#why aren’t more things flavored like this. evil

[housecow]

my secret is that i add butterscotch chips to everything that needs them. rice crispies, chocolate chip cookies, 7-layer/magic bars, etc. they’re just so GOOD

[fatkish]

JJK Boys x Mob Psycho Esper Reader

Since you’re an extremely powerful esper, you are classified as a special grade exorcist. You were originally discovered by Gojo when you used your powers to save a child from running into the street and getting hit by a car. Since you have always seen evil spirits and curses, you’ve never really questioned what you see, since it’s just natural to you. Gojo brought you to the academy and principal Yaga, after talking to the school’s directors, decided to have you live there. (because the clan elders are terrified and suspicious of your abilities)

Principal Yaga gave you a space for a garden since you explained how the emotional buildup from stress and extreme emotions can lead to a meltdown of your psychic powers. The garden acts as a sanctuary of sorts for you. When you aren’t answering calls or exorcising curses and spirits, you spend your time taking care of the plants. Eventually you meet the others and this is what they think of you.

Gojo:

Constantly asks you to show off your powers

Gets a kick out of seeing you use your power to exercise curses and spirits

Loves watching you explore what all your abilities can do

Thinks it’s perfectly fine that you choose when to and when not to use your powers

Tries to get you to show more emotion

When you accidentally bend spoons and other metal objects he offers to feed you like a child. “here comes the airplane” he’ll say that as he tries to feed you

When he saw you use your powers to grow plants he was interested in how the plants would taste only to be disappointed in the gross or bland flavor

Geto:

Thinks that you’re strong and that you should be his partner

Wants to see just how limitless your power is and what all you can do

Thinks that you are badass

Doesn’t understand why you don’t want to use your psychic abilities against people

Thinks it’s sad that you’ve locked away your emotions in order to keep from hurting people with your powers

He just gives you his spoon or unbends the one you bent

Loves seeing you grow plants especially flowers

Yuta:

Pure awe

Seeing your abilities is such an amazing experience for him

He thinks you’re incredibly talented and strong

Agrees that you shouldn’t use your psychic powers against people

He understands your fear of hurting people but is sad that you have difficulty showing emotion

Will offer to get you new cutlery if you bend them too bad

Thinks it’s amazing when he watches you bend the seeds to grow into plants

Inumaki:

Thinks your powers are pretty cool

Finds it interesting to see you use your abilities

He thinks your powers are strong and loves that you can somewhat read his mind or his emotions

Your powers make communication easier between you two

Understands your self imposed rule about not using your psychic powers against people

Understands and isn’t bothered by your seeming lack of emotions

Always carries wooden or plastic cutlery on him for you to eat with

Helps you with your personal garden and brings you new succulents and such to care for

Itadori:

What is this, is it magic, are you a wizard? Was his first reaction

Thinks it’s cool and loves when you use your powers to make him fly after he begs you to

Thinks there is no limit to what you can do and is always asking new questions and tries to make you do new things with them

Somewhat understands your rule about not using your powers on people but still what’s you to make him fly and such

Is somewhat bothered by the seemingly emotionless personality you developed by accident

Unbends the spoons and forks like it’s nothing

Is amazed at first and like Gojo, tries an apple he insisted you grow entirely by psychic power only to spit it out once he tasted how flavorless it was

Megumi:

Is probably the only person who understands why the line between the spirit world and living world is blurred for you since both are natural and normal to you

Is somewhat indifferent about your powers but is still amazed by your abilities

Thinks you’re very versatile in what you can do and admires your natural psychic and mental strength

Understands and agrees with your rule about not using your psychic powers on people

Doesn’t care about your seemingly emotionless personality because he knows why you developed it

When you accidentally bend spoons and such he’ll use his shadows to summon a new spoon for you

Also helps out in your garden at the school but mostly just wants to be in the peaceful atmosphere of the garden

[catsvrsdogscatswin]

Thanks to my post about the 28th, it’s come to my attention that a significant portion of humanity don’t read history books for fun, so here’s a few broad strokes of what, exactly, is going on with the cultural connotations of race within Dracula, as understood by an American:

European racism of the day was predominantly based on cultural ethnicity rather than skin color, and one of the main sliding scales (other than how old and prestigious the ancestry was) was how far west you were on the Eurasian continent. The further east you went, the less “civilized” things became, until you hit Asia and Oceania and just became inundated with absolutely rancid racist caricatures. Stuff from the “Orient” was there for exotic/shiny toys and moral lessons about how much better the West was, and not much else, so you can imagine what depictions of actual Asian people thus became.

(We’re faced with this east vs. west scale in Jonathan’s very first entry: Budapest straddles the line between the “civilized” western part of Europe and the “uncivilized,” opulent, and exotic world of eastern Europe. Jon is going from the known and familiar city into the mysterious, unfamiliar wilderness, an extremely common Gothic horror archetype.)

Both the fear of the unknown and the exoticizing/othering of Eastern Europe play heavily into Dracula’s themes, with the sexually predatory Count Dracula coming to England to do all sorts of unspeakable sordid things to innocent English women. (Not exactly Stoker’s finest hour, but this was a typical attitude of the day.)

Following that, it was also thought at the time that one’s moral character was essentially genetic. Certain people of certain races were predisposed to be “better” or “worse,” and your own moral character was also influenced by your parents’ status in society and behavior. A prostitute mother or a criminal father meant you would inherit their dubious moral quality, which is partially where “this person has bad blood” comes from. Bad blood is literally the negative morality passed onto you from your parents: you’ve inherited the bad qualities carried in their blood.

Linking back to the east-west thing, the further east you go -you’ve guessed it- the worse this supposed ancestral bad blood gets. People of “lesser” races included the Romani, Jews, Slovaks (and sometimes the Russians), and they were just supposed to be, like, naturally inclined to be bad. They were Programmed For Crime from the moment they were born, so you didn’t need to explain why such a character was evil when they showed up in your novel: I mean, they’re [INSERT RACE], aren’t they? It’s in the blood. No explanation needed. Everybody knows that. 

The assumption of the time was that such people were literally born bad, which of course naturally justified how they were treated. When they showed up on a page, you were supposed to distrust them on sight. 

Occasionally, low-class people were also treated as a race all their own, like poverty was some kind of moral failing. After all, the older, more prestigious, and wealthier your family was, the better their inherent moral quality, so poor people are obviously uncouth and have bad blood, right? 

(It’s an extremely stupid circular way of thinking, but that’s bigotry for ya.)

Dracula is a nobleman with old lineage, but he’s also steeped in the flavor of Eastern Europe: “barbaric” and proud, yet initially treating Jonathan with extreme courtesy; threateningly exotic and yet also familiar with English customs. As we go through the book, you’ll see that he almost exclusively hires Romani, Jewish, or extremely poor for his henchmen: he’s a force of evil that uses other “evil” tools, who bend easier to his will than “normal” people of “proper” races. 

(By all means, please pause here a moment to scrub yourself of the nauseating feeling that such a bullshit attitude evokes.)

In any case, Dracula himself is a pretty good example of all these racial ideas converging, which was also why he made such an effective monster to the Victorians: there’s just enough that’s familiar and proper in him that they couldn’t quite properly Other him, which links back to the transformative horror of vampirism turning something formerly good into something very very bad, which with their worldview of “you are born with this moral code because of racial predisposition and lineage” is just shocking. You mean this Eastern European man can infect our formerly good and pure citizens and make them act his way, just by an act of force? Uh-oh.

Anyways TLDR Dracula is a book steeped in the cultural traditions and expectations of the day which means that it’s lovely horror but also an absolute crock of shit at times due to racism (and several other -isms, which I will not cover here because I am trying not to make this an essay). 

[belovedblabber]

Plenty of people have said this in much more eloquent terms than mine but I drafted this late at night, and seeing as my brain is too rude for me to make eloquent thought out posts right now I’m just going to say this;

It’s so weird to me when people’s take away from the John sections of NtN is that they’re meant as confirmations that he’s an evil manipulator who has always been an evil manipulator, and further, that anybody who feels sympathy et al. for him when reading these chapters is ‘falling for his front.’

Like what a boring reading. It’s just weird to me that that would be a take away people have. To be clear I am not vagueing anybody here, I’ve just seen a few takes like that floating around. I just really don’t get how those sections could be read that way. To me the entire point of those backstory segments is to show us how John became the person he is in the present of the series. Those chapters aren’t meant to be proof of how John is bad and evil and manipulative, they’re showing us what somebody can do when pushed to a breaking point. It’s this tragic story of a man who loved the earth and wanted to save the earth and was so desperate that he fell into increasingly drastic actions as he was given godlike powers meant to help him fix things.

