#wanting to be big and strong and a Proper Troll his whole life then being deeply uncomfortable with it ??

[femmestuck]

even his hair gets bigger

[keeper-not-hero]

MY THREE HUMANS AND MY THREE TROLLS ARE FINALLY DONE BEING THOUGHT ABOUT AND ARE NOW PLACED INTO THE WORLD FOR YOU TO ENJOY READING ABOUT, Massive post under read more!!!

[Obs: These ain’t kids. They’re all in their early 20’s tho.]

Gatolt Osbizb (name means nothing. = Muse of Doom.) - 

Looks: Hair that goes down to her shoulders, curly and surprisingly well groomed. Skin (and body) made up of tiny chunks stitched together. Fingers, hands, legs, slightly different shades of grey, with seams colored with the multitude of different blood types beneath. Blank eyes, shirt and pants. Simplistic dress code.

Personality: A hodgepodge of Troll flesh, bones, and a few cybernetic enhancements all stitched together into a singular being. Goldblood, purple blood, violet, and more. Both of her eyes are blank (though she can still see thanks to cyberoptics), and she is usually in at least a mild amount of pain due to the strain of her body barely being able to keep itself together. Despite all that, she tries to act cheery and tries to be the life of her friend circle, though not always with success. And besides, she rarely tries to mingle outside of it, feeling unwelcome in other circles.

Constantly requires maintenance which she usually does herself, and… fresh replacements. Her creator fucked up in making her, which means she is now slowly yet constantly rotting away, to the point every part of her body except the brain and enhancements are different than her first resurrection.  Her girlfriend, Bakhus, usually helps with gathering ‘replacements’. She feels like a burden due to her condition that sometimes leaves her bedridden for days, which makes her stay quiet and sometimes even enable her friends’ bad habits, because she doesn’t want to be a drag. Hates the fact her whole life revolves around her condition. Likes gardening and clockwork.

Bakhus Gredui (Greedy Bacchus / Dionysius. = Thief of Void)  - 

Looks: Hair that goes all the way to the floor and a few feet behind her, greasy, messy, and dragging food bits in it. Tank top with her sign (Sign of the Brazen) on it, suspenders and oversized clown pants. Juggalo make-up messy and somewhat faded, droopy yellow eyes, usually with a hunched stance. Very, very tall, and extremely strong - with some healthy weight to her body to go along with it.

Personality: A purple-blood that represses her kind and motherly urges under liters and liters of Faygo. A chef at heart and a great cook from years of experience, she constantly throws barbecues and small carnivals on her massive garden, which attracts lowblood and highblood alike. Her festivities have become small gathering spots for those who wish to mingle with the upper / lower classes despite their own status, and for spies of both the Condescension and those who oppose her. Bakhus is, of course, too busy grilling to mind that she has accidentally created the perfect neutral spot.

Despite her cooking prowess, the Faygo inhibits both her ability to feel much empathy or care about the taste of her food. Deliciously cooked and prepared meals placed near overly-sugary, soggy, Faygo-drenched pretzels. She carries a massive cookbook alongside her massive pot, which has recipes that certain blood types enjoy, and… recipes made out of said blood types. She has no qualms cooking violets and reds, and sometimes will go so far as to grab Faygo-drunk trolls in her cookout and take them inside to ‘rest’. They’re never seen again.

Also keeps a small spice garden. Gatolt usually takes care of it, with whatever isn’t used to cook as fertilizer. Occasionally, she sends the butchered corpses to Marciu. Who also happens to be Gatolt’s creator.

Marciu Shelli (Like, y’know. Mary Shelley. Frankenstein’s author. = Seer of Space)  - 

Looks: Short hair, think Eridan, but with no streak. Scrawny to a fault, and clearly underfed. Big scientist glasses with special prescription lenses, white lab robes that hide his starving figure and his left hand gloved with thick, hazmat-suit-like protection. The right one is a prosthetic, indigo tubes and wires trying to replicate the sensation of the original with… some success. Pointy nose, sharp teef.

Personality: Anxious, skittery and, quite frankly pitiful even for an indigo blood, Marciu spends most of his days either robbing graves for corpses or putting his ill-gotten gains to use in his laboratory. Deeply resentful of feelings he has about himself, he buries them deep within him and, to make sure no one can say he is valid or try to empathize with his pain, keeps pushing himself further and further down the hole until he pushes everyone away. Having lost a hand to a nasty accident involving a bone saw and a few too many of Bakhus’ spiked snacks, he also has a mechanical replacement.

A master of biomechanical engineering, he constantly creates half-troll, half-machine abominations to help him around the lab. Rotten servants just barely able to move their joints with hollow eyes and faces, mechanical hearts pumping blood and fuel throughout the system. Still, despite his best attempts at being as repugnant as possible, his friends still cling to him.

Except Gatolt. Gatolt has actively tried to kill him multiple times, being stopped only by Bakhus’ eternal kindness to the weirdo that occasionally gives her “aged” ingredients. Also, his human friends.

[Why does he have human friends? Idk, Pesterchum + machines or AU where humans and trolls live in the same world after a few Sburb/Sgrub/Swhatever versions playing out after homestuck and Lord English being gone.]

Bert Kairos (Albert Einstein and his whole relativity stuff + Kairos, a greek concept of time. = Mage of Time.)  - 

Looks: Very short and very curly hair. Dark skin, both legs missing, though one has a very unpolished, simplistic metal prosthetic to help him stand in one foot. Right arm missing too, half of a prosthetic attached to it,cut off at the elbow from an accident. Hasn’t bothered replacing it yet. Blouse with a robot symbol and shorts, chin stubble. Brown eyes.

Personality: A gentle soul who makes more time for everyone else than he ever did to himself. Spending literal days away from his parents’ home, staying in his makeshift workshop creating toys for the kids on his street and to help the people of his community. Lost both legs and an arm from accidents with heavy machinery and cars that he work repairing to make a living, usually for meager scraps out of the kindness of his own heart and the belief that it’s all part of a greater plan that he barely gets enough to survive, relying on crutches and Marciu’s prosthetics that often break because of even more accidents due to his very precarious working conditions.

He dreams of one day being able to inspire people, though. A big, endless machine of silly, simple delights. Not curing the world, not controlling the weather, a machine with the same utility as a painting. A machine that could cover the entire world in its width and length, proof that humanity can do anything if it just bands together. A wish that sometimes consumes his mind as he spends hours on end, instead of sleeping, building small moving pieces that will hopefully one day help fill this whole. This magnificent machine he will make to help mankind flourish through its artistic value, that they will sing his name in praise for generations, that mankind will be uplifted until we don’t need work, money, barriers, differences, just a homogenous mass streaking across the cosmos with machine brilliance. 

But, he has way too many people to take care of, so he never dabbles on it too much.

Andy Eissuh ( :) - Lord of Life) - 

Looks: Blonde hair tied in a manbun. Bushy stubble beard all over his face. Smuggest fucking grin you’ve ever seen. Blue eyes. Average height, an air of superiority that is as annoying as it is believable due to how he carries himself; like an untouchable douchebag. White tuxedo and business pants, y’know, like a doctor. Right? He’s even got the white cross! Yeah, sure, that sounds right. Like he cares about proper dress code for doctors.

Personality: A very, very, very bad doctor. A very bad doctor that has just enough good reputation and far too much money from their family to let their pretty much 100% patient loss rate slip without anyone being able to pry into it. Patient comes in, body bag goes out, and nothing ever leaves the hospital. The one time he actually saved someone was by accident, and it was a botched (and misdiagnosed by him) liver transplant where he accidentally removed the appendix instead of said liver, forgot to replace it, and the patient recovered in a short while with the help of the nurses from what he later learned was appendicitis.

Believing himself to be able to do no wrong, with a chirpy, colorful yet aggressively passive personality, he keeps his friend group around mostly to dispose of the bodies without many questions asked, and so he can feel better than the pathetic wretches he considers them. Completely blind to his irredeemably cruel medical malpractices, which he didn’t even study for, he simply bought his way into a degree because he “could feel it was my destiny.” Soft, sweet, and completely unhinged. Finding great joy preying upon the insecurities and naivete of his peers, which he feels is a breeding ground to use and abuse them for his own needs. Shoulda been smarter if you didn’t wanna get taken advantage of, duh!

Cain Pyrite (Cain the first sinner + Fool’s Gold. = Rogue of Light. ) -

Looks: Hair slightly above his shoulders, dark and greasy. Sickly pale skin, beeg librarian glasses. A nice fuzzy coat, plus shirt, plus jeans. Eye symbol on his coat. Looks like he hasn’t seen the sun in weeks, which, yeah, is absolutely right. Gentle smile, though it occasionally cracks into a nervous attempt at hiding… something!

Personality: Dedicated to… no, OBSESSED with preserving occult and ancient knowledge. Scrolls from ancient alchemists, bones of kings, relics thought long since lost hidden on the back of his seemingly normal book shop. Spending most of his days with no clients, he occasionally gets someone who is aware of his darker inclinations. He is always happy to trade knowledge for knowledge and artifact for artifact.

Only, not always the originals. No. Never the originals. 

Always finding a way to spin a story and make sure that he can spot out any fakes, he builds his collection of convincing lies, and hidden truths. Friends with the others since grave-digging always inherits some fun and interesting things, and his appetite for the esoteric and forgotten is only comparable for his taste in interesting and unique foods.

[the-river-person]

Confidential Medical File

Patient Name: Sans Admission Date: 21st RESET, Year 2 of New Era. Doctor: Whimsol M.D., D.O. Recording Transcripts from Psychodynamic Therapy Session 8: Doctor Whimsol: You mentioned that you’ve been depressed and somewhat inactive because of it for some time. Sans: Yeah, Papyrus says I used to be more active. But..uh. The whole endless Reset thing kinda made that pointless. Doctor Whimsol: But you’re starting to be more active now? Sans: Its easier than sitting and thinking about everything. And if I’m going fast people don’t have time to treat me like glass or avoid me, I’m just in and out. They gotta get used to me. Doctor Whimsol: You want their company? Even if you don’t like the way they treat you? Sans: They don’t mean any harm, really. All they’re trying to do is show the Judge the proper respect. But... Doctor Whimsol: You don’t want to be the Judge? Sans: I never did want it. But a thing like that? You can’t really say no. Its a great honor to be asked at all. I guess I just wish it hadn’t been my responsibility. That I didn’t have to make a decision about whether or not to ask for help. I either risk everyone’s ignorance by telling them about all the murder and Resets, or just keep dealing with it myself, forever if I have to. And I could do it, I could be the one who judges and fights. If it meant keeping everyone happy despite what was going on, I could do it forever. But... I just... wanted to be normal. I wanted to be me. Doctor Whimsol: But you are you. You’re Sans the Skeleton. Sans: I don’t feel like a Sans. I feel more like a Walbaum or a Scala. Doctor Whimsol: Ah, Fonts. I’m afraid I’m not very familiar with the Skeleton Clan’s naming conventions. Can you explain what you mean? Sans: They’re used for newspapers. Big precise lines and practical attitudes. Modern and structured, but they have something of the old days about them too. Sometimes Scala can get a little fancy with the opening letter, I had a great Uncle, don’t remember him much now, but he used to be great at introductions. Got everyone’s attention and sounded really interesting and important. But after that he didn’t waste time and did everything the “right” way even if it was boring. Doctor Whimsol: I see. And Comic Sans? Sans: Supposed to be informal, friendly. A sort of jokey font for relaxed things. Good with kids, good for comics. Heh, I guess that’s why its called “Comic Sans”. Doctor Whimsol: You did mention in a previous session that you were having a harder time making puns. I didn’t realize it was such an important part of how you see yourself. Sans: It’s like all my life I had this knack for seeing all the little things in people’s words that made them unintentionally funny. With just a short quip I could make them see it too, make them laugh. Sometimes I’d prank or troll people, not in a mean way, just to catch ‘em off guard. My brother and I had this thing for doing jokes back and forth all the time. Doctor Whimsol: Really? I thought Papyrus hated your puns. You said he complained loudly every time you made one. Sans: Nah. Its because I purposely made bad jokes to annoy him. The same ones. All the time. For nearly a year. I had some original stuff too, but it was funnier to see him overreacting. He still jokes and puns more than even I do, but people assume its unintentional for some reason, he just likes to be high quality in everything he does. Its his charm. Doctor Whimsol: Overreacting? You don’t think he minds that much? Sans: He finds it a bit annoying, but that’s what older brothers are for. Mostly he’s just overreacting cause that makes it all so much funnier somehow. He does say that I could be less obvious about it though. Doctor Whimsol: And now you feel like you’re losing your sense of humor? That could be a sign of high anxiety or depression. Sans: No, I’m not losing my sense of humor. Exactly. When I hear the jokes or puns its still hilarious to me. But its like I’m losing my ability to come up with them, at least on the spot. Doctor Whimsol: That’s actually not that surprising. Sans: Really? Doctor Whimsol: From all you’ve told me, you and your brother moved to Snowdin the year before the Resets began. Though an adult, you’d just lost your parents to a tragedy at the edge of the Hotlands. Sans: *mumbling* the conveyor belt. Dad got his hand caught in the conveyor belt and mum was trying to help him get out. But the steam vents are on an automatic timer and they... didn’t make it. Doctor Whimsol: So it was just you and your brother. You left your job at the Hotland Labs. Especially since your old employer, ...Gaster! Your old employer, Doctor Gaster hadn’t recovered from his injuries in a few decades, and your coworker had been his replacement. Right? Sans:.... I... Yeah. Sure. Doctor Whimsol: And you just wanted to get away, so you moved out here where nobody knew you. Where you could “Just be you” again for a while. Sans: That didn’t last long. The King called on me, as the Judge. Doctor Whimsol: Before the Reset incident? Sans: He wanted me to judge his sins, to tell him to his face what he really was for caving to the pressure and for going through with his plan. So I did. Doctor Whimsol: That can’t have been easy on top of everything else. And then the human came and the Resets started. You said that it took a long time before you started remembering them, but when you did it was like waking up to a nightmare. Is that right? Sans: Yeah. Is this going anywhere? Or...? Doctor Whimsol: You were trapped in the same few weeks. Making the same jokes and doing the same puns. Not only had you lost your parents but you lost everyone else too multiple times only to have them spring back to life. The physical consequences gone, but not the trauma. In the end you got used to it, just  going through the same patterns like a script. Why would you even need new jokes? Nobody would remember them, and you had already fallen into the pattern of repeating bad jokes as a way to cope and interact with your brother. Sans: But when everyone started to remember I could still do some new stuff, and I had the occasional prank that no one had seen during all the Reset stuff. Doctor Whimsol: It would be impossible to go that long without ever thinking up something new. But I doubt you ever really had to come up with anything on the spot. It’s possible that you had somewhat of a backup of interpersonal and general knowledge enough to build some quick ones on the spot. But when that backup ran dry... Sans: I had no more material. No more instant jokes. Doctor Whimsol: When nothing changes for a long time, you start to exhaust the creative material you have. Plus you were using it as a coping mechanism, so its not surprising you burned yourself out. Sans: I guess its only jokes, its not a big deal. Doctor Whimsol: It is if its that big a part of how you see yourself. But you said you don’t really see yourself as Sans anymore. Do you like the Fonts you see in yourself? Sans: I guess I don’t mind being a bit more serious, but I dunno about being all precise and perfect all the time, you know? A little fancy, sure, that might even be fun. But I don’t want to be important. I don’t want to be headline news. Doctor Whimsol: You don’t have to be, if you don’t want to. The person who gets to decide what kind of person you are is you. Think about what it is you want to be. It doesn’t have to be Sans, or Scala, or Walbaum. It can be someone new, someone you feel comfortable being. Sans: I dunno. Doctor Whimsol: Take your time. There’s really no need to answer right away. I’ll check in again at our next session and see if anything has come to mind, but there’s no rush. Just focus on relaxing. Don’t be afraid to lean on your brother or your friends if you’re not feeling up to it. Trying to go it alone can be exhausting. Sans: Right. I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks Doc. Doctor Whimsol: I’m afraid that’s all we have time for today. But I think we made some progress. At least we helped to clear up a few things. I do want the chance to discuss the memory problems you’ve been mentioning, though. Next time. *End of recording* Notes: I feel that Sans has undergone a great deal of trauma. Despite appearances he is a very strong individual, especially to have held on this long without a breakdown. Most other monsters or humans would have begun to fall apart long before this. But even the strongest people can’t hold out forever. I wish he’d be more open with his brother and friends about his problems. I am sure it would be of great help. Another concern. While most everybody has that sensation of an invisible aura of rainbow color from the Solution, and most of us have grown so used to it that we forget that it’s there, Sans doesn’t seem to have it. I might not have noticed a year ago. I didn’t notice when I saw the trial on screen, and because we don’t have a means to keep the recordings past Resets I don’t have a way to go back and check. But at the time he seemed vibrant enough, the colorful Sans I’d heard about and seen. Serious for the role of Judge, yes. But was he ever as vibrant as everyone else has become? And what is this strange grey palour that seems to fall about him. When I look close there are nothing wrong with his colors. It’s more like he feels grey, like those with an aura feel colorful. It worries me. I want to check his medical records and see if there was anything strange about the Solution dose when he got it.

[spookyshake]

*proceeds to do exactly everything but work on my pets* H-have some faeries and lore dump I had rotting in the cabinet

[Light Faerie - Justine] A stern light faerie who manages Faerieland's treasury. Rules and regulations are her creed, and she will not allow any misdeed under her watch.

Despite her uptight demeanor, she has a peculiar fondness for games of chance. She seems to have an unwavering confidence in the certainty of numbers- and the dice, once cast, are fair and absolute arbitrators in her eyes. Of course, it could just be that she's addicted to gambling. When there's no clear protocol for a situation, she opts to flip coins and leave it to luck and happenstance.

-Fwaku's life was saved by Justine, who had happened to be passing by the area. She decided to flip a coin to determine his fate- and as luck would have it, he would survive. -The townspeople that had found Fwaku suggested that Justine should give the draik a name. The exchange probably went something like this: Townspeople: Thank you great faerie!! Would you give the honor of naming this child you just saved????? Justine: (uh shit) Give me a moment. *furious dice rolling* Justine: I grant this child the name...F..W...Q...Fwaku. Townspeople: WOW!! WHAT AN HONOR!!

(What kind of name is Fwaku......)

-While Fwaku is generally irreverent and unlikable to most parties he comes across, he displays a great deal of respect towards Faeries because of his background. Justine, in her act of saving and naming Fwaku, also unwittingly left him with a strange blessing: he has extremely good luck to the point of absurdity, which has saved his skin from karmic retribution countless times in the past.

---

[Fire Faerie - Heliae] A go-getter fire faerie with a particularly strong affinity to her element. Still young for a faerie, she has trouble controlling her excessive energy and often bursts into flames when she's excited.

Fun-loving but a bit careless, she loves to attend concerts, festivals, and other events where crowds gather...a serious fire hazard waiting to happen. She doesn't seem to fully grasp the danger she poses to those around her, and was originally sequestered away in Faerieland before she decided to run away- as you do, when you're a young faerie whose had your freedom denied.

Very explosive. very explosive. very explosive.................................

---

[Earth Faerie - Lottie] A lax but cryptic earth faerie who appreciates tranquility. She wandered into Kiko Lake some long time ago, and has since stuck around trying to achieve what she calls 'perfect bliss.' Generally found quietly meditating and contemplating her surroundings- usually with sweets and a cup of borovan as accompaniment. Her perception of time seems to be a little out of sync with the world around her.

Though usually impassive and calm, she hates above else having her peace and quiet disturbed. She will, with a quiet but tremendous fury, catapult raucous intruders out the window. Her longest recorded throw was over a mile! So impressive is her throwing skill, that kiko children often dare one another to see who can get flung the farthest.

-Because the architecture around Kiko Lake are built with kikos in mind, it's not uncommon to see the faerie bump her head on the door frames and ceilings. Fortunately, there's also never a shortage of bandages in the vicinity.

[Dover] Brown Kiko. Ever since Lottie began living on their family land generations back, their crops have prospered- especially asparagus. Now, the family is in the Borovan business, exporting premium blends of chocolate and asparagus for which Kiko Lake is now famed.

Dover isn't the kiko's real name- that was the name of his great great grandfather, but Lottie doesn't seem to make a distinction. All of her little helper kikos are 'Dover' to her. His job is to run around fulfilling Lottie's errands, whether that be procuring snacks or chasing pesky kids out of her yard.

