlr welcome to your life #jazlr #lgbtqia #nonbinary

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musicfeedsmysoul12 · 2 years ago

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More thoughts on a DP/DC thing with the Viking OC:

Revenants are people who came back screaming because of their deaths. Who died in pain and came back a little bit wrong. Who exist in a half awake state for a few years before going feral and rampaging. They have Ghost cores but they aren’t like regular ones. Half formed and leaking in them, they need ectoplasm to survive. They can draw it in from their surroundings but most Revenants can’t get enough unless they’re around places with a lot or unless a ghost takes pity. That’s what happened to Viking.

Viking (Viv now as I need a name) is old as fuck and decided to retire for a bit. She went to Gotham where the grumpy woman isn’t that weird, even if she’s built tall and strong and has sharp teeth. She’s been there for five years when the baby Revenant known as Red Hood shows up. Viv fucks with him because 1) territory issues. 2) why not? 3) she isn’t interested in dealing with a rampaging baby Revenant.

Now, the Lazarus Pits are corrupted ectoplasm and are dangerous. All ecto-beings know to stay the fuck away. Sure it gives you epic powers… but at what cost?!? Your well being, sanity and just in general yourself.

Viv can’t sense Red Hood’s being but she does see him bleed and sees the flecks of Ecto. Ecto that’s wrong. It clicks.

And she’s mad. You see: Viv HATES the LOA because she was killed by Ra’s, and despite murdering him multiple times he keeps coming back due to the contaminated Ecto in his veins. She loathes him so much. (Because she can’t die until he does and she’s forever stuck on the mortal plane because of him.) So seeing a Revenant walk around FULL of that shit pisses her off. So she straps on her armour (she commissioned it cause heroes are a thing and she was BORED) and goes to confront the Red Hood. Full on tackles him while he’s doing some villain shit and punches him.

“What THE FUCK IS A LEAUGE BITCH DOING HERE YOU PUSS RIDDLED BITCH FUCK?!” She’s safe from her ectoplasm being taken because one side effect of the Pit is that Jason can make his own ecto it’s just contaminated.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” Jason shouts back and it’s this massive fight where Jason begins freaking out because uhh… what’s going on?! Why is he not being hurt to bad?! What…

Viv suddenly sees his freaking out and pauses. Cause like: she honestly thought he knew. Like she thought he KNEW he was a Revenant and willingly jumped into the Pit but…

“… you’re aware you’re a Revenant right?!”

“What?!?”

“… oh…”

And out spills the explanation to him. Which is… interesting. More interesting is one dumbasss live-streaming it. So like these two powerful beings are spilling info.

“So like who murked you anyway brat?” Viv asks.

“Joker.”

“Oh shit. How?”

And that spirals into him spilling he was Robin and his plots and…

“… okay you know what? I’m taking you to the Amity Park. I gotta get you to the Infiinte Realms. That’s nutcase talk meaning the contamination is FUCKED. Yetis can heal you. Maybe.” And Viv, being powerful and older, just kidnaps Jason. Points at a random henchman. “You. You’re in charge for now. The whole crimelord thing will help with the rampaging instincts he has right now so he’ll keep it.”

What are morals to an immortal viking anyway?

Viv goes to Amity where she meets Danny and passes Jason over. Danny is very confused but saw the livestream so he knows what to do there. But he is surprised that there are more people kinda like him.

Viv goes back to Gotham where Batman is waiting for her. Meanwhile Jason gets taken to be healed and shit. Except it’s not a one and done thing, it’s going to be a chronic thing. Like FOREVER he’s gotta deal with contaminated ecto filling him up cause the Pit made him not draw in ecto but produce his own yet it’s always going to be contaminated. Fun.

(More so since they can’t let him just kill the Joker and then die. They would if they could. But the issue is that Jason is full of corrupt material that could damage a lot of the realm and killing him as a ghost is not an option due to how much corruption it would cause.)

Danny and Jason get close while Viv is stuck explaining things and running the empire Jason made until he’s back.

Now: imagine Bruce and the others learning all of this.

#danny phantom #Batman #heh #dc and dp #the Viking rival AU AU #danny/Jason is a thing

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adelle-ein · 2 years ago

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engage plot thoughts

Finished Engage, here's my plot thoughts, full spoilers for entire game (my spoiler-light "full review" will be along shortlyish)

So tbh I don't think this is as bad and weak a plot as people were hyping it up to be. In theory the basic idea is actually really good! The issue is like…pacing and how the screentime was divided up. We spend wayyy too long wandering from country to country fighting bandits and then everything of significance is crammed into five chapters.

The plot tries to love its drama but fails to build things up well enough. Veyle only cameos in the early game as a generic Sweet Young Girl, so the big reveal — while it would have been predictable no matter what — just doesn't hit emotionally. Veyle in general just needed more time as a proper deuteragonist. Maybe have Veyle and Alear do a couple solo maps together? They get cornered by Corrupted and fight them off together (with Veyle using a different class and weapons of course), trying to get the player actually attached? Have Veyle hang out with the whole gang in a few longer cutscenes so she feels like part of the team and not a random aside? Maybe have Alear open up to her about Lumera so they have a special connection with her? I just wish they'd done something here. As it is, the only reason to pity Veyle is because she's a young kid being abused, and while of course that's something, she plays such a big plot role and we don't even get to know her as a person. There were definitely better ways, imo, to pull this off. Letting her join your army and leave again intermittently pre-reveal (a la Ninian, maybe) would have improved things.

Getting to the meat of the plot…I very much like that Alear is an adopted Divine Dragon and that this is treated like a good and legitimate thing, to the point of them even gaining physical characteristics of one. If we go through with a real world metaphor, then Lumera loved them enough that they became her "true" family, and that works very well. FE only really ever does found family stuff with its side characters, preferring to focus on Divine True Sacred Bloodlines, and having Alear as a Fell Dragon who became Divine through the power of love and wanting to be "a good dragon" is actually quite nice and helps them feel a little less like a Robin retread. The issue that is unfortunately there is effectively zero buildup to this revelation. Other than Veyle's sibling obviously being Alear, we see no connection between them and Sombron. Alear has a single flashback to 1000 years ago in an early chapter and never again until the reveals start being dropped…in the last handful of chapters. While the single time travel chapter is kinda bizarre, it's a good step from a character perspective, and I wish there was more of that. Why not show more of how they became close to Lumera and how she adopted them? When did they defect, how did that go for then, how did they start calling her their mother? Interspersing flashbacks or hell, even more time travel (as silly as it would have been) throughout the story would have fixed so much of this game's lacking emotional core and let the plot actually work. As it is, it's a good concept that we see barely anything of.

I do disagree with the people insisting that Alear shouldn't have been so upset when Lumera died because they barely know her — they barely know anyone, Lumera has been kind to them and they know she's their mother, they're mourning the possibility of what they lost as much as the actual loss. I dunno, obviously I've never been in that situation, but even if I barely remembered my mother due to total amnesia I think I would still be really upset if she was murdered in front of me and especially if she had died due to using up all her health and strength to protect me. Personally. Feels a bit silly to be defending something like this but yeah. Now I do think her death scene was a bit long and dramatic when a quick sudden death is pretty much always more emotionally effecting, but that's a separate issue. Regardless, the plot hinges so much on Lumera and her relationship with Alear, and we see hardly any of it for some reason. Lumera simply needed a lot more screentime, even posthumously. Hell, let her live for the first half or so of the game, THEN get killed off. It still would have been predictable, but at least we would have gotten to know her.

Alear as the thirteenth Emblem makes sense in a meta way, but it does make me wish that they provided SOME kind of lore as to why and how the Emblems exist. The implication seems to be that the Emblems were created in death separate from their bodies, or when their bodies were already gone? And that all of their worlds exist out there, with Sombron intending to invade them? At the very last minute Marth drops a "btw Emblems are not the same as the actual heroes" but that's pretty much all we get. Idk I'm not looking for a Zelda timeline for all the FE games, I would just like…some kind of lore explanation as to what is up with Emblems and creating new ones. As well as the idea of the new protagonist joining the old ones as an Emblem works on a meta level, we just kinda needed more lore and buildup to make it work. My usual refrain. Personally liked the idea that Elyos was created *by* the rings or is somehow linked to them, because of the way its lore feels like a mashup and homage to so many previous games but…that probably wasn't the intention. Who knows. Fire Emblem. I like that our protagonist *is* the literal Fire Emblem though. Last time it was their *waves hand* blood power, now it's just straight up them.

The Four Hounds show up way too often and only do things in their last few appearances, which is tiring. Constructing them to be semi-likeable from the beginning, and maybe not fighting them and having them easily walk away just fine over and over, would have really improved everything with that subplot. I see what the writers were going for. But they whiffed it.

Alear is fine. They are kinda forgettable and a total dumbass for the first half of the plot, but they do change and grow and become more assertive, which works. They are an actual character, unlike Byleth. And they don't do stupid awful sometimes-evil things and get patted on the back for them a la Corrin. That is all I ask really.

Basically, a mess, but better pacing with more screentime for Veyle and Lumera and more flashbacks on Alear's end could have made it a really nice mess. Alas. I do think, overall, this was a simple but good and heartfelt concept for a plot. The execution was just poor, as usual for FE, and because the plot is so simple it can't hide what a mess it is the way other FE games often do. But I like it better than SOV (I like cat food commercials better than SOV…)

#fire emblem engage spoilers #fe engage spoilers #engage spoilers #fe17 spoilers #fee spoilers #that should cover it? i think? i tried #elyos #txt #lace reviews

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kradogsrats · 2 years ago

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Hey I know you have several house inspirations for the puzzle house, I was also kinda wondering about the house of Asterion?

b/c I find it interesting the way in which dark mages regard themselves, do they come to confront a horror within at some point? Do you think this could be a catalyst for change or alternatively an acceptance of their own destruction?

I guess Kpp’Ar’s prison is partly the way he builds the walls around himself due to his personality but I also feel like society does the same to dark mages because of what they represent and it’s kinda gnarly and fascinating to me..

Anyway sorry, that was just some random thought I had when I was listening to something about this myth today..

I wasn't familiar with The House of Asterion so that sent me down a nice little wikipedia rabbit hole about labyrinths in literature.

For dark mages... I don't think they really find it all that deep. I mean, we'll see what Viren's S5 hallucinations bring, but overall dark magic is just a tool. Being a dark mage is like pursuing any other academic discipline or even trade. There's plenty of work out there that people do or don't take based on personal ethics, and the people that do aren't regularly having Scrooge-style crises about it.

Also, while dark magic does have a significant psychological effect, it should make dark magic, and escalating use of it, more appealing rather than less. I suppose that's a potential point of concern, if a mage is self-aware enough to compare their past usage to current? But Claudia, for example, doesn't connect the things she had to do to revive Viren--things that, by her own admission, she never imagined she'd be able to do--with any possibility of changing course. It's more like a trial that she has had to overcome.

(I do headcanon that a side symptom of dark magic corruption is vivid nightmares, though. Because I'm a sucker for Significant Dreams even if you then ignore them.)

Anyway, the thing with Kpp'Ar and his house is like... it's not the booby trap house, it's the puzzle house. So while I think there's definitely a strong "this dude does NOT like people all up in his space" vibe, and I'm sure he could build a house that would stand empty for hundred of years after his death because no one can open the front door... instead we have an entire house is filled with what are essentially tests. They're obviously not for him, he made them. So they're for some hypothetical stream of people that he either enjoys watching fail like a Bond villain to feel smart, or else maybe kind of hopes someone will eventually solve them all, because that would be an extremely rare individual willing to put up with a lot of bullshit purely to be in proximity to him and his work.