Because the thing is that when you give just some guy godlike powers it’s very easy for that guy to spin out as he feels increasing despair and urgency and anger. Like was backstory John perfect? Of course not he had tons of flaws. Flaws that then got increasingly amplified as things went on. But that’s kind of the point right? All of us have various flaws and nasty little traits that are part of us, and the point isn’t that John was a bad person, the point is that John was just a person! A person who was driven by desperation and love, a person who was given incredible and terrifying abilities that he didn’t know how to handle.

Like yes he was always a flawed individual, just like all of us are flawed individuals to some degree, and to me that’s sort of a massive point of his story. What happens when somebody filled with so much determination and anger and love is given these powers as the world gets sicker and sicker and the rich and powerful fuck you over? What does somebody do when things spiral out of control and keep escalating? The backstory chapters aren’t meant to show us how evil John is, they’re meant to show us how a driven scientist who wants to save the world can become the John that we see in the present. They show us what happened to him to twist him into that version of himself. Yes John is terrifying, he does horrible things, he’s an absolute bastard, I am in no way denying that. In fact that’s part of why I love him (because I enjoy FLAVOR). But reading the backstory chapters as just some sort of villain monologue is so boring.

Also I’ve seen people read those chapter as a ‘pr campaign’ of John’s in terms of what he’s saying. Which is, to me, really misinterpreting what’s going on there. It’s not a pr campaign, it’s a confession. And of course that confession is going to be shaped by John’s own opinions and recollections of events, but that doesn’t make it like, a carefully honed story that’s meant to make him look as good as possible and to manipulate the listener. Like yes it’s shaped by his opinions, his recollections etc., but that’s how any recounting of events is! Which makes it even more interesting. But I’ve seen takes saying that people are somehow falling for John’s front if they are like, ‘taken in’ by the John chapters. Which is really based on a total misreading of what’s going on with those chapters, in my opinion.

 Those chapters are a flashback/weird dream bubble conversation, and we’re seeing what he was telling Alecto shortly after he ended everything. It’s an explanation and a confession and an unburdening. In an interview after the NtN cover reveal Tamsyn Muir said that one of the things the book is about is “a friend you know getting super, super drunk at the club, and you’re sitting with him in the local McDonald’s at midnight as he tells you a bunch of incredibly intimate details about something you always wondered about, and you’re torn between wishing you were not in this McDonald’s and egging him on, because you know he’s really, really going to regret telling you all this when he’s sober” which we now know that what she was referring to there was the John chapters. And that quote really contradicts any readings that paint the John chapters as any sort of ‘pr campaign’ etc. (And then of course by the final John chapter we see a shift, and it becomes him more directly addressing Harrow again rather than the strange mix of Alecto and Harrow, and that part is its own interesting beast).

But anyway I just find it weird when people’s take away is just oh wow look how evil John is look at these horrible things he did. Because that’s so much less interesting than what we’re really getting. What’s fun is to look at all of this and think how did he get here? What happens when just some guy, with a mixed bag of traits and flaws just like any person, is given power over life and death and, as a result, the potential power to save the world? And as he falls further and further down the path that he find himself increasingly unable to step back from, what happens when he becomes increasingly desperate? What parts of himself get laid bare as he hurdles down that path? How does somebody end up here? How and why does somebody do what he did and how do they justify it to themselves? How does a man who set out to save the world become the man who killed it and now leads an empire that kills planets and subjugates people all in the name of vengeance? In John 1:20 C— tells him “John, your problem is that you care less about being a savior than you do about meting out punishment” and I feel like that is such a fascinating and telling line. It shows us a trait of his that has only gotten worse with time. He’s had over ten thousand years for that aspect of himself to set in stone and define him. 

And I think that the John chapters are, like so much of the series, a meditation on love and the different things love can cause a person to become and to do. “For John had loved the world” etc. That’s kind of its own post though so I’ll save that for a later semi-coherent collection of words. 

Anyway to me a big reason that these chapters are so fascinating is because they’re showing us what love can do when it’s pushed to its limits and twisted. John is such a tragic figure and I mean that very much in a Greek tragedy sense. As per Tamsyn Muir in a different interview than the one mentioned above, John is “the figure that cleaves the most towards the tragic” (this also being the interview where she mentions that John is more or less given all the traits of a specific Greek tragic hero). I’m not going to start going off about reading comprehension and engagement in relation to people struggling to relate and ping these sorts of narratives and characters, because I’ll probably start sounding like a pretentious ass, but anyway, Greek tragedy, love it. 

And so okay I’ve reached the end of my little Ted Talk here. Thanks for making it this far. Like I said, other people have said stuff to this effect better than I have, and I’ve probably said a lot of this before in different posts, but I’m choosing to say it here anyway because it’s my right to say a lot about a character here on tumblr.com

[pumpkinpie59]

i hate how enemies to lovers is so popularized but only if they actively despise each other and all their tension is based on physical attraction alone and not rlly genuine emotional connection

like im sorry but my flavor of enemies to lovers is where even tho they’re on opposite sides it genuinely pains them that theyre apart. they try to avoid hurting the one the love as much as they possibly can. if something does happen it rips them to shreds emotionally.

like. examples.

wow shocking

these two are probably the fluffiest enemies to lovers ever.

when they fight it’s clear they aren’t really fighting to hurt the other. they fight because they both enjoy sword fighting and respect each other’s skills. it’s more like playful sparring than fighting.

and being on different sides (depending on who hires lotus) doesn’t affect them all too badly since they respect each other’s choices and choose not to pressure each other to switch sides (at least not after their first episode together).

they’re both super whipped for each other and it’s sweet. lotus doesn’t show up as often as i’d like but when she does leonardo is always rlly sweet with her, and they both help each other willingly.

if yall have been following me for years yall know about them ,

in both the og anime (above image) and in the reboot, pie is fascinated with retasu’s compassion and selflessness.

he was raised to believe humans were evil so seeing how good retasu is made him question his entire mission. in the og anime, while he still fought to save his people, he noticeably avoided fighting retasu for the most part after episode 41 (when she first shows compassion to him). at the end, he ultimately risks everything to save her after doing so many things he regrets. it’s implied multiple times he’s attracted to her (including a shot of him reacting sourly to retasu saving ryou, the one she has a crush on for most of the series).

“if only we had lived in another era …”

the og doesn’t really explain if they meet after he leaves, but the reboot has a much more solid ending for the two of them. they become friends and pen pals, writing each other about their lives and cultures.

they’re more like enemies to friends with feelings but it’s still great.

in the manga they hardly interact but they do end up coworkers which is funny to me. enemies to awkward coworkers to lovers fkdkdk

okay these two are a stretch but i still love them,

blackarachnia isn’t rlly good. unlike pie or lotus, she doesn’t have a lot of redeeming qualities. she’s a mad scientist with selfish goals and she’s extremely stubborn. so why include her?

because she still cares for optimus, even if she hates to admit it. and she doesn’t admit it because of trauma.

it’s not really like she goes out of her way to try and hurt him. she’s angry at him, yes, but when she makes promises to him she keeps them. she acts distant and manipulative but when she has the chance to genuinely hurt him, she doesn’t.

that said, both she and optimus need a lot of healing before they actually try to get together. they’re both traumatized, pained, and flawed individuals.

sentinel too but that’s a rant for another time

optimus has his new found family that’s helping him learn and grow. blackarachnia doesn’t have that. i think if she got to have her predacon family who cared about her, maybe she could find herself in a better place mentally and emotionally and that could open doors for her.

but ye they still have an emotional connection, even if they have obstacles to fight through.

[halogenwarrior]

I sometimes notice an odd tendency for people to think the grief and tragedy surrounding a character is somehow more profound and meaningful if that character is a villain. Now a lot of the times this can be explained with good reasons, such as how often the evil character stands out as having a complex and human reaction to the tragedy while the more heroic character seems boring in how unaffected they are or the tragedy is just thrown in for flavor (like the “obligatory orphan protagonist”) without an exploration of what it means for that character and how it affects who they are. In those cases, it can feel shallow and boring when haters of the villain try to say “(one-dimensional minor character x) had an equally tragic life, why don’t you obsess over them”, ignoring that bad things happening to a character doesn’t make them compelling on its own. That being said, I feel the example of how Thistleclaw was treated by the fandom pre-SH shows that sometimes there is no good explanation and a character being a bad person just makes the bad things that happened to them more resonant to some people independent of other variables. There is a corner of the fandom that really focuses hard on his grief over losing Snowfur, in spite of the fact that the narrative doesn’t focus at all on his psychology with regards to this compared to Bluestar, and even extrapolates things like his grief turning him into a worse, more violent cat because Snowfur calmed him in spite of the fact the actual narrative shows Snowfur was enthusiastic about fighting as well and died as a result of it. Meanwhile other characters who lost someone close to them without narrative focus on how it affected them, like say, Birchfall and the trauma he went through as a kit, get comparatively very little focus and headcanoning of their psychology, seemingly just because they aren’t as morally bad. 

