#truly a homunculus

[nururu]

it's insane that..... hypnosis mic, identity v, and the little German boy playing fortnite, all came together to create the fully realized version of the autism creature....... the world is a wild place.

[willow-dino]

Sometimes a family is a human mage who will die tomorrow, an ancient star elf ghost imprisoned for terrible crimes, and their maybe biological bug child created to be a sacrifice <3

[flower-yi]

Perhaps surprise shouldn’t be felt when Albedo’s hands, in between the states of warmth and freezing, are calloused. Right now is the very few times the alchemist’s gloves are nowhere to be seen—most likely due to the work of a certain man with an eye patch—and as his partner (and admirer, as you’d always like to add), intertwining hands with him seemed to be the best idea at the moment.

“I don’t quite get why you have an intense interest with my hands,” he comments quietly, though not at all bothered with the closeness you’ve initiated. Albedo’s gaze often oscillates between observing to thinly veiled interest, which right now is a combination of the two, your brain helpfully supplies, and it doesn’t help with the rush of heat in your cheeks.

He doesn’t find the desire to hold hands with him weird, does he…?

“I don’t get the chance to hold your hands like this. You’re… always, uhm, wearing your gloves. Not that I want you to take them off, of course!”

Albedo stares at you. “Hmm,” he says, giving you no clue whatsoever if he doesn’t like it.

Maybe he’s just tolerating it…

The sudden tight squeeze to your fingers makes you raise an eyebrow at him. What is he doing? A concentrated look furrows his eyebrows, as his gaze drops to your intertwined hands… then he gives you another squeeze, this time much gentler, and you find a content expression is on his face.

“Well. Perhaps we should do this more often,” Albedo says. Is he joking? “I like how warm your hands are… as well as your cheeks, too. I’ll make sure to put this in mind.”

You don’t even have time to react when he lifts the back of your hand to his lips, placing a kiss on it.

It’s hard to miss that smile on his face.

[bonefall]

Honest question, how do you think Clear Sky would react if he got yeeted to the Dark Forest upon death. I've been thinking about this for an AU and I have how I'll do it, but I'm super curious how you'd approach it because I like hearing you talk about the worst man ever

Oh he'd build an empire. Like. Immediately. First couple of cats that fall in with him would end up getting turned into his lackeys.

I lean into the Christian coding a lot but like, unironically, Clear Sky is the sort of dramaturge who could deliver lines out of Paradise Lost without breaking a sweat

Paradise Lost is about how Satan's ego lead him to oppose God, how he justifies hanging onto his anger at having had his ass kicked, and how he rallies all his demons to continue to fight for a lost cause they can't possibly win. Milton basically wrote it to connect that theme to humanity itself, exploring the various ways that Satan and humans aren't so different.

It just feels so right with Clear Sky in mind. Everyone knows the "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven" line that the speech in Book 1 ends with, but the CONTEXT of Satan's words there is that he's looking at all his fallen allies doing the family guy death post at literally rock bottom, all these people who lost everything by following him, and he's giving them a pep talk.

"Ok yes. It smells like a sulphuric fart, the lights keep flickering, and everything is on fire," says Satan, "But maybe this is a you-problem. I'M this funny little thing called an ✨optimist✨ and you know what? Maybe God never built a minecraft base here because he's the real loser. YOU can say it's hell but you know what I call it? Free real estate babey. NOW LET'S GO FUCK WITH HIM!!!!"

And that's honestly the EXACT way I see Clear Sky reacting to something like that. Like he'd ever just lay down and die?? HELL no. He'd be PISSED that StarClan was SO UNGRATEFUL to him, that they did something so spiteful and unfair. Sure, he Made Some Mistakes, but he had to make HARD choices, and he was NEVER WRONG, and deserves his place being honored.

He might briefly have a moment of self-pity, woefully consider just giving up... but in the end, his damning would make him so mad. He'd want to get back at them as soon as his brief pity party is over (just like he did with One Eye), and he's absolutely incapable of ever NOT bossing other cats around. He just needs one or two goons before he's got a little base of power, and you KNOW that cats like Petal would do anything to go fight by his side again.

So yeah. If you're asking me, sending Clear Sky to the Dark Forest would unironically just result in the devil. And you'd have a great opportunity there, because StarClan SUCKS.

Both sides would be terrible options and you can really expand on the unfairness of WC's afterlife system, and the way that banishing a person like Clear Sky to an eternal prison with other desperate cats just ends up enabling and empowering his worst impulses.

