#what a week x.x

[dingoat]

Text posts part 3, mojo dojo dream house edition

[case-of-traxits]

I’m sure you’ve probably talked about this before, but how do you think reeve’s inspire works?

So funny fact here: I've never actually formally meta'd about this publicly. I'm pretty sure. I've talked to a few individuals about it, but never in like, a definitive, "This is definitely how I think it works," sort of way.

Maybe it's time to change that?

First though, let's talk about why I use the Inspire ability at all, because a lot of that leads into how I think it works.

An Argument for Why I Use the Inspire Ability

I would love to start with Reeve's original bio, but of course, as we know, Reeve didn't get a bio in the original game manual. So instead, we're forced to rely on his Ultimania bio:

The head of the Urban Development Department. Involved in the construction of Midgar from the very beginning, he watches over the town’s development like that of a child. By utilizing his special ability, “Inspire”, he is able to cause inorganic things to emit life; his “child”, the “cat”-shaped robot, Cait Sith can be controlled from a great distance. After Meteorfall, he became the director of the World Regenesis Organization (WRO), which is devoted to the purpose of restoring life to the planet.

For what it's worth, Reeve's bio has been shockingly consistent with including his Inspire ability. I go into that a little bit over in my WRO Reeve + Heartbreak meta.

Now, I know a lot of people don't like the Ultimanias. They find them confusing, or contradictory, or whatever the current "I don't use them," reason of the day is. That's fine! Let's take a look at Cait Sith's original bio from the game manual:

Cait Sith rides on the back of a huge stuffed Mog he magically brought to life. Megaphone in hand, he's always shouting orders and creating dopey attacks...

So there you go. Mog and Cait Sith cannot simply be robots, since it's stated quite plainly that Cait Sith brought Mog to life magically.

(As a side note, Cait Sith in the OG comes equipped with the Manipulate materia. This is a fun multi-layered reference, don't you think? Pokes a note at him being a spy and kind of gives you a thing to consider about how he possibly controls Mog.)

(As a second side note, Cait Sith also has one of the highest magic/spirit scores in the OG, so he's clearly meant to be your caster.)

Now, that said, Reeve clearly did build Cait Sith as a robot. His Ultimania profile clearly refers to Cait Sith as a robot, and in BC, Cait Sith has a controller of some kind in his back, and he gets damaged and broken into pieces and the Player Turk has to put him back together.

(As a side note there— and I swear, I'll stop doing these soon— if I recall correctly, the pieces the Player Turk has to collect are the body, the head, and the crown, implying that Cait Sith's crown is in fact an important part of him, and not just a cute fashion accessory.)

In addition, it is worth noting that Rufus Shinra is well aware of Cait Sith and that Reeve "controls" him, and yet, Reeve is able to directly communicate with AVALANCHE during a board meeting where Scarlet and Heidegger are talking Rufus into loading up No. 26, the rocket from Rocket Town, with huge materia and crashing it into Meteor in an attempt to save the world. Reeve not only does this, but Rufus gives no outward indication that he's aware of it. So however Reeve "controls" Cait Sith, there must not be a visible component to it.

My point is that Cait Sith, from what canon shows us, appears to be a robot that Reeve can control directly, without need for any sort of external control system. And, based on some thoughts that Cait Sith has during BC that cannot reasonably be attributed to Reeve, Cait Sith is still somehow independent of Reeve himself.

So why don't I go with Cait Sith simply being a learning AI of some kind? Well, mostly because of Mog. If we go back to the original bio for Cait Sith, it reads very similarly to Reeve's Ultimania bio. So Reeve grants life to Cait Sith, who can, in turn, grant life to Mog.

Functionally, Cait Sith is a mini-Inspire of his own.

Canon Exploration of the Inspire Ability

Now that I've written out my premise for why I go with Inspire Reeve, let's get to the heart of the original question:  How do I think it works?

Well, let's look at what we have to work with:

[Ultimania Bio] Reeve causes inorganic things to "emit" life.