Though interestingly enough you also see the opposite phenomenon in the warriors fandom with cats like Mapleshade, where some people are so uncomfortable with the moral complexity of a character who was wronged in a way that wasn’t justified and then was motivated to do bad things because of it that they try to contort the narrative to make Mapleshade always the sole cat to blame - in this case, the tragedy (despite it being genuinely greater than most other characters in the series, while lots of cats lost their mate like Thistleclaw, Mapleshade is the only one to lose all of her children on top of being exiled) is rendered inherently less sympathetic by the character being a villain. While Mapleshade probably has more “sympathizers” in the fandom than Thistleclaw overall, there is still this clear difference in how the tragedy is either heightened or diminished by their cruel actions. 

[vaderatemydog]

I just feel like writing and venting a bit. Whoever reads it, gets a quick reflection of my brain at night as things have been building up for awhile. I’ll ask a question, but at the end of the day what matters? You can argue that the day is over and tomorrow will be redundant, a different but likely similar flavor; life goes on… Or you can argue that life has a very distinct purpose and actions, thoughts, words spoken, and prayers played a role in what transpired throughout the entirety of the day. So many people get into this momentum where they are feeding on progression in some area of their life and that is what brings them through life. Whether they are growing in many areas of their lives or whether they have plateaued and are bit stagnant, there needs to be an ultimate destination. It’s the central objective for success. “Being busy” or “Having a family/relationship” Isn’t the destination. That’s why there are broken families and an out of control divorce rate. There are people rushing through life, rushing through relationships, rushing to family life, rushing to college, rushing to a career but as they reach these checkpoints in life, they are fun, new, and exciting, but then the air becomes stale, people spiral back into their weirdness and discontent. You’re probably wondering to yourself, maybe speculating that I was going to bring up religion.. Yes I will, religion is a checkpoint, not the destination. Religion is a horrible word for one that I resent and detest. It’s just used by ignorant and unbelieving people. Ever “religion” has a very real spiritual background that is full of truth. Regardless of your personal religion that you’ve either grown up in or have chosen to follow, you’re likely left with questions unanswered. I would argue that you take a handful of the common religions and do a breakdown analysis of each of them. If you’re requiring some closure in leaving a specific religion or in need of some reasoning behind the religions, do the analysis. Even if you’re already participating in a religion, don’t expect that it has all the answers because none of them do. In fact they always have a hidden agenda and they always have missing destinations. I consider paganism, wicca, satanism, Catholism, Buddhism, Islam some of the more popular ones. They all have their own unique themes and guiding light. And they all have some truth. But if they aren’t instructing you about your destination, then they aren’t leading you in the best direction in your life. We need to consciously be guarded from the world, yet focused on our destination. There are tons of distractions and tons of misinformation out there. When we take all of the religions and bodies of education we are surrounded by, there are tons of false profits and bad teachers, shallow priests, teachers, and poor guides that will attempt to lead you and direct your attention. Question it all.

The best things in this life fade and the comfort we have can be stripped at any time. Be prepared to know who you are, present yourself to the world, guard yourself from evil, and surround yourself with what is right. I hyper focused on a lot of the “right things” but they hijacked my projection; they set me off on a hidden goose track. Find that center where you can align yourself with goodness and love and get as many careers and enjoyment through life, but don’t forget that you have a destination and that your life matters here on earth so treat others with respect, love your enemy, allow your soul to be sculpted, shifted, and melted to the highest degree, find the error in religion. Keep rocking!

[thecreaturecodex]

Xenomorphitude

Or: Rating the Xenomorph Knock-offs of D&D and Pathfinder

The xenomorph of Alien, Aliens and a bunch of other movies that aren’t very good is one of the most distinctive film monsters. Which means it’s one of the ones that’s most widely copied, ripped off and cited as “inspiration”. Multiple monsters with decidedly xenomorph-like characteristics have appeared in D&D and PFRPG over the decades. Here’s a survey, in loosely chronological order.

Xill

This is included mostly as a formality. The xill isn’t inspired so much by Alien as by Alien’s own inspiration. Voyage of the Space Beagle is a SF novel collecting multiple short stories, one of which features the “ixtl”, which lays its eggs in a crew-member and cannot be killed with conventional weaponry, so is launched into space. The “xill”, first appearing in D&D 1e’s Fiend Folio, is a take on that monster, although it gives them weapons and makes them explicitly sapient. It was promoted to the core Monster Manual in 3.x, which is why it appeared in Pathfinder RPG (and has ended up more prominent there than in “real” D&D for the last 15 years.

Oddly, the xill’s most recent appearance in D&D is in the 5e Mordenkainen’s Folio of Fiends, a semi-canonical book written by Mike Mearls and sold online for charity. The xill’s appearance in that book is the most xenomorph like yet. And yet, it’s said that they abduct people to the Ethereal Plane for “unknown purposes”. It’s to lay eggs in them, guys. We know this.

Xenomorphitude: 2/10, included mostly for completeness sake. 6/10 for that 5e version.

Yitsan

Appearing in the Spelljammer Monstrous Compendium II, this is visually and mechanically a straightforward take on an Alien ripoff (although I love the pointy ears!). Unlike the original, the yitsan isn’t a parasitoid. Presumably the authors of the book realized that in D&D, a character that gets something latched onto them from a mysterious egg is going to get cure disease at the first possible opportunity. Instead, its eggs mimic gold coins, so the PCs will be happy to take them aboard! Xenomorphitude: 8/10. Pretty darn xenomorphy.

Hivebrood

This is a Mystara monster. They seem to be a slantwise take on the Tyranids of Warhammer 40,000 as much as a conventional xenomorph clone. They reproduce by implanting their larvae into humanoids, the hybrid stage of which is called the broodling. These broodlings psychically transmit their skills to a controller, which can then grant them to the various warriors of the hive. Interestingly, they’re neutral in alignment as opposed to some variation of evil.

Xenomorphitude: 3/10. If not for the broodlings, I’d peg them as just another colonial insect species, like the formians or aspis.

Kythons

Moving now into 3rd edition, these guys are definitely stolen from the Tyranids, as they were originally written to give Monte Cook an excuse to use Tyranid miniatures in his D&D game. They win points for flagrancy of the ripoff by laying eggs that look like “wet stones”—but these can also supply weapons instead of just new individuals! Hey, that’s a thing the Tyranids can (sort of) do! They also don’t have a Queen Alien, instead mutating into “slaymasters” or “slaughterkings”. Because the Book of Vile Darkness is nothing if not subtle. 

Xenomorphitude: 7/10. You look at these guys and go, “oh, it’s a xenomorph”, but they have enough tricks to keep you on your toes. Most of these tricks were stolen from a different xenomorph ripoff, but still.

Grendelspawn

Appearing in the d20 Modern Urban Arcana book, they basically have no flavor text except “yeah, they kill indiscriminately. The hunters protect the queen”. Apparently they can be trained as guard animals. Weyland-Yutani had the right idea, it seems.

Xenomorphitude: 10/10. Take this one to the bank, boys. It’s just a xenomorph with eyes. The most interesting thing about it is how brazen it is.

Kruthiks

The kruthiks seem like a way to water down the kythons to make them palatable to publish in a more mainstream book than Vile Darkness. They come in three basic varieties, although the largest being a “hive lord” wasn’t established until 4th edition. They have also been getting progressively less like a xenomorph in appearance, with the 5e version being decidedly more reptilian:

Xenomorphitude: 5/10. Basically the most generic “yeah, it’s a xenomorph but…” I can think of.

Essence Reaver

From the Secrets of Sarlona book in Eberron, these creatures are described as being “wingless dragons” that hunt down psionics users and drain their mental energy before eating them. Looking at their stats, only the presence of a barbed tail might make you think “xenomorph”, but then you get to that illustration!

Xenomorphitude: 3/10. You got your dragon in my xenomorph! You got your xenomorph in my dragon!

Akata

I’m using the Starfinder illustration because it’s better, but these alien tentacle dogs appeared before Pathfinder RPG split off from D&D 3.5, in Children of the Void. Their bite infects people with their worm-like larvae, which turn them into slug-tongued zombies until the tongue breaks off and grows up into a new akata.

Xenomorphitude: 1/10. I had to be reminded that they’re supposed to be xenomorph analogues. The zombies remind me more of Night of the Creeps.

Lunarma

Tentacled parasitoids from space, the lunarma seem to be the crossover of the Venn diagram between “xenomorph” and “metroid”. I do like the barbed defense ability—the fact that fighting a xenomorph in melee will get you killed by its passive defenses is something that gets ignored by most ripoffs and clones.