[verygayandverytired]

it’s very obvious that they didn’t make the witch trials with viola in mind lol

both 2 and 3 have the tower bitch that makes other enemies invisible

viola has no good way to deal with this

this enemy was only meant to be fought by bayonetta using the bat demon

[sovereign-spaw]

Doing evil things to Vysks (giving him little forehead hearts)

[doubleedgemode]

@followers/whoever reads this: Please feel free to metaphorically wallop me if I say an absurd badly-reasoned take about the series, and also correct me. Thank you

[literallymechanical]

Alessandro Volta's Electric Eels

Okay so, it turns out that your cell phone battery is a basically a homunculus of an electric fish. 

These are the same thing. Let me explain.

@fishteriously, a paleoichthyologist, told me that Alessandro Volta invented the electric battery after studying electric eels and rays.  This sounded like a fun science factoid!  I wanted to know more!  I saw the claim repeated on any number of pop science articles from the last century or so, but none that quoted from primary sources.

The voltaic pile is one of the most important inventions, ever, of all time.  Before Volta, electricity could be stored in Leyden jar capacitors, which would discharge in a single, brief burst. Volta's pile was the first method of producing a continuous electric current, which launched the modern era of electricity as we know it. His explanation for how it worked was incorrect, but it was still a massive breakthrough.

Batteries use the same principle to this day, just with different materials (e.g. cobalt oxide, graphite, and lithium salts rather than silver, zinc, and brine).

But is it a fish?

This is Volta's first schematic of a battery, or "voltaic pile" – at the time, "battery" referred to a bunch of Leyden jars linked in series, the term wouldn't come to refer to piles until later. "Z" and "A" stand for zinc and silver ("argentum"), with brine-soaked paper disks between. It does look a bit like an eel?

But is it truly?

Surely, if Volta modeled the pile after electric fishes, I’d be able to find a citation!  Wikipedia is usually a good place to start when hunting primary sources, but no luck.  No mention of fish at all.  I trust fishteriously more than wikipedia, however, so I went digging.  Looks like Volta first reported his discovery in a Letter to the Royal Society in 1800.

Found the letter!

Aw beans, it’s in French.  I haven’t studied French since high school.

BUT WAIT. WHAT WAS THAT.

Une commotion électrique? A trembling eel???

Okay so now I NEEDED to read the letter in English. I found an English-language summary published by the Royal Society, but it looks like the only English translation of the full letter was in the appendix of an out-of-print book called “Alessandro Volta and the Electric Battery.”

So I bought a used copy. Let's see what Volta has to say about this:

"To this apparatus ... I have constructed it, in its form to the natural electric organ of the torpedo or electric eel, &c, than to the Leyden flask and electric batteries [battery = linked Leyden flasks], I would wish to give the name of artificial electric organ."

Yes! The voltaic pile was explicitly modeled after electric fishes – torpedo rays and electric eels.  Fishteriously was 100% correct. Volta never even calls it a "pile," it is always "artificial electric organ." A significant portion of the letter is devoted to electric eels and torpedo rays, in fact.

But also, the rest of the letter is bonkers.

He wrote pages on painful experiments with the artificial electric organ – touching it, poking it into his eyes and ears, making other people touch it, generally just shocking the ever loving hell out of himself over and over. He routinely shocks himself so hard that he has to take breaks. And of course, he licks it.

But that's not the best part:

He says that the artificial electric organ can be turned sideways and submerged in liquid...

"...by which means these cylinders would have a pretty good resemblance to the electric eel ... they might be joined together by pliable metallic wires or screw springs, and then covered with a skin terminated by a head and tail properly formed, &c."

There you have it. One of the most important scientific discoveries of all time, and it includes a crafts project for building an authentic electric eel puppet.

In summary, next time you charge your phone, take a moment to thank the soul of the electric fish inside of it.

[xenosagaepisodeone]

"birthday cake" is truly one of the most disgusting artificial flavorings to have been concocted in modern history. i would say that it's as if you were trying to recreate what tasting sugar for the first time would feel like to a 16th century rural peasant who subsisted entirely off of lentils and raw vegetables, but that would be far too innocent. this chemical compound is entirely a cynical product of marketing departments audience testing random words until they have generated a word combo that resembles a human experience, and then sputtering additive slop all over it in a pathetic bid to establish some staying power. it's like a sitcom bit where a robot asks "what if you could taste a happy memory" and then just comically combines ingredients people 'like' into a bowl until they have created an overstimulating mush, but there is no joke here. I walked past this homunculus in its many forms on the shelves of the grocery store for years and thought nothing of it. a monstrosity just sitting in the background of our daily lives. like an ad for shen yun or like. the devil. terrifying.