[Ultimania Bio] Reeve sees Cait Sith as a child.

[OG Game Bio] Cait Sith inherits the Inspire ability.

[OG/BC/DoC] Cait Sith is capable of acting autonomously.

[OG/BC/DoC] Cait Sith can be directly controlled (to some extent, at least) via Reeve.

[OG] Reeve can speak through Cait Sith without other people in the room noticing.

[OtWtaS] Multiple Cait Siths can be 'active' at a time.

[DoC] Reeve and Cait Sith can move in sync with one another.

[DoC] Even if Cait Sith 'dies,' he can somehow convey information he learned right up until his death to Reeve/other Cait Siths.

How Does the Ability Actually Work?

So, with all of this in mind, here's how I usually go with Reeve's ability working:

The short answer is that I see it as a low-key, always-on mental connection between Reeve and Cait Sith.

A longer explanation starts with the fact that I see Reeve's Inspire ability as sort of... it has both passive and active modes for me.  Basically, in the passive mode, Reeve is always influencing inorganic material around him.  It's more noticeable when his emotions are heightened, but things like his phone and his car develop... quirks.  His car isn't really conscious, exactly, but it does read his intent, and to some extent, it basically functions as a self-driving vehicle when Reeve is the one behind the wheel.

Now, for my Reeve in particular, this is in no small part because the car was his father's, and he has worked on it extensively over the years.  It's a classic car, basically, and it gives him an outlet for fiddly work that's outside and not in a reactor or tied to Shinra.  If you're going with a Reeve who doesn't love his car as much, then obviously, that probably would be a bit more odd.

A more common variant on this, I think, would probably be that I usually roll with Reeve having... partially Inspired the reactors.  All of them.  All of the ones he has access to.  And in this case, it's less because he wants them to be alive and more because he wants to have that access to them.  He wants to be able to check statuses and know what's going on with a reactor at any given moment, and no matter how advanced the tech is, nothing will be faster for him than a direct mental connection.

Of course, that can have some less than stellar side effects when, say, a reactor explodes.  @ladykf-writes wrote me some amazing ficlets that feature my headcanons about this after much rambling with her about them. So I highly recommend checking those out if you're interested in this idea.

Then he has the active mode of his ability. I've written a ficlet (Heritage and Legacies) about the process of actually Inspiring Cait Sith (and it makes mention of Reeve's first disastrous accidental Inspiration), but in short, it involves more or less willing the inanimate object to life.  I usually go with the explanation that Reeve is literally feeding the object a bit of his own personal lifestream (or soul, depending on how you want to talk about it) until it starts circulating it on its own.  This gives me a built in explanation for why he doesn't animate hundreds of things at once and such.  I do like to have caps on things.

But because it was his personal lifestream that he used, he can basically retain... think of like a narrow, unseen string between Cait Sith and Reeve, no matter how far apart they get. And across this string, they can send thoughts, memories, and sensations.  That's how Reeve knew what happened to Cait Sith when Nero ate him with shadows.  Cait Sith had immediately connected with Reeve and told him.

Now, I do a few hand-wavey things for my own sanity when writing.  I assume that when a Cait Sith dies, all of their memories get imprinted in Reeve's mind, and when he Inspires the next Cait Sith, they get a copy of all of those memories.  This can create a bit of a jarring dissonance within the memories for a new Cait Sith, as they might remember being Cait Sith 1 and being Cait Sith 2 in the same conversation.  But for the most part, it works.

The other thing I usually do with Cait Sith specifically is that I say that when he was first Inspired, he was very much like a baby or a toddler.  He needed to learn a lot of things.  I don't have any fics currently up featuring this (I will after the holiday events though), but basically, I go with it having taken Reeve a while to get Cait Sith to talk at all for example, and that he had to learn a lot of things on his own rather than relying on Reeve's memory of the things.

Now, because of the hand-wavey memory thing I already talked about, new Cait Siths don't have that same initial problem.  They basically just get imprinted with everything Cait Sith 1 learned before he died.