#ha ha anyway i don't really think that answered the question #dark magic #kpp'ar #kradogsmeta

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lumilasi · 2 years ago

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Updated this with more up-to-date lore and his new name

Bio below:

Name: Alois (Faydream)

Nicknames: Al (Jurou,), Weirdo (lot of people) Uncle (Avane) Bee-san (Hitomi, Jurou’s daughter, because he keeps making her bee-themed pancakes)

Age: his human form appears to be late twenties/early thirties because that was roughly the age of the person he was created from. He has existed for roughly 70-100 years. His kind typically do not have a “childhood” as they tend to not be born from children.

Height: 181 cm

Family: An elder brother pair-spirit Lawrence

Friends: Shura (A vigour spirit, type of a local light element/fighting spirit), Shika (A chimera and Shura’s beloved), Taiga & Cecil (a kitsune & a bakeneko who run a hair salon) Roman & Yoruga (his staff) Avane (His niece)

Love interest: Jurou Araknos/Alistair Blackthorne, a Soul Eater who owns and runs the tattoo parlor next to his cafe.

Abilities:

He can access into other people’s minds and dreams and influence them, mainly either creating nightmares or devouring them. He can also cause hallucinations even when people are awake

He can turn into shadowy goop and cover an entire area, enclosing large groups of people into a hallucination

He can destroy other beings’ hallucinations easily, and is typically immune to them. This also includes seduction spells like siren songs.

He can trap people into their own minds for a short period of time, typically around 8-12 hours which is the supposed average time people should spend asleep.

He can phase through objects and float.

As a more powerful dream-eater than usual, his hallucinations can actually become solid and cause physical harm. He is also capable of trapping even his own kind into their own minds.

Weaknesses:

He cannot access more resilient minds without permission/his knife. If his knife is somehow disabled, a stronger person can prevent him from invading their minds.

While he has some control over his hallucination powers using his talisman or just wearing enchanted sunglasses, he can’t always prevent people from being affected when looking at his eyes. (He can cut them short if it happens)

Light magic based seals and protection spells is typically effective against his kind.

Personality:

Alois is quite friendly and cheerful person at first glance, and might even seem a little comical, with how unapologetically eccentric he is. He is one of those people who seems to be able to laugh at himself and tends to not be embarrassed over small things. He also loves to learn about new things with almost childlike enthusiasm.

Despite this first impression, he is quite intelligent and dangerous if he wants to be, not willing to give people any mercy if he feels they deserve to be punished and he can’t be tricked easily. Alois is not the kind of person whose bad side you want to end up on. He is also very observant and calculative, traits that run deep in the family as both his brother and niece are like this. They all are generally the type of people you do not want to underestimate.

BG Story summary

Due to being born as a pair, these two were seen as unusually powerful, and Lawrence was invited to join the Overshadower Council eventually (the group that manages the business of dark beings in their world, such as dream-eaters, soul eaters, vampires, etc) but Alois wasn’t interested in that, wanting to do something that made him more approachable for people, hence he started to run a cafeteria.

His reasoning for opening one next to Jurou Araknos’ parlor however, was not random. He secretly did this to initially keep an eye on the Soul Eater, knowing his brother was interested in getting the man under his wing due to his vast power. Alois is very against the idea, knowing how his brother has spiraled since his wife ended up in a mental health hospital, and how he could get corrupted by too much power in this state. His plan was just to observe and occasionally meddle secretly to prevent Lawrence from getting anything useful out of Jurou, that he could use as leverage to get him to join the Shadowless (something his niece and Lawrence’s right hand woman joined in on later). He never expected to actually fall in love with the guy, which did make things a bit more complicated eventually.

Fun Facts:

Alois’ cafe name Lunarte is a reference to the night (moon) and tea. The logo includes a moth emerging from a teacup (moths are often used to represent his kind)

Alois is commonly referred to as Alois Faydream, but doesn’t really use that surname himself as it is his brother’s family, not his. (Later, he starts being referred to as Alois Blackthorne, which is Jurou’s main family surname)

He has two staff-members, a Grimmhound Roman his niece brought for him, as he needed help with starting his new life, and a Moth spirit Yoruga who is helpful for extra tasks, like spying missions.

While his kind are typically represented by moths, Alois’ favorite animals - or bugs - are bees.

Alois takes extra care to not cause hallucinations to Jurou’s daughter, as she has some severe trauma and is part human, making her more sensitive to be affected.

Contact lenses do not block his hallucination inducing power like they would with most Dream-eaters, due to how strong he is.

While he and his brother have somewhat differing views on lot of things, they are still fairly close. Alois’ entire motivation for his actions in regards to Jurou initially were because he loves his brother dearly, and wants to protect him from himself given the state he is in currently.

Alois will not be caught wearing “normal” looking sunglasses. They always have to be a bit more fun than basic shapes. The simple triangle ones are the most basic he’ll go.

His main reason for liking colorful things is to combat his natural spooky aura, as he doesn’t want people to fear him when he’s not trying to spook them.

His voice claim is Urahara Kisuke from Bleach

He does also enjoy goth fashion occasionally, as its the style his LI and his family mainly go for. Typically his goth-looks still include colorful bits, either pastel or neon.

#character design #oc reference #vintage retro #my oc #retro fashion #lumi's chaotic creations #Night City Parlor #Lumi's art scribbles #manga anime #Digital art #Alois Faydream

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the-timeless-founder · 3 years ago

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About Claire Cornelle

[Introduction]

Claire is the illegitimate daughter of Burai and of Vibora nobility. After her contributions to the Second Great War, she was officially granted the title of Duchess.

Her last and middle name comes from the Founders she spent her early life with before moving to Vibora territories and under Burai's care.

Although she lives in the castle, she's never been known as a Princess, unlike Cordelia, and is looked down upon by many of her peers who consider her some random Vibora woman who managed to catch the King's attention.

[Biography]

Full name: Lucrecia Claire Etrama Cornelle

Title(s): Duchess, Lady

Race: Hybrid (Founder + Vibora)

Nickname(s): the Glorious, the Ever Young

Age: 1000+ (lookswise, 19)

Personality Type:

Gender: Female (She / her / they)

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Height: 179 cm (5 '10" ft)

Weight: 70 kg (154 Ib)

[Interests]

Romance novels. The sort that is compared to fairytales, the stuff of legends. Sweet and heart churning. If she's reading a book that is not going to be of use to her in dealing with those corrupt, sick officials, then it is definitely a romance novel.

All the finest wines in the world. She needs a little of it in the morning just to convince herself to get out of bed instead of lying there all day long. Luckily for her, due to her demonic heritage, she doesn't feel the side effects of her destructive habit of drinking.

Beautiful gowns and expensive jewelry. Fine shoes and aristocratic hairstyles. Because they make her look like a princess, popping out of a river in the woods, and they get her the attention she's been starved of all her life.

[Other]

Her real name is Lucrecia, but because upon meeting her for the second time Burai almost affectionately named her Claire, she decided to take up that name instead of her old one.

The home she spent her childhood and early teen years in was horrible and abusive enough that the second time Burai saw her and proposed that she leaves to live with him, she agreed immediately.

Menae was actually quite decent to her, she wasn't a substitute mother by a long shot, but she treated her well.

It was Cordelia who gave Claire hell all over again.

Mostly because she was afraid she'd lose the favor of her father and suitors because she now has a random sister.

Claire was kept away from meeting Cordelia's children because of their issues, they only vaguely know that they have some half-aunt who lives in Vibora territory.

#claire etrama cornelle #claire #diabolik oc #diabolik lovers oc #diabolik lovers #dl oc #my oc #introduction

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kamiyu910 · 5 years ago

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All right, @the-defiant-pupil, I’ll see what sort of research paper I can throw together here concerning Corona-chan.

Right now, we’re going on fatality rate based on known/confirmed cases. This global fatality rate is currently at 7.1%, with 3,253,181 confirmed cases and 233,014 deaths. We’re still lacking a lot of data, such as China withholding so much, and with other countries only testing those with symptoms while ignoring the high percentage who are asymptomatic.

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Antibody tests are now being used to tell who has had the virus, and to see if they’re actually immune to it, which would allow them to go back to work. This also allows us to see exactly how far Corona-chan has spread, and this data is being used to show a slightly different picture for a mortality rate, since it helps identify those who were asymptomatic. Countries that don’t count asymptomatic people show a might higher fatality rate because they only count the people who seek medical help.

https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-antibody-tests.html

In the US, there are still places that are barely testing, and only testing those who show symptoms, such as the largest county in the country, the San Bernardino County. Currently, we’re listed at 2058 cases, with only 93 deaths, putting us at a 4.5% fatality rate. We cannot take that at face value, however, because even those with mild symptoms are being turned away, and those with no symptoms are being ignored. Out of a population of 2.18 million, only 20,000 have been tested. That’s 0.09% of our entire population. We’ve known about this virus since at least December last year, it has been in the US for months, yet we lack so much information.

https://sbcph.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/44bb35c804c44c8281da6d82ee602dff

https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en

Some sources say the true mortality rate is:

“In the new analysis, the death rate in confirmed COVID-19 cases is estimated to be 1.38%, while the overall rate, which includes estimated unconfirmed cases, is calculated at .66%.”

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200331/covid-19-death-rate-drops-still-deadly-to-seniors

https://time.com/5798168/coronavirus-mortality-rate/

In this post by Berkeley, they say:

“A comparison of daily deaths in Italy since January 2020 with those over the previous five years there indicates that the fatality rate in that country for those infected with the new coronavirus is at least 0.8%, far higher than that of the seasonal flu and higher than some recent estimates.Extrapolating from the Italian data, University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory data scientists estimate that the fatality rate in New York City and Santa Clara County in California can be no less than 0.5%, or one of every 200 people infected.”

“The difference, the researchers say, is likely due to many deaths among older people that have not been counted in the official Italian statistics. The team found a much higher fatality rate for those over 70 years of age: In Lombardy, a region hit hard by the pandemic, those between 70 and 79 had a 2.3% infection fatality rate, while those 80 to 89 had an almost 6% fatality rate. Nearly 13% of those over 90 died.In comparison, those 40 to 49 had a 0.04% fatality rate.

In comparison, those 40 to 49 had a 0.04% fatality rate.These differing fatality rates can explain the observed higher number of deaths among younger people in New York City. Because the population there is younger than in Italy, more deaths among young people are expected, despite their lower fatality rate. The researchers predict that about 26% of all deaths from COVID-19 in New York City will be among those younger than 65.

The population of Italy, on the other hand, is older, yielding a higher overall fatality rate for the country’s population: 0.8%, versus 0.5% for New York. Only 10% of Italian deaths will be younger than 65.The team also estimated, based on the predicted fatality rate for those infected with the new coronavirus and the positivity rate for those tested for COVID-19 in New York City, that about one-quarter of that city’s population has been infected with the virus. This agrees with the recent announcement by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of 21% infection.The team’s predicted infection rate for Santa Clara is around 1%, while that for Los Angeles is around 2%, based on current mortality rates.”

https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/04/24/study-challenges-reports-of-low-fatality-rate-for-covid-19/

So if an area has a higher rate of elderly, they will have a higher fatality rate than an area where the population is young. If a rest home gets hit, it will be devastating, whereas if a nursery gets hit, it’ll probably not even be noticeable, though that doesn’t mean they’re immune, there will be a couple of kids who may need hospital care, and the potential for other side effects that’ll become more apparent later on (still waiting for more studies to be done to confirm this).

There is a lot of fear mongering being pushed on people with all the misinformation out there, and people are actively allowing their governments to become controlling dictatorships out of fear. It is possible to maintain safety measures while opening up businesses so that the economies don’t collapse. We don’t have to go so extreme as to destroy ourselves out of fear. People are going to die one way or another, whether it be from Corona-chan or from a man made famine.

Take the US for instance. Farmers are being made to dump tons of food, perfectly good food, because they’re being told there isn’t a market for it just because certain businesses are closed, like schools. There are plenty of other places that need the food.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-dairy-farmers-feel-the-squeeze-from-coronavirus-as-milk-sales-dry-up-11588183989

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article241627101.html

https://www.chron.com/news/article/Farmers-seek-help-selling-crops-while-volunteers-15238489.php

My milk.... all of that precious milk...