I had a birthday cake-flavored cake today (not to be confused with a. birthday cake. which is fine) for the first time and that shit was just 90% sugar. I couldn't even finish the singular slice that had been handed to me because the concentrated sweetness was so nauseating that I went to my room to lay down. I have a personal vendetta against whoever did this. to the world but also to me on MY SUNDAY AFTERNOON.

[starburstdragon]

Funniest shit in FMA is how on the nose Arakawa’s character names are like. The sniper is named Hawkeye. The ruler of the country is named King. The guy who gets possessed by the homunculus of greed and catalyzes that asshole’s character development into understanding that all he truly desired was a companion, nothing more, is named Ling Yao. Like it literally could not be more obvious what everyone’s deal is when they introduce themselves but it still shocks us every time

[blackrubus]

A little sketches with TimCon X) Tim is half-elf (just general citys elf not something special) and Con… Half Elf too))(Well, you know, the normal human Wizzar + Powerfull Elven Wizzard = wtf are you little homunculus………) They studied magic together, they was a lover, now they just a friends… (Sorry I truly love this pairing, but with my gf we have something another))

[justiceforskywarp]

Ngl I kinda like the idea of drifterxbeheaded if only because of the inherent mild horror of it all. You are a corpse possessing immortal homunculus. You will be here when I am gone. You will be here when the world falls away and succumbs to entropy. Any body I love is not truly yours. Any kiss I try to steal burns my lips. You have no voice, and you communicate by gestures and nods. I love you more than your selfish heart knows. I can never know if you feel the same. When I die will you possess my corpse as well, and move around inside of me? Would it be an act of love, or bespeaking to your nature? You destroyed your kingdom and your body, and you have the urge to destroy more to satiate your boredom. What can I give you to keep you here with me? What can I do to ensure you never see me as another challenge to be overcome? My love, my love, please, come closer, let me place my hand on your silent chest and rest my head against your shoulder, mourning who you were in life, before you became this. Let me wrap my arms around you and hold you close, reveling in what you are now. Let me pray you feel the same. Hold me close and stroke my hand—it is the only thing that tells me you love me.

[unfortunate--moth]

Makoto truly is The Character Ever. He wears a silly mask, and has a collection of other silly masks. He rode in on a balloon to rescue the main cast. He sometimes bathes fully clothed. He's the main antagonist. He's the CEO of a mega corporation. He kidnaps criminals from around the world and mass produces them into meat buns. He has two completely made up backstories for his mask. He sent the detectives a video of a fake terrorist attack. He rebuilt an entire submarine perfectly. He drives a luxury car with no license. He's 4'11". He caused the nonstop rain in Kanai Ward. One of his likes is raw ham. He's technically a three year old. He's a homunculus clone of the main character, who is considered the world's greatest mind.

[thewordinvention]

Y'know, I dunno if people are truly appreciatin' the bit before the change in appearance in that A.B.A and Paracelsus Extreme Arcade ending.

Both admitting they're twisted and their relationship hasn't exactly been healthy, but there's a desire to change.

A.B.A saying she doesn't really know if she can do better, given her background as a homunculus that literally hasn't done or had much of any life outside of this deeply flawed relationship.

Paracelsus pointing out that he also doesn't know if he can do better since he's an axe, a formerly bloodthirsty manipulative weapon of war.

Then he turns blue as a symbol that he wants to try. A promise to himself and A.B.A that they will try. That that desire to try is itself what indicates its own value.

And in the black, A.B.A accepts this. There's a lot she doesn't know, there's a lot Paracelsus doesn't know, but they'll try now.

As their song goes near the end 'Let's journey together. Normal or not, no big deal. We're just quirky notes in the symphony (Quirky note) That's why it's beautiful.'

Now, I ay a romantic sort meself, but, yeah, I'll agree. That's pretty beautiful.

And it's the story of a key-obsessed homunculus and a talking axe in the shape of a key. Quirky notes indeed.