---

[Dark Faerie - Alluce] A vain dark faerie living near Neovia, known to kidnap Neopets to force into servitude. She periodically terrorizes the citizens of Neovia to spread her influence. She wants, above all, to be feared and revered! ...but her actual ambitions tend to be quite small and petty. Knowledgeable about mirrors and magic involving them.

Though she revels in garnering fear, she's rather full of fears and cares herself- the thought of the true horrors lurking within the depths of the Haunted Woods makes her quiver. All smoke and mirrors, no bite.

-Doesn't get along well with Clariote. Alluce can't maintain her high-and-mighty mistress of evil theatrics against Clari's general irreverence. ABSOLUTELY D I S R E S P E C T F U L

---

[Air Faerie - Nephele] A fickle air faerie scout with a light-hearted but arrogant demeanor. One of the faeries tasked by Justine to recover Faerieland's lost artifacts, which were scattered across the lands in the aftermath of the Faerie's Ruin. Holds a strong belief that Neopets are lesser beings, considering them to be incompetent without Faeries.

Rand (Faerie Tonu) and  Bell's (Faerie Tuskaninny) supervisor. She usually leaves the Neopets to do all the dirty work and takes credit for their efforts, usually under the justification that Neopets 'owe' the Faeries anyways.

---

[Social Media Faerie - Papilla] A young faerie, rare in her time (Einse’s Future). Big-time celebrity and social media influencer, she loves travelling Neopia and blogging about her adventures (and promoting sponsored products.) Has a great love towards Neopets and lives life at her fullest interacting with them, but holds feelings of isolation due to being perhaps the last known faerie in Neopia. She’s invested in discovering why Faeries have all but disappeared in her time, and spends some of her time flitting across Neopia looking into the matter. She has a terrible sense of humor, and she sometimes has strange fits where she floods her social media with incomprehensible jokes and memes- terrorizing her followers’ feeds. She does all this in earnest, thinking her jokes are hilarious, but her fans generally think she’s just trolling and get a kick out of it. This creates a strange cycle of positive reinforcement as Papilla continues to get many reactions from her bad jokes, reinforcing her confidence in her humor. SOMEONE STOP THIS FAERIE

------------------------------------

[The dynamic between Faeries and Neopets] Neopets aid Faeries, Faeries grant blessings. The dynamic between Neopets and Faeries is mutually beneficial, for the most part.

-Power of belief is essential to grant power to a Faerie's magic. Neopets, by helping Faeries on the premise that they will receive a reward or be granted a blessing, creates a transaction of belief. This is the premise of Faerie quests, which plays a vital role in powering the barrier that protects Neopia from wraiths (among other things.)

-Faeries are perhaps better defined as 'memetic' as opposed to 'elemental'- their magic is framed on a concept or idea, which relies on the belief/understanding/recognition of the themes surrounding the idea in question. The more wide-spread and strongly understood the idea, the greater the manifestation of a faerie's magic. (Motes, though simpler entities, also work on the same logic)

The basic elements, for example, are widely and easily understood as a concept- which may be why the majority of the faerie population falls in this category. (Something like a singular 'Fire' Faerie, for example, would probably be TOO POWERFUL AN IDEA to contain as a single being, so instead there's just a lot of them.)

-Names are very important, because they give shape to a concept or idea. -When they're cut-off from belief, they lose strength (Bottled Faeries) -They can shrink! Probably to conserve magic. -A Faerie without wings is essentially unheard of (with the special exception of Water Faeries). Taking away their wings is one of the most heinous things you can do to a Faerie. -Faeries are born spontaneously? Most of them just appear one day out of the ether or whatever. -They're ageless and nigh immortal

they're......the OG gijinkas <-- hold on this is actually somewhat relevant but that's a story for another time

[Shenkuu - A curious case study of Kaia, the Shenkuu Faerie] Kaia the Shenkuu Faerie appeared spontaneously in a relatively recent timeframe- probably within an average Neopian lifetime. She's a young faerie, younger than most of her kind. She's in the same category as Jhuidah and Taelia- faeries with a strong conceptual connection to the land they watch over.

There are no other (known) faeries in Shenkuu, which implies that the faerie population in Shenkuu is very low or...non-existent? At the very least, it can be said that Faeries are novel in Shenkuu, given that Kaia mentions how everyone stares at her. If we go a step further, we could postulate that Faeries, as a concept, isn't a part of common knowledge in Shenkuu as a whole.

Almost as if the concept of 'Faeries' have never existed here...?

-Shenkuu was a land that had barred itself from the outside world for an undetermined amount of time. The land only recently opened their doors to the rest of Neopia (Cyodrake's Gaze) (*in my lore I'm pinning that down to like 10~15 yrs ago for character reasons but passage of time in Neopia is not very well defined so.... shrugs) -It can be assumed that there was still some exchange occurring with the outside at a smaller scale (Airship merchants, travellers who ended up in or out of Shenkuu by happenstance, Neopians living in areas close to but not quite in Shenkuu proper, etc) -Assumably, Shenkuu has a history perhaps dating back to the heyday of Altador and other 'ancient' civilizations (1000+ years) -This creates a situation where: a. There never were faeries to begin with in Shenkuu or b. There used to be faeries, but they disappeared from Shenkuu AND from common knowledge

-Kaia's manifestation may have been the direct result of the opening of Shenkuu to Neopia- with the arrival of outside trade and ideas, so too did the knowledge of Faeries. Once the faerie 'meme' took hold in Shenkuu, where there was a void of Faeries, it took form as the Shenkuu Faerie: Kaia. This is why she's so young as a faerie- she probably spawned sometime between Cyodrake's Gaze and the present day. (Alternatively, she might have existed in Shenkuu before the events of Cyodrake's Gaze but I think it still holds that she popped up in a pretty recent timeframe.) Kaia herself only seems to know Faeries through the knowledge she received from travelers.  

[hamaon]

Okay I know I already asked but if you feel like allowing another request, Lan Xichen?

Lan Xichen, oh Lan Xichen.

How I feel about this character No thoughts, feelings only. Flute swirl cute. Fingers? Cute. Gnawable. So elegant and conducts himself so gracefully. What a good boy. What a joy to the eye. Someone should kiss him a lot.

He’s so consciously good to everyone all the time. He’s so invested in being fair and he thinks about the world and how people and he himself relates to it so much. (“If there was no one but you in this world, Young Master Wei, you could do anything at all you wanted, but no man’s an island and we live in a society.”)

Massively fucked up about him always. It’s so fucking unfair. It’s, oh no. Canon gives him no path to recovery. I talked about cathartic negative emotions before, but this one feels too raw. From a shipping perspective it is a pretty satisfying note to end on ngl, but my mind still shies away from such total devastation. I can handle Jin Guangyao passing away, apparently, but letting myself think about Lan Xichen having to deal with the circumstances that led to that for the rest of his life is how I end up with fifty bazillion post-canon scenarios where there’s some closure because fuck that, actually.

All the people I ship romantically with this character Just the one guy. This is now a xiyao free space.

People have probably pointed this out before, but it really struck me the other day that the clothes Jin Guangyao is wearing when he first gets legitimized have the Jin sigil on the damn shoulder area like everyone was wearing as wee baby students during the Cloud Recesses lectures. During those episodes post-Sunshot, he’s not even a proper Jin. He’s a Jin pupil. He’s on PROBATION.

Meanwhile Lan Xichen is wearing the biggest, fanciest clothes he does in the show (I guess you could make an argument for the costume in the Empathy flashback), this is absolutely a man with power. Put them next to each other and look at them for a little while and you have like the largest possible gap in social standing they can have while being recognized gentry.

And this discrepancy was all that I could concentrate on while watching the episodes with that one Jin gathering where Wei Wuxian downs Lan Wangji’s drink and throws his weight around. Lan Xichen waits for the cup-slapping feat. Jin Guangshan to be over and quickly goes through the motions with the end-of-event niceties as a Lan representative and then, in his heavy-ass robe, hurries after just-an-intern Jin Guangyao like wait honey here’s a napkin (handkerchief) from my purse (sleeve) and oh man, he does not personally experience the person that is Jin Guangyao in terms of their social standing.

...Then they stand shoulder-to-shoulder in these fits in later episodes/scenes and pass opinions back and forth without either one being a particularly dominant voice in the conversation, generally sharing an outlook. Cute.

...End of xiyao free space.

My non-romantic OTP for this character Wei Wuxian! Okay, not really, but I do find all of their scenes together and their varying levels of tensity entertaining. I love Lan Xichen’s moments of gentle trolling in the show, whether or not they’re out of any particular personal fondness. Wei Wuxian shows a certain carefulness around Lan Xichen, I think. It’s a fascinating relationship in all of its iterations.

I should answer Lan Wangji, probably, in that he’s the actually close non-Jin Guangyao relationship Lan Xichen has that I’m most about but, hm. You know how sometimes people ship things in a way where [character A] is the one they’re actually invested in, and [character B] is merely a convenient vessel to make whatever they want to happen with [character A] happen? That’s pretty similar to my feelings on the twin jades.

I like Lan Xichen’s devotion to his brother, and how you can read a whole lot personal sacrifice into it (you will never convince me that the baby brother wasn’t their mother’s darling), but that’s about Lan Xichen, not the both of them. The small gestures of concern from Lan Wangji’s side do make me feel some emotion about them as a unit, but it’s, as has been pointed out, a very uneven relationship. That’s not really a bad thing, and it’s really what you would expect considering everything from their birth order to their family situation, but I don’t feel particularly strongly about Lan Wangji, who necessarily is the main focus both in canon and fandom because of that, so yeah.

My unpopular opinion about this character I suppose there are the usual opinions regarding ignorance, intelligence and passivity. That last one is what I dislike personally; basically every scene Lan Xichen is in he is doing some sort of complex situation management. Unfortunate that a character so resistant to the textual bad guy of the story (mob mentality lol) is such a joke to the fans at times.

However, I’m not here to talk about any of that. I’m here to talk about Lan Xichen and force! Used against people, but also in general. Because I’ve often seen expressed the wish that he should “get” to kick ass more and oh man, I don’t think Lan Xichen should fight, not more.

Okay, let me back up a little, it’s not that it’s a horrible thing that he, like, was very effective and active in a war most of the cast fought in, or goes on night hunts occasionally. But it doesn’t seem like it’s of a particular interest to him, either.

There’s this promo picture for the Untamed that I love where all the other Lan are posing with their swords (not Lan Yi, we’re not counting Lan Yi), but Lan Xichen’s is nowhere in sight and he has his flute, instead. It’s not that it’s not a weapon, also, but it’s so much more than that, and even when wielded as one it has a much wider variety of uses than purely destructive ones. The Lan have their music, but Lan Xichen seems particularly associated with his instrument over his sword.

Or take the live action scene where he blocks Nie Mingjue and people love to focus on that one part, but he... never draws the blade, the scene starts with him standing to the side, because he understands that it would be better if the two more relevant parties in this conflict managed to sort their differences organically between themselves, and ends with him standing aside again, because Meng Yao indicates he wants to take the lead. The bulk of the defending/persuading he’s doing is purely verbal (and eloquent!) and he raises his scabbard only when it’s literally the one thing that’s stopping Meng Yao from being cut in half. It’s the final option.

I like it when characters have “obvious” in-born traits (big, strong) that would seem to lead them down a certain path, but do not in fact suit them particularly well in reality, and when they are allowed to be recognized for qualities they themselves feel more connected to, which to me in Lan Xichen’s case is diplomacy and de-escalation. It can be an interesting reminder every now and then that, yeah, he could probably take control of a scene within seconds if he felt like it, but really only because it underlines how he’s... not doing that. When Zewu-jun has to actually go on the offensive, it feels like a loss. That’s not what this person is here for, fundamentally.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon The eyes-closing thing is nice, it says to me that he often finds the goings-on stressful, and that the way he recharges is by checking out for a moment. He’s worked hard, he should get to do that! Permanently. Let Lan Xichen walk out of society for good.

...Oh no, he kind of did.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

I Need to Talk About “Problematic Faves” within TWDG [3/?]

Character design, being drawn towards characters we find visually attractive, and how big of a role in plays in our feelings towards them.

“He's a murderer but like.... a cute murderer, y’know?”

This goes hand in hand with the whole first impressions thing we’re talking about, but rather than talking about the character’s traits, dialogue, history, and overall character, we’re talking about physical appearance.

This is something I want to touch on even though I already know the answer to it. It’s just a food for thought sort of idea that I wanted to explore given how much we talk about our favorite characters appearances while discussing them with one another.

Let’s face it: We’re all a little shallow at some point in our lives.

“Don’t judge a book by it’s cover” is bullshit. I pick up that book in the first place because it’s pretty and has sprayed edges. The only reason I put it back it is because I can’t find an actual summary of the book because publishers think we want to read a bunch of “Best book of da year!” by Who The Fuck Cares written all over the place rather than an actual summary...

....What was my point?

Oh, right, character design.

When we’re first introduced to a character, we immediately make a judgement of them based off their looks.That’s not to say that our opinions remain the same based on our first impressions after only looking at them, but it’s something we do initially. 

Game developers, artists, writers, and directors will usually strive to make their characters as visually appealing to us as possible because that’s what makes us go “ohhh they pretty *picks thing up.*” 

There are issues that develop from this, such as unrealistic expectations of what true beauty is and how it actually affects the audience. After taking in so much of this content, I started to wonder if it had any affect on why we have “Problematic Faves” and if there IS something linked within the way we view them as physically attractive. 

While I believe that appearance is an important factor in character development and is what draws us to them, it’s also a bit more complicated than that.

One of the many things I adore about the final season is it’s character design for all the students at Ericson. All of the Ericson kiddos have their own unique looks and manners of which they hold themselves.

Sure we’ve got Louis and Violet, who we all gush about all the time on how beautiful they are. How many times have we talked about Louis’ freckles or Violet’s eyes or just how gosh darn pretty we think they are while incorporating it into writing our fanfics or headcanons or creating out artworks of them?

But what’s great is that they aren’t all “conveniently attractive” or someone a shallow Hollywood director would look at one time and say “there’s our star!”

Willy is a fan favorite among many in our community. What I love about his design is his teeth. He’s a kid growing up in the apocalypse without proper dental care. His teeth are crooked, there are gaps between them, and he’s even missing some. If that same Hollywood director were to look at him, they’d either slap some extreme braces on him or cast him as a tree troll. 

But not everyone has those perfectly straight pearly whites. Some of us have crooked teeth, or we’ve had painful braces to try and straighten them, or we’ve lost or broken a tooth at some point. You know how refreshing it is to see a character as likable as Willy show up with that smile of his while still being considered a fan favorite? 

Speaking of refreshing, what about Ruby? Everyone loves Ruby. She’s not tall and thin, she’s short and thicker. 

I remember seeing nasty posts questioning why someone like Aasim would have any interest in her because of the way she’s built, and that that pisses me off. 

It’s so damn great to see someone like Ruby portrayed the way she is in this game. As someone who IS more on the shorter and heavier side, it’s hard to find a character like this who doesn’t suddenly become slim therefore “prettier” over the course of the story or who isn’t a terrible or whose weight and build is all their character is. The last movie I watched that featured a plus size main character was that god awful Sierra Burgess movie on Netflix and that character made me want to punch things. 

All I can say is thank god for Ruby.

Speaking of which, how about Omar? He’s short and stocky, too, but y’know what? We made this dude a GOD. What does that tell you?

These are examples using more minor characters that fall into that non-”Problematic Fave” tier, but what about our characters that do?

I used to have a strong theory that some characters got more love and attention JUST because they’re more attractive to the audience, even if their character is boring, holds little to no plot relevance, or is an “evil” being beyond forgiveness.  

It’s a theory that I believe still holds some truth, though I think that truth lies more with the younger fans, or those who aren’t quite as mature. 

As someone who has worked around elementary school children, as well as 13-14 year olds, I think I can safely make the assumption that they tend to take things at face value a good chunk of the time.

Pretty person = Good!

Not pretty person = Bad!

That sort of deal. 

So, the question I pose is:

Does a character’s level of attractiveness have an effect on our willingness to forgive some of their more problematic behaviors?

I’m sure most of you read that and said “Uh, is this a trick question? No?”

When you think about the kinds of stories that we’re always told about the beautiful princesses who are pure and good and the ugly stepmothers who are evil and bad, it’s not hard to see why the younger ones would see things as more black and white rather than a shade of gray. 

If the pretty princess poisons her “evil” stepmother during their morning tea, how easily do we forgive her just because we’re told that she’s a pure, pretty princess? We know poisoning someone is bad, but... if the stepmother was ugly and evil, then the princess must have had a reason for doing this, right? So... it’s okay... right?

Is the princess justified in her actions, even if the stepmother wasn’t doing anything more than drinking her morning tea?

I look at that and say, “No,” whereas a much younger person might say, “Yeah. The stepmother was evil.” 

Young children are fascinating to talk to, by the way. They’re sponges who absorb knowledge like you wouldn’t believe but somehow they still take everything at that face value and believe whatever the “good” person says in a story until you help them see the bigger picture. That’s why they tend to be more susceptible to falling for twists. 

But once you explain to them the more complicated elements of the princess and the stepmother, they’re intelligent enough to grasp that the princess is wrong. 

I believe once we grow older and open ourselves up to more complex stories full of gray characters, learning about them through experience, we start to see that beauty isn’t just in the eye in the beholder, but also that it doesn’t mean shit at the end of the day. 

You can have the most beautiful person in the world be your main character, but if that beautiful person drowns a bag full of kittens, suddenly they aren’t so attractive, now are they?

One of a kid’s favorite example of a good-looking antagonist is Hans from Frozen. 

While I think the whole “he was actually evil the whole time haha we fooled you” thing in that movie is garbage, I give it credit for being the first exposure of this concept to young kids, sending them down a path of looking at different characters they see in a new light. 

We like characters who are attractive because, well, they’re attractive. But we’re  also mature enough to know that their attractiveness isn’t solely based on their appearance. It’s merely the seed that only grows with development, personality, and an arc. It only makes up a small portion of why we like a character in the first place. We know that just because someone is good-looking, it doesn’t justify their actions. 

But for those who are still growing out of those black and while fairy tales and just starting to expand their views of different characters while learning that looks can be deceiving, are they more likely to forgive a character or not fully understand that they’re in the wrong just because they’re visually pleasing? 

Another example outside of TWDG that I can give you is Nathan Prescott from the game Life is Strange. I’ve mentioned this game several times before, and even wrote a whole segment on it in my Louis and Violet essay from a while back. 

When I was a young lass, I picked up this game and really liked it. I wasn’t as into it as I am TWDG, but I liked it enough to play every episode as it came out and then check the tag to see what everyone thought. 

While browsing this tag, I noticed that a lot of the fan base seemed young. Makes sense, it IS a game starring teens set in an academy setting and I was young, too. 

But with that, one thing that always bothered me was how a number of young people talked about Nathan. 

Nathan who, if you haven’t played the game, is one of the antagonists. They would gush about this kid, seeming to make up excuses for the appalling things he did and it felt very tied to his looks. 

I’m sorry to any Life is Strange fans who might’ve been one of these young fans... but that really is the impression I got at the time.

Maybe I just didn’t get the hype about this dude who drugged girls so he could pose and take pictures of them because of his weirdly under-explained relationship with the surprise villain of the story, but he doesn’t seem like the type of guy to get all “Poor, precious, beautiful baby boi didn’t deserve this !” about. 

Then again, if writing this has taught me anything, I might have missed something by not being involved with that fandom, but what I gathered was that he didn’t become the redeemable character they all thought he would be and they didn’t like that, so it becomes harder to try and justify the things he did because he didn’t end up being good in the end even though they all thought he would be. I guess. 

But, gathering that a lot of them were so young and going off the content I predominately saw... I don’t know. It didn’t ever feel right. I had suspicions that lead to this theory. That’s what I’m saying. 

This can apply to other fandoms, too, where a group of people will take a character/person they find attractive and gush about how pretty they are rather than anything else that makes them interesting. Not everyone, of course, but I get the feeling you all know what I mean and have come across something like it before. I’m just trying to explain it. 

Or maybe it is just me and you have no idea what I’m talking about. 

Either way. 

Returning back to our “Problematic Faves,” lets ask this question about them in particular. 

How much of David’s attractiveness plays into my love of him? 

I mean, he’s not a bad looking dude. In fact, I dare say that the Garcia brothers are both very attractive guys. I give ‘em both a 10/10. 