We do not have to go this far, people. We do not have to go to the extreme! This is fucking ridiculous.

I’ve seen this screenshot going around as well, not sure how accurate it is but if they cut off the supply chain, which is possible, it can be a reality. I’ve talked to more than a few people who have no idea how to keep a store of food to last a few months, and apparently it’s common for people to just have food for a week in the fridge/freezer/pantry. I don’t understand how that’s possible...

On top of all that, the government is overreaching on their control issues, going so far as to turn off electric and water to businesses that refuse to close

https://calepa.ca.gov/2020/04/02/news-release-governor-issues-water-shutoff-order-and-takes-steps-to-maintain-delivery-of-critical-water-services-during-covid-19-crisis/

https://abcnews.go.com/US/small-business-owners-file-suit-gov-newsom-ca/story?id=70365949

Not to mention all of these headlines, like what timeline are we living in that they feel these levels of invasion are necessary? You can fight a virus without going to this length of control!

Not to mention New York itself, like really?

And while I can kinda understand wanting to prevent large parties from happening, they’re going after single people having a walk in the wilderness and arresting them for it, or going after a couple of dudes on a rooftop having a cold one, even boaters are getting arrested, despite practicing social distancing, yet we’re allowed to still go to the store? However, in some places like Michigan, they even have police checking bags for essential items...

Which, btw, is also a point of interest, as being allowed to buy seeds has been banned in many areas, but lotto tickets are still available for purchase. There aren’t near enough articles detailing all the things that people are slowly finding out are being restricted/outlawed, and honestly, the more I see people calling on some random person taking a lone walk around a neighborhood, the more I think of this meme:

In many ways, I’m more concerned with the government destroying us than the virus. Many governments around the world are taking advantage of this to tighten the leash. This is completely unnecessary. The main reason for the lockdown isn’t to prevent people from getting the disease - it’s pretty much just accepted that we will eventually get it - but to lighten the load on hospitals so we don’t end up overloaded like Italy, where they have to decide who to let die. The Netherlands is reportedly doing similar.

“...in the Netherlands as in Belgium, euthanasia has been applied for years, according to the authorities, “voluntary”. However, in Germany, and in France, Spain and Italy, they have received elderly patients from these countries to be cured, not of coronaviruses, but of anything, because they do not trust the hospitals of their country: euthanasia is not Voluntary, they say, nor is it respected - not infrequently - the will of the person to whom euthanasia is applied.”

https://es.aleteia.org/2020/03/28/coronavirus-dejar-a-los-viejos-que-mueran/

I can understand wanting to ease the load on hospitals, but again, house arrest is not necessary. These measures being taken are too extreme. Some governors in the US have eased up on their restrictions, and the number of cases has not risen dramatically like some people spreading fear claimed. Our hospitals are not being overrun with cases.

In fact, the number is going down. Plus, look at the number of beds. It doesn’t mean I want more people to get sick, but we have to be logical about this and think about more than just the illness. We cannot keep letting the government say “money printer go brrrr” (not to mention the insider trading they were doing, like this shit is blatant, the corruption can be cut with a knife)

If we head into another depression, there will be many more millions of people who will die. People in poverty are at most risk for illness in general, and greater health problems, and malnutrition, and they will be the most hit in a depression, obviously. The elderly who get made homeless will basically be guaranteed to suffer badly. We can balance this out so that we can save the economy (as long as it’s not too late) and protect people from the illness as well as keep hospitals from being overloaded. Balance is the best way to protect everyone. I know people seem to have an aversion to moderation for some reason these days, but it really is a good thing here. Balance the needs of everyone.

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did-he-just-hiss-at-me · 5 years ago

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ok but,,,, imagine this analodukeceit au

fantasy setting. logan, remus, deceit and virgil a a gang of exiles, cast out for various reasons. they fall in love with each other and go on adventures together.

Logan Blackberry Everton, 27

Expert swordsman. Refuses to harm or threaten anyone he considers an ally with his sword.

Exiled 6 years ago because he "betrayed" the royal throne of the Paawtonia kingdom, by killing the heir, Dayd Harper, on the day before his coronation.

In reality, Dayd was a corrupt ruler waiting to happen, and knew that Dayd was going to bring his kingdom down to ashes.

Before exile, Logan was a royal guard, specifically Patton Harper's personal guard. He & Patton were in love, and when Patton had discovered what Logan had done to his older brother he exiled him, and by the time Patton learned the truth it was too late. Logan was too far away. Their love has faded into history.

Logan's never seen without bandages covering his arms, from shoulder to wrist. Can't tell you why, it's spoilers.

Calm, calculated, but loving. Knows exactly how to calm his lovers due to his experience with having to deal with Patton's occasional mental breakdowns because Patton had a rough childhood.

Ethan "Deceit" Moreau, 25

Works with a staff + sword combo. His boyfs thought his sword was odd for a while until Ethan finally revealed he and the "sword" could cast magic.

Exiled because he was born in an anti-magic kingdom, having magic powers. He naturally knows dark and deceptive magic, and he taught himself some fire & psychic magic later in his life.

Never seen without his body almost 100% covered and part of his face covered. The location that's covered is always changing. Sometimes one eye, sometimes both, sometimes his mouth, etc. It is unknown in the group why he does so. It is theorized to have something to do with his magic, perhaps a side effect? Only Ethan & the people from his home village knows.

Reserved. Keeps things close to his chest(metaphorically). Will take things you say about him seriously and it will take a while before he forgives you for it. He thinks fast on his feet, and is usually the reason his boyfriends dodge being hit by someone, because otherwise they'd have no clue.

Remus & Roman Aveyard, 23

Remus uses a large, spiky battle hammer as a weapon. It's lighter than it looks, most of the impact and damage comes from the spikes. Remus just likes swinging a hammer more than a morningstar.

Roman is never seen without a shield. He'll take any weapon, but he knows to protect himself during combat. He'd never intentionally give up his shield for another person, it's all about keeping himself protected.

Exiled together at the age of 16 for sabotaging their kingdom, Fairience. They hated their father, Romulus, their mother, Farah, and their older brother, Pryce; Which led them to the foolish decision to attempt to assassinate their whole family and take over the throne together. The twins successfully killed off their parents but were halted before getting to their brother.

Pryce took over the throne, the twins got chased out of the kingdom and were hailed fugitives. They tried to stick together until eventually during an ambush they got separated and presumed each other dead, so they went their separate ways.

7 years later which is when the story starts, Remus had ended up in the exile gang this au is about, while Roman became the leader of a gang of thieves. The gang Roman leads is known to bring harm to whoever resists their ways, no matter what. They'll even overthrow their own leader if the leader goes against their ways.

Remus was mostly alone those 7 years, and became touch starved because of it. So this short, rambunctious kid known for frequently going beserk curls up in fear, shaking, just from being touched. Roman however, is not touch starved but is vary wary about strangers touching him, causing him to quickly dodge oncoming contact from someone new faster than most people could, it's a sixth sense for him to know when unfamiliar touch is coming.

Remus is super wild and all over the place, and at times seems so hyper that he must've had a lot of sugar. He's not afraid to roast & talk sh** about someone, and slap a b***h too. But when it comes to his boyfriends, Remus is very affectionate, giving lots of compliments and kisses. He is very good at distracting them from whatever is bothering them as well.

Roman is prideful and despite him keeping a shield with him most of the time, he's not very cautious. He'll dive headfirst into danger with a shield in hand. He's one of the few who can keep Remus under control(aside from Remus's bfs). He will gossip about you, just accept it. On the outside he acts very social and outgoing but on the inside he's very shy and just wants to get away from the crowds.

Roman isn't as big in this AU as Remus is, Roman's just put here for convenience.

Virgil Caverly-Deckett, 24 (His name in the image is wrong)

Rogue, uses close-range weapons like daggers. He intimidates most who get close to him so it gives him the advantage.

Exiled for being only part human. His mother had an affair with a demon, so he's part demon. His birthplace is known for being heavily religious, and all the people saw him as a child of sin. So against his mothers cries for mercy, he was chased out of town the day he turned 8, which is when the rumors of him being part demon were proven due to his demon heritage finally coming to light. He still doesn't know what type of demon he partially is, as the only signs he has shown so far are the tiny horns that stick out of his head, the odd patches of skin on his arms and his sharper-than-average fingernails.

He was found and raised by the Dragon Witch, who is actually a relative of Virgil's birth father. Virgil then left his new home at age 19, because he wanted to make a name for himself out there(as well as find others like him), but he occaisonally visits his "Mother Witch"(as he sometimes refers to her as) whenever he can and spends time with her.

Prior to meeting the exile gang, he stopped speaking sentences longer than 10 words, and nobody knows why except for Virgil himself. Not even his Mother Witch, because he hadn't visited since it happened. He can frequently be seen counting on his fingers over and over.

Vigilant. Was pretty vagrant too, until he met his lovers. Soft spoken when calm, but when in battle or stressed his voice is loud, booming, and aggressive. His glare is powerful due to being part demon, he can convince people to back down with it. He rarely uses it on his boyfriends, its only when it's absolutely necessary. He's super affectionate, but in a cuddly way. He's silently demanding them to cuddle him a lot, and they give in because either they want to or they can't resist.

Other noteworthy characters:

Patton Catonica Harper, 24: Ruler of Paawtonia. Used to be in love with Logan but exiled him out of grief after he killed his brother, Dayd. Found out once Logan was long gone that Lo had done him a favor and has since become a shadow of his former self.

Serilda "Dragon Witch" Caverly, ???: Mother figure to Virgil. Master of making potions, charms, and other magical objects. Casts spells with staff. Has wings on her back that she can shrink for comfort and grow when she wants to fly. She also has dragon-like pupils, and has dragon claws, feet, horns, and tail that she can disguise at will for ease. She is a Draconic Demon.

Remy Brantley, 20: Wizard in training. Focuses on sleep-related spells & items. Has trouble with duration of his spells.

Emile Picani, 23: Patton's head servant and best friend. Essentially Patton's therapist as well, as he's the only one who has helped the depressed king with his trauma.

Thomas Sanders, 21: Wizard in training & Remy's best friend. Born in Paawtonia & is faithful to his kingdom. Knows Logan because they are cousins, was very close to him. Fears the day Logan returns because that means, as a defender of Paawtonia, he would have to kill the intruding exile.

So yeah,,,, Analodukeceit Exiles au. Clothing is slightly too modern for the setting but screw it. i'll draw these extra characters later kshfjshfks only the characters in the ship this au is based around were necessary for this post,,, i only added roman cuz it was easier.

i'm 85% likely gonna write a series about this au,,,, lmk if you wanna be added to the taglist. speaking of which, the taglist: @tottalynotgayatall @ollyollyoxinfree @locked-prism @gyllenhoe-f99 @bexxbeauty @a-random-queer-humanoid(you didn't say you wanted to be tagged but i thought you would like to)

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aethelflaedladyofmercia · 5 years ago

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The True Meaning of Saturnalia

I’m a day late on this, due to work considerations, but I had a great idea for @drawlight‘s Advent challenge and, darn it, I still wanted to share. Who’s up for some Canon Divergent Rome?!

Day 1: Mistletoe (1585 words)

Corrupting an already corrupt emperor turned out to be the most difficult job Crowley had ever received.

He tried reporting Downstairs that the emperor was firmly on their side already, no Temptation needed.

Stop making excuses and get back to work, Crowley.

So he sent reports of the emperor’s failed invasion of Britannia and subsequent war against the ocean.

Stop making things up, Crowley.

Finally, he took credit for Emperor Gaius’s plans to desecrate the Temple in Jerusalem, even though they’d been underway long before he showed up.