[balis77]

Limbus Faust Theory Time

Ok, so I've been thinking about this for a while. Ever since someone on Limbus' TvTropes page pointed out some Faust (Book) symbolism in Faust's base ego I've had this big fucking theory about Faust that I already know can't be confirmed until her Canto. And considering that (By the current order) that's gonna take like 2 years, I'm just gonna say it now.

Faust is actually a clone of the original Faust.

My evidence

Faust's symbol is a Flask. Now while Play!Faust (and the actual guy he was partially based on) was an alchemist, a flask specifically is a symbol of one character in the whole book/play; the Homunculus. The Homunculus is born as a small flame inside of a glass flask (And yes this is what Father from FMA's initial form was based on), created by Faust's (pre-deal with the devil) assistant Wagner who wishes to see the world. To this end, the Homunculus accompanies Faust and Mephistopheles to a Walpurgis Night (Sound familiar?) where they discover the wonders of nature. At the end of their segment, they shatter their flask and become one with the ocean.

It's weird that Project Moon would give Faust, based on a character who's literally the namesake for the term Faustian bargain, a symbol based on the flask instead of say, a demon. Not to mention Faust's sword saying Walpurgisnacht and her association with the in-game event. Unless of course, Faust isn't supposed to represent Faust himself, but rather the Homunculus. And that word almost universally regarded as a term for an artificial approximation of a human.

Every base EGO (Other than Rodion and Mersault for whatever reason) has a shadow across it that correlates to their respective Sinner's backstory in some way. Of the ones we have so far; Yi Sang's is a wing (Representing the wings he saw on his other self in the mirror and his status as a wing asset), Ishmael's is an anchor (Her previous status as a sailor and metaphorically her weighing herself to getting revenge on Ahab), Gregor's is a bunch of grasping hands (His experiences during the Smoke war), and Sinclair's is a tree with a snake going around it (Representing the temptation Kromer gave him that he gave into, which resulted in his family being slaughtered by her).

Faust's base EGO has the shadow of three separate people standing around her. Going off the original story, these would correlate to Faust, Wagner, and Mephistopheles standing around the Homunculus' flask. This is the specific bit pointed out by TvTropes that gave birth to this whole theory.

The abnormality EGO each character gets also tends to relate to them in some way, on a similar level to how each EGO used in a realization in Library of Ruina represented certain experiences. For example, as of the time of this writing Ishmael has Roseate Desire, Blind Obsession (Both relating to obsession and refusal to let go), Capote (Blind rage), and Ardor Blossom Star (Guidance or the lack thereof without a goal).

Faust's current EGO as of this writing include 9:2 (Forbidden knowledge), Telepole (experimentation), Hexnail (Abandonment), and Fluid Sack (Lack of direction), which in my opinion fits more with a creation trying to find their purpose in life after being free of their creator than someone willing to sell their soul for infinite knowledge.

It's mentioned that Faust rarely sleeps, and she rarely seems to be as affected by things like motion sickness or exhaustion as the other Sinners, which points towards her having some kind of inherent enhancement in some way.

The backstory of the homunculus matches with a shared desire among a lot of the other Sinners who we do know the backstory of; namely the idea of exploring the world and finding people you can truly call companions along the way.

Now, why do I think Faust is specifically a clone of the original and not say, a lab-created experiment? Well:

When we see Yi Sang's flashback to him agreeing to join the Company, we see him being recruited by someone who has to be Faust. She has the same voice actor and character name color... except we also never see her face, and the figure notably isn't identified as Faust and is instead credited as ???. Not only does the game usually explicitly identify a character as long as they've been properly introduced, but even the "But Yi Sang didn't know who it was at the time" doesn't work considering he's remembering and knows who Faust is now.

Faust is Sinner #2 instead of Sinner #1. While we can't be certain that Sinner numbers are based on recruitment order (Though there does seem to be some precedence in that Heathcliff seems to have been around when Ishmael was recruited, and he's #7 to her #8, and #10 Dante may have been recruited in their original self before Sinclair, Outis, and Gregor and simply never introduced to the group) it's odd that someone who otherwise acts as the head of the company (Recruiting Vergilius and Yi Sang, making the bus, etc.) would only be #2. In fact it's odd for that person to be in the field in the first place.

We know cloning is possible in the City, enough so that the Head outright has a law governing it. Namely, that only one copy of a person can exist within the City after week's time period. Note how that's worded. Only one copy of a person can exist within the City after a week's time period.