(And for what it's worth, since Cait Sith's accent is supposed to be based on Reeve's parents, I always go with Cait Sith not speaking at all for a few months after he was Inspired.  Reeve tried everything, from toddler help books to reading books to trying to bribe him, and couldn't get a single word out of him.  And then, finally, Reeve was on the phone with his mother, trying to discreetly ask her for advice without admitting to his abilities or to what he'd done, and when he hung up the phone, Cait Sith looked up at him and spoke for the first time.  In the accent Reeve hadn't realized he'd slipped back into with his mother.)

The other hand-wavey thing I do is that I usually have Reeve and Cait Sith share the ability to communicate mind-to-mind, no outward dialogue needed.  I mostly justify this with it being a side-effect of them sharing the same personal lifestream rhythm.

I will say though, something I do that I don't know that I've seen anyone else do (I don't have any fics left up featuring this either, actually) is that I say the control can go both ways.  So Reeve can reach for Cait Sith and speak through him, but so can Cait Sith.  Now, I usually say that Reeve has to let Cait Sith do this, whereas Reeve can just take control from Cait Sith, but I  chalk that up to Reeve being the one who did the initial Inspiring.  Following that suit though, it would make sense that Cait Sith could do the same thing with Mog, if he wanted.

Now, I also headcanon that Reeve does his absolute best to let Cait Sith have whatever autonomy he can.  My Reeve, in particular, didn't exactly have the happiest of childhoods, and he has spent a lot of time being told exactly what he can do and when, so he tries to give Cait Sith the childhood he never had.

If you read all the way down here, oh my goodness, but thank you.  It's... a lot.  Like I said earlier, the short answer is that I see it as a low-key, always-on mental connection between Reeve and Cait Sith.  And I kind of flex it around, depending on what exactly I'm doing with the fic in question.

[dreamyfreakout]

Hi sorry if this is weird but i just want to say I saw exactly one photo of you and just?? Gender????? Envy????

aa thanks :3

[cosmic-ships]

Guess who's ill again! : D

[raymurata]

plz body i am begging you

[weekdaze]

i feel terrible i wasn't following way more of you than i thought i love you all i swear 🥺

[theladyyavilee]

.

[snarltoothed]

im back at the weight i was four years ago! yay! cross your fingers with me and let’s see if we can make it stick

(this is about weight gain. not weight loss. fuck diet culture and beauty standards. eating disorders are more fatal than any other category of mental illnesses.)

[sleepydreamybunny]

me to me: done is enough

[benetnvsch]

Hmmm

[pochx]

this is a personal note to myself

need 2 do:

final

audio

cleaning

packing

days left: 10

wednesday: research and bib

thursday: research pt 2/ rerecording likely

friday: final work/rerecording/editing

saturday: laundry/packing

sunday: cleaning/packing

monday: final

uhhhh more idk

[thatpitt]

Epic ffidyll ! a concept made by yours truly

Damn I forgot about this place again x.x ! Hey i least i got some neat content for y'all :3

That being my epic ffidyll concept i have been cooking up for almost a year now, started sketching it even before rare ffidyll was released, and it took me a week to get this done, I'm super proud of how it came out despite not sleeping for nights to get this done, but it was so worth it I think Sadly, because I kinda rushed this, I didn't make anything fancy besides a static png with a plain background

Also here's a ver with an even MORE plain background lol

This is such an unimportant thing but I feel like also adding the bio I had for it : "Ever wondered what lies at the end of a rainbow? Well it's no faerie tale, but none other than the Epic Ffidyll! Nestled in a delicate dandy bed of clovers, it awaits for the perfect time to bloom and bring joy to the other faerie monsters with its music and joyful nature. The mere presence of this infrequent variant brings luck and prosperity to even the most unfortunate ones, so it's no wonder monsters await so eagerly for its arrival."