Good job, Crowley, can’t wait to hear what you Tempt him to next.

“I mean, even if I was going to desecrate the Temple, I wouldn’t do it with a giant tacky statue of old Baby Boots, you know?” Crowley grumbled over his fifth cup of wine.

“Of course I know,” Aziraphale said with something approaching sympathy.

As the job stretched into its fourth month with no sign of release, the one consolation had been the dinners with Aziraphale. Every third day, like clockwork, the angel would track him down wherever he was sulking and drag him to a new restaurant, or a play, or some other silly distraction.

It was…friendly-ish. Amicable, he supposed. Sober angel and drunken demon. Not that Aziraphale didn’t want to drink, but there had to be that separation, that sense that even though they shared a table, they weren’t together. Enemies, meeting under a flag of truce.

Sometimes Crowley caught himself wishing there was something more…substantial to it. Some crack in the walls between, them, some genuine connection. Still, each got something out of the exchange. Crowley had someone to drunkenly rant his stress to, and Aziraphale had an excuse to try…

“What even is this, anyway?” Crowley poked at one of the strips of meat.

“Roast flamingo tongue.”

“I hate this city!” Crowley slumped onto his couch as dramatically as possible. It was a well-practiced gesture – arms and legs going in every direction for maximum effect, but not a single drop of wine spilled. “One week, I was supposed to be here one week, and now it’s almost next year!”

“Where would you rather be?” Aziraphale reclined on a couch to his right, perpendicular, so each looked at the table and not at each other. That was the theory; in practice, as the angel picked up one of the disgusting delicacies and took a bite, Crowley could see every bit of pleasure blooming across his face. He found he couldn’t look away, and that expression – oh, it did something to his heart and his stomach.

Jealousy, Crowley assumed. He wished anything gave him half as much pleasure as a chunk of dead bird gave Aziraphale.

He dragged his eyes away to stare at his cup of wine, finding it empty again. “Alexandria was nice. Antioch. Ephesus. Carthage, I liked. Remember Carthage? Not the same anymore.” He started on his sixth cup, and found that his sour mood had reached the philosophical stage. “I mean, the point is, Rome is like that one story, with the king with the donkey ears. You know the one. Everything it touches turns to…more Rome. ’S boring is what it is.”

“There’s a festival coming up,” the angel commented.

“Oh, uh, yeah, that’s another thing,” Crowley cut across. “Festivals. Every bloody day is a festival. What possible reason can they have to celebrate so much? ’S all, whoops, today is Apollo’s birthday –”

“Saturn.”

“– Oh, right, of course, Saturn’s birthday, so let’s all kill a cow –”

“Pig, I believe.”

“– pig, and then chant about it in the Forum for a few hours and…’S there a feast after? I can’t stand one more bloody feast at that palace.”

“Yes, I believe tradition calls for a feast, drinking, gambling, music…”

“Oh, no.”

“Five days of celebration in fact. Special order of your emperor.”

“Five…five days?” Crowley collapsed, burying his face in the couch, wrapping his arms around his head. “Angel, what’s this city doing to me? Five days of celebration, and I want nothing to do with it.”

“Now, it probably won’t be that bad…”

“Not that bad? D’you know what goes on at those feasts? I’d rather be discorporated.”

“Stop being so dramatic.”

“’M not bein’ dramatic.” He didn’t even have the energy to feel sullen. Every feast, every party, the humans enacted the worst excesses, did…things Hell would certainly never believe, invented whole new sins Heaven could never conceive. And then the emperor would insist that his new red-haired advisor entertain them, and while that was less disgusting, it was still humiliating. “’M never getting out of this city. ’M gonna spend eternity obeying that spoiled idiot child.”

“Crowley, it won’t be eternity, humans don’t live that long.”

“First two emperors lived more’n seventy-five years. That’s fifty more years, Angel. I can’ take it.”

Aziraphale was silent for so long, Crowley began to think he’d left. The demon was just about to lift his head from the couch and find out, when he finally spoke.

“I’ve asked to be excused from the festivities to concentrate on my studies. The family loaned me a villa, on Albanus Mons. It’s a summer retreat, so it should be quiet this time of year. You may join me, if you like.” Crowley slowly raised his eyes, but the Angel was entirely focused on his meal.

“Who…” he tried to sound casual. “Who else’ll be there?”

“No one.” The angel took another bite, still not looking away from the table. “I requested there not even be any servants or slaves. If you choose not to come, I will simply be alone for five days.”

Five days, alone, with Azirahale?

Crowley’s mind jumped to a dozen different possibilities – several of which should never have been considered he’s an angel, after all – before settling on the most likely: five days of Aziraphale reading his scrolls and miracling up questionable food, while Crowley got as drunk as he pleased in another room.

It sounded delightful.

“I’ll think about it.” Aziraphale nodded as if it made no difference. “Where would I meet you?”

And so, on the 17th evening of December, Crowley found himself standing outside an elaborate villa, outer walls painted a warm yellow-orange, red tile roof suggesting a second floor at the back where the windows could take in the wide, rolling hills tumbling all the way back down to the city.

It would have been a promising start to his break from the utter insanity of the city, but there stood Aziraphale, wearing casual dinner robes of light blue and gold – far more color than he normally wore – and a silly cap, clearly dressed for revelries of some description. Some sort of plant hung from the lintel above the entryway.

“You said we wouldn’t be celebrating anything,” Crowley accused.

“I said no such thing.”

“You implied. And you said you wanted to be excused from the festivities, don’t think I forgot that.”

“Fine. I lied. Because if I told you I wanted you to celebrate with me, you wouldn’t have come.”

“Well, thank you for your honesty, Angel. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’d rather be in the city after all.” He turned on his heel and walked away.

“Crowley, wait.” He didn’t wait. “Are you honestly going to tell me you’d rather celebrate with Emperor Caligula than with me?”

“Yes, I would. Because at least I know what to expect with him. You’re so devious sometimes…I just can’t, Aziraphale.”

“Do you – will you slow down?” The angel finally stepped in front of him, puffing slightly from the exertion. “Do you even know what this holiday is about?”

“Same as all Roman holidays. Appeasing the random forces of the universe with sacrifice, eating until you vomit, and humiliating your captured enemies.”

“No, Crowley.” He grabbed the demon’s wrist, fingers gripping like steel wrapped in the softest Egyptian cotton. Crowley couldn’t have resisted if he’d wanted to. “This is a day of role reversals,” and now it was the angel who ranted, voice heavy with annoyance as he dragged Crowley back to the villa. “This is the day that slaves are served by their masters. This is the day that all divisions break down and everyone in the empire is treated as an equal.” He jabbed a finger at the plant hanging above the door. Mistletoe. “Do you know what that is?”

“’S a parasite,” Crowley mumbled, but he didn’t feel the bitterness.

“That is a symbol of healing. Of peace. Under a bundle of mistletoe, Romans make alliances with their enemies. And for one night…” his voice softened, just a bit. “For five nights, thanks to your emperor, it means that in this villa there are no… no divides.” He turned to look Crowley straight in the eyes. His face was so open, warm, a little scared. “No walls. No sides.” With his free hand, he reached up and pulled off the dark glasses Crowley wore. What he saw in the demon’s eyes made him smile. “No angels or Fallen. And I would like to celebrate…with you.”

Crowley swallowed, not trusting himself to speak. Aziraphale’s fingers finally released his wrist, and he caught them again, twining them with his, pressing their palms together.

The angel led him to stand under the mistletoe, right at the dividing line between what had always been and a new possibility he had only just begun to consider.

Aziraphale brushed his lips against Crowley’s cheek, quick, soft, trembling. “Io, Saturnalia.”

“Io, Saturnalia.”

#good omens fanfiction #my writing #good omens prime #ineffable husbands #31 days of ineffables #advent calendar #writing challenge #look i need a break from the angst #I'll keep up as long as I can

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doctortreklock · 4 years ago

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AU-gust 22 - Futuristic AU

For this. On AO3.

Captain’s Log - Dean Winchester of the USS Free Will Stardate 2254.42

We got in a bit of a scrape with some unfriendly locals on the planet and found ourselves unable to evacuate due to an ion storm. Which apparently Cmdr. Walker was unable to detect in advance, despite the size of the storm. This marks the fourth time in three months that Cmdr. Walker has failed to note a relevant scientific fact, despite his role as Chief Science Officer.

During our time on the planet, Dr. Winchester was able to...

Captain’s Log - Dean Winchester of the USS Free Will Stardate 2254.135

Following recommendations from myself, Dr. Winchester, and First Officer Harvelle, Chief Science Officer Walker has chosen to resign his post and retire, effective as soon as a reasonable replacement can be located. He will be leaving Starfleet with full honors.

Personal Log - Capt. Dean Winchester of the USS Free Will Stardate 2254.167

It has been two days, four hours since we picked up our new Science Officer, and I hate him already. Sammy said not to judge him so quickly, since we’re going to be stuck with him for the remainder of our five year mission, if not longer, but he said it with that pinched look that means he really does hate him as much as I do.

I’ve never worked with an Angel before. I knew they were aloof and cold, but the sheer lack of empathy. God. He’s an unfeeling bastard and it makes me wish I could punch him in the face and keep my command. Even if it would hurt me more than it hurt him.

...Okay, I just listened to that again, and I think I need to push for one of those mandatory ship-wide tolerance seminars again.

Captain’s Log - Dean Winchester of the USS Free Will Stardate 2254.181

...four members of the landing party affected by an unknown poison, including myself. Though I was unconscious for most of the remainder of the mission, I was later filled in by Dr. Winchester and Cmdr. Harvelle.

Though the away party remained under threat from the native Tulian people, Dr. Winchester and Chief Science Officer Castiel were able to fabricate an antidote to the poison using the readings they acquired from their tricorders and the limited supplies they both keep on hand, as the transporter remained inoperative during this time. I have since been assured by Cmdr. Novak that the transporter malfunction was an anomaly that will not be repeated.

I am recommending commendations for Cmdr. Castiel and Lt. Cmdr. Winchester for exemplary service under pressure.

Personal Log - Capt. Dean Winchester of the USS Free Will Stardate 2254.205

...how much is actual incomprehension and how much is willful misinterpretation. I swear, we had just talked about the structure of Human jokes and I know he knows more about prime numbers than I do. I think at this point he just gets a kick out of it. I mean, every time he pulls off one of his straight-faced Humans-are-so-strange routines, his eyes just freaking glimmer and he smiles a bit, just on one side.

Everyone on this ship must be blind if they can’t see how much he enjoys messing with us.

Captain’s Log - Dean Winchester of the USS Free Will Stardate 2254.272

Our newest mission from Starfleet has required us to stop off at Houston IX to pick up an ambassador, whom we will then shuttle to Carthage.

We did not experience any difficulties picking up the ambassador. Once he was on board, however, it became clear that we had a problem.

Ambassador Crowley is a Demon, from the planet Demos in the Etheril system. Cmdr. Castiel is an Angel, from the planet Angelii in the Etheril system.

These two planets have been at war with each other for-fucking-ever, and I can’t believe Starfleet just royally screwed this one up, SO badly--

...Computer, delete--

Personal Log - Capt. Dean Winchester of the USS Free Will Stardate 2254.272

...that douchebag Crowley has the gall to stand all smug in the transporter room and say that he’s terribly sorry for the confusion and he deeply hopes that the inconvenience won’t be an issue. The dick.

Castiel, on the other hand, was what I’m pretty sure passes as spitting mad on Angelii. I’m not sure how I ever believed he didn’t have any emotions because oh boy were they written all over his face. I’m frankly very surprised he didn’t smite Crowley where he stands for the audacity to come aboard his starship.

This officially puts paid to any belief I had in those rumors about Angels being able to melt eyeballs or kill people with a touch, because if he had those powers, I’m pretty sure Castiel would have used them, rank or no.