Xenomorphitude: 4/10. Different enough to be its own thing, similar enough to make the inspiration clear.

The Hive

Appearing in Horror Adventures for Pathfinder, the Hive creatures have a proper queen/warrior/larva caste system and a parasitoid life cycle with a twist. If you get infected with the larvae but cured, you can start to mutate into an aberrant creature, making use of the Corruption mechanics introduced in this book. It’s the rare xenomorph ripoff that takes inspiration from the later movies (namely, it appears to be “what if Alien: Resurrection made a little more sense?”).

Xenomorphitude: 9/10. About as blatant a ripoff can get without making copyright lawyers’ ears perk up. 

[kanohivolitakk]

Rambling about Bionicles incoherent worldbuilding in terms of rigid morality

So, I was rewatching Legend Reborn the other day when I remembered an issue that bothers me about Bionicles writing so so much which I have wanted to talk about here at some point.

And that’s just how not only the series functions on a "your moral alignment is decided for you upon your creation and cannot be changed because the nature of a being is unchangeable and because destiny" logic, but how that logic clashes with the series central premise on "the world is inside a giant robot and every single character was created to aid said giant robot."

First things first, a lot of my detestment of this decision comes from personal preference. In fiction I tend to dislike rigid moral boxes and black-and-white-morality where the good guys are 100% good and bad guys are 100% bad with little to no nuance in-between. Sure it can work for some stories based on the plot, tone and themes, but in general I think that kind of storytelling is really limiting and boring. It puts things into clear cut boxes when real life is not so simple most of the time. I find morally complicated characters and even things like flawed heroes or villains with a few redeeming qualities more interesting interesting than a simple good vs evil story. These types of characters give the story more flavor and intrigue by showing that things aren’t black-and-white and that more complex shades exist.

But even my personal preference in storytelling aside, I think that completely black-and-white morality where a characters alingment was chosen upon their creation doesn’t just work with Bionicles setting and the Big Twist. Because like. This is supposed to be a world inside a giant robot. Every single character we meet during the first couple of years exists to fulfill their purpose and to help the giant robot to fulfill it’s task. In addition, most (if not all) of the characters originally had next to no sapience til one of their creators who was secretly inside the giant robot decided to make them sentient because why he was getting bored being one of the 5 sapient beings on this robot spaceship.

So if this is the case that MU inhabitants were created to aid Mata Nui, then why are some beings in this world created evil?? What kind of benefit would creating malicious beings bring? If every character is in one way or another supposed to help the GSR to fulfill it’s mission, then why on earth would you creating something that could easily sabotage and backstab you?

To be fair, there are traits we usually associate with evilness that aren’t inherently evil by themselves, like ambitiousness or being selfish for instance. These traits can be useful in certain situations. It’s very possible that Great Beings didn’t design MU inhabitants to be evil, but rather gave them those traits as a way to aid them in whatever purpose they were created for. These traits just ended up corrupting them because that easily happens. And honestly I really like that explanation. It explains why a lot of MU inhabitants are evil without going “they were designed to be evil”. And just feels very nice and satisfying. But at the same time...idk if giving like most living beings those traits make any sense if you know what I mean.

There’s also the argument that the reason the world is like this is because the Great Beings are these mad scientists who like making things dramatic because they are too confident in their abilites and because they can. But honestly that feels like lazy writing for me. Handwaving the implications by going “yeah the Great Beings did so because why the fuck not” makes the Great Beings seem far more incompetent than they probably were meant to be.

Idk I just...like Bionicle but sometimes I wish it’s view on morality was a bit more flexible than “toa good everyone else evil”. But that’s just me

[alwida10]

Overview of Storytelling problems in the Loki series

Characters are suddenly acting entirely different in comparison with events that were in-universe just moments ago without giving any explanation at all: Loki climbs on a stone to talk down to the Mongolians (= acts pathetic and ridiculous) in comparison to him facing real threads like iron man being calm and with the thread-appropriate posturing (= acts badass and in-control).

Changing the characterization and/or the character’s motives retrospectively: in Avengers Loki’s motive was that Thanos pressured him into invading earth (torture signs, the other threatening and hurting Loki on-screen). In the Loki series it suddenly was because of his glorious purpose which never even had that much weight before. As far as I remember it was mentioned once in the Avengers, but neither in Thor 1, 2 or 3.

Major events not getting any further attention as soon they fulfilled their purpose for the plot: Sylvie bombing the sacred timeline and causing all those branches never gets talked about again, after it was supposed to be a major fallout. Also, we never get the explanation what exactly caused the nexus event on Lamentis.

Telling the audience what they have to believe instead of showing the character’s actions and let the audience come to their own conclusions: in episode 1, Loki pushes his (newly redconned) motivation in the audiences faces to make sure nobody can question it. This includes all those little things we are only being told and are supposed to accept without question, like the fact people supposedly stop aging in the pruniverse since kid loki was there longest.

The main character feels passive and only gets dragged along by other characters and/or the plot: up to episode 4, Loki does not show any motivation that goes beyond survival. After episode 4, he supports Sylvie‘s motivation, which still doesn’t give much flavor on his part.

The main character has no effect on the plot: the TVA!Loki has in fact that little impact on the plot that Sylvie would have gone through the same storyline without him being there. The only difference would be that she would have been there one episode earlier, because she wouldn’t have gotten stuck on Lamentis.

Writing a redemption arc without addressing why the character fell from grace in the first place: A redemption arc needs the audience sympathize with the character to forgive their actions. Without giving the characters motivations for the evil deeds the new behavior can only cover the former misdeeds but never erase them. Oh, also this bears the very real change that you never understood what the character has to be redeemed for and end up redeeming something that never even happened or mattered in the first place: Loki being mistreated by his family or tortured by Thanos never gets mentioned.

Failing to show well-defined characterization, subsequently causing pale, muddy characters: until the end of the series it‘s still not clear if the TVA is ‚good‘ or ‚bad‘. Mobius regretting what he was done in episode 5 feels empty because we never realized he did something ambivalent. Characterizations need to be shown clearly and make an impact. If someone does bad things those should be shown as bad. But Sif kicking Loki where it hurts most isn’t even shown as something bad. Neither is Mobius treatment of Loki shown as bad. The only scenes where it was entirely clear who‘s the bad guy where Sylvie‘s (her kidnapping in childhood, her killing the Minute men).

Double standards - heroes are forgiven the same actions the villain gets condemned for: Loki wanting to take away people‘s choices is baaad, but when Kang does it, it’s a good thing. Arguably, this point could also be attributed to failure No. 8.

Deus Villain ex machina - the villain should be introduced early on the show without being revealed to be the villain. Otherwise it‘s simply boring. Kang suddenly appearing and telling everyone it has been him all along? Please. That’s just an cheating those who are trying to keep to think along.

Forcing aspects that aren’t plot relevant for the sake of including them: this is true for the bi-representation and the genderfluidity representation that seemed to be included only to allure the part of the audience that wished for them. The problem is - people will notice if your heart isn’t in a part and likely feel worse than they would have entirely without those parts. In the end none of those parts felt important or even sincere. But representation has to come on top of well characterization and not instead of it. Otherwise it remains empty lip service, like mentioning once there had been partners of both genders but never even looking at a man. And don’t get me started on the genderfluid representation. I’ll excuse the alligator, though.

Being boring: what even were the stakes in the series? I remember Loki being threatened with getting pruned once, but the rest was more or less left for us to fill out? Yeah, so entire time lines got pruned? I won’t develop much empathy if we never get to forge an emotional connection to one before it gets blown away. You don’t have to go all George R.R. Martin, but a little investment wouldn’t have hurt. Also, this would have prevented point No. 8 and parts of No.9.

[jackrrabbit]

Bloodlust /// Sanemi x f!Reader (18+)

Summary: A naive demon is waylaid by the Wind Hashira.

A/N: Might fuck around and get back into KNY…Sanemi is one mean bastard, and I’m here for it. Be warned—this is pretty brutal (not by canon standards, but still). ngl I’ve missed writing stuff like this 🥺

Tags/warnings: sadomasochism, noncon, hatefucking!!!! is def the best way to describe what happens in this fic, threats, violence, demon reader & demon things, primal, degradation, outdoor sex, bloodplay & marechi kink stuff, yandere? obsessive fixation ig, some creative liberties have been taken with canon

You’d almost forgotten what it feels like to be weak.

Strength came with the territory when you were turned into a demon, along with the hunger: all-encompassing, oppressive, like you’re starving every second you’re not eating. Apparently you’re better able to control your hunger than other demons, not that you’ve met many—none, actually, other than the one who turned you. He was the one who told you to exercise control, who told you that you’ve done well to stealthily pick off prey that wouldn’t be missed instead of attracting attention. He was the one who told you about demon slayers.