But does that actually aid in my actual feelings towards him at all? 

What about the others we’ve talked about so far?

I don’t see many people talking about how pretty they think Kenny is... though his mustache IS majestic and that’s something we all agree on.

And Lilly’s okay. I guess. 

Nate could be a good-looking dude if he’d just put his crazy eyes away.

I believe our best bet it in getting a more clear answer to this question would to be take a quick look back at Minerva.

Remember how I said Minerva was so hyped up based on a two second appearance in the ep3 trailer? Granted, we did have more than JUST her appearance to form this hype around.... but admit it, a huge part of the hype was how good she looked.

She looked awesome.

Hell, just seeing her had me excited to see what she would do in ep3, even though I had the feeling she wouldn’t be an ally.

I used to have a hard time wrapping my head around why so many people love her as much as they do, and I previously thought it was based a lot on her appearance.

Is it ignorant and shallow of me to think y’all loved her based solely on her looks?

Probably. Yes. Yes, it was.

Now that I’ve looked into this further, I see that there’s more to the love and interest surrounding her, but..... it’s kind of what my first thought was? In the beginning? 

Either way, it’s still an interesting idea to consider when thinking about a character you love.

With that said, what if we apply this question to a character who is less of a “Problematic Fave” and more of my “God Tier Fave.”

You all know that Louis is my favorite character across ALL the games. My love for him is vibrant, but one of the many things I love about him IS his character design. He’s a visually appealing guy, and his personality, different traits, dialogue, flaws, and character arc only build onto the attractiveness of his character.

If Louis didn’t look like this, would I still love him?

Assuming that everything else about him is the same, then yeah. 

What if the developers went with the concept art of him that looked like a odd Harry Styles knockoff? Would I still love him?

Again, I want to say that I would, assuming that everything else about him be the same. But going with that certain concept art does take away an important aspect of his character and his relationship to Clementine.

Many of you have told me how much you appreciate the fact that Clementine and Louis represent a sweet, healthy black couple. That’s important to all of us. If we went with the first concept art, then that’s something we’d lose. Would we still ship clouis? Probably, but again, that important element and representation is lost and that would affect our overall opinion of it, even if just a bit.

But, what if Louis looked exactly as he does now, but were to do something awful? Would I still love him?

Well, my first instinct is to say, “Yes.”

In ep3, Louis tells us that he purposely broke up his parents marriage because his father wouldn’t let him take singing lessons. He broke into his father’s credit cards and made it look like he had a mistress, then made sure his mother knew about it. He did this over the course of a year. Then, when the divorce was finalized, he threw his father’s words back in his face: “You get to be happy or you get to be rich. You can’t be both.”

Knowing this, I still love Louis.

What he did was awful, but the reason I don’t hate him or even like him any less is because of how he acted while telling us. You can feel the guilt and remorse in his voice, the shame that he was once a person who thought that was okay to do.

He did that a long time ago, he learned from this terrible mistake he made, went as far as to punish himself by taking on a irresponsible, piano-playing jokester persona who anyone rarely ever took seriously. Louis changed for the better and he’s still a likable, relatable, lovably character despite this.

But in order to dig a little deeper into this idea of attractiveness and just how far we’ll go to try and justify a character based solely on their looks, I then thought:

 “Okay, then consider this: What if Louis and Minerva switched places with him doing all those things she did that made me dislike her? Would I still love him?”

And things got a little complicated.

Because my immediate first thought was “Yes.”

That shocked the hell out of me.

Why the fuck would I be okay with LOUIS acting the way Minerva did, but not MINERVA herself? That makes no sense.

Louis betraying us on the boat by knocking Clementine out and locking her in the cell isn’t suddenly okay because it’s LOUIS.

Louis showing up on the bridge to try and murder Tenn isn’t suddenly okay because it’s him and not MINERVA.

The reality is this: If Louis and Minerva traded places, I wouldn’t love Louis. I don’t care how attractive his character design is, I would feel the same way about him that I feel about Minerva. I love Louis for who he is within the context of the canon game, but if Louis traded places with Minerva, he wouldn’t be that Louis that I love.

The problem with asking myself this is I know Louis’ character and I want to think the best of him. I’m attached to him. I don’t want to imagine him doing anything that horrible because I know that would be an breaking of his character. His appearance has nothing to do with it. 

But my first instinct was to side with him. 

That’s when it all came together.

A character’s appearance is important in the first impression, but our perception of that character’s attractiveness is only elevated or lowered based on the important things: personality, backstory, relationships, flaws, fears, regrets, change, and complete character arc. 

So how does this apply to my love for David?

Well, it eliminates any possibility that I only like David just because he’s pretty.

Perhaps I’m not so shallow after all.

Yeah, that’s the conclusion of this segment: something I already knew. But, I felt it was a concept that could spark some thought about what attractiveness really means while debunking any idiots who may grasp at straws with the insult of, “You only like [blank] and excuse their toxicity because you think they’re hot!”

... except the Life is Strange community might come after me for implying a nicer version of that towards one of the antagonists... but hopefully you understand the point I was attempting to make in bringing that up as an example.

I like David’s design, but him being an attractive dude isn’t why I like him. If anything, his looks being appealing to my eye is at the end of my long, complicated list of why I like him.

Conclusion:

Looks matter initially, and our perception of a character’s attractiveness is either elevated or lowered based on the more important qualities of their character, problematic or otherwise.

[continued in 4/?]

[twitchesandstitches]

Commission of a brain-growth Konyyl and a hyper muscular Polypa growing bigger!

----------

Konyyl Okimaw felt the light flowing through her. It meshed with the cybernetics in her head, firing up her brain and upraising her thoughts, and for a moment, she thought she felt her skullplates tingle.

It felt good; her thoughts ran faster, felt more clear, and she felt… not smarter, exactly, but favorable.

“Hey,” said Polypa up above her.. “You doing okay?”

Konyyl glanced up at her. Polypa bounded atop a large exercise machine she’d assembled herself (if not terribly elegantly), lifting herself up with muscle power alone, and she swung up high. She moved impossibly high, blurring fast, and it seemed that the wind itself bent around her, buoying her higher still. There was no indication of actual powers over the wind. But she had momentum, her drive spilling out into the world around her, and Konyyl…

Konyyl’s head tingled more as the light shone forth inside her, and she saw clearly. She saw the power in Polypa. It was like a moving breath, like the true reality-shape of the idea of movement and drive, in all its forms and variations, coming down to her and then pulsing into the world around her. It was in her muscles, most of all, and before her, they visibly swelled.

“Yep,” Konyyl said, watching with clear admiration.

And then Polypa crashed to the ground, making a crater. She stood up, and was so unaffected by it, she yawned and patted the slight gut she’d been developing since her powers first properly manifested.

Polypa grinned beneath her bandages and flexed. “Not bad, huh?”

Konyyl smirked. “Nah,” she said, standing up to her full height and walking to Polypa. Around them, the old ruins they had decided to spend a few months in solitude together to safely develop their powers without fear of collateral damage stood tall; there were more gaps in the wall then there was actual wall, but there was still enough structure to build a proper shelter into it. It was at least enough for them to camp out and make their meals.

Something big lumbered out there; both Polypa and Konyyl turned, but nothing appeared before them, and they relaxed. Another hunt would not be needed, but as it were, they had no shortage of meat.

As Polypa kept moving, it was protective. She stood in front of Konyyl, as if to ward away damage, and something stood out to the latter.

Polypa looked… taller. Konyyl remembered always towering over her, and they were well past their adult molts, but even so, as Polypa turned around, the single eye uncovered by the medical bandages was on the same level as her own.

Konyyl wondered if that was a thing that happened, when someone strong gained the powers of the gods of Breath. It didn’t occur to wonder to her what happened to someone like that with the Light.

------

Konyyl knew, as everyone did, what the source of their powers were; the gods themselves. The gods were, very obviously, real. Their powers alone pervaded the world, shaping it and giving it form. In the more literal and immediate sense, they gave power to mortals, bestowing upon them a fraction of their own limitless spheres of influence, and a direct connection to the gods made their existence somewhat hard to deny if you didn’t want to play contrarian for the sake of it.

There were, roughly, two sets of gods, though they all were part of the same broad group. There were the oldest gods, who had made the trolls like Konyyl and Polypa. There were the younger gods, who made the humans. Together, they had both set the carapacians free from their servitude in bygone days, and both of the two sets had long since married into one great pantheon, and with their powers, had shaped the world with the same powers they gave worthy mortals.

Breath, the old stories went, to drive mortals onward. Blood to connect them as a single living community. Life to shape them, Doom to measure their span. Light to give them knowledge, Void to define what knowledge was. Time to forge a world for them to be in, and Space to make that world a reality. Heart to make them truly alive, Mind to make ‘alive’ mean anything for them. Rage to break down boundaries, and Hope to safeguard them with principles.

Konyyl and Polypa were two trolls who had passed the tests of aspiration, and they were attuned to Light and Breath, respectively. From then on, much of their lives had been spent honing those powers, in much the same way the gods themselves had. Konyyl, as part of her Light training, had learned more obscure secrets; that the gods had once played the game of universe. The eldest of them made the troll people, crafting them in their image, and bestowing upon them blood and powers in homage to the individual gods. In the course of time, said the old legends, they crafted a doomed world, but from it came the younger gods, who also joined the great game, and in doing so, all of them earned their divinity.

Konyyl’s powers illuminated, in the metaphorical sense. She wasn’t sure if her powers made her smarter, but she felt like she could think more clearly, and more quickly, and it felt so easy and fun to do it. And when she listened to these old stories, they sounded… right. When her powered were flowing (except that was Polypa’s thing; Konyyl always visualized her own powers as being like a light within, expanding her consciousness)

They shaped the world, and returned to the mysterious realms they had won, to continue the mysterious affairs of the gods. But before they left, the gods had created the people of the world; peopling it with those in their image; of the towering and powerful trolls, their blood vibrant with rainbow shades. The smaller and clever, enduring humans, who survived where others could not. The carapacians, who were said to have aided the gods and were rewarded with freedom from servitude and given a role in the world. And finally, the consorts, the small creatures whom the gods had labored to aid in their own quests. It was these last, the smallest and weakest of all, who had been trusted with the secrets of the gods, and whom the key to pass their powers down to.

The consorts didn’t much keep in touch with the modern ways of the world; others changed, but they didn’t. The world did what it wanted, and the consorts did their own thing. If people had lately taken to technological means of modifying their own bodies to do things like completely reworking their muscular systems, extensive cybernetic refits, brain augmentation hardware suites, or fully functional organic claws for humans or lusis-based overhauls for trolls, that was other people’s business.

Perhaps, some vague thing in Konyyl’s awareness suggested, the consorts should have at least asked if anything unusual might happen when someone with the right kind of modifications or even mutations embraced the gifts of the gods.

It might not have changed anything, but it would have at least given them time to plan for it and get excited ahead of time.

------

It was normally tradition to remain at special facilities, like temples or universities, to continue training as disciples to the gods and refine the powers bestowed by them. This was at least tacitly to reduce collateral damage, since even though their powers were far from the world-wrecking wonders the most fanciful accounts and visions of the ancient times portrayed, they could still do a lot of damage. Polypa and Konyyl chose otherwise, preferring to sequester themselves in the wilderness and honing their powers there.

Also, Polypa might have broken a couple dormitories in an overly enthusiastic arm wrestling competition, and Konyyl claimed she didn’t mean to openly announce the high priest’s lottery scam after talking to him for five minutes and seeing the contents of all his plans. It worked out, pretty much.

Konyyl stifled a small and rather nasty smile as she thought about the damage; it was nice to leave your mark, and it was just worth it to watch the high priest’s look of serene disinterest just melt away.

Come to think of it, that was when her head had started tingling when her powers were really flaring up. Konyyl felt the back of her head, her claws touching at the join of plates that flared out into her mane, and she felt the cybernetics mounted directly into her plates, interfacing with her brain to buoy her thoughts and speed up information processing, chemicals produced by quasi-biological processes and pumped into her brain to keep recursively rebuilding it into better forms.

She glanced aside as Polypa, who was currently fixing up her exercise machine. She’d broken it, again, and she ran through them alarmingly fast. Polypa was definitely taller, but that might have been because of her cybernetics. They were subtle, the refits that plugged into important parts of the body and gradually redesigned it for maximum power and super-trollish capability, but you could still see the faint sub-dermal swells against her chitin, the little marks where they had been surgically inserted through. It was the same principle as her brain enhancements, if not the same technology, and Konyyl supposed it could extend bones and make your skeleton bigger; that’d make you taller.

It was just that Polypa, as long as she’d known her, had always been strong but it was a lean kind. She was fit, she was athletic, but it wasn’t the kind of physical power that manifested as big rock-breaking muscles. Polypa had always wanted that kind of look, though. Whereas currently, Polypa’s back was visible to Konyyl and was so ludicrously defined you could use it as an anatomical map.

Polypa turned. Her shoulders… yes. Her shoulders were broader around than Konyyl’s whole body. What was she pumping into herself to make her hips so big (and how were they swinging so good)? Her arms were broad like classic blueblood biceps, and a round, surprisingly hard gut projected out, seemingly pointed straight at Konyyl. The chitin plates on her gut looked surprisingly like really defined abs, too.

She wasn’t just buff; Polypa was getting shockingly huge. And, Konyyl had to admit. It was… kinda hot?

Konyyl had always been a big troll; she was buff, she was broader than most doorways, and her breasts big enough to require specially designed clothing; her hugs tended to leave people with difficulty breathing. It was… odd to see her friend gradually becoming bigger than her.

Polypa sat down on a makeshift bench next to her, and slugged down a big drink of water. “Hey, thick stuff. Pass me something to eat? I’m-” Her belly rumbled so loudly it cut her off.

It was the fourth time this hour alone that had happened. Wordlessly, Konyyl reached into a meal bag and pulled out an entire roast chainsaw weasel, a local beast that likes to dive into your face and weaponize its rotating bristles for a grisly effect. Polypa’s jaws unhinged, and she swallowed it whole.

She ate another three. “Guess working out and powering up is hungry work,” she said nonchalantly.

Konyyl was distracted by the interesting way the light played on her muscles. Was her chitin supposed to cling that tightly to them…?

“Hey.” Polypa reached forwards and played at her hair. “Your hair looks different. You cut it or something?”

She felt surprisingly cool; a few shades more jade then her own blood, maybe. Konyyl swallowed, trying to suppress the twisty feelings. “No way, I like my hair this way…!”

“Huh.” Polypa poked at the back of her head. “Your horns look different, too. Bigger, maybe? They’re definitely higher up.” she squinted. “You’re definitely looking thicker. Pretty sure your boobs weren’t always that big, and they’re pretty damn big.”

“...Huh.” Konyyl contemplated this, with a strange flush, and focused on Polypa’s increase in height. “Don’t suppose the people that trained you said anything about powers transforming you any?”

Polypa tilted her head. “I think so, but I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to be a big deal. Do you think you’re growing wings or something?”

“Nope.”

“Probably not a big deal, then.”

-------

A few months passed.

Konyyl taxed herself, posing herself ever more complicated and difficult questions and practical problems from a variety of books, each supposedly the engineering equivalent of those philosophical with no real answer, and she wasn’t sure she was supposed to have actually found solutions for them. She journeyed to nearby ruins, which somehow changed themselves to produce absurdly difficult puzzles, and day by day, she found them trivial to solve. The knowledge didn’t pour into her brain, it just felt more… obvious.

In her, the light shone forth, and her thoughts blazed like a sun. It shone all the brighter for a troll who was temperamentally ill-suited for cerebral work. The puzzle solving, at least, was to her liking; it tended to involve sliding big blocks around for some reason, and running around and jumping on platforms, and doing things.

Polypa did not do anything quite as interesting as that. When she explored the same ruins, she didn’t find puzzles. Instead, whether it was her getting horribly lost or the strange dungeons recreating themselves to make something more suitable, she found a vast obstacle course, and leering over them were horrible, dreadful things.

She told herself, they weren’t real. Nothing like that could be real. Nothing with so many eyes, with mouths hanging open in places that were just impossible.

And they chased her, and she fled. They were not something that could be fought, and when they came, she thought she heard the flames again, at her heels, and the warmth of them was upon her face again.

(She’d never told Konyyl how she got burned. She never wanted to. Some things ought to stay buried, along with the bodies responsible.)

And as they did, she fought the fear. She jumped the platforms, moving impossibly far, something more than mere muscle power carrying her aloft. She danced around sudden blades that bit and snapped out of nowhere, she let momentum carry her beneath barriers and she just kept going, and the beasts faded away behind her as she navigated her way through the maze. She passed her hand onto a blade on the way out, to test a theory, and she wasn’t surprised to find that her hand went right through it.

It wasn’t about danger; it was about her finding the determination to keep going, and turn that into something physical.

As those months passed, the divine energies settled into their bodies, merging with their biologies. Normally, there would have been some physical changes; it was hard to say how there wouldn’t be. Normally, they’d be mild; perhaps they’d grow taller, more outrageously buxom, as befit their body image. But, then again; both of them were so drastically mutated.

Those cybernetics were part of them, merged into their bodies, and the divine power flowed into them. And as the gods above watched, intrigued, it changed them.

-----

Konyyl pored over an ancient book she’d brought with her as a personal challenge. It was an old tome, written in the most incomprehensible codes devised by an ancient scholar many centuries ago specifically to be as hard to break as possible, and she had intended to keep looking at those codes and push her powers to try to understand them.

Her clothes felt tight, and she kept loosening them; her breasts spilled out her shirt window, rising towards her jaw, and she could feel her shorts getting compressed, the hems crawling closer towards her waist as her butt expanded…

The first few weeks of that happening every time her powers started working had been distressing. Now, as she felt her breasts sloshing with random movements, it was strangely comforting.

“Like, uh. Uh… yeah…” she mumbled. It was getting harder to find words; not harder to think, not in the least. But her thoughts were changing, twisting and growing like a tree growing its branches high, folding inwards and then growing again.

There! She felt something swelling, and she touched her head, and felt one of her implants. It had… grown.

And she felt her head growing, her skull shifting and grinding in a patient, calm way, and she put her heads to her temples as her head visibly swelled upwards, and then outwards, a round sphere slowly expanding and dwarfing her face.

Her brain, it was getting bigger.

And she could feel her mind changing. The light shone forth, ever brighter and more clearly, and she almost drooled as her thoughts multiplied tenfold, reaching a clarity of thought she hadn’t even thought possible. Suddenly, things that seemed obscured or impossible appeared, to her, blindingly obvious. In a flash of inspiration, she reached for the book, ignoring the weight of her head, and studied the inscriptions. She did some quick and rushed scratchings.

Not five minutes later, she smiled victoriously at a fairly rough (accounting for linguistic translation difficulties) but quite understandable translation of a code deliberately engineered to be impossible to break.

The enormity of what she’d done pressed on her.

“Oh,” she said softly, and as she did, she felt her lips grow just like her head was. Her power kept shining, and it flowed into the rest of her body. Her breasts grew, billowing outwards. Her hips grew, her butt fluxing outwards so much that the weight almost dropped her backwards, and the muscle of her body was lost in the soft flesh rippling over her now, every inch of her increasingly less fierce in appearance. And it felt so… good. Every inch of growth, the faint burn as she felt her body growing upwards, her body getting taller, was like a dozen warm fingers sliding across her with the greatest of expertise. “What’s happening ta me?”

She said it with a smile, however.

----

As this very thing happened to Konyyl, Polypa was experiencing her own changes.

Her own powers were about perspective, and so she explored outwards, periodically killing any monster that had been left behind on the world (the gods, particularly their leaders, being notoriously scatterbrained) and threatened their training grounds, and she spotted such a beast.

She crouched atop a branch, acutely aware of her muscles growing, her gut sticking out and her breasts two notable weights on it, and as her power flowed through her, she felt it more keenly.

Her stomach was huge now; a big mass of flesh pressing over her thighs that would have looked gravid if not for how undeniably solid it was; when she walked into things and her gut hit a wall first, the wall broke. It was certainly one of the more surprising changes, but far from the only one.

The beast, a serpentine thing with various tentacles sliding beneath it, came close, and Polypa leapt. With a might cry, she swung out. Her fury flowed into her, her arm swelled, muscles expanding into enormous spheres of rock-hard muscle and breaking her chitin clean off-

Her blow landed, and the impact produced a crater.