[gaychocolatehomicide]

tell me your favorite DA fanfics and I will either freak out and dance around with you or furiously read them tomorrow.

if you have also read Looking Glass i will literally offer you any of my organs upon request.

HELLO! An opportunity to talk about my favorite DA fics will never be an opportunity that I pass up! (Also, I was reading your stories about The Heretic literally when I got the notification for this ask and said "oh my god" out loud)

Are you talking about Feynite's Looking Glass? Because I haven't, but I've read a ton of their other stuff and their story Kindred is the inspiration for my "canon" Lavellan (though I'm a disaster who can't make decisions and consider all seven of my full playthroughs equally canon x.x). I will absolutely check out Looking Glass!

Other favorites include:

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Dragon Slayers by coveredinfeels, a hilarious outsider PoV on some settled Adoribull nonsense

I Come To You With Nothing by CommonEvilMastermind, which is in my private collection "fics that made me feel real feelings" and is about post-breakup Solavellan posing as a married couple in an alienage for a mission

It's About Belonging by skogr, which is about Krem's escape from Tevinter and meeting Bull and has been absorbed into my personal canon

A Fire and a Conflagration by iodhadh, which is also Adoribull (and I'm just now noticing a trend in the stuff I have bookmarked...) writing poetry to each other first as a continuation of their snarky banter but inevitably becomes flirting

On the more E-rated side, there's the Breaking the Silence series by Felixbug, which is about Hawke and Anders navigating the whole Justice thing and ends in delightfully complicated polyamory

And my absolute all-time favorite, which has rewired my brain and how I play DA2 even in runs where I'm not pretending it's possible to romance Varric, Greatly Approved by damalur, which is only rated M but for narrative tension still had to go at the end of this list. It's a Hawke Does Skyhold with her and Varric being so in love and so stupid about it until they aren't! And everything is better! Featuring some very exasperated members of the Inquisition.

Honorable mention to Project Elvhen by FenxShiral, which isn't a fic but rather an attempt to turn Elvhen from a cypher into a real conlang, and thus sings to my little linguist heart.

And last but not least, who would I be if I didn't plug a couple of my own fics? Scars Beyond Counting is about my first Red Hawke and is getting a sequel as soon as I figure out how to write Cole; At His Touch is a character study of the Inquisitor from that world from Cassandra's PoV (which is interesting imo because he's a mage and one of my only faithful Inquisitors); and Look Upon the Light is about my least reliable Dalish Inquisitor getting his shit together.

Forthcoming (hopefully by the end of the year) are A Song in the Stillness, about my "canon" Lavellan making friends with someone little (as Sera would say) because I love outsider PoVs; Not Alone, about my most heavily headcanoned worldstate in which there are three Lavellans running around; and Strong Enough to Carry It, an origin expansion about my "canon" Warden Mahariel and why she is the way she is.

I hope (in vain) that this was a reasonable amount of text, and (more possibly) that it was what you were looking for! I love your writing and my poor beloved noodle associate (partner) is currently flopped across my lap in despair that I will leave them (unlikely) for you (married afaik) because you are the most interesting person in the world. We have been wheezing over your stories for the past week and a half. 💜

[magebunkshelf]

How did you figure out you were genderfluid I questioning my gender I didn't know if you had any advice on how to figure it out?

I am so sorry for the slow response. I wanted to take a day or two to figure out the best way to answer. I just spent two hours writing out a really long and thorough answer about my experiences and all the advice I could think of and then my page bugged or something while I was typing and I lost it all x.x Its 3am, and this is nowhere near as well written as I was trying :'(

I guess the super short of it, and sorry this is going to be super scatterbrained now:

I never cared how I looked, never felt comfortable in my own skin, and just dressed very messily - overly large t-shirts, hoodies, and never shorts because I never wanted to acknowledge my legs. I started growing out my hair during lockdown. I'd been trying to grow it out for years but it had to be kept short first because of very strict school dress code rules, and second for practical reasons for work. Having long hair, making a change to my appearance like that, caused to me to start to like how I looked and start to care about it more.