You almost laughed at the idea at the time. A group of humans who tried to resist demons? Tried to kill them? How? Every human you’ve encountered since you were turned—hunters, mostly, men who’d wandered into the woods looking for something to eat—has been pathetically weak against you. Life as a demon is simple. As long as you stay in the shadows and avoid the sun, you have nothing to fear.

Sometimes you daydream about making your way to a village and gorging yourself, but you don’t mind the hunger so much. You can get by on scraps. And besides, the demon who turned you warned you not to go overboard. He said to stay away from the humans’ notice—not that the threat of some human calling themselves a “demon slayer” bothered you. You know how strong you are; you can feel it in your blood, your muscles, your bones. You don’t understand how a flesh-and-blood human could threaten that.

You don’t understand…until you meet him. The Wind Hashira. You should’ve listened to the warnings about demon slayers.

Bitter.

It tastes bitter, and you try to ground yourself on that taste, the sharp, bitter-wet flavor of the grass and dew and earth because the slayer is shoving your face into the dirt and the copper from where you’re biting into your lip and holding back the sound of your voice. Not that he cares, probably. But you don’t think you could take hearing yourself moan for a human while he carves the shape of his cock into your pussy.

How did you…get here? Facedown, barely holding yourself up on your elbows, chest and stomach shoved into the grass with your back arched up and your kimono ridden above your hips… Fuck, you can barely remember the fight, his ability, him wrestling you into the earth and shoving his weight down on you and bringing his blade to his own arm and—

—his blood, so rich and thick and sweet that even recalling the smell of it sends a wave of heat through you and you whine under your breath. The hunger overtakes everything else you’re feeling, but only for a second before with a twitch of his hand the Hashira brings the edge of his sword to the tender skin of your throat. “Ah-ah,” he rasps out a laugh even though his voice is heavy and strained. “What was that? Are you starting to like it?”

“K-Kill you, I’ll—kill you,” you snarl, but you and him both know the threat is empty. You tried. And you failed.

“Fucking demon whore,” he spits, and the blade slips just enough to draw a hair-thin line of red across your neck, earning a yelp from you even though you don’t dare move any more for fear of letting it cut you deeper. When you go still, he grunts and you can hear him shifting position in the grass, angling your hips up so his cock can sink in again. “Asking for it…fuck…”

“I wasn’t—nngh—ah, ahhh, s-stop—you can’t—” Your words are coming out in babbles, barely intelligible but it’s his fault. He’s pushing up at your womb, pulling out in short, quick thrusts and slamming his cock back into your cunt so hard and rough it’s like he’s knocking the breath out of your lungs. It hurts, ithurtsithurtsithurts, an ache deep in your core and accompanied with a heat and tension that you hate even more than you hate the pain, because it means he’s right. You—no, your body, your traitorous pathetic weak body that submitted to his so easily—it’s starting to like this.

“How’s it feel?” He’s mocking you, fisting his fingers in your hair and wrenching your head back so he can look you in the eye. “Does it hurt?…it hurts, right? Good.”

“—i-it doesn’t—“ You don’t even believe it yourself.

“Yes…it does. Guess even a demon bitch like you can’t take me that easily.” Somehow the slayer’s hips keep pumping deeper, pushing his fat cock through your walls and against the entrance to your womb until you’re certain your unnatural healing can’t keep up with the bruising in your cunt. Your fingers are scrabbling in the grass, digging clawed nails into the earth—the little nick on your throat has already knitted itself back up, but the tension in your pussy is a dozen—a hundred—times worse.

“—stop, let me go—“ Debased. Lower than an animal. You’d be begging if you thought he would listen.

“‘Stop’? How are you going to...ungh, make me stop? Want to try to fight me off again?” He pulls out (you hate the way your cunt feels when he does, hot and slick and empty) and his grip on the sword slackens, easing up enough to give you a scanty inch of movement. “Go ahead, give it a try.”

The slayer’s taunting you—just like you taunted him at the start of this, when you first challenged him, when you thought he was a human—and, and somehow he is, still human and yet just as much a monster as you are. More. You’ve been cruel, you’ve done evil things, but you did them to survive. Fuck, you shouldn’t—shouldn’t have taunted him, shouldn’t have boasted, should’ve stayed hidden in the dark. You didn’t know. He wasn’t supposed to be this strong.

Your muscles are shaking from exertion as you brace your hands against the ground, trying to push up against the weight of his body so you can right yourself, but it’s futile. Within a second (less than a second) of your attempt to move, one of his scarred hands slaps over your wrist and crushes it back into the dirt, grip so tight you swear you can almost feel your bones grinding underneath. You snarl, try to twist yourself away from him but the hilt of his sword slams down flat against your other hand so hard you feel a dull pang of surprise that nothing actually breaks.

“So weak…try that again and I’ll use the sharp end.” His chest is moving back on top of yours, and you recognize the silent rhythm of the movement.

He’s laughing at you.

Weak. You know it’s true. You thought you were so strong, but compared to this Hashira you’re nothing. Pure unadulterated defeat is written in every cell of your body, and whatever animal instinct you have left from your human life is telling you to roll over and accept that he’s the predator, and you’re nothing more than prey. But the mockery, the ease with which he holds you down, the goddamn fucking laughter sparks a fresh wave of hatred and you thrash and squirm underneath his body. “You’re dead, you—I’ll kill you, I’ll tear you apart, they’ll be picking bits of you out of this forest for weeks—“

The red haze over your vision is so heavy that you barely notice the blade tilting into position—not over your skin, but against his. You only register what he’s doing when the glint of sunlight on the blade reflects brilliant white, and you catch a scarlet line of blood beading against it. You pull back, eyes going wide, trying not to inhale but your lungs betray you and,

oh ohhh fuck it smells good smells so good you want it you want it so fucking bad you’re going to die if you can’t taste it you need it you need it you NEED IT.

Your muscles go slack. You’re salivating already, dizzy from hunger, so intensely focused on the smell of his blood that you can’t help your compliance as he pulls your hips up into place and slips his cock back into your pussy. Only when it starts to hurt again—a dull soreness now, because he’s slowed his pace to push his thick shaft into you inch by inch—do you feel that same prickle of hatred and disgust, but who cares who cares that you’re getting fucked because the smell of his blood is driving you out of your mind with need.

You no longer have the self-control to hold back your voice, and when the slayer hears the pathetic little mewl dripping out of your mouth from the sensation of him filling you up, he laughs again. But this time you don’t care, you just want him, want his body, his blood. Your jaw snaps open and shut on instinct and you whine, pleading, because you’re past the point of believing that you can beat him.

“You like that? Want to taste?” His voice is softer now, but the vein of mockery still runs clear through every syllable.

Your head jerks up and down desperately and then he draws his hips back and slaps his cock between your aching walls, pushing a huffed “uhhn!” out of your lips—but you don’t pull away. You can tolerate this, if it means getting to taste that blood dripping down his fingers, over the sword grip still held in his palm, just to be wasted on the grass. Out of your reach.

“So docile now…think I could get used to this,” the slayer sighs, adjusting the position of his thighs so he can thrust into you lazily and deeply. “F-Fuck, you’re—tight, you know that? All hot and sticky inside…”

“—let me have it, need it I need it, why—“ Your head is spinning, feels like you’re…what? The intoxication is hitting some note deep in the recesses of your memory, a past life you aren’t supposed to be able to recall. Bitter taste on your tongue, liquid pouring, fuzzy edges bordering your vision. Drunkenness.

“Little demon bitch,” he growls, tapping the blade lightly against your neck when you snap your teeth at him again. “Said you were going to kill me, yeah? But now you’re moaning like a whore…”

You try to muster a denial, but you can’t.

The slayer’s other hand twists underneath the two of you to press up on your lower belly, pushing into the place where his cock is nudging up against your womb. You keen at the pressure, the slow friction against that little patch in your cunt that makes you slicker every time his cockhead passes over it. “Feel how deep I am in your cunt…? I can—feel your pulse on my cock, fuck.”

You can feel it too, your heartbeat echoed in the twitches of your pussy around his skin, quick and fluttering from the drunken stupor his blood has forced you into. Every sense is heightened, and the weight of his hand pushing up on your belly just makes it worse…or better. You’re not sure.