Then, as soon as I became aware of this little snafu, I had to go ring up the Admiralty and try to figure out what the fuck was going on. Because the blood feud between the Demons and the Angels was basic knowledge and the first bullet point in the personnel files for everyone from either planet.

There aren’t that many Angels in Starfleet, and even fewer Demons, so I’m not buying Zachariah’s butter-wouldn’t-melt routine. The Free Will is the only ship in the quadrant with any crew member from the Etheril system, so there’s no way we were picked at random to ferry Crowley around.

Someone’s got it out for Castiel, and I won’t stand for...

Captain’s Log - Dean Winchester of the USS Free Will Stardate 2254.312

...injuries acquired while protecting a senior officer from harm. Dr. Winchester has assured me that Cmdr. Castiel will make a full recovery. The arrow that was meant for me hit him in the chest, which would be lethal for a Human, but Angelic biology differs in both the placement of internal organs and their capacity for rapid healing. I have been informed that Cmdr. Castiel can be expected back at his post within the week.

I am recommending commendations for Cmdr. Castiel for bravery under fire and dedication to the lives of crewmembers. I am also recommending commendations to Lt. Mills...

Personal Log - Capt. Dean Winchester of the USS Free Will Stardate 2254.346

...turns out that Cas hasn’t seen any of the new holos with Ford Harrison. Or any of the older ones. Actually, scratch that.

It turns out that Cas hasn’t seen any holos. Not even older two-dimensional films. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

And that’s a crying shame. I have a large media collection, and I am not afraid to use it. We’ve started weekly movie nights. I’m also trying to introduce him to Earth snacks while I’m at it. Popcorn hasn’t gone over well, but he’s surprisingly into Thin Mints.

After we watch through my entire Ford Harrison collection, I might break out the older classics. Nothing quite like shiny, low-budget, low-tech, computer-animated explosions to lighten the mood.

Captain’s Log - Dean Winchester of the USS Free Will Stardate 2255.11

...seems like the rumors of extrasensory perception have not been exaggerated. Though we were unable to detect any signal on the frequency he described, Cmdr. Castiel has made it clear that he has been summoned back to his home planet for some urgent business.

While the Free Will is technically on a mission to deliver supplies to Lunar Base Kappa, it is not an urgent assignment, so we have time to detour to the Etheril system. If we had not been able to, however, Cmdr. Castiel made it clear that he would be returning to his home planet, with or without the ship.

Personal Log - Capt. Dean Winchester of the USS Free Will Stardate 2255.25

...won’t even talk to me anymore outside of shift! He’s cancelled the last two movie nights, and I swear he’s been avoiding me at mealtimes.

I don’t think I even realized how much time we’d spent together until we stopped.

I’m not sure what those bastards on Angelii did to him, but I swear to god...

Personal Log - Capt. Dean Winchester of the USS Free Will Stardate 2255.47

I’m not sure what finally did it, but he’s talking to me again.

Sammy’s been giving me worried looks for a month, and I’m pretty sure he was working himself up to one of those “you know I care about you, and you’re my brother, but I have to look after the whole ship, and you’re being a dick right now” speeches. Because I totally was. Snappish and frustrated and irritated. ...all because Cas wasn’t returning my calls.

Metaphorically. My metaphorical calls. Because I wasn’t calling him. Obviously.

Anyway.

He’s talking to me again. If I had to put a guess on it, I’d say it probably had something to do with the discussion we had on the Angelii government and social hierarchy. Well, “discussion.”

I might have ranted and yelled at him, but I was concerned, and he didn’t look phased, so I’m not going to worry about crossing any hypothetical boundaries here.

And I’m not sure what it was. But the next morning he met me for breakfast in the mess before shift as if we’d never stopped hanging out. I’m not sure where I went wrong, but I might know how to fix it if it happens again.

Personal Log - Capt. Dean Winchester of the USS Free Will Stardate 2255.93

Someone’s going to die.

I haven’t quite figured out who yet, but they’ve got Zachariah in their pocket, and they’re the ones who called Cas back home, and they’ve got nothing good planned.

I’m not sure what they wanted with Cas, but I deprogrammed him again and I’m keeping him, come hell or high water, so I’d like to see them try and take him again. I’ll be waiting for them.

...Shit. Does this count as a premeditated confession in a court of law? Probably best to be on the safe side then. Just in case. Computer, delete--

Captain’s Log - Dean Winchester of the USS Free Will Stardate 2255.127

...little evidence of large-scale corruption, it is nevertheless apparent that the Daughters of Lucifer were not a small or poorly funded organization.

Their activities - including the targeting of my Chief Science Officer - have been shut down, but I am recommending extensive monitoring of the entire Etheril system, as well as planets with large Angel or Demon populations. Both Abaddon and Ruby have evaded capture and it is not clear what their next moves are.

I am recommending a commendation for creative strategy under pressure for Cmdr. Castiel and commendations for bravery under fire for Cmdr. Harvelle, Cmdr. Castiel, Cmdr. Novak, Lt. Cmdr. Winchester, Lt....

Captain’s Log - Dean Winchester of the USS Free Will Stardate 2255.135

We are hoping for a quiet mission on Altair VII. Cmdr. Novak believes he has devised a way to operate the transporters through an ion storm. Cmdr. Castiel has identified one beginning to brew here in the upper atmosphere, so we’re going to try testing that theory.

Lt. Cmdr. Mills will be leading the away team with Ensigns Jones, Novak, Spengler, and Zeddmore. The primary aim of this mission is to test Cmdr. Novak’s hypothesis by attempting to transport blocks of matter to and from the surface of the planet. The secondary aim of the mission is to take tricorder readings of the air, soil, and native flora.

Cmdr. Castiel will take the conn during this mission, as it falls entirely within the purview of the Science Division. This will also serve as a test of Cmdr. Castiel’s aptitude for command, as Cmdr. Harvelle has indicated that she will be seeking a promotion to captain when we next return to Earth later this year, leaving the First Officer’s position vacant.

Personal Log - Capt. Dean Winchester of the USS Free Will Stardate 2255.165

Sammy’s been giving me weird little half-glances all day, but it wasn’t until I got back to my room ten minutes ago that I figured out why.

It’s been a year since Cas came on board.

Just for kicks and giggles, I went back to listen to the first couple logs I made after he joined the crew. Man, was I wrong back then.

Cas isn’t cold or aloof or emotionless; I just didn’t know how to read him yet. I’m not sure if that’s a Cas thing or more of an Angel thing, but it definitely makes me happy that he’s on board. He’s my best friend, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Between Crowley and Lucifer and all of the day-in, day-out missions we’ve had while boldly going, it’s been a rough year, but never let it be said that the Free Will is boring.

I think I can hear Cas in the hallway, so I’ll cut it short. It’s movie night.

Winchester out.

#AUgust 2020 #Star Trek AU #Supernatural #Dean Winchester #Castiel #some destiel #I'm so tired right now #can barely keep my eyes open #I should have worked on this earlier #but I spent 8 hours reading a really good phlint fic #so that was my whole day gone

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eggshellsreview · 5 years ago

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Steven Universe Review (Seasons 4 & 5)

Season 3 of Steven Universe shaked the life and world of our protagonists quite a bit. Now we take some new information and use that unravel the mysteries left behind the Crystal Gems.

I really dont even know where to start with these last chapters of the Steven Universe story. Where Season 3 felt like the best of Season 1 with a lot more expansion to world building, Season 5 felt like Season 1 and Season 3 fused to make the mega seasons that is Season 4 and 5.

The reason I call refer to these as mega seasons is because the way it accumlates pretty much every loose thread left from all previous seasons to tie up all those knots. I don't just mean for our protagonists, all the minor characters have their dedicated episodes as tradition in Steven Universe, but in these seasons these episodes tend to be more larger scale and much more satisfying for each character. We don't just see them have a silly one off interaction with Steven to give them something to do, we see these characters finally have some of their own growth as they overcome their own obstacles and internal conflicts shown in previous episodes to give them the same love we've experienced with the main protagonists.

Of course some characters are, and have been, just objectively more prominent and influential than others and we see those get even more attention as they explore their own self discovery filled adventures spanning over multiple episodes, and even tying into the main plot of the show with Steven. This makes these side plots not only enjoyable and wholesome, but gives them incentive to actually exist when these characters start to shape as much change in Beach City as everyone else.

This is incredibly important to the central plot because there are multiple moments where our protagonists find themselves just having to sit and wait as certain events unfold, but now don't have nothing to do. This is a major step up from my complaints a while ago in Season 2 where the side character stories hindered the overall experience rather than enhance it.

Another highlight of this season includes antagonist. We don't really get many from the show minus some random corrupted gems for missions (Not to say the ones we do get dont suffice. Season 1's Peridot and Jasper were phenomenal), but man these seasons were loaded with so many thought out antagonists. From minor ones, to ones lasting multiple episodes, to reoccuring ones, and of course, the big encounters with the Diamonds. These seasons satisfied all the different types of solutions for me. There were physical fights against these antagonists, there were out smarting them, there were converting them, there were losing to them which is all possible due to the *universe* the shows been building piece by piece since season 1 finally coming together perfectly. Nothing about these seasons ever felt small because how freely they were able to include what they wanted, whenever they wanted since its all been introduced on Earth and in space context giving these story elements the freedom to exist wherever they want if written well thought out enough.

Before we get into the elephant in the room, I do wanna clarify again, of course these seasons are filled with what you can expect as per Steven Universe tradition; excellent songs, top tier scenery and colors, and just all that good stuff. I know its lame to kind of just briefen that up because theyre such a core aspect of the show's great quality, but I've been saying this for several reviews and its really just be easier to reassure that its still there rather than reiterate the effects of it again.

Now that everything is about covered, we can finally about the finale. The 45 minute long special to end the series and wrap whatever is left to wrap up. Firstly, I want to state I understand why its a bit controversial. I get the complaints. And I sincerely think the flaws that get pointed out are valid. I won't get into spoilers, but all that being said, I can say that I really enjoyed the finale.

I feel that with this show, there's only so many ways in the spectrum of solutions for conflicts to be resolved in this show. Not because "its a kids show" or whatever, but because the themes and messages linked so heavily with our protagonists. Because of that, even with my own complaints, I can at least understand why the show resolved it's biggest obstacle in the finale way that it did, but I'm not just giving it a pass, because it did hinder the last episode for me a bit. However the finale also managed to squeeze in some really good stuff to balance it out (in my opinion). Some of it is more satisfying than others, some may seem last second tossed in for fan service, but objectively it was at least still really darn fun. I feel like the show wasnt entirely sure what its future would look like in terms of Cartoon Network going through with what it has planned and preferred to rush some moments rather than potentially never having those moments air at all. Unfortunately pretty much the entirety of the finale season cant be talked about without spoilers so I kind of have to leave it at that.

All in all though, I found myself satisfied enough. I was hestitant starting the show as it took me several years and a few pushes to even consider starting it when I finally did, but I will say that I do not regret it at all. Steven Universe carried so many gorgeous elements that I think about on a daily basis and just love to have welcomed into my life. Its a show I definitely plan to show the younger people in my life because I think they deserve a show like this early on their life. This was an incredible experience that marked this as my favorite animated series of all time and it's a show I ENTIRELY intend to keep talking about on this blog to express thoughts about specific moments I want to break down more.

I give these two final seasons a rating of 9/10 as the flaws and complaints I have are ones that I feel are well made up with the other episodes in these seasons having essentially peak writing for the show. That being said, I've already watched Steven Universe: The Movie and will be sharing my thoughts on that very shortly as I then join the wait for Steven Universe: Future with the rest of the lovely fan base!

#steven universe #review #cartoon #cartoon network #gems #spinel #eggshellreview #gorgeous #animated #wholesome #fun #favorite #thoughts #sad to finish

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liamhaydn-blog · 6 years ago

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The Argentina Problem & The need for Dictator Messi

Lionel Messi uses week old babies to do kickups with, he spits in the face of elderly women and burns money infront of the homeless. These are all headlines you won’t ever see, and that’s because they aren’t things that have ever or will ever happen, but he must have done something.