One thing that made me introspect on my gender was when I found audio roleplays. I'd discovered I was bi around the same time, and after finding F4M stuff I also gave M4F a go. I'd questioned things before, but finding that 4F audios would often feel fine and not uncomfortable like I was expecting, really got me thinking more about it.

I'd have called myself like a guy, but stronger words like "man" always made me uncomfortable. I think I'm pretty gender neutral most of the time, but there are definitely times where I feel I associate more with one gender or another. I never felt all that "manly" all my life, and people would just sum that up as like "he's just more sensitive," which didn't help. The times your gender more closely matches how you were raised can start to raise those doubts at the back of your mind, like "am I wrong? Am I faking it?" etc, and those really aren't helpful! Those thoughts started going away whenever I didn't feel masc at all, I held on to knowing that feeling and that it changes.

I started to cared about how I looked and try different things based on what I saw people/characters wearing that I wanted to try. I bought myself some skirts & thigh-highs, and also uh chest padding x.x, and honestly I felt great! For the first time in my life, the person in the mirror was someone I cared about. But it was only some of the time, sometimes the thought of wearing those made me uncomfortable, and I'd go back to jeans and feel much better.

I think for myself, my gender orbits around androgynous (maybe leaning slightly towards the fem side). I realise I've always felt very androgynous, but that it does change one way or another every now and then. There are times I definitely feel more boy-ish, and others like;

There was this one time, I'd felt either very neutral or kinda masc for maybe a week. But then I passed the hall mirror and - it felt like my whole body slammed into a wall, just WHAM! Suddenly F mode! It occasionally happens, and sometimes in reverse, or sometimes for feels very neutral, but this one time the feeling was surprisingly strong from the sudden change XD

I think all I can recommend is to ask yourself how you feel about it; gender is different from any person to person, we have labels for some common experiences, but those experiences are still personal, still going to vary, the only person who can make that determination either way is you. And it may change! Some days I wonder seriously if I may be trans, if that would be more who I am, but then other days I distinctly relate more to being a little more masc. So right now I don't feel that that's me, but I do now have an idea of who I think I am, and some changes I want to make to myself and what I wear to reflect that. But also my experience of being pretty neutral most of the time may not match another genderfluid person!

Look at people or characters you see online that you think look or dress in a way you really like, and ask yourself how you'd feel looking like that, or wearing that? I started to ask myself, do I just find that attractive, or is this more like jealousy? XD If you play games with character customisation, what do you find yourself going for? And if you're in the position to try it, is there anything about how you look or dress you'd want to try changing? I think that's how you can really assess it; having facial hair a few years ago made me super uncomfortable and I swore off ever growing it again, but now having shaved arms & legs feels great, it completely clicks for how I feel about myself even when I'm in a more M mode. And even if my F mode clothes don't feel right to wear all the time, the times that they do, that I'm in the right mode for it, feels great, and I'm not sure I would have figured that out without trying it.

At the end of the day, maybe you are fluid, maybe you're not, and either way is totally fine! It's an ongoing process of figuring out who you are, don't rush it! And maybe however you land you might not want to put a label on it, that's also fine too! I have my own little genderfluid flag attached to my monitor & a few other things, and these are all there because it helped me early on in discovering these things about myself. It can feel weird and strange in asking these things, but after I found a label I felt applied to me, I liked having the flag there as a reminder to myself: this is okay. This is normal. There are other people like me. I've always felt different, that there was something else up, but my whole life it was just dismissed as, I guess I'm just weird. But now I have a name for it, I have a better understanding for what's going on in my head, and I have a flag to remind me it's okay to be the way I am. But you dont need to find a label, that's also up to you!

Be yourself. Be awesome.

[dreamyfreakout]

How do you balance your creative pursuits with a job?