Eventually, now covered in monster blood and bits of marmalized organs, Polypa stumbled out, coughing through the dust. She groaned, and turned about to look at her kill, and she looked up, and kept looking upwards. She saw the size of the impact wound she had made, and her jaw dropped beneath her bandages.

“Holy shit,” she said, grinning.

She considered her arm, which was still a massive bundle of muscles, and it wasn’t shrinking down. She flinched as her other arm itched, and a series of pinpricks spread down it, twitching and contorting in odd ways, and then the muscles there grew as well to match her enlarged arm, so that they were both just as nice and huge.

The same itch, slightly painful but still good, like a really intense molt, came over her whole body; she lurched up, her legs and torso elongating as she grew a couple feet, her powers suddenly flowing so ferociously that she couldn’t help but get bigger to properly embody it. Her cybernetics changed as well, poking out through her chitin and pumping their contents into her with more determination than ever.

“Mmph!” She said, muffled by her teeth and bandages; all her muscles were growing, all of them, swelling into metal-hard rigidity, and thne softening, layers of something like fat growing over them but mirroring the look of muscle definition so she looked impossibly shredded. Her breasts, perhaps as a consequence of that kind of fatty growth, billowed outwards, almost toppling her downwards.

She felt a ravenous hunger, and there was the beast she had slain, right in front of her, and she descended upon it, her jaws wide and opening impossibly wide for a troll; with ease, she swallowed it whole, her belly easily fitting even that behemoth, simply sliding it in and expanding to accomodate such a massive thing.

Even her internal muscles had been amplified, as she felt her belly working like a trash compactor, crushing her meal down into a more easily digested form of biomass, but her belly didn’t shrink much past a certain point. It remained firm, round and huge, even bigger than before.

Polypa poked it, a little surprised to see both her belly remaining so big, and the very clearly defined abs girding her gut. Her light touch gave her an intense shock; she felt so sensitive on her gut, so much that she cried aloud with pleasure.

“Oh… okay!” she said, distracted from the faint sensation of her muscles continuing to get bigger. “That’s… that’s new!”

-----

And then, near the end of their training expedition, they had a moment when it really hit them just how much they’d changed. Or, at least, it hit Polypa.

She was working out, even more massive than before, and so imposingly huge she made blueblood strongmen look puny. Polypa pumped a set of heavy weights forged from the thigh-bones and skulls of abnormally dense monsters that inhabited the area, each weight-end heavy enough to daunt even a blueblood. Nevertheless, she lifted it with each.

With each pump, her muscles swelled.

As the months passed, she had grown… bigger. She had only Konyyl for comparison, but she did notice that the trees looked oddly smaller and more frail of late, and she didn’t have the perspective to realize she was getting taller; in fact, by now, she had grown nearly twice the size of a normal troll, so that even a human would barely come up to her knee-joints.

But as the power of Breath flowed in her, her will transferring into sheer physical might, they made her swell outwards too. She wasn’t aware of the specific technical details, but she wasn’t unaware of her cybernetics powering up every day, gradually transforming beneath her skin, their precious alterations to her body getting more intense.

Polypa worked a repetition lift, and she felt her muscles growing, rebuilt into ever more massive shapes, the very tissues swollen to that the shape of her arm was lost beneath gigantic piles of muscle that she kept getting distracted by. Because, wow, that felt good feeling ‘em flex. She strained, and as the power flowed, her biceps got bigger.

She stood up, dropping the weight, and it punched clear through the ground with its sheer weight. She didn’t even strain when she picked it up, which was an interesting thought.

The slimmer troll who had once been burned was a distant memory, Polypa considered as she patted an increasingly massive stomach. Her hips were broad enough to just ruin doorways, her thighs were huge slabs every bit as muscular as her back and arms, and poking out of her were cybernetic bits that had somehow grown with the rest of her, ramping up their production in the process. Even her butt was growing, and every single inch of her muscle was impossibly defined, growing into shapes combining valuable fats and actual muscle tissue into some strange, harmonious and healthy fusion of the two.

And her gut! She kept thinking of it as the repository of her power, and she kept feeling it swell with her power every time she exerted herself. It didn’t hang down so much as stick out proudly, sliding against the grass with a delicious shiver, its lower regions descending below her knees and riding her thighs, and its upper slope supported the massive spheres her breasts had become. But the whole thing wasn’t soft in the least, metal-hard abs coated in chitin with olive-bright seams for flesh to expand through, and it was like you took an ordinary twelve-pack, added more abs, and then inflated it. Polypa’s ravenous appetite demanded more, every day, to fill that gut, and it never seemed enough. Monsters came squealing down her gullet, and her belly effectively crushed them into submission, and somehow, it wasn’t enough to fuel her continuing muscle growth.

Polypa admired herself, and flexed again, just to enjoy the swell of her arms powering up. The power she commanded was like… water, she supposed, in constant motion within her, and all she had to do was want something, direct it-

Like this. She stirred it, she flexed, and her bicep visibly grew twice as large, billowing over her arm. She calmed it, and it shrank down. And yet, she still felt the slow tickle of her whole body growing.

She became aware of a soft noise behind her, and a crash.

Polypa turned, not terribly surprised to see Konyyl standing there. And there was… a lot of Konyyl to take in.

Polypa smiled at her as Konyyl hastily tried to gather up the assortment of designs she had probably done up as a light mental exercise, overturning several hundred years of scientific orthodoxy without meaning to. It was hard for her to reach them over her newly engorged breasts, so large that they smacked into the ground just as Polypa’s gut was doing. Polypa grinned at the… wobbling, shaking sight, Konyyl’s butt so absurdly massive that it double-humped up behind her, her clothes ripping around the big globes, right over her head. Her body, broad and soft and plush enough to sink into with one big exception, was practically lost between it, and looking distinctly curvy; hourglass-shaped, in fact.

“Babe, I bet all that brainpower went straight to your boobs. And butt.”

“They ain’t!” Konyyl said crossly, managing to gather them up, and Polypa reflected that her voice did sound different. A bit higher pitched, skipping over consonants and syllables too time-wasting to bother pronouncing. It was quite a shift from her old deep voice, but it wasn’t as pronounced as the physical changes.

Konyyl stood up, awkwardly stuffing her notes into her cleavage. Her breasts were, relative to her, about as big as Polypa’s belly was, in that they were so incredibly huge it was a wonder she could move. Her hips were, if anything, even more massive on her frame, her butt ideally big and squishy enough for her to sit on it for hours; ideal for a burgeoning mastermind, or brainiac. Where Polypa had gotten muscled and huge, Konyyl had not, though she was taller; enough that Polypa’s sense of her own growth was distorted, as Konyyl stood about as tall as Polypa’s elbows. Significantly bigger than a normal troll, but to Polypa, she looked so… small.

And gaved up at her with a reverent, adoring expression. It was hard to see beneath her head, admittedly.

Of all the changes to them, Konyyl’s brain had physically transformed into something more drastic even than Polypa’s muscle gut. Despite Konyyl being so much shorter than her, Polypa’s gaze flicked upwards and took the full measure of Konyyl’s head. From the face, she looked more or less the same, if somewhat more preoccupied, as if always listening to something just out of earshot. But above the hair line?

Her head had swelled, her brain physically growing larger as it had been transformed, reshaped much like Polypa’s muscles. Konyyl’s mind was now on a totally other level, and not exactly on the same plane of reference as anyone else might be, and it was impossible to say what wonders were in her reconfigured brain meats; as it was, her brain’s physical mass was probably larger than the rest of her entire body, and her skull had rearranged itself around it, towering up high into a vaguely orb-shaped mass above Konyyl, and Polypa kept wondered how the hell she supported all that.

Long, curling terminals of cybernetic processors extended out from the thinking sphere at regular intervals, mixing with the harder parts of her skull; her hair had receded from it, like a forest giving way to a rising mountain, so that its every detail could be seen plainly. Her horns hadn’t receded or shrunk but they looked like they had, swallowed up by her growing head and now only visible as some pointy bits near the base. Additional horns grew along her head, in a trail of increasingly bigger hornlets, rising up to a huge set at the top big enough for Polypa to actually lift herself by.

Konyyl gazed up at her placidly, a few terminals pulsing with a faint soft glow, and much of her brain visibly glowed from within. The light was faintly golden, with a hint of green, and her eyes shone with the same color. Her enormous bulging lips, big enough to pull in Polypa’s whole fist if necessary, tweaked into a faint smile completely without guile. Wrll, more than usual for Polypa.

“You, uh.” Konyyl spoke in a way that Polypa had gotten used to; but it was very different. She tended towards simpler words, forgot things in the middle of sentences, and stumbled over word choices only to default to something simple. It would be easy to think that she had become less intelligent, but really, she was incomprehensibly smart now. It was just that she had become so unbelievably intelligent that it was unwieldly, and she didn’t much care for wasting time finding the perfect word when a simple one would do. But her smiles said a lot, and this one was very knowing.

“You want to kiss me,” Konyyl said, her vast brain glowing.

Polypa’s heart beat faster. “Do not!”

“Ya lyin’,” Konyyl said, scooting forward. Her breasts slid into Polypa’s gut, squishing it and even lifting up its dense mass, her milk-engorged breasts making delightful sloshing. Konyyl leaned forward and kissed her belly, and Polypa made an embarrassingly small squeaking noise.

Suddenly, she wanted her in her arms. Polypa blurred, her body swelling with desire, and a great force carried her forward, and moved Konyyl up with a delighted squeal, her massive head making her spin like a discarded top, right onto Polypa’s own formidable bustline, and into her waiting arms. Polypa adored the feeling of her soft body settling into her muscular embrace, those big breasts against her face, and the weight of Konyyl’s magnificent brain casting them all into shadow.

She kissed Konyyl on the lips.

“Your powers are about knowing and making things work out in your favor. Mine are about me doing stuff if I get motivated,” Polypa said, her eyes half-lidded.

Konyyl’s brain was still glowing, and she kissed Polypa on the nose. “Guess we’re both showing our powers off, huh!”

[novarasalas]

Second Look Review: Launch Date

I’m back!

Yeah, it’s been almost two months since the season dropped, but I think that’s how long it took me to get around to post my S7 reviews too.

I’m not gonna lie, one of the reasons this has taken so long is that I was so upset in the aftermath. I knew there was no point in trying to go back and have another look until I calmed down. 

And I have calmed down. And here we are.

So we start with my thoughts on episode 1, categorized into sections to cut down on the rambling. 

- - - - - 

Old school Voltron

-

The old school Voltron gag was a welcome surprise. Hunk's run down was perfect.

Hunk: Did you watch it, Lance? Ah, it’s so cool! It’s so cool! 

They got you spot on, but Coran is like, he’s all superserious and stuff. And Allura is a little....I dunno, she’s different. 

Keith is friendly! He’s happy all the time.

I mean, they got it so wrong.

For all its flaws,  let's agree on one thing:  this run of Voltron was a definite improvement over the original.

-

Girl Time

-

First, Romelle says this:

Romelle: She has a date...with pointy chin!

And I’m like...which one?

And I still love Colleen.

In fact, I’m in love with all of the girls. There’s so many of them, and they’re all so different. The great diversity of characters really did become a strong point in the show. It’s all very natural, not forced or stereotyped. These could be real people that you meet in your everyday life.

And how about the mall? I’d briefly forgotten that we’re in the post-apocalyptic stage on Earth.

Once again, we’re not really given a time frame on all of this. In my mind, it’s been nearly a year since their last battle. And in that time, Earth hasn’t rebuilt much. It’s to be expected, but I found it a bit jarring. Points for realism, I suppose.

Here's the episode spanning gag again:

Pidge is a terrible goblin child and I love her.

I gotta say, I love the outfits they all chose for Allura.

This one:

It’s very 1980s female-power-executive. I remember this style well; I still have nightmares about mandatory shoulder pads. It was...not a good look.

And this:

This was the exact outfit my mom stopped me from wearing to the 1st grade, c. 1993. Actually, though, it looks very familiar, like it’s a callback to something I should remember outright, but I can’t for the life of me recall. It’s very 80s/90s, though.

-

Keith

-

Now, before I get into the meat of this, I wanna travel back all the way to Season 3.

Season 3 is where I started watching the show. I’d been hearing that it was good, but I hesitated before trying it out. After all, it was Voltron. Probably just made to sell toys like the old show, and it was for kids anyway.

But I started hearing something more, something about...Klance? A bedroom scene?

I’m perpetually late to the game when it comes to media. I had just come off of my Yuri on Ice high (holy shit they did that!), and with as much as I was hearing about these two boys getting together, well...I just had to investigate.

I started out with the first episode, as one does, and I was hooked. So I watched the next, and the one after that, and the one after that. After the fourth episode, I took the internet to find the exact moment of the aforementioned Keith and Lance interaction. Because if these two pull it together in such a short amount of time, I said to myself, I will be very impressed.

…...haaaaa…..

Well, that was not as advertised. Lance goes to Keith for reassurance, and Keith can’t deliver because he’s awkward as hell. It showed me two young men insecure in their roles – roles that they were now set up to grow into.

This scene in this episode? That’s a callback.

Lance comes to Keith for reassurance, not because he’s the leader, but because he’s a friend. And Keith delivers, because now he’s grown and matured.

I was very, very happy to see these two interacting this way. To be honest, I was so sick of their stupid rivalry. It was overdone in the first episode, let alone the rest of the series up to this point. So this was a very, very welcome change.

And the way the conversation goes? This tells me that they’ve talked about this before. Even though Keith is much better as this sort of thing now, he’s still not that great. Yet, here he is with the exact right words for Lance. Not only is he remembering an unseen-to-us conversation, but he’s remembering “the bedroom scene”, that one moment before that he couldn’t help Lance.

They’ve both had such good growth throughout the series.

…..seriously, y’all had me thinking they kissed in S3. Or at lease a confession. I still have no idea which show y’all were watching.

Now, I want to talk about Keith himself.

Shiro said to “spend time with the ones you love.” And here’s Keith, alone. Again.

When I watched this the first time, I just kind of rolled my eyes. He’s back on his loner bullshit, I see. And as much as I loved his talk with Lance, I was disappointed when he showed up. I thought it would either be Shiro, or Krolia.

At the time, I put it aside. I'm and introvert like Keith, so to see him enjoying some solitude in a familiar setting wasn't off-putting for me. He's been running around the world, checking up on defenses and being, generally,  a good leader. He's gotta be exhausted from all that, right?

As for no one besides Lance coming to see him,  well….I mean, after all, Krolia and Shiro are going back into space with him. And Shiro is a damned workaholic that probably has a lot of stuff to oversee before take off. I figured at the time that the rest of the season would fix this.

Welp.

-

The Date

-

We have to talk about this.

I don’t want to, thought.

This is the part that tripped me up. I would start this review, then stop when I got to here, and I did that several times.

It just hurts.

When I first watched this whole sequence, my heart was full. They look so good, all dressed up. Everything was soft and sweet, and it was all so tender and loving.

And it wall happened the way I figured it would, with Allura talking about family, and feeling alone. And then Lance offered to be her family.

He kinda...that’s kinda….he proposed, really.

Lance: Allura, I love you. I have for a long time. I wanna be your family.

And then they kissed and it was all so great. I say that as someone that usually doesn’t care about romance in media at all. It’s usually so cheesy and out of character for both parties and completely unrealistic. But this got me feeling some kinda way, and for once, I was into it.

Then the scene ended with Allura returning to find out about the Altean and Haggar, and I actually said out loud to myself “Jesus...they’re not gonna let her have anything, are they?”

And how.

Watching it now, my heart is hollow.

Of course, I see that the moment of her healing the tree and the rest of the garden was foreshadowing, and I picked up on that the first time.

It didn’t have to be like this, though.

I’ve consumed a lot of media in my time, from books and comics, to movies and video games. Every story has it’s ups and downs, it’s happy and sad. If it’s a story that I love, thought, I deal with the sadness and press on, such is my enjoyment of it. And if one of these stories gets me down too much, I know how to back off and let myself process the situation. When I come back to them with a fresh mind, I can view the happy times in a bittersweet way.

It didn’t happen this time. I love Voltron, but this still feels like a bridge too far.

Allura was on her way to finding happiness in this new world. It was healing, to see a character that had lost so much find people to support her, people that would be there for her no matter what.

In the end, I wish this had never happened. I wish this date had been left out.

The saying is “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

Fucking try it, then get back to me.

-

Other Things

-

As best I can, I’m going to try to leave these reviews on a happy note.

So here’s a few good things that I didn’t make room for in the review proper.

1. Hunk is the best wingman.

And so is Romelle:

2. Coran is a big damn troll.

Also...what the hell?

In summary:

It was still one of those episodes that gives you emotional whiplash,  going from happy to depressing all too quickly. But in all, it was a strong opening.  

Up next:  gather round for Honerva's learn-along.

[teddylvpn]

❝ Some are just born to burn; you can tell by their firework smiles bright enough to strike a match. But here’s the strangest part: some are so terribly brilliant that we wouldn’t mind burning with them. ❞

INSPO: pinboard and stats page ( I’ll post this when i finish it ).

TRIGGER WARNINGS: parental death

QUICK FACTS:  twenty-seven, former slytherin, former sergeant of the auror’s dept. a little addicted to gambling/card sharking, his hair changes color with his mood but is normally a nice dark navy. besties with victoire. gonna marry nadia zabini my dudes. doesn’t take shit and always lends a helping hand to those in need.

❝ He is a sun in human skin; bright enough to blind, yes, bright enough to ravage corneas and hearts alike, but you have been on fire from the start and the burning has always been worth it. ❞ TREVANTE RHODES? No, that’s actually TEDDY LUPIN. Only TWENTY-SEVEN years old, this SLYTHERIN alumni works as UNEMPLOYED and is sided with THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX. HE/THEY identifies as DEMI BOY and is a HALFBLOOD (METAMORPHMAGUS) who is known to be SLY, NOSY, and SELF-SACRIFICIAL but also HONEST, PLAYFUL, and COMPASSIONATE.

[ TW: PARENTAL DEATH MENTION ] Teddy had come as a surprise to Dora and Remus, one that had somehow brought them back together. To say his parents where happy during their time with him would be a lie. They weren’t the healthiest couple and due to Remus’ fear of Teddy becoming like him – it even strained their relationship with him during the time he spent kicking around in the womb. The month after his birth is a different story. Though their time was cut short, Remus had warmed up to his bubblegum-pink haired infant and his relationship with Tonks had smoothed out just before their demise.

Teddy spent most of his childhood bouncing between his grandmother and his godfather, Harry Potter. Though it was his grandmother’s place that he called home. Teddy grew up curious as to how different his life would be if his parents were still with him. Countless people had countless stories of his parents. They would tell him how they were heroes, how they gave their life for the greater good and while he thought that was brave...he would have rather them be there with him. He had Andromeda though. It was her and him against the world and he’d never give her anything less than the whole world.

The first day of Hogwarts was a train wreck. The letter came just as expected, he’d breezed through shopping in Diagon Alley, and literally could not stay still on the train ride to Hogwarts. Once he stepped on the boats the looks he’d gotten from Hagrid, then McGonagall, the rest of the professors as he made his way down to let the sorting hat crown his head had created a pit in his stomach. Pity and sorrow– nothing he needed but it seemed his first year would be full of it. There were whispers of Hufflepuff or Gryffindor but he had surprised everyone with Slytherin. He was welcome graciously but still he was received by careful kindness though he felt it was more because he was an orphan than actual kindness. He spent that first week moping, hair colored black/blue, using his free time to stare, teary-eyed up at his parents portraits and ushered into McGonagall’s office for tea and biscuits. He wanted nothing more than to go home and crawl into his grandmother’s arms but he didn’t -- Teddy stood strong and stubborn.

Time passed as it always does and he eventually grew used to the pity in their eyes until it slowly disappeared all together. Around his fourth year, at least in school, he’d grown out of the ‘Poor Orphan’ trope and made a name for himself outside of his parents – which is a necessity of growing.

He was quite popular through out his years in Hogwarts due to a shining personality that even McGonagall herself couldn’t  hold a straight face towards. Aside from family history, his hair, handsome looks ( OH BUT U THINK HE GONNA LET HIMSELF NOT LOOK GOOD, FRIENDS U WRONG ) tendency to hold out a helping hand to anyone had plenty on team Teddy. He eventually would get a Head Student role in his seventh year just because of his compassion, natural leadership and charisma.