Something morally wrong, something really corruptible for otherwise there is no fair reason why a simple humble guy who has done nothing other than raise a family with his one true love and entertain us with breathtakingly consistent talent with a football should be forced to play in the Argentina national side.

On Saturday night Argentina began their Copa America campaign. The first step towards ending their 26 year wait for a major trophy. For Messi, it is his ninth major international tournament for the Argies, and his 5th Copa America.

It’s hard to recall a time Argentina had gone into a Copa America less fancied (it didn’t take long to see why). There was some fleeting hope among the more optimistic Messi/Argentina supporters that maybe these low expectations would work in the teams favour. After the huge pressure of going into the last two Copas expecting themselves to win, maybe the lack of expectation this time would allow them to play with less pressure and they could end up surprising a few people.

As it turned out, no one was surprised with Argentina on Saturday night. The only slight surprise maybe, is that somehow they’ve managed to get worse from the World Cup last summer.

It was a match we’ve seen Argentina involved in time and time again over the last several years. The defence and midfield too poor with the ball to regularly involve the teams star attackers (not just Messi, the team also has Aguero and Di Maria who play for two of the best teams of the world, but you would be forgiven for forgetting as they’re rarely spotted for the Albiceleste), then the forwards when they do receive the ball usually only have one player ahead or level with them with no sign of the Argentine full backs being anywhere near the opposition final 3rd (atleast they make up for it with their defending right...Right!?..)

Regarding Lionel Messi, apart from big players who have represented proper minnow nations (George Weah with Liberia for example) it is hard to imagine any player having to deal with more of a stark contrast between their current club side and international side.

But this is not a minnow nation, this is Argentina, one of the most formidable powerhouses in International Football. 14 time champions of South America and since they made the final of the inaugural World Cup in 1930, they’ve been back in the showpiece final 4 more times twice winning the greatest prize of them all.

And yet for the last few years the difference between Argentina and FC Barcelona has been the difference between night and day. That’s not to say it’s been all plain sailing at Barca, just one Champions League semi final appearance since they lifted the trophy in 2015 is underachieving by their standards, and the Roma and Liverpool defeats were unforgivable.

Barca’s hysterical fanbase have been relentless in their insistence that their club is in a real crisis and whilst undoubtedly they are not without issues, in the real world they’ve won a major trophy in 10 out of the last 11 seasons and they’ve claimed the domestic crown (in the opinion of many including me the strongest league in the world) 5 out of the last 7 seasons.

In 10 games Barca will win 8 of them, Messi will score 9 and assist another 4. Some crisis. It seems as though Messi sees more of the ball and is involved in more openings in the first 10 minutes of a Barcelona game at the Nou Camp than in 90 minutes of an Argentina game.

Watching Messi in an Argentina match has a strange effect. Simultaneously the 90 minutes drags along, time crawls by whilst also feeling nowhere near long enough for Messi to impact the game. It feels like only by extending Argentina matches to 4 hours long could we hope to see Messi do half of what he does in a game for Barcelona, in an Argentina shirt.

With just the standard 90 minutes, Messi is usually limited to one good piece of play per Argentina game (be it one good dribble, pass, shot etc.) and one half chance (usually a free kick from a long way out).

Compared to the dramatic transformation of the European game, South American football feels like a throwback to the game of old, it doesn’t appear to have changed that much since the days of Diego Maradona. The pitches aren’t perfect, the games are very rough, physical, often even ugly. To highlight the difference in style and approach between Football’s two most successful continents, take this statistic: in 51 games at Euro 2016, there were 3 red cards. After 5 matches at this years Copa America, two red cards had already been shown.

Most South American teams seem to take a very conservative, defence first approach. The number of players teams put between the ball and their goal only serves to highlight further just how isolating it is playing as an attacking player in this Argentina team. They’re regularly attacking with just 3 or 4 bodies with 7 opposition players back defending their goal. Of course the only South American team bar the minnows who don’t have a solid defence in place is...Argentina. Nicolas Otamendi? How did this guy actually convince people he can defend? All over the show.

Though the problem has undoubtedly got worse in recent years, in this ‘Messi Era’ Argentina have often had issues scoring against South American opposition in competitive football. Messi’s combined Copa America and World Cup Qualifier record is 29 goals in 67 games which is by no means a disgrace, but this is a player who at his scoring peak scored 91 goals in a calendar year, who has scored over 40 goals a season for 10(!) consecutive seasons.

Sergio Aguero has 16 Copa America + WCQ goals and Angel Di Maria just 9. In comparison, 22 of Chile International Eduardo Vargas’ 38 international goals have been scored at either the Copa America or in a WCQ.

These problems in finding the net will likely continue for the Argies against Paraguay and if not, the respite will only be a short one, resuming as soon as they face above mediocre opposition in the next stage. That is assuming they get that far, as failing to get the right results against Paraguay and Qatar would be their first group stage exit at the tournament since 1983 and would surely be one of the lowest moments in the history of Argentinian football.

So what can Argentina do about it? well there’s lot they could do about it, lots they could try, but what *will* they do about it? what are they willing to do about it? very little would be my guess.

All hope of change from the fairly disastrous 2018 World Cup had been pinned on the introduction of Lo Celso into the side and how he would be able to link the midfield to the attack and establish a good partnership with Leo Messi. If Saturday night is anything to go by, this one player will not be enough to remotely come close to lifting Argentina’s fortunes.

So it appears Argentina will insist on plodding on with the same tried and failed formula, perhaps doing enough to scrape past Paraguay and Qatar before succumbing against the next above mediocre team they face.

It is maddening how little Argentina seem to be willing to change, and whenever they do make a change it always seems like such a random throwaway selection of personnel, done without any real conviction or hope it will bring about improvement.

For arguments sake here’s how I would look to address The Argentina Problem. First I would move Messi into Midfield. It’s maybe a bit bold to move a player into a position he’s never played before in the middle of a tournament and I can’t understand why its never been experimented with before in friendlies.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Messi is the best footballer Argentina have, the best footballer anyone has, there is zero benefit to having him play in a forward position at the moment where he is so isolated and seeing the ball so rarely. He is the best passer in the world, he will be able to keep the ball better than any of their other midfield options and can hit passes that few can see, but as well he is also a calm player with a cool head who can steady Argentina from the middle and allow them to keep the ball for a while, which at the moment they are completely unable to do.

This also gives Messi the opportunity to dribble from deep and have options infront of him, he will attract many opposition players when he has the ball which should free up more space for the attackers. It’s long been thought that Messi would flourish in centre midfield when his pace left him and though we’re not at that stage yet, with Messi’s passing range and football intelligence combined with his current ineffectiveness in the side I believe the time is now here to try Messi in centre midfield for these final 2 group games.

Ahead of Messi, I would make Dybala a starter in the side. At the moment he doesn’t ever even feature off the bench. Imagine that, a team struggling as much as this one for goals and for quality completely ignores a man who can give them both in abundance if his Juventus career is anything to go by. He’s 25 years old, not a kid and only has 1 goal for his national side due to opportunities being so stark.

Unless they want another Carlos Tevez on their hands (a world class player whose international career was wasted, scoring just 13 goals over 11 years due to being in and out of the side) Argentina must trust Dybala sooner rather than later and give him the opportunity to prove himself. It was ridiculous that at last years World Cup he was behind Higuaín in the pecking order and its ridiculous that he still now isn't getting a look-in.

Adding another top class attacker into this side would also give defences more to think about and give the current attackers so much needed support. There needs to be much more fluidity and movement in the Argentine attack, Di Maria is allowing games to pass him by whilst he stands out wide not doing anything. Dybala and Di Maria could switch positions during games, drifting all over.

Argentina’s defence are appalling so the best way to combat that in the short term could be to just go top heavy, try to outscore teams and hope that by stacking their attack with the best players they have, teams are more wary and respectful of them. Because at the moment they are causing zero fear or worry for the opposition.

Looking past this tournament, I would also ensure Mauro Icardi is included in every squad from now on, playing as much as possible. I get that he’s a dick and has a bad attitude which may prevent him from hitting the heights he could hit in football, but he’s a brilliant goalscorer. He only needs one chance, one touch. He scored 55 goals in 77 games in 2 seasons for Inter before souring his relationship with the fans. He has been awarded just 8 international caps. 8. He’s 26 years old and Argentina look set to waste having another top striker. And for what? what are they possibly gaining from completely freezing him out.

Looking to the 2022 World Cup, there is only one man who can make Argentina from also rans to serious contenders. Diego Cholo Simeone.

Simeone took control of Atletico in December 2011 days after the team had lost 3-0 at home to a 3rd division team in the cup. They were in 10th place. By May 2014 Atletico had won La Liga in doing so breaking the longest duopoly in Spanish Football since the last time they won it in 1996 when Cholo was a player for them.

The same season they were literal seconds away from winning their first ever European Cup, this was all achieved with a starting 11 costing 35M pounds. In 8 full seasons at the club Simeone has won La Liga at the Nou Camp against Barca, The Copa Del Rey at the Bernabeu against Real, the Spanish Super Cup, 2 Europa Leagues and 2 Uefa Super Cups. He has made 2 Champions League Finals, and finished in the top 3 for 7 straight years. He has transitioned the club into a new era with a new modern stadium and he has done all of this whilst regularly losing big players and having to rebuild. Prior to taking the Atleti job he was also at the helm of Estudiantes de la Plata when they won their first Argentine league title for 23 years.

Basically, if anyone is going to fix Argentina, it’s going to be him. It has to be him. One day it inevitably will be. The proud Argentine who made 106 appearances for his country will undoubtedly one day fall to the temptation of managing his beloved nation at the FIFA World Cup.

And the way I see it, if you’re going to do it what better time to do it than at the 2022 World Cup where you’ll have a 29 year old Dybala, 30 year old Icardi and the greatest player of all time playing in his last ever World Cup.

Messi has scored 67 goals in 131 caps for Argentina, better than 1 in 2 which is a solid return if not as mind-blowing as his 603 in 687 games for Barcelona (though given the context of the Argentina team he’s scored 67 in, who knows maybe it is) and though in recent times he’s seemingly grown tired and less able of carrying Argentina on his back, no one should deny that for many years that’s exactly what he did.

Argentina reached extra time of the World Cup Final and 2 Copa America finals in 3 years (Where they was only Higuaín not being shit away from glory. How they must long for them days now). Without Messi that wouldn’t have been possible. He dragged those average teams to touching distance of silverware, and that’s why I hope he is given the chance to play his final World Cup with a truly world class manager in charge.

Just give Messi a chance of winning the biggest prize of all, just a chance. Get Simeone in to coach the defence, get everyone running through brick walls for the shirt and for him and get Messi playing behind Dybala and Icardi, knowing that it’s a collective team effort now and all the responsibility is no longer his.

It’s what the greatest player of all time deserves and for that reason I hope he picks up the phone soon and calls Simeone. And tells him personally how much he wants him to take the job for the World Cup. It’s hard to imagine that wouldn’t have an effect on Cholo, such a big legend of the game asking personally for you. Then after he’s had time to think on it, I would leak the call to the world, so huge pressure builds on him to accept and he can see the huge fanfare from Argentina fans for him.

Whether Messi the dictator is real or fake, he needs to come out now and take action to save his international career.

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a-plethaura-ask-blog · 6 years ago

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So, I started this comic page about a few months ago. (yeah, I know, it really narrows it down, huh?) This was a comic page intro I was going to do for my AU ContaminationTale. However, there are quite a lot of things stopping me from actually making the comic. I want to start a comic, but I think I would do fairly poorly at actually making a good comic that will keep attention.