He swallows, and with his body on top of yours you can feel his heavy breathing puffing out over the bared skin of your neck. “Can demons even cum? If you can get wet, then you can cum too, right? I bet I can…bet I can make you cum, you fucking whore. Wouldn’t that be nice…get you creaming on my cock, make you my little fuckpet…”

His hand slips down from your belly to rub roughly at your cunt, pushing into your skin to seek out the little button at the top—and the feeling of his hands on you like this, the sharp jolt of pleasure somehow sends a splinter of clarity through your delirium. “No,” you wail, hearing how wanton you sound and hating it. “I can’t I can’t, please, please don’t make me—“

“Quiet.” His thick forearm wraps around your neck, tightening against your windpipe and cutting off your voice. “Learn your place, demon—the only reason you’re alive is because you’re a nice wet hole for me to use. So when I tell you to cum—“

His pace picks up, hips knocking yours deeper, splitting you apart while he swirls his fingers around that sweet spot—and then the smell of copper gets thicker and he’s pushing his bloody hand against your mouth—

“—you cum.”

You’re not sure whether it’s your cunt or the taste of his blood smearing over your lips that does it, but as soon as he says the word you shatter like glass. The heat is brutal horrible delicious and so overwhelming you’re surprised you’re conscious through it—every hair is standing up on end and your body pulls tight like a bowstring, arching your backside into his hips so you can feel every inch of your cunt sucking around him.

It’s bliss—sickeningly sweet, burning like fire through you—without thinking, you eagerly lick the scarlet liquid off his hand and fuck somehow, somehow, it tastes even better than it smelled—feels like you could live off just the blood in your mouth but you want more, you’d die for it, you’d do anything, and your teeth are bared ready to puncture his skin deeper when—

Cold steel slides up under your jaw, almost nicking one of the veins pumping blood up to your hazy brain. “Keep—ahh, yesss…d-damn it—keep still,” the slayer rasps. “No teeth.”

He’s not finished.

Every muscle in your body aches for you to ignore him, but the knowledge of how easily he could separate your head from your body makes you obey, dragging your tongue over his still-bleeding cut instead of biting down. You can hear the noises of damp skin against skin issuing out from where your bodies meet, but you’re not sure whether it’s from you lapping at his fingers or his cock pressing in and out of your sopping-wet cunt. Probably both. Not that it matters.

The slayer’s head lowers—you know it by the angle of his cock inside your twitching pussy and the faint tickle of his hair brushing against the skin of your neck—and then you feel his teeth sinking into the side of your throat. They’re blunt, of course, as harmless as any human’s, but the primal dominance of the action sends a shudder through you.

“Not bad…looks like demons are good for something after all. I think I might just keep you,” the slayer laughs. His voice is too close—you want to flinch back, spit at him, bite—but you can’t. You’re helpless.

You’re weak.

[300iqprower]

Hypothetical Rank Ups No. 29-32: Henry Jekyll & Hyde (Rework)

Disclaimer: Special thanks to all who gave me advice on this and especially @devowostation​ and @duelsoul​ for direct feedback since I knew very little about the character (or rather the fate version) going in or how they’re used in gameplay! Between a complete overhaul of effects and falling down the Fate/Prototype rabbit hole in general this is definitely the one that’s taken the longest thus far. I honestly went a bit overboard and this is borderline an SSR Prototype Alt rather than a rework of the 3 star FGO version, but ya know what Meta is evil and every unit deserves to be perfectly usable. If you want what a 3 star overhaul would actually look like you can probably just subtract all the upgrades that apply to the Hyde personality except the last one, but that’s more a retroactive thing because due to how bad he currently is it was pretty hard to draw a line when it came to improving him. But it’s not like this series by now hasn’t already shifted more towards “what if every servant was good” than simply fixing the issues present. Rambling done, now without further ado!

Passive: Powerless Shell EX (Jekyll only).

Increase your Critical Chance Resist by 15%. Increase your Critical Star Drop Rate by 15%. Decrease target focus by 15%.

Something new to start, a passive that the game should be ashamed for not making use of since it’s too RNG to actually be unbalanced and covers a lot of bases while being completely lore friendly. In not just Prototype but FGO as well Jekyll is explicitly a phantom spirit so weak he passes for a normal human to the point of possessing A rank Presence Concealment which is why he’s an assassin in FGO. Powerless Shell is supposedly “ineffectual” in fgo but on top of the story itself showing that’s a lie with Jekyll pulling one over others through that ability, in gameplay HeFakestion now disproves that entirely by having her Camouflage passive translate to the effects of critical resist and increased star drop rate; that’s why on top of those I’m giving Jekyll a small inherently lower chance of being prioritized (and the game IS coded to prioritize certain units so this isn’t actually introducing a new mechanic it’s simply being more transparent about it). The crit star drop stacking with PC is much needed since Jekyll has terrible star gen due to abysmal early game hit counts, and the crit resist is small but alongside the lower targeting rate and a couple survival tools planned it all adds up to fit the idea of Jekyll skulking about until he can build up to Hyde who of course doesn’t have this ability at all. 

Monstrous Strength B (Jekyll & Hyde) -> Grotesque Humanity EX

Increase own ATK (3 turns). As Jekyll, apply [Tincture of Evil] to self (1 turn)  As Hyde, further increase own ATK (3 turns) and Increase own Buster Card Star Gather Rate (3 turns). - Tincture of Evil: When an enemy is defeated, increase own NP Gauge.[50%-100%]

Yeah that’s right massive battery on Jekyll. it’s actually a pretty fair trade off. In exchange for a chance at instant Hyde you’re sacrificing Hyde’s main stim since you lose out on 70% of his attack up buff and a very powerful buster crit gather that as you’ll see would be invaluable in any situation without an overflow of stars. Furthermore that battery is only easily available in random fights since almost all REAL fights are against 1 enemy and those that aren’t have break bars/hundreds of thousands of HP across all enemies. The numbers themselves, for any of these abilities actually, didn't need changing both scaling and cooldown wise since J&H’s issue was the fundamentals and lack of utility rather than the effects they already had, like a far worse example of what was outlined with Frankenstein before. Now for the fun part: the flavor. The effects are self explanatory, Buster Gather for Hyde’s brutality he embodies and the gain for how as death and sin surrounds Jekyll it draws out Hyde, but it’s the names I had the most fun with. Tincture of Evil is obviously his potion, a tincture being an extract for drinking or medical purpose. It’s a double play as well based on its other definition of a stain or trace of something, as it also refers to the how no matter how separate Jekyll is from Hyde, they are the same and there will always be a trace of Hyde. I had several options for a skill name by the end of a very long time coming up with them and ended up deferring to a friend who picked this one, Grotesque Humanity, which refers in a more straightforward sense to the fact that Hyde is all the worst things of humanity to the point of becoming an inhuman monster, something like taking elements opposite the Innocent Monster and Natural Demon abilities of FGO. The more deep seated meaning comes from the literary and artisitc idea of the Grotesque, a physical caricature of humanity that the actual novel “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” is believed to be somewhat rooted in, after all the entire idea is a side you empathize with and a side you are disgusted by. 

Panicky Voice A -> Manic Cadence A

Increase own Stun Success Rate (1 time). As Jekyll, Apply Target Focus to all other allies (1 turn) As Hyde, further increase own Stun Success Rate (1 time) and if stun is successful gain Critical Stars. 10% Chance to inflict Stun on a single enemy (1 turn).

As funny as the idea of Hyde also having the same skill name of “Panicky Voice” is, yeah that was the first change. Stun is left alone as well because the entire point is that as Jekyll you really shouldn’t rely on it and as Hyde it’s basically guaranteed, since at max rank it easily eclipses any servant's natural debuff resistance even factoring in passives. That said, it IS going to be a near guaranteed safeguard for Jekyll specifically now by doing that Odysseus reverse scapegoat thing to himself for 1 turn, meaning even if the stun doesn’t land he wont be damaged by non-aoe attacks. As Hyde this, like the last skill, becomes a much more straightforward offensive buff. I’ll reiterate the reason is because you have to remember, as Hyde all these skills are already actually quite good. Flavor wise this adds to Jekyll’s ‘heart weakening’ effect the simple function of doubling as a cry for help, while as Hyde the name change is a manifestation of Hyde’s violently unpredictable combat style. Through his ‘method to madness’ type movements, which can demonstrably outpace and outmaneuver even top tiers like Brynhildr, he can function as if possessing a pseudo-intuition. 

Self Modification D -> Self Modification (Elixir) D+

Increase own Critical Strength (3 turns). As Jekyll, increase own NP Gauge. [10% -> 30%] As Hyde, further increase own Critical Strength (3 turns) and apply 1HP Guts to self (Revive with 1 HP. Stacks with other Guts, triggers first) (1 time, 3 turns).

Simplest both effect and flavor wise. Taking the elixir obviously accelerates the Hyde transformation, but taking it as Hyde draws out the lycan form with its “Restructuring” ability that allows him to survive even multiple Noble Phantasms. Due to the distortion to his spirit origin, however, its effect is greatly reduced, and due to the imperfect nature of the elixir that became more contaminated with each use, the skill’s rank is actually quite low. The guts does, however, stack meaning it can be mixed with guts support (or far less ideally CEs), and the battery for Jekyll is still enough to cross some important thresholds.