However, Teddy continued on his own little legacy into his career after he graduated. He was ( still is ) well loved once he entered the aurors field, finding a lot of older aurors who were friends of his mother and father who were willing to take him under their wing. And just like school he breezed through ( perhaps not the best but he definitely had the qualities that earned him an extra star or two ). He became particularly famous for high priority targets he brought in due to being a metamorphmagus. And just in two years after finishing his training, he was promoted to Sergeant of the Auror’s department, working at the side of Harry Potter himself.

He’d happen to stumble upon talk of an ‘attack’ late in October on a covert mission he’d set himself on to get a lead on the movements of the death eaters. But he would come o Harry’s rescue much too late. Teddy attempted to save him and dueled with Death Eaters cloaked in masks that would have taken him as a victim with the three. He escaped to a ‘close friends’ house and recuperated until the memorial.

Eventually he lost his status as Sergeant and was fired from the auror’s department two weeks after Fawley took over. He now is technically unemployed but he manages well with gambling death eaters out of their money.

He acts as a second in command for the Order of the Phoenix and tends to take on the more dangerous missions alone due to his meta abilities.

Personality:

basically teddy is the type to find the best in every situation so he’s rarely bothered by other people and usually finds any attempt to ‘shake’ him hilarious.

he’s very open with everything and upfront with his feelings. if his happy, he will tell you, if he’s sad, he’ll tell you. ( and yes his hair is a makeshift mood ring so study up on color symbolism )

a big goofball tbh. super troll-y and down for a good drag. he is savage and he is a take no prisoner type of person. LOL even if you are lily potter, he’s gonna drag u – with love <3

he’s a proper snake when it comes to games. he’s good at strategizing and it’s rare that he’ll lose unless it’s on purpose or if HE is drunk tbh. basically he’s a CARD SHARK. he’ll cheat you right out of every cent you have though…he mostly keeps to snatching that money from the drunks in hogsmeade. and by drunks, teddy means douchebags or the corrupted members of society – watch your pockets de’s.

on the subject of family, he lived mostly with his grandmother. kind of going back and forth between the potters and andromeda’s home. he adores the wotters and kind of takes over the big brother type of role for any of them. he’s quite sensitive on the topic of family so he doesnt quite consider the wotters family because they aren’t?? – his family is andromeda and his parents and he feels that he should keep them separated. HOWEVER this does not mean he is anti-wotters or he loves them any less??? honestly he adores every single one of them.

he doesnt really talk about his parents. that’s probably the one thing he refuses to be open about and will remove himself from the situation if it’s brought up.

[fantroll-purgatory]

Haemir Elazra - Doctroll Extraordinaire

Planet: Alternia, minor AU/Alternate History elements

Name: Haemir Elazra Haemir: From Haem, an alternative spelling of Heme, the oxygen-carrying, iron-containing molecule in blood. Links up to his blood caste woes and his lusus.

Elazra: From Azrael, Angel of Death, and Lazarus, the man brought back to life. It fits in with his role as a healer on a planet of death and slaughter, and also to his status as the last living limeblood. An Angel of Death is also a specific kind of serial killer; a nurse that kills their own patients. Fun fact! @chaoticevilfantrolls (SA here to say that you have designed a troll that 400000% appeals to my interests. I screamed when I opened the box and saw him here!)

Age:��7.5 sweeps. He’s a youngster, compared to my other trolls.

Strife Specibus: caneKind. Not much reason behind it beyond the fact that actual IRL plague doctors would use canes to distribute treatment. Plus the Rod of Asclepius could reasonably fit under this strife spec. (If you wanted to go a bit more Black Death with it, you could weaponize some herbal medicine for poisons? Fight with some syringes?)

Fetch Modus: Quarantine. Items are stored and sterilized in little plastic bubbles. It makes cleaning his equipment a breeze! But, he can’t store anything he intends to eat, and living things have a habit of turning up dead from the storage process. 

Blood color: Limeblood! The whole concept of the character revolves around a mysterious figure with strong empathy becoming a doctor to soothe the woes of others, so I figured a lone limeblood would work. He’s based heavily around the headcanon that limebloods were killed off for their empathic abilities, which lead to a rebellion in this particular setting. (We LOVE an Empath Limeblood. I have not reviewed your other trolls, so I don’t wanna poke too much into Limeblood Politics without knowing the AU, but if they’re still in hiding, I’d suggest on blood-color alone a little bit of generational trauma? A little skittishness from Literally Feeling all of the death and pain his people have gone through, and the Knowledge that that kind of feeling comes with.)

Symbol and meaning: The alchemic symbol for Alkali. Alkali are chemically basic substances used to make soap. That’s about as far as that goes for depth, haha.  (Soap Troll! Soap Troll! Soap Troll!) (There’s a whole suite of Alchemic Symbols out there, but if we’re zooming in on a Soap Troll, I think this dovetails into some expansion. Let me explain:) (Soap’s a cleansing agent, both of wounds and of places. Most alkaline substances (think Lye and Quicklime) wash things away with ferocity, and can burn skin. I think you could easily expand Haemir -who already has a darker, death element to him- with a bit of vengeance? A bit of anger? Something sincere and hard to excise from himself. Someone who, at his core, wants to wash away the sins of the past and plant the seeds of tomorrow.)

Trolltag: caduceusCreed [CC] Caduceus: The staff carried by Hermes, associated with the medical profession through it’s adoption as a symbol of American military medics. The Caduceus was mistakenly chosen over the Rod of Asclepius, and thus has become a bit of a point of contention in the medical professions (for those that even give a shit, at least.) Creed: Well. I mean. Kind of a reference to the Hippocratic Oath, just in a way that fits GCAT, out of personal preference.  (Basic, easy to scan, and effective. I think you could use Asclepion instead of Cadecus for a more fitting tag, though using old Traveler Man’s symbol could hint at a desire to travel, to tell, to proclaim.)

Quirk: He’s got a simple quirk going. All lowercase, with t’s turned into crosses and doubled, as well as doubled x’s to represent stitches. He otherwise uses proper punctuation, and he really capitalizes on his corny jokes to ease the stress of his patients (putting the pun in all caps). He represents his mask in his smiley faces. Which is to say, he only ever uses one smiley for all emotions ever. 8>

CC: ++he quick brown foxx jumped over ++he lazy dog. (This scans well and doesn’t seem too out of place.)

Special Abilities:Beyond having an extensive knowledge of medical practice, as well as some more traditional healing, Haemir’s most fundamental ability is that he’s a powerful empath. He’s not able to impact the emotions of others, nor can he weaponize the feelings he picks up upon. No, the danger of his power is from how it encourages him to help and heal.

Haemir is able to pick up on the emotions and feelings of near-by trolls, especially discomfort and misery. Because he’s a bit of a soft boy, and because he personally feels that discomfort himself, he feels compelled to treat that discomfort in any way he can. He’s been a doctor as much as he’s been a stand-in moirail. (I think my conflict with your vision from a review standpoint comes here. Nothing about the ability needs to change, but I think you’ve let it dominate your character’s Path, put a pin in this- we’ll talk about it further into the review.)

Lusus: You know the big snake monster from Hiveswap? The one with like, sixteen arms? Imagine that, but a horse-sized white leech with massive fangs. That’s the Leech-Lord, and Haemir’s main mode of transportation.  (I find this ESPECIALLY amusing because both of my limeblood trolls have serpentine-modified lusii. Limebloods really just have that Slithery Energies.)

Personality: Haemir is… odd, and by most trolls standards an aberration. He’s a limeblood empath on a hostile world with a strong inclination to help people, even when he knows there’s no reward in it for him. This doesn’t mean he’s a fool, by any means, even if other trolls tend to confuse his compassion and conviction for cowardice. 

He believes strongly in everyone’s right to live, and live well, even if another troll would see him dead for his blood color. That’s why he dresses in heavy clothes, wearing a mask at all times to hide any hint of skin or mark that could potentially betray his color. He also tends to be very flighty and anxious when people attempt to get too touchy with him, often prompting adorable squeaks of frustration. He’s perfectly capable of speech, mind, he just chooses not to most of the time.  (We’re getting into it! There’s a nice undercurrent of justice, of human(troll) rights, of life and death and the societies we build to combat them. Being shaped by the society he lives in and yet wanting to change it, ignoring what’s laid before him to forge his own path…)

Interests: Medicine, biology, anatomy and physiology, and surprisingly enough, an appreciation for teen romance novels and movies. He just wishes there were less books about rainbow drinkers and lycanthropes and more about those hot, hot plague doctors.  (Hshshshshshshsh I want him to have gotten into the Plague Doctor getup due to some ill-advised CW Show about Troll Black Death and he was like “that’s it! I’m gonna dress like a featherbeast!”)

(For expansions on this: I definitely think History is a solid interest, given that he dresses up like a historical profession. Reading about the Limeblood Rebellion and the flow of Alternia- he’s probably done a lot of reading on the Condesce as well- learning how to Speak Truth to Power and how a Ruler shapes the lives of people she’ll never meet and- I could be here all day.)

Title: Sylph of Heart (I will be blunt with you: This character is neither of these things. Remember my comment under Special Powers? Here’s where we take that pin out.) (You’ve built an incredibly solid character here, which makes pointing this out very, very easy. I scanned this profile once and knew immediately what I was going to recommend.) (Let’s talk about why this is ill fitting: -First, this character is no Passive character. He already has the team/community focus that a Passive class would teach him, and given that- he’s taken matters into his own hands. This is a really solid Active player. -With Creation classes (and Sylphs ESPECIALLY), you have to think: What is this character destroying? A Sylph is but a Prince reflected. With Heart, your character would be Actively Destroying Mind- breaking people’s brains and toying with their emotions. Your character FEELS their emotions biologically, he doesn’t go out of his way to take hammers to their decision making. Sylphs also LOVE to meddle, which is why healing comes naturally to them. Your character has elements of this, but not in quite the sly, background kind of way.) (Heart, is traditionally linked to Derse (similar to Time) because it’s portfolio of disguise, facade, and truth being mutable all lend themselves very well to the Dersite playstyle. Your character, while hiding his face, doesn’t deal in facades as much as your typical Heart player, nor does his path as a character seem to fortell him learning to be different people or play with their heartstrings.) (My recommendation: Maid of Life or Bard of Doom) (But SA! A doctor that’s a Life player? That’s so cliche! And yes, it would be, on a character without as many hooks as this one.) (Maids learn to rely on themselves- look at Aradia, who dies and comes back in many forms as she takes time into herself. Your character looks like a Doom Player, and yet is a healer, and grower, a shaper.) (The Life-Doom inversion is much more than Life and Death, it is also Energy and Society. Your character is a healer, an active bringer of Life, and in doing so, not only directly counters Death, but Alternian Culture too. Your character isn’t a Prince of Doom, for instance: he’s not actively challenging society, he’s changing it as a side effect of his own actions.  Life-Doom is much broader than individuals.) (The Path for this character is less in changing as a person and more in reinforcing his good nature. Learning to be more open, learning what needs to be done, learning how he can be the force of good in the world that he’s already being, even if it feels small.)

Land:Land of Miasma and Malaise

Dream Planet: Prospit (I like this guy as a Prospit Dreamer. Even if he hides his face, he can’t really hide who he is- that sense of care and justice end empathy shines right on through.)

CD here with the design time at SA’s behest. The design was already pretty much perfect, just a few little tweaks. The design read a little costumey/like a human dressed up as a troll and I wanted to fix that. So as Really, Really Cute as the eyes were, I replaced them w/ more typical shiny plague doctor lenses in a still contrasty eyeball orange. I put some hair over the horns to make them feel more integrated and less tacked on, and I adjusted the outlines of the shoes to make them feel more integrated and less like the human kids’ shoes! 

(This was a great troll to work through, thank you for submitting!)

[senjutsunokoutei]

Ares Reflections

So Ares has finally ended… Here are my thoughts on Ares as a whole and some interpretations & headcanons on Nosaka and Nishikage’s relationship. ...The latter is, uh, really long. 

My biggest gripe about Ares is the poor pacing, but I enjoyed the overall plot and characters. Ares had a lot of potential and I think a lot opportunities were wasted because everything was so rushed.

I think one of the problems was the fact that there were so many characters in Ares. They had most of the original characters on top of Asuto, Haizaki, and Nosaka. It’s so hard to squeeze screentime for ALL these characters in just 26 episodes. Ares definitely deserved at least 52 episodes. They tried to balance the content between the original characters and the new Ares protags, but they ended up not giving enough time to both sides... I would've liked more content on Kira Hiroto and Atsuya since they're dead in the original timeline… I got really emo about Atsuya because Shirou suffered so much with his personality complex in the original series. I wanted to see gradual character development for the new Ares characters, not some abrupt, sudden change of heart.

Also remember how Asuto overheard Nosaka’s conversation with Anna? He knew about Nosaka’s brain tumor but he wasn’t really… affected by it? It would’ve been nice if Asuto faltered even the slightest bit because of this information, just for the sake of character development. Because I remember Endou felt really bad when he found out Kidou was fighting for Haruna’s sake? I wanted Asuto to go through something similar to that…

I also didn’t like how Nishikage and Nosaka just pulled new hissatsus out of their asses? I guess since they were the opponent team and not Raimon, development isn’t as important to them… But a little bit of development would’ve been nice. The final match had way too many hissatsus and it just felt extremely rushed… Heck, the entire show was rushed what was I expecting. I was very happy with Goujin’s development though. He had one of the best character developments in Ares.

It also felt like Nosaka’s personality (or, at least the depiction of him?) kept changing too abruptly. He was framed as a cold, emotionless character at first but warms up to Raimon super quickly. I get that some of that has to do with him trying to keep up a strong image of himself. I also don’t get why Nosaka was like “I will win… I have to win…” during the match. I understand he wanted to fight Raimon fair and square and let the match decide the fate of Ares, but at the same time it seemed like he was desperate to win? When deep down, he was really hoping to lose… And then now he’s suddenly buddy buddies with Asuto and Haizaki. I mean, I understand why they’re friendly now, I just don’t like how it happened so fast. I like his mischievous side though, it’s really cute. I hope he continues to troll Nishikage and Haizaki in Orion.

Basically, I like how they set up Ares, and it had potential to be so much better, but they ended up rushing the plot so they missed a lot of opportunities to make the show more dramatic. Hopefully Orion does a better job of character development and interactions. I have high hopes in Orion.

One last thing -- honestly, I am really perplexed by the whole Anna thing. This isn’t even because I ship Nosaka and Nishikage - I just really do not understand what the point of framing Anna as a love interest. First, they framed it as if Nosaka were interested in Anna (with the whole “is it even possible to have feelings for a girl” thing). I didn’t like that to begin with because they literally had JUST MET by pure coincidence because Nosaka happened to collapse and Anna happened to witness it. Anna’s a nice girl so of course she helps him out. During the Outei and Seishou match, Anna was upset that Nosaka used such low-handed tactics. There was absolutely no reason for Anna to develop feelings for him after seeing a shitty play like that. If anything, she’s just worried about him just like any other nice girl would because he’s literally at risk of dying. Then, out of the blue, in the last two episodes, Anna for some reason seems to have developed a thing for Nosaka? She makes an attempted confession (it was strongly implied, at least), only to be rejected by Nosaka before she even got to confess. Nosaka and Haizaki makes more sense as a ship… Heck, even Nosaka and Asuto make a better ship. Like honestly I’d support them if their relationship actually /made sense/. Everything they share is so... shallow... like their interactions were so trivial. Perhaps it’s just my personal preference because I like ships where one character does something to influence the other character in some way. I /guess/ I can see why Nosaka would be slightly interested in Anna because she was nice to him and I guess he’s not used to people being nice to him. I don’t think Anna’s a bad character, I just don’t like how they wrote her interactions with Nosaka. I do want to see Nishikage and Anna become friendly with each in Orion though, since they haven’t had a proper interaction yet.

Okay here are some thoughts and headcanons about Nosaka & Nishikage’s relationship. Perhaps I’m reading too much into their lines, but I’m a shipper who loves to overanalyze so take these with a grain of salt.

Nosaka confesses that he wasn’t really trying to achieve anything in particular; he just wanted his existence to be acknowledged by somebody. Before meeting Nishikage, he was neglected and likely abused by his parents (primarily his mom). He would probably do his best to get his mom to acknowledge and be proud of him, but she would ignore anything he did. He lived a sad, lonely childhood and desperately sought attention. When he saved that girl in the fire incident, he knew that if he could save that girl even at the risk of his life, he would be able to make an impact on the world. Surely, he’d be acknowledged for that. At that time, he wasn’t scared of losing his life because he didn’t really have anything to live for. He was ready to sacrifice his life if that meant he could be acknowledged, because he desperately desired recognition. Nishikage was the first person to ever acknowledge and respect Nosaka, which made Nosaka happy.

Nishikage saw his action as a selfless, courageous act and fell for Nosaka. Nishikage wanted to save the girl too, but gave up because the flames were too strong. Nosaka went into the building without hesitation, and Nishikage was smitten by his bravery. I don’t know what sort of past Nishikage had, but here’s my headcanon. He wasn’t born in a bad family - in fact, he was probably pretty well off. However, he was either bullied or was deceived and swindled a lot, which made him lose faith in humanity. He’s a good boy at heart so he initially tried to put his trust in people, but after being cheated over and over, he loses hope for the world. At some point, he decides to fight back against his bullies. He’s naturally strong and tough, so he wins all his fights. He probably makes a name for himself through all his fights and turns a bit delinquent. I don’t think he’s the type to start fights, but he definitely won’t go easy on anyone who tries to pick a fight with him.

After meeting Nosaka, he realizes there really are good people in the world. Also, after hearing about Nosaka’s situation, he realizes that Nosaka is similar to him in that the people around him didn’t treat him well, but Nosaka took a different approach. Nosaka was also treated badly by the world, but that didn’t cause him to turn his back against the world. Instead, Nosaka wanted to make the world a better place. That lights a fire in Nishikage’s heart and inspires him to help make the world a better place instead of despising the world. He vows to change the world alongside with Nosaka. Nishikage fell for his courage, determination, and sense of righteousness. Nosaka becomes a role model to Nishikage, because to Nishikage, Nosaka is the kind of “ideal” person he aspires to be. Although Nosaka admits that he was ultimately doing it for recognition, Nishikage acknowledges that Nosaka has good intentions with his actions and will still continue to support Nosaka all the way because he trusts Nosaka’s judgment.

When they first meet, Nosaka mentions changing the world with the Ares program. This was back when he wanted to something big so he can be acknowledged. Nishikage likes the sound of it, and vows to follow and support Nosaka in this cause. Nosaka is under the impression that Nishikage is only following him because of this goal to change the world. As the first and only person who has ever praised him, Nosaka was really happy and wanted Nishikage to stay by his side. He was scared Nishikage would leave if he found out that he was only trying to be acknowledged, so he desperately tries to keep up the strong image that he thinks Nishikage has of him. At the same time, having Nishikage around kept him in check, as Nosaka admitted in ep 26. Nishikage was the motivation for him to keep going this whole time. Nosaka definitely would have broken down if Nishikage weren’t there with him... Imagine all the pain and suffering he must have endured because of his brain tumor… Uuuuu... The reason why Nosaka didn’t consult Nishikage about his suspicions about Ares at all was because Nishikage was under the impression that the Ares program was meant to make the world a better place. Nosaka didn’t want to cast any doubt on Ares for Nishikage since that was pretty much the foundation for their dream of changing the world.

I think Nosaka wanted to tell Nishikage about his illness at some point, and probably even made an attempt to, but couldn’t because he didn’t know how to bring it up. He didn’t want Nishikage to worry, and he didn’t want to show signs of weakness either. He hid his illness from the entire team so they would be able to focus on the matches and not have to worry about his illness in the back of their minds.

In episode 24, Nishikage gets caught up in his emotions and says he wants to be with Nosaka longer and even tries to demand Nosaka to stop playing soccer. To Nishikage, Nosaka’s life is more important than achieving this goal. When Nosaka realizes that Nishikage found out about his brain tumor, he panicked. He frantically needed to maintain his strong image, which led him to do the kabedon. After the kabedon, Nishikage takes some time to cool down (he must be full of emotions after that). He takes the time to reflect about Nosaka’s actions, remembers that’s what he loves about Nosaka in the first place, and decides that he will support Nosaka all the way till the end. When Nishikage confesses why he fell in love with him and says he’ll support Nosaka’s cause until the bitter end, Nosaka looks away for a bit because he feels bad because deep down, he’s really not trying to achieve anything in particular. But he still looks back and smiles at Nishikage because he’s still happy to hear those words.