Conveniently, we now know the inner workings of the bus just so happen to have a portal that leads to different parts of the Outskirts.

Faust has a habit of referring to herself in third person, but she's a bit inconsistent about it. In fact, a lot of the time it happens when she's boasting of knowledge specifically. But maybe she's not saying things in third person. Maybe she's intentionally saying "Faust is a well-renowned genius" instead of "I am a well-renowned genius".

Faust being a clone would also fit with who actually runs the company itself. It doesn't seem to be the Purple Tear (The three who attack Dante in the prologue seem to be her agents) and Faust is the one who seems to give everyone instructions, including both Dante and Vergilius, yet there has to be someone coordinating all the other aspects of the company like arranging travel and the Before and After teams. But maybe it is Faust doing everything. Just not the same Faust we're interacting with.

To sum it up, I think Faust is the one running the company, but not the same Faust who's part of the Sinners. I think she made a clone of herself, imparting all her knowledge into it before going to the Outskirts to run the company from there (Just like how Ayin and Carmen had their original facility there), leaving the clone to fulfill its own desire to see the world and also take the risk involved with becoming a Sinner in her place. The reason Vergilius gives so much respect to Faust? Because she's a proxy of the original, the original who recruited him and the other Sinners in the first place. The various shady shit Faust does? All on orders from the original. Faust's constant boasting of her own knowledge in third person? She's trying to convince herself that she's as good as the original Faust instead of just a copy.

If anyone has any evidence they can think of, feel free to reblog with it.

[oddeyes588]

A little late to the party but I do have some thoughts about Fantasy High Junior Year now that it's over. First of all, overall? Great season, had lots of laughs... but man, is it just me, or were there a lot of parts in this season that just... were kind of annoying? For me specifically, two big things... and no, I'm not talking about the Rat Grinders. While I'm a little disappointed with how that ended, I'm not too bothered.

Like, idk if this is a hot take or not, because they were arguably the biggest parts of this season... but I found myself especially annoyed and/or disappointed about K2 and Porter.

Like, don't get me wrong, I thought K2 was funny—especially at first—and Porter being the main villain of the season was 100% for the bit and I can respect that... but man, I couldn't help but be disappointed with Porter going full irredeemably evil, as well as just straight-up annoyed by K2's existence (at least in regards to the story. gameplaywise, making a homunculus of their cleric was VERY smart) (oh god if K2 exists in our world now she might come after me. dont forget me).

In regards to Porter... he was for sure an ass, he caused Gorgug a lot of grief with the MCAT, but he also had such a really sweet moment with him when that thing finally got signed?? It was very, like, not a perfect teacher but someone who did have his best interests in mind, paired with a really nice message about how it's alright to get mad. It was an important part of Gorgug's character growth this season! Integral to unlocking his Barbificer subclass!

...and then all of that just gets thrown away because turns out Porter was evil the whole time and this was all just leading up to his big master plan of killing a god and becoming a god of war. He was never offering genuine advice, he never cared about Gorgug or had his best interests in mind, he thought Gorgug's fascination with Artificing was stupid... and now he's dead. The End.

And that just feels... really disappointing, honestly. He was a chill guy, and yeah he had no right to bar Gorgug from pursuing what he wants and force him to take so many years of school in a single year, but it also resulted in some serious growth on Gorgug's part! It was great! Him being Evil The Whole Time felt... almost like a character assassination, honestly.

And then... there's K2...

I'm gonna be real here. I don't care if using a homunculus and shit for multiple divine intervention rolls is how it actually works in the rulebooks, and I know that objectively having more rolls is always better, especially when the stakes are high... and especially considering that Ally was not getting the rolls they needed otherwise.

This was hilarious. It was also supremely annoying, because it just fully took away from any big moment Kristen could've had this season regarding her and Cassandra after her creation... and this happened TWICE.

Like, from a storytelling perspective, I feel Brennan's pain viscerally. These episodes were truly such an experience for me, because on one hand, I was laughing at the sheer comedy of it all... but there was another part of my brain thinking this truly, truly sucked.

Kristen was figuring out her devotion to Cassandra, finding an understanding in what her role as Cassandra's cleric is... and right at the end of the season all of that kind of comes to a halt because in the end K2 did the divine interventions.

...Well, at least that still leaves some room for whatever Kristen will have to deal with in Senior year. Unlike Porter, who is dead and gone and we're definitely not bringing him back.