AND NOW, THE BIG ONE.

The Most Dangerous Game C+ -> The Most Dangerous Game C+ (Jekyll)

Swap your personality (Change into Hyde, Class change to Berserker). Increase your Max HP. [Unremovable]^ Fully restore your HP.  <Overcharge> Increase your Buster Card effectiveness. [Unremovable]^

The Most Dangerous Game C+ -> Seventh Circle EX (Hyde)

Apply Buster Brave Chain effect to self and change all Command Cards to [Buster] Cards (1 turn). Apply Debuff Immune to self (3 times) Apply Ignore DEF to self (1 turn). Increase NP Gauge when using Buster normal attack cards (4 turns). Apply Delayed Buff to self. - After 1 turn, swap your personality to Jekyll, apply Evade to self (2 times, 3 turns), lose all unremovable buffs, and decrease max HP by 3000 for 3 turns. [Demerit] <Overcharge> Increase own Buster Card Effectiveness (1 turn).

LYCANTHROPE HYDE TIME, with some obvious Super Orion influence on the skillset. Most important to start, an animation update: When Hyde uses his NP (which obviously was the first change I made, giving him a freaking NP) he gets an Angry Mango-like NP form for the rest of the turn with exactly 3 new attack animations that consist of a basic attack, a followup attack, and a unique pesudo-NP animation 14 hit Extra Attack. The only change for Jekyll, by the way, is to make Hyde’s inherent buffs unremovable at the cost of Hyde’s NP removing those unremovable buffs (look there’s not really a better way to word it and Ignore ignore invincible is a real thing so nyeh). So moving onto why those unique attacks, the gist of Hyde’s NP is to save it for when he has 2 command cards available, ideally 2 buster ones but any will do, and to use his NP like Super Orion’s as the start of a super buffed chain; to put it another way this massive setup turns Hyde into a unit who can deal Super Orion levels of single target damage at the cost of being a far more long term setup for an IMMENSE one turn bust, whereas Super Orion is the opposite as he only needs 2 of his skills to burst and his his NP is mainly for extending the amount of time he can output that damage. Flavor wise, of course, they’re not similar at all. In Prototype Hyde is shown to have a completely different skillset as a lycan that focuses on close quarters combat by matching brain and brutality with sheer endurance. In FGO however even if Hyde could achieve this form it would be incredibly short lived and act as a burst of strength rather than a method of survival. To match this I gave him a full turn of Ignore Defense as well as multiple Debuff Immune charges, a massive buster buff, and a unique effect that can retroactively change all his cards to Buster AND apply the Buster Brave Chain power boost regardless of what cards were picked, though it will still only have the Extra attack if it was all Hyde cards as per usual. Furthermore the crit stars will not reset after picking the cards and Hyde’s gather is restricted to his Buster cards, so there’s still merit to trying to line up Hyde’s buster cards specifically unless there is an overflow given while not as bad a normal berserker, Hyde’s assassin rate base gather is not powerful enough to mitigate RNG like an Archer or Rider. Hyde’s “Love of the ‘Game’” if you will manifests through NP Gain on Buster hit, not dissimilar to a certain bloodthirsty chihuahua, and lasts for several turns meaning it can facilitate another transformation after reverting to Jekyll at the end of the turn. Doing so will, however, leave Jekyll is a semi-vulnerable state. He’ll lose his HP and Buster Hyde buffs and further lose max HP as he recuperates, but he will retain the Debuff immunities and gain a 2 hit evade as he falls back into his undetectable Powerless Shell.

As for the name, because I am disproportionately proud of it, it’s a threefold reference. Hyde did not have a proper name for any special attack as Heracles does with Nine Lives (which is what I mentally base that 14 hit attack off of, 7 with each claw) so I went with a reference to Dante’s Inferno. There is of course the 7 Deadly Sins of man, which Dante refers to as the 7 Terraces or Purgatorio, but more famously known are the Nine Circles of Hell which are based on active rejection of redeeming oneself from those sins, and the 7th circle in particular is Violence. Specifically, it refers to three kinds of violence: Violence against Neighbors, Violence against the Self, and Violence against Nature/God/Art. Hyde committed all three; obviously he committed murder, but the potion he used was an abomination against nature by trying to reshape his own humanity for the sake of committing sin without remorse, and the story ends with Jekyll taking his own life for fear of Hyde taking permanent control. 

EXHALE. Got all that? to TLDR: Hyde now has an NP designed for a Super Orion style Single Target Burst turn, and rather than buff the pre-existing aspects of his kit I focused on making it more of an actual decision on whether or not you should save his skills for Hyde by giving Jekyll utility that accelerates his transformation into Hyde or increases his survival, and giving Hyde effects that make his output more consistent rather than explicitly stronger due to the nature of his inherently powerful [now] unremovable buffs.

[kindestegg]

Deltarune: On tea, relationships, and why people probably need to stop exaggerating

Alright, so ever since the introduction of the “character flavored” teas in chapter 2, there has been a lot of discussion about them. If you haven’t heard of it yet, in Deltarune Chapter 2, there’s an item that’s a tea that you can buy from an NPC and choose the flavor of, giving you a flavor that is named after a party member. So, Kris tea, Noelle Tea, Susie Tea, and Ralsei Tea.

The fun thing about this item is that it can more or less be used to “track” the relationships between the characters, so to speak. For example, if Noelle has the Susie tea, even if she’s not supposed to drink it due to normally leaving the party, she’ll still have a reaction to it, wondering if they would sell this in gallons and recovering an absurd amount of HP, 400 to be precise.

(this is long as hell, so please continue reading under the cut)

These teas are also actually a reference to a book series Toby is a fan of, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, which does have a chapter about students having ice cream flavored after their classmates. This is most evident when the characters drink their own tea, which tastes like nothing to them and recovers the least amount of HP: 10. In the books, the students also could not perceive the taste of their own flavor of ice cream.

So, the fandom gets ahold of this information and starts testing out the teas and how characters react to them, right? The thing is, I’ve seen people kind of exaggerate the importance of these items and even the meanings of them, and while I think everyone’s entitled to harmless headcanons speculating on the relationship of characters, the problem is people are using these teas as immutable proof and part of their theories.

One of such exaggerations comes mostly in the form of the infamous Ralsei Tea, as to which Kris apparently does not show much reaction, though curiously Ralsei is still happy to see Kris drinking it, and it only recovers 60 HP. For reference, the teas usually cap at a good 120 HP, which is when a character loves the flavor, Noelle being the outlier because she really is just that in love with Susie. For the most part the Fun Gang has pretty positive reactions to each other’s flavor of teas, recovering 120 HP… with the exception of Kris’ reaction towards Ralsei tea.

And the problem starts now: Due to this, people started using this little tidbit in their theories, claiming this was proof that Kris actually dislikes or even hates Ralsei, that we should be ashamed of ourselves for making Kris hug Ralsei, that it is torture for them that we choose nice dialogue options towards Ralsei, some going as far as to claim this is somehow tied to the infamous “Ralsei is secretly evil” theories.

But does this speculation hold any actual weight when analyzed more deeply?

… No. I’m sorry, it just does not, I’m not going to entertain this. In this post, I’m going to deconstruct how the teas really work, and exactly why claiming that this is good enough proof that Kris would dislike Ralsei is an exaggeration at best and downright false at worse.

To truly make a precise conclusion, we must first look at the full picture. We know that 10 HP means “tastes like nothing”, and we know that 120 HP means “tastes amazing”, but are there any other reactions that aren’t either 10 or 120, aside from the 60 HP we already know from Ralsei tea?

Pictured: Noelle reacting to Kris tea.

Pictured: Kris reacting to Noelle tea.

Pictured: Ralsei reacting to Noelle tea.

Pictured: Noelle reacting to Ralsei tea.

I think what people forget here is that you don’t have to really adore someone or outright hate them. Sometimes you’re more neutral on people. And I think that’s what happens here. As you can see here, Ralsei recovers 10 less HP for Noelle than Kris does for him, and still calls her flavor “soft and sweet”. Meanwhile, Noelle claims his tea has “nothing in it”, even though she still recovers 50 hp.

Does this somehow mean Ralsei hates Noelle, or she hates him, for that matter? … No, that wouldn’t make sense, they just met, they know nothing about each other. We do learn here one important thing though, flavor is not tied to HP recovery, as in, the flavor of each character’s tea will taste different to a different person based on what they perceive of them.