Nosaka finally confesses that he’s not really trying to achieve anything and apologizes to Nishikage for not being able to be the “perfect person” he thinks he is. Given how the game was going, he had pretty much accepted that the Ares program was bad at that point, so he knew he couldn’t keep hiding things any longer. Nosaka apologizes because he thinks he has disappointed Nishikage, but this doesn’t change how Nishikage thinks of him. This is a nuance that gets lost in translation, but in episode 26, when Nishikage says “you are my hero,” he uses uses casual speech to Nosaka for the first time instead of his usual polite speech. After hearing Nosaka’s confession, he realizes that Nosaka was likely keeping up his strong image just for his sake. He realizes that Nosaka doesn’t exactly want to be treated like an emperor. He drops his polite speech for that line to show that he doesn’t see Nosaka as just his perfect emperor, but as his hero. I headcanon that Nishikage had fix his bad mouth in order to get into Outei Tsukinomiya, so he practiced polite/formal speech with Nosaka and got used to it. He holds a lot of respect for Nosaka, so using polite speech to him was something he felt obligated in doing anyway. I also think it’s highly possible that Nishikage said to Nosaka the exact same line (“you are my hero”) in the past when they first met. So he says it again in the same connotation as the first time, just to ensure Nosaka that he still sees him as his hero, just like before. I hope he drops the polite speech in Orion because I want them to see each other as equals.

Anyway, while both of them deeply cared for each other, they seemed to have some misunderstandings about each other, which caused a bit of tension throughout the show. After the match, I’m sure Nosaka explains to the rest of the team about his entire plan. I’m sure he and Nishikage have a heart-to-heart conversation and clear up their misunderstandings, which prompted me to draw this comic.

I think it’s sweet how they show affection to each other in their own ways. Nosaka loves to tease and mess with Nishikage, which is kind of his way of showing affection. He’s comfortable around Nishikage and loves seeing his reactions. Nosaka is a bit mischievous in his nature and it’s really cute (like how he trolled Haizaki with the handshake). Nishikage will do every little small thing for Nosaka… He carries all the bags when they go shopping (in the official postcard art). He has a towel prepared for Nosaka after he’s done washing his face. He guards Nosaka when Haizaki showed signs of aggression. He really did treat Nosaka as his emperor…

Nosaka kept in a lot of these emotions to himself. No matter how strong-willed he is, there is still so much he can take. In this final episode, he finally shows a little bit of his weaknesses. He hides his brain tumor from everyone on the team because he doesn’t want them to worry for him. He doesn’t really have any interaction to anyone outside of Outei, so when he met Anna, he took that opportunity to talk about himself. I think he confided in Anna because he probably felt that it was safe to tell her about himself since he didn’t expect her to spread any of that information to the rest of his team. I like the idea of Anna being the middle person to help Nosaka and Nishikage patch up, but again I don’t really like how they developed her character...

Anyway, I’m super excited for the Nosaka manga that will be published in MangaOne. Who knows when it’ll come out, but I can’t wait to read it!

[starberryghost]

My Headcanon

I My theory is that Terezi will never find Vriska, or if she does, Vriska will have changed dramatically. They will still be friends, probably even good friends, but their whole dynamic will have changed.

The battles will have changed Vriska and the distance between them from all that time apart helps change their dynamic, along with Terezi now having her doomed self’s memories.

Maybe Terezi won’t feel that she can/should lean on Vriska so much anymore. The distance between them will force her to gain a certain amount of independence and the memories will also help her gain her footing and maybe even a little confidence.

And Vriska won’t feel so lonely anymore since she helped lead an entire army of trolls into battle with the Final Boss so she won’t need Terezi as much to feel affirmed as a likable troll. She’ll feel like she actually accomplished something with her own power instead of relying so much on her amazing luck.

Also, in a way, the doomed Terezi is still alive through the alive Terezi. She entered the successful timeline by combining herself with the surviving Terezi, just like that one doomed Rose survived by merging with the surviving Rose. [Even though one version of that Rose died.]

I also think Vriska had a serious crush on Terezi and it was unrequited because Terezi was straight as a board. I think there were harmless flirtations going on from both sides though.

I do think they were Kismesises at some point but mostly[or more memorably or successfully] they were Moirails. I think they had a light rivalry going on and were jealous of each other.I think they tried it out for a while because Terezi was so submissive and Vriska was so dominant, and it just seemed like a natural thing to try considering how close they were, but I don’t think it worked out because Terezi was too heterosexual and not serious about Vriska in that way. I also think that Vriska’s dominance was just for show[that it wasn’t really well-developed and she just did what she thought was right] and that Terezi had a very strong dominant side hidden inside. I think Vriska probably would have abused her power as a Dom because she didn’t know how to be a real Dominant. And I think that part of Terezi’s killing Vriska thing was her putting her foot down to Vriska’s out of control ways. [I know she was out of control in other ways, but I think her Kismesisitude was going way out of control as well and Terezi was sick of it and I think that’s also a big factor in why she felt so bad about what she did afterward. I think she blamed herself for it all going downhill because I think it was her idea in the first place, and the fact that she let Vriska treat her like shit until Vriska got used to it and entitled to it and addicted to the power and became nearly unstoppable.]

I think Vriska is bi, not a lesbian. I think she was sexually attracted to plenty of guys but I think her interests in guys was more shallow. I think she tried to make it work, but it didn’t with those guys each time and she just had better luck with women in the emotional department. [Emotions are not the same as sexuality afterall.]

In case you haven’t noticed by now, I think kismesitude relationships are actually BDSM relationships. If its platonic, then its something else.. Lol. Just raw hate and abuse and fighting and such. :P I think there’s a proper way to have  kismesitude relationships.

I think doomed Vriska liked Terezi more than Meenah deep down, but I think Vriska felt betrayed by Terezi and that added to the depth of her relationship with Meenah and she was willing to move on without Terezi in her.. erm.. death. and then yeah.. when Meenah broke up with her and she was reunited with Terezi, she was finally truly happy again.

I think the best relationship that Terezi will have despite being heterosexual is with Vriska because Terezi doesn’t feel like men understand her well enough.

I also don’t think Terezi will continue being friends with Karkat [because of their history], but I do think she will remain friends with Dave, and I don’t think Dave and Karkat are actually Matesprits. I think they are moiraills that are really close and joke about sex. I think Dave has a minor crush on Karkat but I don’t think Karkat is attracted to Dave that way.

I think that Terezi had a Kismesitude crush on Rose[without realizing it] but I think Rose thinks Terezi is weird and doesn’t want to have anything to do with her. [Plus Rose has Kanaya.]

I think Terezi sees John as a younger brother figure and jokes around with him. I think they just become very close more like a sibling relationship. I think Terezi is protective of John and is suspicious that Roxy will hurt him. I don’t think the JohnxRoxy thing will work out but I think it will be his most important relationship in life and that after it ends he will become focused on other things aside from love and romance and sex and all that.[I think he will still think of Roxy and will want to get back together with her someday.] I think Terezi realizes how flighty Roxy is and that’s why she’s so suspicious of her. But I think Roxy admires Terezi and thinks she’s cool and wishes Terezi would treat her like she treats John. I think Roxy is just not all that serious about John even though she liked him enough to date him for a while.

I think Karkat was the one who came up with the “Scourge SIsters” name out of  spite and it just stuck.

I think Terezi was not serious about Gamzee relationship-wise but I think she saw him as a Moirail. I think she desperately wanted a kismesitude and she played around with Gamzee because he was a Dominant personality but she wasn’t attracted to him.

I think Vriska dated Gamzee for a short time but Gamzee cheated on her.

I think Terezi was not serious about Dave. I think she saw him as a Moirail with benefits.

I think Vriska dated Dave VERY shortly. I don’t think Vriska was serious about Dave AT ALL. and I think Dave started to resent Vriska because of the way that they broke up.

I think Aradia and Sollux were Matesprits. I think that they were pretty much perfect for each other but they had problems in their relationship too.

I think Aradia and Equius had feelings for each other but Aradia loved Sollux too much to go into anything with Equius.

I think Aradia and Terezi were pretty good friends. I think they used to be Moirails before Terezi knew Vriska. I think they started growing distant when Aradia started dating Sollux and Terezi started feeling ignored and inconsequential. And then when Terezi met Vriska there was no contest to who the better friend was. I think Terezi and Aradia remained friends, but it was never the same afterwards.

[consummate-deviant]

The Character of Android 17

What’s up, friendos? So, Android 17 has been the toast of the town in Dragon Ball circles lately.  Don’t get me wrong, that’s awesome and definitely deserved: the dude is unquestionably the MVP of the tournament of power, and if you try to say otherwise, I’ll… shrug and carry on with my day, I guess.  You do you, I ain’t your dad.

No, but seriously, go to any discussion forum or comment section these days, and you’ll see plenty of people talking about how great and cool 17 was, and how he’s definitely shone more than any other during the current arc.  I agree with the sentiment whole-heartedly, so we’re not here to discuss that, rather, I want to bring up some of the negativity that has come along with this newfound bump in fan appreciation.

See, where there’s hype, there must be backlash, and 17 has been subjected to plenty of that.  With every more popular member of team universe 7 to be eliminated before him, the number of people bitter at his continued presence grew.  This is fine, in and of itself, for the ‘not your dad’ reason I listed above, but there are two specific complaints I occasionally hear about 17 that I just can’t co-sign for you, and I decided to write this up to address them.  

The first is: “He’s not even the same character he was!  This guy doesn’t act anything like 17/has nothing in common with his DBZ incarnation”

the second is: “He’s boring/blank/bland!  He has no personality.”

Since I’m one of the five people worldwide who listed Android 17 as his favorite character ever since the good ole days of Z, I figure the least I can do is roll up my sleeves and share some of the reasons I disagree with the above, as well as express how I see his actions and arc.  We’ll go through the timeline of events he participated in, and see if we can’t parse together the delinquent he was with the chill park ranger he would become!

PART 1: A Reminder of the Android’s Origin and the Future Timeline

So, Android 17 was originally Lapis, a teenage delinquent who would often go out and rabble-rouse with his sister and his droogs, playing their rap music too loud, wearing pants with the waistband far lower than the waistband of pants should be allowed to hang in civilized society, and other stuff like that, I assume.

Unfortunately for the duo, Dr. Gero was about, looking for a team of teenagers with attitude he could convert into an armada of godless killing machines.  One might feel prompted to ask why Gero intended to create machines so powerful that he couldn’t control them uness they wanted to listen to his orders, but sought the demographic of humans statistically least likely to ever listen to what an old man has to say to them to be the vessels of those machines, but this isn’t an essay about Gero being a silly, silly man.

Rather, the salient point to take out of the backstory we’re given is that 17 and 18 started out with a chip on their shoulder and a lack of love for people or society.  We don’t get any info on their home life or their parents, but based on their choice of hobby, and the ease with which they were spirited away, we can safely assume there were no happy beginnings here.  From the moment they became relevant to the universe of DB they were already in a position to hate society; being kidnapped by a madman and turned into cyborgs specifically to vent THAT madman’s hatred of society only exacerbated this, resulting in a mixture that basically burned the world to the ground.

Fast forward to some time later, and humans are an endangered species, Gohan has been disarmed, and Trunks has been brought to the verge of death. We don’t really learn a lot about the personalities of the future incarnation of the androids.  They behaved like a pair of psychopathic children, destroying the world less because of any deeply held hatred or bloodlust, but more because it sounded like a fun idea and what else were they gonna do with their weekend?  They share some elements of their character with the versions of themselves who would be proper cast members, which I’ll get to later, but for the purposes of the story they were more of a force of nature than anything.

It’s too late for the future… but not the entire multiverse!  So Trunks head back to the past, but hold up, Jack!  Would his warnings prove accurate?

Part 2: Android 17 in DBZ

The first thing we learn about android 17 is that he’s a troll. Seriously, not only is he quite sardonic in his disposal of his stepdad, the first interaction he has with the Z warriors, his nominal enemies, is to beckon Krillin over to him, then abruptly stand up and frighten him.  No end game, no intent to harm, he just really wanted to screw with the poor guy.  He’s a gadfly who frequently says and does things for no greater reason than to see the reaction they provoke in others.

The second thing we learn is that he shares his future incarnation’s flippant, whimsical attitude, but to a less morbid extreme.  He makes short work of the assembled heroes, but treats it like clearing the arcade mode of a fighting game, stopping at the knockout and expressing a hope they may be more fun if he encounters them again. When 18 steps up to fight Vegeta, 17 reacts to it like a child whose sister beat him to calling dibs on the front seat during a car trip.

The third thing we learn is that he is one cocky little punk.  He refers to himself as the ultimate warrior on multiple occasions, brags constantly about himself, and treats the notion of anyone being his rival, much less stronger than he is, as a notion so ridiculous that it doesn’t even deserve his contempt.

These three traits are important because they remain central to his disposition even as a grown man, albeit to a far more muted and mature degree, even though his personality does change quite a bit during the ten years we don’t see him.  It may be tempting to say that being eaten by a bug man was what served to put a sock in his constant “I’m the best in the world” talk, and that certainly did play a role in who he became, but I would say his character started to change a little bit before that: during his fight with Piccolo.

The thing about 17’s strength is that it has nothing to do with martial prowess.  As a delinquent he certainly had experience in street fights, but he never did any formal training, or did anything that would require effort or discipline.  When Gero made 17 an android he made him so strong that he could crush anyone he encountered, but it was just that, raw strength.  It had no technique or prowess behind it.  

As the fight progresses, we see 17’s attitude toward Piccolo change subtly.  At the start, he’s just a toy to be played with, another level in his game to be cleared and forgotten about, but as it progresses Piccolo does something that 17 had never encountered before: he holds his own.  With skill and grace, he matches every move 17 has, blow for blow.  In the past 17 had had many fights as a bully and a thug, but this was the first time in his life he did battle as a warrior, and he liked the feel of it.  He expresses a kind of respect for piccolo as their fight reaches its end, even though it is couched in his trademark, planet-sized, ego.  It was an encounter that took the first step toward redeeming him, and setting him down the path we would see him walking in Super.

...and then a bug ate him… Yeah, it’s hard to stay arrogant after you’ve been eaten by a bug, so that helped too.  My big sticking point is that it’s often assumed that if Cell hadn’t screwed up the flow of events, the modern androids would have eventually became their future selves, but I think there’s a chance for their redemption even without Cell, provided at some point in time 18 meets Krillin and 17 fights the fused Kami-Piccolo.

Part 3: 17 in DBS and the Tournament of Power

Ten years pass, Android 17 is, if not in his thirties, pushing up close to ‘em for certain.  His personality is now quite placid, and he’s a family man, carrying on 16’s spirit by protecting nature, and carrying on the fire that Piccolo lit in him a decade ago by training constantly to improve his technique.  Now, I maintain that his character is still consistent, but does he BEHAVE differently now?  Of course he does.  Look, I don’t know how old you are, reader person, but I promise you, when more than a few seasons separate you from your teenage years, you will look back at who you were as a teenager, and the things you did… and you will cringe. Hard.  Heck, I’m in my thirties now, and I look back at the things I said and did in my early twenties and cringe, sometimes.  Growing older is a game of constantly realizing how ridiculous you used to be and hoping you’re less ridiculous now.

So yeah, he is more mature, but the three elements that are the center of his character are intact.  He is a merciless gadfly throughout his entire run in Super.  He exchanges affectionate barbs with his sister when he meets her daughter, he teases Krillin’s nervousness around him, despite expressing to Goku that he was fond of the man, and considered him his brother, and in general never openly acting like he took anything he encountered as seriously as he really did.

He still tends to treat everything around him like a giant game, made most evident by all of his interactions with Universe 2, but most of all with  Ribrianne and her Kamikaze Fireballs, playing the role they provided him with abandon and gusto- when Ribrianne accused him of being a villain from some kind of magical girl anime… he promptly starts hamming it up and acting like a villain in some kind of magical girl anime!

He’s no longer the loud mouthed braggart he was as a teenager, sure, but his faith in himself remains strong.  It’s just that it’s no longer childish, absolute arrogance, and instead has been tempered into a realistic confidence in his own abilities.  When faced with insurmountable odds, he remains calm and studies his situation carefully, never moving recklessly, but also never losing faith in his ability to eventually find a way to overcome the situation he finds himself in.

The tournament of power DOES introduce an important arc to 17’s character, though, and it’s a surprisingly subtle one.  Sadly, I’ve already typed up 2,000 words on the subject, so I’m going to go ahead and stop here for now.  This is how I perceive the character, and why I like him so much.  If anyone wants me to, I may type up the second essay on 17 I have rattling around in my head sometime, and reveal how 17 accomplishes something impossible:  makes JIREN an interesting antagonist.

[activatingaggro]

RICCIN KAYATA | 5 sweeps, 12 years old

temasek, hanhai district [4855 words]

"This," Ico whispers, leaning in so that his curls brush your cheek, close enough that you can feel the feedback from his psi pinging off your horns, "is the blessing of being yellow, my little buttercup, and don't you ever forget it."

He's got the two of you floating far, far, far above the crowd: with your feet tucked in, you're not near enough to ruffle any heads, though you do have to kick up and out of the way when some eight foot monstrosity with a rack almost as long goes skating underneath. And she's not the only one! You've never seen this many highbloods in one place before, and you've never seen so many nearly full-grown. You'd always thought you were big. You're a head taller than Nzinga, and all of the crechekids but Kindra, and only a handspan smaller than Ico.

But there's horns long enough to touch, here, and Ico has to boost you up higher when you start to reach down.

It's an easy adjustment for him to make! He's not as strong as you, maybe: Ico's all finesse and style, those silly little kicks that send him flying across the stage, the psi-knives that cut right through his combatant's strings, or joints, or throats. If Nzinga was here, you don't think he could manage all three of you, not at all. But she isn't! It's just you and him, and he keeps you both up like it's no problem at all. When he straightens back up from his whisper, you can't even feel the pinch of his psi on your skin, he holds you so careful.

Which is good, you think, because getting dropped right into the middle of Carnival would be really, really bad.

Technically, you're not even supposed to be here.

You're old enough to roam where you want, do as you will: it's only the ickle five sweeps that have to worry about pangomom haunting their steps, and you're very nearly six, close enough and old enough that you could spit. You don't go as far as you used to, when it was you 'n Myrrha 'n Li 'n Weeds, but that's 'cause it doesn't make no sense to, that's all. The world's big, and scary, and your lusus isn't allowed out of the city. When you're older, Cu keeps telling you, then they'll let you take her anywhere you want, but for right now, she's got a collar and a charm that won't let her out past Temasek.

And Kindra can't leave, and Raphae fusses, if Ico's gone too long, and for a grub who grew up on a farm, Nzinga's no fun: she whines and she fusses if she doesn't have a roof over her head, and she wants all of her food cooked. It just doesn't make sense to go too far, with all of that. You don't let yourself go past Cascara, not ever, even when you want, and you don't let yourself go to full Carnivals, neither, even though you want.

Usually. You're just a half-paint! A proper Carnival full of adults is no place for you. That's how you get culled. Would they get in trouble afterwards? Sure. But it's not like that matters much to you, when you're face-down in some cullpit!

But Ico had mentioned he was going on one for a date, as casual as anything, and, well -

- he's just a half-paint, too, and he ain't even serious about it. He gaffs off the hymnbooks like they're fun, not real, and he sneers at every priest soon as their backs turned. And if he was going, then why shouldn't you?

You'd been a little surprised when he'd actually agreed to it. But here you are now, with his arm slung around your shoulder, bobbing above the crowd to watch them work, and the girl he's got next to him is busy making sure the lot of you don't get seen. And here you are, fucking wasting it, 'cause you're not watching the crowd at all.

You're watching her.

You can't help it! She's all horns and fangs, with a set of hooks that curve down even farther than yours, but more important than that - you've just never seen a psychic without ports, that's all, but the base of her neck is bare, bare, bare.

Ico's whispering to her now, something too dim for you to hear. Carnival's so loud! You'd thought that the half-paint liturgies that you've been going to were raucous enough, but the noise here's so wicked you can feel it in your bones, echoing and echoing and echoing 'til there's no room for nothin' else. But she seems to hear him well enough, because she laughs, mouth wide enough to set off those fangs.

When you tug on his sleeve, he waves you off, tilts his head just enough for you to see his mouth. You can read lips!

And he's gaffing you off, telling you to enjoy the show.