I start a job tomorrow, so I'll update this in a week or so lol ~ x.x

I always find the balance really tough but that's cus I sometimes wanna do too much! Lately I've taken weeks off when I need to ~ or just made art I've really wanted to make whether it's music or games or art and not try to just work on something cus it needs to be done ~ i think I'll continue that and I'm pretty sure this will be a really good year for my content and art and stuff ~ im feeing a lot more confident in what I wanna make ^^

So yeah ~ aa I think my advice is to try to make art for at least 5 minutes a day just to think or decompress ~ if you can do more ~ that great ~ but just try every day for 5 minutes. I've found that at least 1 in 7 days I'll be really inspired! And find something that's fun to do! Like ~ I just enjoy drawing puppygirls ~ it isn't stressful and it can be messy and weird and yeah ~ I think just enjoying what you're making!

[ticklygiggles]

Miya&Mia's Tickletober Day 13 - Prank Call

Mammon, Lucifer & Reader

A/N: The more days pass, the more my brain dries up. I apologize because these last drabbles have not been the best x.x

You laughed, throwing a pillow at Mammon's face.

"Hey! It's a good one!" 

"That's probably the stupidest idea you've had this week and you've been saying quite stupid things lately!"

Mammon laughed at your words, his eyes sparkling mischievously. "I'm serious! Even Belphie and Satan will get jealous and they'll be like 'oh how didn't we think about that?!" 

You snorted. There was no way in Hell that the Anti-Lucifer Squad would think that was a good idea. Make a prank call to Lucifer? It really was stupid; Lucifer was no fool to fall for such a ridiculous thing, but... Mammon really seemed excited by the idea. Maybe…

"It sounds risky," you said, tapping your chin in thought before sighing loudly. "Okay, fine. Let's do it."

Before you could even process what was going on, Mammon was pulling his D. D. D out and calling Lucifer. He put it on speaker quickly and Lucifer answered in three rings. 

"What on Earth do you need no-"

"Quickly, tell me where to hide the body- dammit!" He called your name, making you flinch. "Don't fucking play with that arm, it's all bloody!" 

"What the hell are you doing now, Mammon?!"

Mammon tried to hold back a laugh as he gasped loudly, "shit, wrong number!" And he hung up. 

"We're in big trouble," you said, feeling panicky laughter in your throat. "We better leave for a while before he gets us, quickly!"

"So there's no body, huh?"

Both you and Mammon shrieked, jumping when Lucifer's form suddenly materialized in the middle of your room, hands on his hips and a dark aura surrounding him. Oh, it was the end.

"Well, don't worry, there soon will be two, I assure you both."

"B-Big bro! It was- It was just a joke! Did- Did ya really believe I would- agh, no!" He shrieked out your name. "Help meeehehehe! Ahahaha, Luhuhucifer n-nohohoho!" 

Well, you really didn't expect that. Lucifer lunged at Mammon and pinned him to the floor of your room, his hands buried under his little brother's arms, making Mammon cackle hysterically.

"NOT THIHIS! NOHOHOT THIHIHIS!"

"A stupid joke like yours deserves a stupid punishment like this."

Lucifer seemed very focused on wrecking his brother, so you slowly got out of bed and as discreetly as you could, you approached the door.

"Where are you going?" 

"Eek!" An invisible magic wrapped around your waist and dragged you right beside Mammon who was current laughing his head off, snorting hilariously. "Don't you think you're safe."

"I didn't do anything! I told him it wasn't a good id-d-deheheahaha! Luhuhucihihi!" 

Your laughter along Mammon when you felt one of Lucifer's hands latching to your ribcage, the other buried under Mammon's arm.

"You could've stopped him, but decided against it, so now you both will be tickled until you learn your lesson."

Oh, you both were in big trouble!

EXTRA 

"H-Hey…," Mammon said breathlessly, gently tapping your arm as if making sure you were still alive. "I just thought… of a funnier prank call."

"..." You looked at him, your lashes still wet after crying of laughter. "... Okay, fine. Let's do it," you said, giggling already. "What could possibly go wrong, right?"

You both really were in big trouble.