I also have all of my characters designed for ContaminationTale, but I do not want to actually do them digitally cause I am afraid I will mess it up. I am bad at character reference sheets. I love to have something going on, or something more implied, and not just a character. However, I hope I will fix that with myself soon.

The backstory behind ContaminationTale is besically something kinda similar but very adjacent to how Error Sans was formed. As confusing as it is, allow me to elaborate-

ContaminationTale is an AU where classic Undertale is taken over and corrupted by a strange human that is not Chara, or the other human souls. It is just a random human that had run across the world and watched the events of the world pan out. So in a way, they are like a way to breach the 4th wall, whilst not being able to communicate with the obersevers of the AU. (Myself, or people that may view my works) Here is the old set of information I made for ContaminationTale when it was first created. Including characters, places, items, food and other stuff like that.

[ ° Basic Information ° ]

» Classic Undertale ™ is slowly fading away, being overshadowed by it's many various AU's, which have became far more popular than the classic game. So when the infamous, and to-say-the-least very unwelcome 'Shadow Player' comes back, and completely takes control of the game, he controls all of the characters as well. Now, running on only hate, fear and sadness; Undertale is going to make a fatal, feral strike-back at the many AU that fans so ADORE.

[ ° AU Connections ° ]

➡ All of the AU, over a large span of years, have managed to completely coincide with each other and accept each other's existence. They even have come to think of each other as kin. Family and such. Error is way more level, having been around Ink and Blue so much made him less homicidal and seemed to get rid of his 'God-Syndrome'. Other more homicidal AU, such as Horror and Killer have also calmed down murder wise, however they do have their slip ups. Nightmare since then had also split into two versions of himself. Night, who is the one with no black ooze on him is able to be with dream, and be happy, and Nightmare, who is more level in the head, but still a jerk. At times there can be tension but they all get over it rather fast. This is called the 'Pacification of the Bad AU' (As restated later, this is NO WHERE NEAR CANON. This is for the plot of ContaminationTale.)

Quick Note: As another note, in this AU, the monsters hate killing, and Chara was pacified. He is in the same boat as the monsters. The monsters of ContaminationTale used what free code they were able to spare to make it to where any AU versions of themselves they killed respawned in the Flower Patch being as it was the furthest from most of the while they were able to keep their 'good' conscious. The person who hacked them was unable to reverse it.

[ ° Characters ° ] (All Characters keep their same personalities when in their 'Free Form' however, in their 'Contaminant Form' they all remain kind of similar to themselves, but become homocidal, and attack any AU characters soon there after, or instantly.

» Sans

» Papyrus

» Grillby

» Toriel

» Gaster

» Asgore

» Alphys

» Asriel

» Flowey

» Undyne

» Burgerpants

» Mettaton

» Nopstablook

» Temmie

» Doggo

» Monster Kid

» Monster Kids Parents

» Chara

» Frisk

» Endogeny

» Muffet

[ ° Common Reference Places ° ]

» The Waterfall

➡ No longer exists. When the world started to vanish, the waterfall went first and was unable to be brought back.

» Grillby's Bar

➡ Doesn't really function as a bar anymore. This place is actually more it less used for medical treatment and a weapon station.

» Echo Flower garden/field/cave

➡ All places that have echo flowers in them are or can be used for a torture room. When a person is trapped in there, the flowers only scream, cry and laugh at the being inside. There are no identified words that are ever said, other than 'DIE'.

» MTT Station

➡ This place is actually used for the Shadow Players base and planning area. Off limits and heavily guarded with technology. It had many secret operative plans that happen in it all the time.

»Asgore's Castle

➡ Mostly a moot point area. However when any of the classic monsters die they respawn in the center room of the castle. However the center room is also a jail cell and the monster that spawns there gets three days solitary confinement for getting killed.

» Flowey's Flower Patch

➡ Any au characters that are killed in ContaminationTale that are not part of the AU spawn in the flower patch. Other than that this location is rather useless.

» Toriel's Ruins

➡ Long since abandoned. However the au characters that come to ContaminationTale often regroup, stay and recoop themselves here. They use this as a base and plan area. It provides shelter to those AU that can't make Portals like Dream can.

» Alphys Lab

➡ Used to mix poisons, and is filled with mechanical body parts used to replace lost limbs that didn't kill the victim. It is also used to overview the town and make traps.

» Sans Station - Bridge Crossing

➡ Loaded to the brim with motion sensors and traps ready for the unsuspecting. This causes confusion is and can be very dangerous if you are not careful or nimble because stuff comes at you from all sides.

[ ° Common Food and Food Stats ° ]

- Cinnamon Bun - (Restores 25 HP)

- Hot Dog w/ Bun - (Restores 50 HP)

- Hard Tac (Restores 30 HP)

- Alfrado ( Restores 100 HP)

- Cupcake (Restores 10 HP)

- Spaghetti ( Restores 50 HP)

- Pie (Restores 40 HP)

- Candy (Restores 5 HP each)

[ ° Weaponry ° ]

» Sans Butcher's Knife

➡ /+30 ATK/ - /-5 SPD/ - /+10 HP/

↪ Fire Perk - With this Sans can give the Butcher Knives the ability to set themselves on fire on the blade. However this one lasts for a few attacks before he has to build up a charge again.

» Papyrus's Bone Staff

➡ /+40atk/ - /-5spd/ - /+15hp/

↪ Dead Weight Perk - The dead weight Perk is used to inflict extra damage on characters when a weapon is swung. The dead weight puts more pressure and force behind the attack. Depending on how willing he is the fight, it affects how well Papyrus is able to use his weapon.

» Gaster's Scythe

➡ /+10 HP/ - /-5 SPD/ - /+15-20 ATK/

↪ Invisibility Perk : This makes the weapon itself unable to be seen by the naked eye after so many attacks for a stent of time. However you can still see the weapons shadow is it is in a lit area. That's why Gaster is more likely not to be found in dark scenery or places. If there is light anywhere, that is where you need to stay. Gaster also has the ability to blend into the dark, and it makes him a harder opponent.

»Toriel's Arrows

➡ /+10 SPD/ - /- 5 HP/ - /+5 ATK/

↪ Tipped Arrows ; this means they are actually poisoned with a small odor causes nausea, draining HP, and confusion to enemy characters. It however takes a small toll on her health every time she shoots an arrow. This is why she alters the arrows she uses. Her alterations come in an irregular patterns and it is spontaneous when she pulls one out.

» Asgore's Scepter

➡ /-15 SPD/ - /+10 ATK/ - /+0 HP/

↪ Electricity : like any other weapon, this one reacts better to opposite elements. The weapons this one better completed and takes out are wooden and metal weapons. It can not travel through rubber or other materials that have specific metals that do not connect well with the ability to travel through. If he uses a lightning based attack on a material that is not a conductor, the electricity comes back to him and will either stun him, or be shot off somewere else.

» Asriel's Slingshot

➡ /+10 SPD/ - /+5 ATK/ - /+ 0 HP/

↪ Explosive pellets are the thing that Asriel launches from his sling. These pellets are strong mini fireworks packed with acid. When it touches skin,fur or bone, even metal, it burns around the area it hit with a 5-7 inch radius. Depending on where he hits and what he hits, it can cause serious damage and make someone get bad infections.

» Undyne's Spear

➡ /-0 SPD/ - /+5 HP/ - /+10 ATK/

↪ Dead Weight Perk: Similar to Papyrus, her Spears are made of basic magic they don't have any initial weight untill they are seeing seeing at a Target. So initially her perk is the same as Papyrus's perk from there. However, if she is close enough, she can cause her weapon to lose all it's weight for faster movement, and gain all of it for maximum impact.

» Mettaton's Gun

➡ /+15 SPD/ - /+0HP/ - /+10 ATK/

↪ Silencer - the gun have no special or notable perks but it is good for power and stealth kills. The silencer makes it to where there is only ever A very faint click heard if the gun is fired. The gun itself fires off long bullets/pellets that are filled with acid. The second the bullet goes into skin, or hits something and gets stuck, the acid will start to burn through it.

» Frisk's Staff

➡ /-10 SPD/ - /+5 HP/ - /+5 ATK/

↪ Knock Back Perk : This makes a large gust of pressurized air go at the opponent and knock them down effectively for 1-3 attacks. Mainly due to having the 'wind' knocked out of them. /Funny? Only me? Ok... ;W;/ either way, this makes it to where Frisk usually does not have to get too close to anyone or anything and keeps them a safer distance away from the action while still being able to help out.

» Chara's Knife

➡ /+15 HP/ - /+15 ATK/ - /+5 SPD/

↪ Long Range Perk : after weapon is used so many times, the weapon can go through a stent of long range power ups. That means when the blade is swung it creates a red projectile cutting Lazer in the form of the slice and can only go forward for for up to 15 feet. Once it reaches that and is unable to catch anything, the attack turns to the ground, and goes into it. This can cause the ground to gain holes in it that are up to 25 feet in depth. After so many missed attacks, it will cause the ground to collapse, taking less space for movement against the enemies.

» Grillby's Arrows

➡ /-10 HP/ - /+20 ATK/ - /+10 SPD/

↪ Fire Perk : the fire only goes out when he snaps his fingers, but his fire in particular can't burn polyester. However, after so many uses, his fire won't reactivate itself until he has had a 10 minute rest.

» Tikal's Lasso

➡ /+5 SPD/ - /+10 ATK/ - /+0 HP/

↪ no perks, batter for stealth attacks

»Muffet's Glass Throwing Knives

➡ /+10 SPD/ - /+5 ATK/ - /+5 HP/

↪ respawn: if the knives are broken, they rebuild the partial belt bag, it might be better just to have more battle ready

» Alphys' Axe

➡ /-15 SPD/ - /+20 ATK/ - /+5 HP

» Monster Kid/Family Tail + Crossbows

➡ /+25 SPD/ - /+30 ATK/ - /-10 HP/

↪ no perks

[ ° All Weaponless Characters ° ]

» Temmie

» Burgerpants

» Doggo

» Endogeny

» Napstablook

» Flowey

[ ° Weaponless Characters Abilities ° ]

» Temmie

- Speed Attack: Used to confuse and knock out characters. Temmie runs around them and strikes their body in various places to try to cause more consistent confusion.

» Doggo

- Lock Jaw: Doggo locks his jaw around anyone's limbs. He won't let go until you give into Contaminated or you break his jaw. On the same note, if you break his jaw, his teeth will break from his jaw and sink into your skin until the contamination is spread. In the matter of 3 hours, his teeth grow back, and his jaw repairs itself.

» Endogeny

- Corrupt : uses the shades to possess enemies and attack other enemies or take themselves out.

» Burgerpants

- Incinerate: he always has a lighter and gasoline on him somewhere. So when he reacts he can use it to gradually put on his enemies then he can burn them alive when he lights it up.

» Flowey

- Vines : Shred or Strangle - Flowey can either crush his opinions with several Vines or throw needles at the enemy that are hard to dodge and have incredible sharpness.

» Napstablook

- Sonic Scream: Nopstablook screams silently at the other one enemies and the sound waves lower defense, and confuse them. It also makes them unable to see straight, makes them nautious and can cause surrounding items or building parts to collapse, gain damage or go haywire

[ ° Common World Items ° ]

* Machine Parts

- (Commonly found in the lab, or Mettatons News Station.) The machine parts vary, however, there is no real use for gears anymore, otherwise as throwing weapons. However, longer machine parts are used to make traps, or as close range weapons such as bo-staffs.

* Desk Supplies

- (Can be found anywhere) Desk supplies unclude things such as tape, pencils, pens, paper and other forms of common utilities. These also serve as weapons. They are easier to hide, find, and store without being weighed down.

* Marbles

- ( A rare find that some monsters used to posses. Such as Toriel) These are used as a good tripping device, or as a good distraction to those that can't avoid them.