Maybe you should! The first time you'd seen Carnival, all those ages back, back when you were a wriggler fresh to the program, you'd been awestruck by your first Navigressor tent. There'd been purple draped from the top to the bottom, beads hanging like raindrops from the clouds, and the air was thick with a thousand things you'd never smelled before. You'd never seen that many people in one spot before, not at Lang-Kheh, not even when Liyiji had taken you out to watch the boat race, and the water had been crowded with the flags of a hundred million different boats.

It'd been loud. It'd been wicked. It'd been the best thing you'd ever experienced, from top to bottom, and it's nothing at all compared to the sea of people churning below you. You can see everything from up here! That's why Ico hauled the two of you up, and had his girl following. The whole event's spread out like the most glorious fucking banquet, all ready for you to feast your eyes on. There's singing. There's dancing. There's fuckers demonstrating paint techniques behind the high walls of tent stalls that you can see right over.

For fuck's sake, there's a FayGo fountain, and they've got heretics lined up to be doused in it. The trolls down there aren't like the ones in the cullpit: if they've got voodoos on 'em, they're weak, because they're foaming and hissing, even though they're scarcely even near it yet.

But you keep sneaking looks at Ico and his girl, instead, who're back to whispering. She's leaning in now, her hair falling like a curtain around the two of 'em, and you can't even see their faces to take a guess at what they're saying.

Not that you care.

"Ico," you murmur, tugging hard on his sleeve, "why doesn't she have any gear?"

It's like watching a film! He rolls back his shoulder, then he sighs, deflating like some motherfucker is pulling every ounce of air out of his lungs, and he ain't got none left to breathe. The look he gives you is mournful, sure, but there's an edge to it, too, the sort that promises he's gonna whine about this later.

Behind him, the girl laughs, a hand in front of her mouth.

"Darling!" Has there ever been anybody in the whole wide world who's made an endearment sound so salty? "Honeyblossom," he says, and for all that he's mouthing the words, you just know there's an edge to it: "- you can't just ask that, you little feral."

"Brotherrrr~, I just did," you deadpan, but he's already holding up a finger.

"So you did! But that doesn't mean -" The girl leans in, places her head on his shoulder. It's so affectionate! Nzinga's almost never that affectionate with you. "- that doesn't mean," he says, with scarcely a falter, "that you should! Ask me later, honeybunches, how's that, and then we'll cover it out. For now -"

He places a hand on your face, thumb firmly on one side of your chin and fingers braced around it, and then he steers your gaze back to the festival, just in time for the heretics to reach the fountain. You can't read what he's saying after that, but the pat on your cheek says enough.

Not that you're paying much attention.

You didn't realise they were gonna get drowned.

He doesn't explain it later: he drops you off at the academy and fucking bails instead, because Iconic Conetl is nothing but a liar and a goddamn traitor.

But that's alright! That's perfectly fine, 'cause you got others folks you can ask, and you never needed him none, anyway.

Sipara just blinks at you when you ask her. "Uh," she says, eloquent as fuck, and then she squints, wrinkling her nose. "Why would she have ports, nerd?"

Sipara's always enjoyed being a brat. She'll answer your questions, though, if you phrase it right, and lay out the right bait. She's never liked nothin' more than hearing the sound of her own blather, and she likes sparks more'n even you do.

"'cause everyone's got ports!" Stomping your foot's too pupa-ish even for you. But you can roll back your shoulders like Ico, lift your chin, sneer down your nose, and the way she rankles in response is /great/, 'cause she can't match it. What's she gonna do? Get on a chair?

And from the way she twists her mouth, all difficult, she knows it.

"Nobody in Hanhai has 'em." You don't even know where she gets this tone sometimes, all prim and shit. It doesn't suit her! It makes you want to pinch her 'til she's hissing again, acting the way she ought.. but you've got a better way than that.

"Everyone in Hanhai's half-feral and wretched," you declare, and oh! There go her ears, straight up in the air, like you've brought down the most dour kinda offense. "They're losers and wrastels. They don't know their ass from their head, on accounta the fact they can't read none, and they're 'bout as smart as the dead outside -" You pause, contemplative, and wait. Soon as she opens up her mouth, you're ready: "- nah, nah, girl," you say, loud, watching the colour flood her cheeks, "they're dumber, 'cause at least the dead ain't there, tryin' to grow shit in a goddamn desert -- oof!"

Sipara'll give you all the answers you want, if you lay out the right kinda bait.

Unfortunately, sometimes she takes it a little too well.

So your second try, after you get some ice for your poor fangs, is with Canvio.

Canvio's always holed up in the library! You don't get it. At least Nzinga has good hobbies. When she's not at the gym, or at the ring, or at hymns, or trying to ruin your entire goddamn life, she's.. well, you don't really know what she does, other than that, but it's gotta be interesting. She's Nzinga. She's never had a boring fucking night in her whole, entire life.

All Canvio does is read, read, read, and suck up to folks when she ain't. And sure enough, when you poke your nose into the bookdome, there she is, sitting on the edge of a table, chattering up a storm at some neophyte still in his dress unis.

"I think it's just amazing," the boy says, leaning forward, his fins flaring as he picks up speed, "that we have this much variation in laws, honestly. I mean, consider! The culling distinctions are fairly different between provinces, of course, but that's not laziness, that's just - think of it like pieces in an engine. We have thousands and thousands of parts, and each one needs to work together as a whole, but by necessity, the crankshaft needs to function differently than the shocks. They work together to make the car move, but they aren't the same, and it'd never work, if they were."

"That's - um, that's a good point." Canvio's twisting her hair around her finger, her free hand drumming against the table as she tries to think. She's finally grown into her ears the last sweep or so, and it's about time. They're still too heavy to sit up proper, but they scarcely go past her shoulders, now. "But -"

You don't know the violet legislacerator. Indigo? Those are fins on his mug, sure enough, but his face ain't strange in the way that the proctors are! There's /dents/ in his skin, dimples, not just sleek fat, and he actually blinks as he talks, like his eyes don't just stay wet on their own. And his teeth are flat enough that he can actually bite into his lip without shredding it. "But?" he prompts.

"But the proctors think it's silly."

He actually dimples at her, opens his mouth -

- and you clear your throat, leaning forward on the table with a thump of your hand against it.

"Girl," you sing, showing your fangs, "sister, I just hate to interrupt this fine fucking discussion, but I got questions, and you're the only one who can answer 'em. The only one in this whole building! The only one in this whole world. And it ain't my intention to intrude - it ain't my intention to fucking burst in, but, but -"

"- you're going to do it anyway?" the boy offers.

"- but I'm gonna do it anyway," you confirm, and Canvio turns to face you, her ears swinging with the motion. If she was anybody else, you'd think that was a frown ghosting around the corners of her mouth, a reprimand jostling for attention and just waiting to get out. But you've known her since her ears were hitting the ground. Ire isn't a word in her dictionary.

She just blinks at you, slow and languid, and then smiles, her brows knit just so. "Iunno how I can help you, Riccin." She's always so quiet, quiet, quiet: your ears are still ringing from the noise from Carnival and Sipara's clout across the head, and you gotta lean in just to catch her cant. "I'm sure I don't know the sort of thing you.. um, that you might be interested in."

"Nonsense! You know everything." Flattery wins every soul over, doesn't it? You're pretty sure you heard that. The indigo makes a curious noise, and you look at him side-long. "Hasn't she told you that, brother?"

"Liable. And no! She forgot to say," he says, amused. "I mean, obviously, she's pretty smart, but.. everything?"

"Oh." She's flushing. "Um. No, not everything -"

"Everything," you confirm cheerily. She's turning as red as a bottle of the proctor's hemming. "Girl's got a mind like a steeltrap. Can't forget anything, not ever, not once she hears it! She's better than a fucking computer."

The indigo - nah, Liable - looks from you to her. You can see the moment the thought clicks in his pan, that this is who he's been talking to, and maybe Canvio does too, because she squares her shoulders, and even her snub of a nose scrunches up like she just smelled something sour.  "Riccin," she says, plainative, and this is as close to a reprimand as she's ever gotten with you. "What do you want?"

And maybe it's 'cause she's so plainative that you just spit it out. "How come some folks get ports?" you demand. "'cause I saw a girl without 'em in town, and she was still using her psi, and everything."

".. not every psionic needs ports." She's back to twirling her hair around her hand, watching you through her lashes. Canvio's only a little shorter than you, but she acts like she's so much smaller. "Was she part of the program?"

You think of Ico, and the way he doted on her. He doesn't like the rest of the program, aside from you and Sipara. Sometimes you think he doesn't even like Iphige, for all the attention he pays her, and she's his fucking moirail.

"Nah," you say.

"Then that's why." She nods, brisk, and then slips into that tone you're used to hearing from her testing: the slight drone that sets the base of your horns to itching as her powers kick in. "Amplification ports were developed in the sixteenth cohort cycle of our empress's reign," she recites, "as a tool to aid in the development of her Dreaded Condescensions' newly fledged fleet. The first institution to use them formally was the Imperial Dreadnought Core: soon afterwards, they became standard in the Imperial Education Program, before spreading throughout the remainder of the empire's government."

She blinks. Switches tracks. "Tonight," she says, eyes shining faintly with gold, "they are common amongst the upper cohorts, but high prices and the lack of availability makes them rare in the leading cycle. Amplification ports are primarily found in members of early Ascension programs, such as the IEP, IPC, PSC, RFP and MANTRA, and the installation of flight-accessible ports in pre-Ascension citizens is illegal under statute 78.C.23-A, without the prior filing of permission and a signed referral stating intent of use by a fleet official of at least ranking 8-A-C."

Liable's staring, when you glance his way.

"And that's.. maybe why she doesn't have them. I think?" It's queer, the way that Canvio swaps back to reality. Her psionics go out, and just like that, so's her confidence. "I think," she adds again, worried. "I.. it's hard to know for sure, unless I saw her. Did you think she needed them? Because, ah, I don't think - well, not everyone does."

"Maybe they don't need 'em, but -" Even Sipara has ports, you want to argue. You've helped her strip off her arm before! It's all hamburger meat and jagged lines where she cut straight through it, badly sealed as if she'd used crazy glue to fix it, but there's a port there, buried into the scars and flesh of her wrist. "- shouldn't they have them?" you argue, and you're gonna say more, but Canvio's looking at you.

It's the same way lots of folks have started looking at you, lately, and the words die on your tongue.

"Why.. um." She licks her lips, turns away so that she can watch you from the corner of her eye. "I don't think -"

"I don't see why they would," Liable says, rallying. He's leaning forward on the table now, fins drooping even as he peers at you. "If you can use your abilities without them, why would you want tech put in you? And if you're not going to do something with your psionics -"

"Brother, why the fuck wouldn't you?" Something on his face shifts, but it's only when Canvio flinches that you realise your voice's picked up. But you can't help it. This conversation's making you antsy in a way you can't figure out, except that they're not fucking getting it. "We have 'em for a reason," you snap. "If you ain't using 'em, the fuck are you but a joke without a punchline? What's the point of it? Might as well crack open your pan and scrape it clean, if you're rebuffing what the fuck you're made for -"

And he's looking at you strange now, too, like you're saying something worth staring over.

You swallow the rest of your lecture, turn on your heel and fucking leave.

Your third, and final, attempt is with Kindra.

Myrrha won't understand! Myrrha gets squeamish about her own port; you caught her with jade under her nails the entire first sweep she had it, and all she has is the sort they give wrigglers, scarcely bigger than your thumb. Liyiji doesn't care, and wouldn't see it as relevant to the either of you. Sometimes you think he doesn't even remember you're not blue, the way he acts!

Weeds.. well, you're not sure what he'd care, either, but that thought's stranger, and it sort of stings.

But Kindra's more kin than any of the rest of them. Kindra's your castemate, and your friend, and the only fucker with as much gear in him as you've got. He's let you sprawl out in his apartment for the nights after your surgeries, when every piece of flesh in your body is griping about the new additions, and you've seen him when his neck's still swollen and yellow, and he won't let almost nobody come near. Everything you've been through, he's done, too. Every proctor exam you've taken, every night you've spent hooked up in some chair, running test after test to see how shit's playing out - well, some of that, he's even done more'n you.

If anyone's gonna get it, he will.

And lucky for you, he's in his block when you come pounding on the door, hollering loud enough that some idiot down the row pokes their head out. "Kindra! Kindra!"

"If you don't stop knocking," he says, flat and dull through the wood, "I'm not opening it."

There's one problem with Kindra, and that's that you can't just slip on past him. You gotta orchestrate your moves! He's like Canvio, but worse in every way: all you ever gotta worry about 'round her is the fact she'll remember every little piece of everything you ever do, and the proctors like to go rifling through her pan. So you can't ever do anything they wouldn't like in front of her, or they'll hear about it. It's not too bad, though. It means she's always happy to see you, on account of the fact you're one of the only fuckers who doesn't care.

It isn't like you ever do shit the proctors care about, anyway.

But Kindra remembers everything he ever touches, not just sees, and he remembers it forever and ever: a list of all your sins, all your actions, every thought that you might ever have fucking had. It's a wretched kind of thought! Not for you, necessarily, 'cause what do you have to hide? He'd probably do better if he had your stuff jangling in his night long to keep 'em company, and keep his spirits up. He's grumpy enough as is. And it's not like you'd mind, considering it's /him/.

But every time you try to imagine knowing every cringing, slinking thought in Canvio's head - having her permanently bouncing around - it makes your skin crawl.

So you sidle past him, instead, careful to keep your hands and arms in, and when you get in his hive, you flounce immediately over to his couch. There's a spot that you've decided is yours, though you stopped short of carving your name into it. When you fling yourself onto the arm of it, knees braced, shoulders and head sprawled across the back - you can shift just right to watch Kindra on the other side of it, dramatic as fuck, and no risk of tipping right onto him.

Nah, if he kicks out, you'll just tip off the back. As he's fucking proven, a couple of times.

But he doesn't kick at you this time. He just closes and locks his door, then settles onto the other end of the couch, watching you. "Well? What's got you in a knot this time?" he says, and it's so fucking strange, seeing him without the mask. Sometimes you forget he's got a mouth under there! A mouth, and a face, and a whole slew of expressions that you never, ever get to see.

Except right now, while he frowns.

"Well?" he demands, and there's a hundred things you could say, if you could figure out how. Nobody fucking gets it. Nobody gets it, and you don't understand why, 'cause it's clear as the stars in the sky. She didn't have a port, and she should've. What's the point of psi without it? Shepherd's always saying that a psionic without one's useless as a dog without a leash, and it's true! Your job is to serve the Empire. It always has been, ever since you hatched out and started sparking.

How're folks supposed to do that, bare-necked?

How can anyone else stand the thought there's folks out there, not doing their goddamn duties?

Maybe, if you had enough time, you could figure out how to say something like that. Maybe, if Kindra wasn't watching you, and waiting, and you weren't so riled.

What comes out, instead, is: "- d'you think we need ports?"

He squints at you.

His ears aren't big like yours! They're like Li's, smaller than Sipara's, but just big enough to read. So when they twitch back, you take note. "They kind of suck," he says, flat, but.. he doesn't look at you like Canvio or Liable or Sipara all have started. His mouth just twitches to the side, and he slumps a little against the cushions, eyebrows rising up like they're an afterthought. "But."

"They're necessary! Why're you thinking about 'em? You're going to give yourself ulcers."

"I don't have - whatevers!" He's hanging around the legislacerators too much, you think, if he's using that sort of terminology. That doesn't even sound like a word, never mind a real one.

"Yeah, that's why you're gonna give yourself 'em," he sniffs. "Try listening. Why? Did one of your weirdos say we didn't?"

"One of the legis did." His contempt is as familiar as the back of Shepherd's hand. It's sort of soothing. Everyone else can be strange, but Kindra's always been on your level: he gets you, in a way that nobody else fucking does. And as far as you're concerned, you think you do, too.

You've never tried to touch his face, after all, even though you could. Or his hand, or anything else! There's plenty of trolls who see a fucker wrapped up like a mummy, and take that as a lark to try and push, but you've never been one of them. "The legi's are dumb," he declares, prompt. "Don't listen to them. What do they know, other than laws? Nothing."

.. even if right now, you want to. The couch is fine to drape on, but you don't want to fucking drape on something. You want your lusus, or you want Ico petting your hair, or - something that's more comforting than dead fabric under you, because every thought in your pan's a fucking mess right now.

But Kindra can't touch you, his lusus is too pointy to hold, and visiting hours for yours are over for the day. So you curl in tighter against the couch instead, with a whuff loud enough that you're sure they can hear it out in the hallway. "I guess."

"Well, I know." He's so certain, sometimes! There's no hesitation as he leans back into the couch, reaches for the remote. "Do you want to watch a movie?" he offers. "One of your stupid romcoms. Get your pan off of it. There's a new one out --"

"Would you still be friends with me, brother, if I didn't have wetware?"

He blinks at you.

".. of course I would." So much for that confidence! You could've dropped a pin in that silence. You could've started a war, had a hand-fasting, died and been passed over by three different descendents by the time he musters up the answer. But at least it's an answer, for all the fact that he is giving you a look now, one of the ones that means you're being awful dumb. Sure enough: " - you're stuck with me now. /But/ that's a really dumb question."

"You've got a really dumb face," you shoot back. Is that the answer you wanted? You're not sure! You're.. it's wrong, for folks not to have ports. It's wrong, and it's awful, and it makes your neck itch, makes you want to scratch until your hands are painted, like Myrrha used to do. It means they're wretched, and stupid, and useless - like pupas.

Like you used to be, before you came and joined the program.

But you shouldn't think about this anymore right now! You want to, in a twisting kind of way: you want to dig into it 'til you've got it split open, 'til you understand every inch and corner of it, 'til there's naught you don't know, and the words come as easy as song. Would you be friends, if Kindra didn't have a port?

That's a good question.

He clears his throat. When you look at him, he waves the remote, impatient, and it's a wonder, how much you can pick up from a sound. Exasperation, irritation, worry: everything he does is always like a ballad wrapped in a ditty, if you're just payin' enough attention.

So you huff: "- start the movie, brother."

(.. you wouldn't be, you don't think, but you can't imagine not being friends with Kindra, not ever. So you'd just have to get him one, that's all - and oh, that thought smooths your hackles some. Maybe that's what Ico's doing, too.)

(Maybe it's alright, if folks don't have ports. Maybe it's alright, even, if they think they don't need 'em - 'cause maybe, just maybe, that's what fuckers like you are here for, to tell them and show them that they're fucking wrong.)

[airlock]

oh, by the way! the other day I actually finished that affinity list for FE15 characters but I’ve been forgetting to post it so I hope you’re all ready for a whole shitton of “you know what this character is a lot like that one other character from a game that has canon affinities”

Alm - Light y'know, part of my exercises in attempting to make a regular FE cast out of a series-wide arrange of characters with the best FE Heroes poll results was in workshopping affinities for the characters that made the list. when I started attempting this, Echoes wasn't remotely out yet. I've since discarded the progress I've made on that front, due to the recent changes in the roster as per the link I've just shared and also because when that happened Echoes was much closer to being out. regardless, I'll probably end up bringing up the initial affinity impressions I've had at that point for the Gaiden characters who made it to the initial roster, even though I've (rather predictably) doubled back on most of them this side of Echoes being out. Alm is a big case of this happening. when his sparse characterisation in Gaiden coupled with his Awakening lines made it popular read him as the genocidal scourge of Rigel, I had a good time chucking him into the Ice affinity where not one other FE protagonist would fit. well, for better or for worse (and mostly for the better), those times are now over. Alm in Echoes is not without compassion for his enemies or with a very strong impetus towards revenge; he's just young, in over his head, and a little too eager to please, and that eagerness took him in a questionable (if not necessarily wrong, per se) direction when he felt that pushing back against Rigel is what people wanted. he actually hits many of the same notes as Seliph, although his discomforts with leadership seem to be less inherent (as with Seliph) than they're just naturally stemming from the fact that he's a young boy who just keeps suddenly ending up with more responsibility than he thought he was in for. and he ultimately grows into the roles he keeps being given with little further complaint, and it's all because he enjoys the upshot of it all: getting to help more people. and for someone who's always so inclined towards doing right by others, almost unidirectionally, I can't think of a better affinity than Light.

Celica - Thunder unlike her co-protagonist, Celica doesn't require any sort of analysis to be read as having a Light affinity; I'd expect that this is would be most of anyone's initial impulse. but she's, ah... not nearly enough of a pushover for that. when she talks about her mission, she does so with a kind of steely resolve that can only run much deeper than just a desire to do the right thing; each of her decisions mean something important to her, and for that, she's ever glad to take matters into her own hands, even those closest to her desperately wish she'd be more willing to let everyone else lift some of the load as well. and just like Alm sometimes risks everything out of his unwillingness to disappoint, so Celica's weakness is not listening to other people's thoughts when she's made up her mind, which is how she ends up handing her soul over to Jedah despite as many people as possible telling her not to do it. this principled, yet stubborn attitude is definitely the way of Thunder characters like Selena and Jill, and we can only be very relieved that Celica's tendencies mostly pointed her in directions unlike the sorts those two have ended up in.

Gray - Fire this guy has so much in common with Sain, I was this close to calling it a Wind, but there's an all-important difference: where that affinity's crowd tends to be more dreamy and detached, Gray is actually pretty down-to-earth in spite of his rather humorous openness. his flirty side strikes me as more a social butterfly thing than Sain's floweriness, for one (at least, well, in any context but his supports with Clair). overall, he's more than anything else friendly and easygoing, the way of a Guy or a Ross.

Tobin - Anima/Earth painfully awkward, but level-headed, observant, and clear in his ways of thinking -- this one's pretty straightforward, the way Anima characters can often be.

Kliff - Wind OR Ice so this one is also one where I had a pre-Echoes assignment for Poll Heroes. at that point, whatever little character he had seemed pointedly Wind, being the right amount of free-spiritedness and, as per his ending, dreamy wanderlust. this side of Echoes, those traits were kept and driven in further, but at the same time, he also gained a new and very marked personality trait: a mean, haughty streak that would really not land him out of place with the likes of Raigh and Raven. and I kind of wanted to think that this isn't entirely out of left field for a Wind character either, but there isn't anyone quite that mean on the canon listings; at worst you get some lighthearted snarkers like Haar and Bastian. still, it's not as if pushing the frontier is enough reason to demand a change in affinity... so it's honestly easy to argue either way for him. and to make matters worse -- he's very withdrawn and his ch3 base convo implies he has something of a history with secrets, so he wouldn't be out of place as a Darkness character either, although at this point I'm still feeling Wind and Ice more strongly for him.

Faye - the shit writing affinity it speaks vollumes that I feel like I can only possibly ground her primary characterization on anything that makes sense if I review her lines from the prologue and/or in battle situations. this is also something I don't feel like doing.

Lukas - Anima/Earth with his whole "cold observer" thing, Ice is a mighty tempting affinity for him, but Anima/Earth fits that bill just as well and also works for Lukas in a number of ways that Ice doesn't. he's not quite mean, aloof, or detached enough to really seem like an Ice; his quiet is more poise than lack of concern or dismissal. all in all, Anima/Earth is a solid affinity for the character who silently yet gladly takes on the role of Team Babysitter, the way Oswin, Oscar, and Nolan are all known to. that said, there's also that whole other way to read his character: for those whom Lukas strikes as being much more stirred than he ever lets on -- between Clive/Lukas B and the way he's deadpan about his awful backstory -- the obvious affinity would be Darkness.

Silque - Ice I'll freely admit she's a hard one to read whatsoever -- and maybe I'd have more material to work with if Faye hadn't fucked this one up for us all -- so the most I can seem to observe in her character is this aloof elegance. and maybe it's just par for the setting, but there are some precious few moments when she shows something of a lowkey judgemental side... but really, this is not one of the assessments I'd be very attached to; if you've got a better idea, you can probably argue it better

Clair - Thunder proud and stubborn and- you know what, I could just copypaste my rationale for making Lachesis this affinity when I was analyzing FE4. in fact, I'm gonna do that. I’m kind of tempted to put her down for Thunder just because she’d match Clarine that way, tbh (sic)

Forsyth - Thunder being as square as he is, Forsyth could've easily ended up on the Anima/Earth bin, where he can be in the company of such spoilsports as Kent and Oswin -- but it's actually not that simple. for all his veneer of orderliness and properness, this is still a guy who gave up on a quiet and safe life to run after a goose chase of a dream that never had a chance to come true, and only got anything remotely close to that as a result of plentiful fortunate circumstances. besides, when he's trying to whip Python into shape, he doesn't resemble, say, Kent trying to whip Sain into shape -- whereas the former pair's dynamic sounds more "ugh, please stop being an idiot and do this properly", Forsyth's beef with Python is over a lack of commitment. because that's what's really Forsyth's primary characteristic: the kind of commitment that can only stem from a Thunder-affinity character, even if he's basically committed to becoming what an Anima/Earth character might just naturally be.

Python - Wind in his own words, he lives carefree, which is exactly the way Wind characters are when they're left to their own devices. he's certainly got a combination of Ranulf's sense of humour (or even Wil's loose tongue) and Haar's boldfaced laziness.

Clive - Light he's idealistic enough for the part -- to the point that what keeps bending him and bringing out some of the worst in him over the course of the story is that not all things play out like the pretty design he had in his head. to name one, he's fine with putting some farmboy climbing the social ladders as the leader of his resistance band so as long as it makes him feel good for being so nice to peasants and giving the common soldier a leader they can identify with, but it’s rougher on him when Alm starts talking back to him and making decisions he doesn't agree with.

Boey - Anima/Earth there's something that keeps showing up in his lines, that I kind of get but can't seem to describe... but in any case, he's pretty much the Tobin of Team Celica, as someone who tries to keep it real but tends to come off more as the short-sighed comic relief than the shrewd realist.

Mae - Thunder I can just say it's Serra's affinity and leave it at that, that should explain everything

Genny - Wind OR Light we're not offered much in actual characterization for her other than shyness, a dreamy, story-loving nature and a dash of helplessness... it's hard to make anything deeper, least of all considering she's pretty young. Wind works with her detached, "this would make such a cool saga" ways, and also with the fact that her ending will show she's willing to troll people about her choice in romantic partners; Light would reinterpret her love of stories as a sort of idealism, and also focus on her helpless but earnest side, where she's similar to characters like Florina.

Saber - Ice aloof, gruff, and with a bad reputation to boot -- even if we know that Saber gets to be much more attentive and supportive than he seems to be, or frankly wishes he were, his nurturing side still tends to be more like "that sounds stupid but I'm here for it" than anything warmer and more earnest.

Valbar - Fire this is another one I had a pre-Echoes take on, and that one was Thunder -- it made perfect sense, since Gaiden doesn't give you anything more on the guy than the fact that he's willing to all but suicide attack a whole bunch of pirates in the name of revenge. this side of Echoes, though, that part of his characterization now seems to be more of an understandably extreme reaction to grief, while his natural disposition is just friendly and charmingly boisterous in a way that strikes me much more as Fire.

Leon - Light deep down under all his quirks, there seems to be something idealistic, even childish at times. if he can fall in love with someone just because that person was nice to him at a difficult time, that's -- at least, by his own admission -- because he appreciates the beauty of the world; and if he can spend half his dialogue talking about Valbar -- I swear, sometimes he almost annoys me as much as Faye does -- that's because he's sporting this mental checklist of things that make someone The Ideal Man and Valbar has yet to fail any of it. plus, well, for better or for worse, this is also Kyza's affinity.

Kamui - Wind aloof, but dreamy, more than anything else helplessly driven by his wanderlust; and on top of all that, just slightly snarky. Kamui is a very straightforward Wind character.

Luthier - Ice also a pretty straightforward assessment: haughty, but awkward; aloof and a little too focused on something that interests him; Luthier is pretty much a living checklist of Ice traits, although he doesn't quite cover the stricter and meaner end of that spectrum (except in that he's almost strict enough when it comes to Delthea -- definitely "almost", though, he's nonwhere near Marcus-level strict). one amusing way to think of it is that Luthier is the exact kind of guy who Pent only barely avoided becoming.

Mathilda - Light time and again she's regarded as being the voice of reason -- and I think that's less in the whole Lukas-esque "cold observer" sense and more in the sense that she's sensible and doesn't lose sight of what's important. it's also worth noting that, unlike Celica above, she's prone to giving others a little too much credit and yielding to particularly persistent characters; from the third Rise of the Deliverance map, plus some of the base game, Clair in particular can play her like a piano just by being very stubborn. maybe that's also how she ends up with that awful ending... (can I go this long without drawing parallels to characters with canon affinities? naaaah. sometimes she's kind of like a Lucius who actually enjoys fighting.)

Delthea - Fire it's rather clear that when Delthea thinks of her dreamy city life, she's thinking of a place where she can go be a social butterfly -- or, as it were, fall in love with someone suavacious. I've also considered Wind as a strong possibility for her but ultimately I get the sense that she's less lashing out against restrictions or being expected to work hard and more against being judged for not really wanting to be a mage. I'm very probably splitting hairs there, but we'd have more established character to build upon if folks would just let Delthea say "fuck" every once in a while.

Palla - Anima/Earth I'll have to admit that Akaneia characterization isn't fresh in my head at the present moment -- however sparse it can be -- but most of what I remember about Palla is her just incorporating that whole The Big Sister (TM) Archetype without a complaint, which is just another way of being the Team Babysitter as Lukas above is.

Catria - Ice this one's also gonna have to work off her FE15 characterization primarily, but anyways! as affecionate as she is deep down, she's pretty aloof and she'll be curt and critical sometimes; this bill probably suits her fine.

Atlas - Fire a big-hearted guy of very simple ways, to the point that even directly befriending a queen-to-be won't draw him away from going back to his village and becoming a simple lumberjack. he's really like a bar-brawling, trash-talking version of Dorcas.

Jesse - Light he just loves playing the hero, right to the point that he'll bog himself down doing it (like, say, by trying to take on a horde of desert bandits alone and ending up captured by them). he's also got the idealism to boot, what with this whole idea for a mercenary's country. and I mean, really, I shouldn't need to argue very much to say that Jesse would have the same affinity as Gatrie.

Deen - Darkness full disclosure: I did not pick him on my first and so far only Echoes run, so there's every chance I haven't seen the full picture yet. still, as far as I can see, this guy just drips with Darkness, hitting much of the same edgelord tunes as Rutger does. that said, for all I know he could be more of a Jaffar-type Ice affinity, so maybe I'll really have to see yet.

Sonya - Darkness full of secrets and unwilling to let anyone in for real, but she can't help but let off a glimpse of her truths if it might just help someone she can see herself in -- yeah, she's right at home with Calill and Micaiah, to say the least.

Est - Fire lively and straightforward -- to the point that, at least here in FE15, her sisters seem to enjoy just completely reading her -- she's not very difficult to regard as a Fire. although, between the way she does her unreliable sales pitches (in her support with Catria) and certain Akaneia things that hint at some severe commitment issues, it's tempting to keep Wind in consideration, too...

Nomah - Wind if Bastian should live to see old age, then he'll become the exact person that Nomah is. ... well, a more long-winded version of him, at least.

Tatiana - Fire I've dithered a fair bit here, because for all her ostensible cheeriness, she's got a lot of insecurity and fright in her. as soon as you rescue her, the first thought in her head is "oh god they're going to kill me", and the second thought is "oh god they're going to kill my boyfriend". there's also how she's terrified of her beloved's memories returning, and how she wastes no time in beating herself up over it, and she's even got a base conversation where she expresses her self-doubts about being a good cleric. I couldn't help but wonder whether all this wouldn't make her a surprising Darkness character, really. but it seems like the precedent for having a Fire-like personality and a crushing load of insecurities is still remaining in the Fire affinity (cfr. Nino, Neimi), so dredging all of that up may not have been the best use of my analytical energy after all. harrumph, I say!

Zeke - Thunder OR Darkness between his characterization here and in other games that he totally isn't in, we know exactly two things about our amnesiac knight: that for better or for tragically worse he's loyal to the bitter end, and that he's definitely not a big fan of solving things through normal people communication.

Conrad - Thunder frankly a very tentative assessment since, seriously, for a new character who's meant to be central to the plot, this guy seriously got awful little development, probably being that IS decided to save up all of his big reveal quality for the most obvious detail about him and decided to leave us in the dark about all his other secrets. he's not even really hiding them himself -- no moreso than the plot demands at least -- so I can't just blame it on a Darkness affinity. all I really have on this guy is that, for all that he's ostensibly soft and sensitive, he's mighty stubborn, enough so that 50% of his interactions with Celica, especially as his masked knight self, are just him and her being very stubborn at each other. he's pretty much the only one that won't shut down and back off when Celica pushes back -- kind of gives me the awful impression that maybe he just doesn't listen to her very much, on review. maybe. but yeah, on the one hand he honestly doesn't /really/ sound like a Thunder type, but on the other hand, there are two different people he sounds like, and he won't drop the masked knight persona entirely even after he's stopped hiding his true identity, so I can't think of anything ostensible enough to draw my analysis from. but here's an amusing thought: a couple lines back there I did a typo and noticing I'd written "when Celice pushes back" was freaking hilarious l m a o

Mycen - Ice it's hard to pin down Mycen's true personality, since he's always so busy doing as the plot demands. at least, Clive (in one of the DLC memories) implies that he was already a notorious stoic even before he ended up in a situation where he's always having to put his own feelings aside, but it's hard not to think that he must've already had some façade going on by the time he turned into a Rigel-born Zofia knight. that said, even if it's what the plot (or, as it were, the bizarro alternate reality that a tutorial tends to sound like) demanded, this is a guy who yelled at a bunch of children because they were crying about having to fight a bunch of actual knights. so yeah, I'm not too hesitant to pin him down as, at the very least, the hard taskmaster who still gets his pupils' adoration -- you know, the Marcus way. that said, what wouldn't I give for some additional DLC that delves more into his actual character, and specially into that sweet, sweet Mycen and Nomah backstory...

Totals

Fire(6): Gray, Delthea, Tatiana | Valbar, Atlas, Est Ice(5~6): Silque, Luthier, Mycen, [Kliff?] | Saber, Catria Anima/Earth(4): Tobin, Lukas | Boey, Palla Wind(3~5): Python, [Kliff?] | Kamui, Nomah, [Genny?] Thunder(5~6): Clair, Forsyth, [Zeke?] | Celica, Mae, Conrad Light(5~6): Alm, Clive, Mathilda | Leon, Jesse, [Genny?] Darkness(2~3): [Zeke?] | Deen, Sonya shit writing(1): you know who | N/A

[teddylvpn]

❝ Some are just born to burn; you can tell by their firework smiles bright enough to strike a match. But here’s the strangest part: some are so terribly brilliant that we wouldn’t mind burning with them. ❞

INSPO: pinboard and stats page ( I’ll post this when i finish it ).

TRIGGER WARNINGS: parental death

QUICK FACTS:  twenty-seven, former slytherin, former sergeant of the auror’s dept. a little addicted to gambling/card sharking, his hair changes color with his mood but is normally a nice dark navy. besties with victoire. gonna marry nadia zabini my dudes. doesn’t take shit and always lends a helping hand to those in need.

❝ He is a sun in human skin; bright enough to blind, yes, bright enough to ravage corneas and hearts alike, but you have been on fire from the start and the burning has always been worth it. ❞ MICHAEL B. JORDAN? No, that’s actually TEDDY LUPIN. Only TWENTY-SEVEN years old, this SLYTHERIN alumni works as UNEMPLOYED and is sided with THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX. HE/THEY identifies as DEMI BOY and is a HALFBLOOD (METAMORPHMAGUS) who is known to be SLY, NOSY, and SELF-SACRIFICIAL but also HONEST, PLAYFUL, and COMPASSIONATE.

[ TW: PARENTAL DEATH MENTION ] Teddy had come as a surprise to Dora and Remus, one that had somehow brought them back together. To say his parents where happy during their time with him would be a lie. They weren’t the healthiest couple and due to Remus’ fear of Teddy becoming like him – it even strained their relationship with him during the time he spent kicking around in the womb. The month after his birth is a different story. Though their time was cut short, Remus had warmed up to his bubblegum-pink haired infant and his relationship with Tonks had smoothed out just before their demise.

Teddy spent most of his childhood bouncing between his grandmother and his godfather, Harry Potter. Though it was his grandmother’s place that he called home. Teddy grew up curious as to how different his life would be if his parents were still with him. Countless people had countless stories of his parents. They would tell him how they were heroes, how they gave their life for the greater good and while he thought that was brave...he would have rather them be there with him. He had Andromeda though. It was her and him against the world and he’d never give her anything less than the whole world.

The first day of Hogwarts was a train wreck. The letter came just as expected, he’d breezed through shopping in Diagon Alley, and literally could not stay still on the train ride to Hogwarts. Once he stepped on the boats the looks he’d gotten from Hagrid, then McGonagall, the rest of the professors as he made his way down to let the sorting hat crown his head had created a pit in his stomach. Pity and sorrow– nothing he needed but it seemed his first year would be full of it. There were whispers of Hufflepuff or Gryffindor but he had surprised everyone with Slytherin. He was welcome graciously but still he was received by careful kindness though he felt it was more because he was an orphan than actual kindness. He spent that first week moping, hair colored black/blue, using his free time to stare, teary-eyed up at his parents portraits and ushered into McGonagall’s office for tea and biscuits. He wanted nothing more than to go home and crawl into his grandmother’s arms but he didn’t -- Teddy stood strong and stubborn.

Time passed as it always does and he eventually grew used to the pity in their eyes until it slowly disappeared all together. Around his fourth year, at least in school, he’d grown out of the ‘Poor Orphan’ trope and made a name for himself outside of his parents – which is a necessity of growing.

He was quite popular through out his years in Hogwarts due to a shining personality that even McGonagall herself couldn’t  hold a straight face towards. Aside from family history, his hair, handsome looks ( OH BUT U THINK HE GONNA LET HIMSELF NOT LOOK GOOD, FRIENDS U WRONG ) tendency to hold out a helping hand to anyone had plenty on team Teddy. He eventually would get a Head Student role in his seventh year just because of his compassion, natural leadership and charisma.

However, Teddy continued on his own little legacy into his career after he graduated. He was ( still is ) well loved once he entered the aurors field, finding a lot of older aurors who were friends of his mother and father who were willing to take him under their wing. And just like school he breezed through ( perhaps not the best but he definitely had the qualities that earned him an extra star or two ). He became particularly famous for high priority targets he brought in due to being a metamorphmagus. And just in two years after finishing his training, he was promoted to Sergeant of the Auror’s department, working at the side of Harry Potter himself.

He’d happen to stumble upon talk of an ‘attack’ late in October on a covert mission he’d set himself on to get a lead on the movements of the death eaters. But he would come o Harry’s rescue much too late. Teddy attempted to save him and dueled with Death Eaters cloaked in masks that would have taken him as a victim with the three. He escaped to a ‘close friends’ house and recuperated until the memorial.

Eventually he lost his status as Sergeant and was fired from the auror’s department two weeks after Fawley took over. He now is technically unemployed but he manages well with gambling death eaters out of their money.

He acts as a second in command for the Order of the Phoenix and tends to take on the more dangerous missions alone due to his meta abilities.

Personality:

basically teddy is the type to find the best in every situation so he’s rarely bothered by other people and usually finds any attempt to ‘shake’ him hilarious.

he’s very open with everything and upfront with his feelings. if his happy, he will tell you, if he’s sad, he’ll tell you. ( and yes his hair is a makeshift mood ring so study up on color symbolism )

a big goofball tbh. super troll-y and down for a good drag. he is savage and he is a take no prisoner type of person. LOL even if you are lily potter, he’s gonna drag u – with love <3

he’s a proper snake when it comes to games. he’s good at strategizing and it’s rare that he’ll lose unless it’s on purpose or if HE is drunk tbh. basically he’s a CARD SHARK. he’ll cheat you right out of every cent you have though…he mostly keeps to snatching that money from the drunks in hogsmeade. and by drunks, teddy means douchebags or the corrupted members of society – watch your pockets de’s.

on the subject of family, he lived mostly with his grandmother. kind of going back and forth between the potters and andromeda’s home. he adores the wotters and kind of takes over the big brother type of role for any of them. he’s quite sensitive on the topic of family so he doesnt quite consider the wotters family because they aren’t?? – his family is andromeda and his parents and he feels that he should keep them separated. HOWEVER this does not mean he is anti-wotters or he loves them any less??? honestly he adores every single one of them.

he doesnt really talk about his parents. that’s probably the one thing he refuses to be open about and will remove himself from the situation if it’s brought up.