* Contaminated Black Tar

- (Everywhere) This black tar only forms when a monster from Undertale / ContaminationTale is killed. Instead of turning into a pile of ashes, or dust, the turn into black goo and reform in the stated 'respawn' point. This can afflict other AU or humans that enter the world and turn them into a being like the afflicted monsters. However, since they are not considered 'Undertale' characters, they find a way to kill / destroy themselves. If they are just a human from the surface world, they will destroy themselves and not regenerate. However, if the are an AU, they regenerate fully healed in Flowey's flower patch.

* Silverware

- (Anywhere) This also serves as a great weapon.

* Broken Pipes

- (Inside walls and other items they can be placed in) these are used both weapons on 'inobvious spyware. They are all stuck into walls in order to spy around and keep an eye out without being seen right away.

>> Other Things to Clarify <<

1) As you have seen, there are both a "Flowey" and an "Asriel" in this AU. This was not a mistake, or an error in planning. They are both separate characters.

2) The 'Affiliations with other AU' including known AU Sanses or other characters is NOT CANON. I know most of you know this already, however, this is to those who get easily offended. The other AU checking in on the 'Classic' world is because if something happens to destroy Undertale, ALL OF THE AU will be destroyed in the process.

3) Undertale and ContaminationTale are both the same thing here. I know you all think that since it is an AU like this, it might be like Dust, or Killer Sans and they diverge into another AU. Which is both true, and not true. It becomes it's own AU later, however I have it set up to exist where the other AU characters need to help the Undertale characters escape their situation and beat the hacker first.

4) After the hacker is beaten, ContaminationTale becomes its own AU where it lives abandoned, and no AU characters come into it anymore. Meaning the reason behind it's existance is actually kind of futile, and the human gets killed by the ContaminationTale monsters later only to come back. It turns into an ever-turning genocide AU.

5) ContaminationTale Characters can only kill other copies of theselves so they are more equally matched. If they attack a version of another monster, most of their attacks will be barely even able to cause damage, no matter how powerful. This is due to a slip-up in the coding that contaminated them.

6) The main reason the other AU care so much about helping this AU is because at the time it is still 'Undertale' not just 'ContaminationTale'. Undertales code is becoming unstable, and it is inevitable that it will cause Undertale itself to collapse. Killing all of the AU Sanses and their respective AU.

//Afternote: Another reason I made this AU is cause Classic is usually helping the other AU, and the other AU don't really help him out. So I wanted to change that. I also feel bad cause Undertale ins't as popular as it's AU anymore. I did a survey with all the Undertale Lovers in my school, and I was the only one who voted on Classic Undertale out of 76 kids. :( //

#undertale #au #au information #info #comic #comicpage #contaminationtale #underfell #underswap #swapsans #fellsans #swap #fell #classic?#classic sans #ibispaint #ibispaintx #ibis art

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halogen-00 · 6 years ago

Text

So I had a long conversation with greenminior about this and I’m gonna tell you what we discerned. This post is absolutely full of spoilers.

Now. Throughout the series, Alex blames a variety of parties for the initial onset and spread of the Operator’s torment. He blames Jay for Jessica’s involvement at first in Entry 52, insinuating that because Jay investigated the tapes, got the people in them re-involved in the matter, and provoked the Operator, its “disease” was allowed to spread, but he later says that be thinks Tim is the reason it took interest in all of them in the first place. Tim blames himself as well as he says in Entry 66, but he also holds Alex accountable for letting the Operator control him and drive him to kill the others (Jay, Amy, etc). We also learn later that Jay’s involvement with the Operator was almost exclusively caused by Alex- in Entry 71, he seems to almost give him to it after beating him up. Then there is Brian, who persistently manipulates Jay to stay investigative and keep searching for answers, the process of which directly invites the Operator into others’ lives (as seen with Tim after the missing 7 months / Jessica.) Everyone is blaming everyone else to some degree. This conflict of blame led me to ponder who is actually most at fault for allowing the Operator’s corruption to continue as far as it did, and what key mistakes were made. I’ll take this character by character.

To start, I’m considering Seth, Sarah, Amy, and Jessica victims, as all of them were directly endangered by other people who were already being pursued by the Operator and can’t be blamed for much due to a lack of involvement. So they’re exempt from this, unless someone wants to go off about them.

Tim, as we know, has likely dealt with the Operator from his early childhood. Through he refers to past encounters with it as “hallucinations” (66), it is safe to assume that the entity he’s talking about in his flashback (65) is the same one Jay and others have capture on camera. This is due to his familiarity with the symptoms of the Operator’s presence and the way it looks. The Operator is most likely linked to Rosswood and the surrounding areas because it is likely a product of the atrocities that happened there. As Alex tells Jay in Entry 38, “[the people of the time] would take their worst criminals, murderers, child molesters- and they would put them on trial before God out [in Rosswood],” borderline crucifying them on the trees there and burning the remains regardless of whether the criminals were dead. Tim likely went to the burned down mental hospital for respite, which is close enough to Rosswood for the Operator to influence, and attracted its attention while he was there. He was probably a very easy target for manipulation due to his young age, accompanying naivety, and schizophrenic symptoms that could easily be used to explain away sightings and his physical responses to the Operator’s corruption (seizures, panic, etc). It is completely within the realm of possibility that Tim is not the “source” of the Operator- just a very early victim. If we examine his actions and their consequences through this lens, he can’t actually be blamed for how the Operator chose to mess with him, nor can he be blamed for his impressionability/susceptibility to the influence.

It is not entirely clear whether or not Alex has seen the Operator before Tim, who has already had years of history with it, shows up to his student film casting. But all of the entries concerning Alex’s interactions with him take place after he first meets Tim and begins filming with his help, so it’s fairly reasonable for him to claim that Tim brought the Operator into his life. But that doesn’t give Alex a free pass to fly off the handle and kill people. Let’s consider what he does after the Operator (apparently) first appears to him. Alex, like Tim, is very confrontational with the Operator. He goes out of his way in the earliest 10 entries to find and record it, and thereafter adheres to the belief that if he kills everyone he speaks to and then himself, it will go away. The last thing any benevolent entity or well-intending person would want is for anyone to die- which is how Jay thinks, and arguably Brian. But Alex? No. Whether Alex is evil or just weak enough to be a vessel for evil (the Operator), what remains is that he directly endangers other people in pursuit of his apparent agenda to to “stop all this” (86), even when Tim confronts him with an alternative solution (taking medicine and undergoing therapy.) It’s difficult to insist that Alex’s violent approach to the situation is purely a result of the Operator’s influence because when Tim or Brian are behind the mask, they don’t remember what they do and seem to run on some breed of instinct rather than conscious reason. Alex is a planner. In Entry 52 when he has effectively lured Jessica and Jay to a remote location to kill them, Alex says that he’s had “many opportunities to do this,” which implies that he has carefully considered if, when, and where he should do the deed. This calculating demeanor stays with him until his death in Entry 86. However, it is just as difficult to say that Alex is completely in control of his actions. As we see in the entries leading up to his death, Jay undergoes a significant personality change due to repeated and severe exposure to the Operator. He also suffers from paranoia and significant memory loss. Alex could very easily be in the same boat. However, I’m not certain that he is completely free of blame for his weakness in the face of this. If he and Jay were both afflicted with the same mental ailments, then there is no valid reason why Alex couldn’t have done as Jay did and be investigative about the Operator- not hostile and afraid. I believe that Alex is partly to blame for the damage caused by the Operator’s influence by this logic. He may not have invited it into everyone’s lives, but he certainly didn’t let himself have the courage to stop it.

Then there’s Jay. Both Tim (59) and Alex have told Jay at multiple points that his investigative response to what he saw on the original tapes further provoke the Operator. Unfortunately, according to the tapes, they’re not entirely wrong. At first, Marble Hornets only involved Jay. It was just him and Alex’s tapes- though Alex was likely still experiencing struggles with the Operator at the time Jay first posted the tapes. Then, in Entry 15, he makes the decision to meet with Tim and discuss Alex’s student film, and specifically whether or not anyone strange (blatantly, a “guy in a business suit”) bothered the set. This likely irritated the whole situation to some degree, and most certainly inspired a relapse in Tim, who only a few short entries later in #18 is seen in the mask. While it’s true that Alex is responsible for Jay (71) and Brian’s (51) involvement with the Operator, it is Jay that seems to re-interest it in Tim. It must be considered, however, that Jay’s intentions are corrective and good in alignment. He doesn’t actually seem to intend for anyone to get hurt unlike Alex, who brashly flings a gun at the closest person available that he can blame the Operator on. Put yourself in Jay’s situation for a moment. If you woke up on the regular in unknown locations missing huge chunks of memories, wouldn’t you want to do something to stop it, too? Wouldn’t you want to try everything you could, even if it didn’t help? It’s better than doing nothing- something Jay felt like he was doing before he and Tim actively tried pursuing Alex and the Operator (Entry 75). Justifying his actions with this logic, he worsened Jessica, Brian, and Alex’s involvement with the Operator as well as Tim’s. He may even be partly responsible for Brian’s death in Entry 83. If the Operator’s will is to kill everyone around Alex, and Brian is under its influence as Hoodie, it makes sense for Brian to take actions that spread the Operator’s corruption and endanger more people... Which explains why Hoodie leaves Jay tapes and keeps his interest piqued. If Jay’s investigations help the Operator infect more peoples’ lives, it makes sense to send someone you control to further that cause. And if Brian wasn’t being manipulated to do just that, he might have never set foot in the building he fell/jumped to his death in. If Jay hadn’t done what he thought was right in response to the Operator and its affliction, it’s quite possible that it would’ve left him and a few others alone had he never investigated further. Can the consequences of Jay’s actions be excused because he had good intentions, even though he continued to film after several people got hurt because of their proximity to him he did nothing to change? This, I’m not entirely sure of. I do know, however, that Jay didn’t go out of his way to hurt or kill anyone else.

Brian’s degree of responsibility for the events of Marble Hornets varies depending on how conscious one interprets him to be. Under the hood, Brian appears to be significantly more intelligent than Tim is when wearing the mask, so it can be argued that Hoodie is a freely-thinking character with enough autonomy to side with someone. At the same time, we never see Brian in his normal, hoodless state after Alex initially presents him to the Operator in Entry 51. Unlike Tim, we have no comparison to work off of. We don’t know if Brian was thinking clearly in the hood because we don’t see him respond to anomalies related to the Operator out of the hood. It’s not possible to discern his level of guilt in the deaths of Alex and Jay because we can’t be certain that the Operator wasn’t controlling his every move. I’ll go off about Hoodie’s morally conflicted actions in another post.

At the end of Marble Hornets, Alex, Jay, Brian, Seth, Sarah, Amy, and one random bystander lie dead. But these were seven potentially preventable deaths. Absolutely no one can be blamed for the actions of the Operator- it works as a purely destructive force independent of normal moral reason. However, several people can be blamed for allowing its manipulation to progress. Tim should never have agreed to help Alex make his student film after finding out it was in Rosswood- somewhere known to him as a trigger, in terms of mental health and in terms of entity provocation. His presence there could have attracted the Operator’s attention to Alex, and he could very easily be responsible for its interest in him at all. Alex should have never agitated the Operator once it began presenting itself to him, and definitely shouldn’t have resorted to fighting everyone else but it in attempts to keep it at bay. (Then there lies the question, “What if Alex didn’t want to keep the Operator away?” but that’s a whole other discussion.) And Jay should have paid attention to the consequences of investigating the tapes and interviewing Tim and others- although it would mean abandoning what he believed to be the right thing to do, it still may have stalled the Operator’s destruction.

Tl;dr, no character in Marble Hornets is entirely blameless in regards to the spread of the “disease” (except maybe Seth’s dog), but it is no one’s fault that the Operator is an evil, manipulative bastard.

#marble hornets #this is NOT the last one of these I will be writing #I seriously can't believe how much I missed going through mh when I was younger #next I think I'll take a look at hoodie's alignment #mh

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