As a comparative example, while Kris tea tastes like apple juice to Susie due to her always smelling the apple shampoo they use, Kris tea tastes like blueberries, which is a reference to Kris’ appearance in the Dark World. So while Ralsei tea tastes like nothing to Noelle as she can’t perceive him well enough yet, it still heals 50 HP due to it not being her own tea, and Ralsei heals for the same amount, but he seems to perceive others based on appearance and wants to find something good to say, so he ends up tasting it as something “soft and sweet” because that’s what Noelle appears like.

We can also gain a new “base” HP recovery that is accounted for when characters drink tea that is not their own: 50 HP. And we know 50 HP means “I was literally just made aware of your existence and can’t comment much on you yet”. Now, if you look at Kris and Noelle, they recover 70 HP from each other’s tea. In Noelle’s words, they have been neighbors their entire lives, yet they still find it hard to call each other friends, necessarily. Although you can choose the prompt “we’re friends”, the reasoning still stands: Kris and Noelle just don’t have that much to say about each other. If you remember, when you visit Rudy at the hospital in chapter 1, then Noelle afterwards, they’ll comment on how Kris usually isn’t as involved or interested in their neighbor’s business, suggesting they really don’t hang out as much as you’d think.

So, 50 HP, 70 HP. Where does that leave us for Ralsei’s 60 HP? Does it actually reveal evidence of hatred or at least dislike?

… The answer, if you’ve been paying any attention, is no, of course not. If 50 HP means “literally just learned the other exists” while 70 HP means “not exactly great friends but have known each other for a long time and shared memories”, then that puts Ralsei at a pretty advantageous spot all things considered. Even with him acting somewhat suspicious, even with him being a creature from an entirely new magical world Kris was made aware of literally a day ago, even with Ralsei’s clingy behavior, Kris considers him more than just some random person they just met, and almost a good acquaintance to the level of Noelle.

And sure, you could still bring up comparisons to the higher HP recoveries, like Susie recovering 120 HP from everyone despite also not really being exactly friends with any of these people for too long, and for that I will say…

That girl will eat anything and considering they are all flavors she enjoys she’ll obviously down it in a second, and

Susie is just… a more open person. Once you get her guard down and let her know you truly want to be her friend and think she is cool, she’ll immediately consider you a friend and part of her team. (It’s also kind of sad in a way because it shows she may be desperate for the feeling of belonging but let’s not get into that right now).

Kris, however, is a much more reserved person. Once again I must remind you how everyone in Hometown comments about Kris not usually being very outgoing or talkative. Hell, even when they drink Noelle tea, no one can tell whether they like it or not. Susie may be an exception to this rule, simply because they do have a lot in common, particularly to the fact she was also always an awkward quiet person that their classmates could never place and would often get in trouble. Even if she was mean to them and a downright bully in chapter 1, teens can still have some pretty weird appreciations, and you can tell they must have been wanting to befriend her from the start. It simply just is a better relationship to them. Otherwise, people they haven’t invested in knowing well will probably not cause the same reaction.

Bottom line is… why are we having this debate again? In the end, it feels rather silly. Yes, Kris doesn’t recover 120 HP from Ralsei tea. Big deal? That doesn’t mean they hate or even dislike him, that there’s a deep turmoil and conflict going on between the two already. Ralsei is just a new friend they are still getting used to, that’s it. Can’t blame the kid for having boundaries.

For further proof, if you learn more about the content that is being referenced here, you’ll learn that in the same chapter of the book, there is actually a way for one’s flavor to taste “horrible” due to a person being perceived that way, but at no point in these reactions it’s suggested anyone’s flavor tastes bad, that any of them are disgusted, so I doubt any of these reactions can be seen as dislike.

Dang… this got a little long… but I just felt like I had to make this post because, reiterating, I find myself a little irritated at the fact people will use the tea’s reactions as part of their theories, claiming it as actual proof, when it is far from proving anything.

And before someone brings it up, yes, Kris has been shown to prefer Susie over Ralsei, do I have to point out the flaw in that logic? Preferring someone doesn’t mean you outright dislike the other person.

Moral of the story is: Don’t take conclusions for your theories without good backing in canon, feel free to make your headcanons but don’t state it as proof, byeee.

[hoarder-erotica]

Cryptidfucking

This story is crossposted to AO3 here!

1.9k words, rated E, disabled nonbinary trans man x shadow monster binary trans man, soft monsterfucking of the “the monster hates himself and the human character makes it very clear that they’re comfortable around him, through sex” flavor.  Detailed tags and warnings on AO3!

———

“I’ll plug your wheelchair in,” Michael says, holding the door for his boyfriend.  “You go lie down.”

“I want to lie down with you, though,” Elliot says petulantly, driving through the doorway with deceptive ease.  There’s still a scratch on the frame from where Michael tried it once.

Why they would want to do that, Michael can’t imagine.  Why anyone would want to be near someone like him is baffling at the best of times, but especially today…

They had been out at a restaurant together, and Michael had been talking about some unimportant thing, gesticulating wildly.  Elliot had been listening intently to whatever garbage spewed out of his mouth, because they’re a wonderful boyfriend who wouldn’t even think of telling him to shut up, the way they should.  And Michael had lost control, distracted by his story, and a shadow had tripped a small child.

The child’s parents assumed it was a rock on the ground, but Michael had known.  And Elliot had looked at him with those perceptive eyes, and Michael had known that they knew too.

Elliot hadn’t said anything, just helped the parents soothe the child, but they hadn’t needed to say anything for Michael to feel absolutely awful.  He’s supposed to have more control of that awful form.

He snaps back to the present, finishes making sure the wheelchair will recharge overnight, and lies down on the bed, holding his arms out.  If Elliot wants to be held by him even after that, then he’ll hold them.

“I’m so tired,” Elliot whines dramatically, flopping onto him.  Michael lets out an “oof!”  “I don’t want to move for a week.”

“I guess I’d better get comfortable,” Michael teases, and makes a show of settling into the pillows.  “A week, you say?”

“Maybe a month,” Elliot says.  They go limp, their voice muffled.  “You’ll have to bring me food, and carry me to the bathroom.”

“I can do that,” Michael says seriously.  Elliot is determined to do as much as they can on their own, but as long as they allow Michael to live with them… he takes joy in helping them.  He would be thrilled to bring them meals in bed, and attend to their every whim, and carry them around wherever they need to go.

“Mm,” Elliot says.  They’re quiet for a moment.  “Darling, why haven’t you shifted yet?”

Michael blinks.  Because I’m a monster, and I don’t want to remind you of that.  “I thought this would be more comfortable,” he says instead.

“How?” Elliot asks, sounding baffled.

“You don’t need to see that form,” Michael says, vicious self-hatred laced through his tone.

Elliot sits up, straddling Michael’s hips.  “You’re still thinking about earlier, aren’t you,” they say.

“I lost control!” Michael bursts out.  “I hurt a kid.”

“The kid stopped crying when I gave them a band-aid,” Elliot counters.  “They weren’t even bleeding, kids just think band-aids are magic.”

“I tripped them,” Michael argues.

“Kids trip all the time,” Elliot says.  “Humans trip kids by accident all the time.  You’re not uniquely evil or whatever.”

“You shouldn’t have to see that form,” Michael repeats.

Elliot gives him an exaggerated pout.  “But I like your tongue,” they say.  “And your claws.  And the way y-”

Michael tries to put a hand over their mouth, laughing despite himself.

Elliot avoids him.  “And I especially like your te-”

He finally manages to get a hand over their mouth.  “Stop it,” he begs, but he’s grinning.  “I’ll die of embarrassment.”

Elliot moves his hand away.  He lets them.  “Only if you shift,” they say, looking at him sternly.

Michael takes a deep breath - or tries to.  His binder is getting uncomfortable.  “Okay,” he says, giving up, and allows his limbs to lengthen and his face to change, shifting into his second form.

The bed bounces as Elliot collapses onto it.  “Now I’m even more tired,” they complain.  “Telling you off for hating yourself is a full-time job.  You should kiss me to make up for it.”

Michael hesitates.  How can Elliot want to be kissed by him right now?  He’s a strange mishmash of cryptid and comedy, loose clothes hanging off an almost-incorporeal frame.  He concentrates and dissolves into wisps of smoke, letting his clothes fall through himself to form a pile underneath him on he bed.

There.  Now he just looks like a monster.

“Sweetheart, are you doing the ‘I’m a monster and my boyfriend can’t possibly want to kiss me’ thing again?” Elliot asks.

Michael guiltily looks to the side, though with the empty eye sockets of this form he has to turn his head to do it.  “No,” he lies.

“Come here and kiss me,” Elliot says.

Michael lets out a chirp to sense where they are, and leans over, placing a chaste kiss on their lips.

“More,” Elliot demands, and Michael kisses them again, and again, until they open their mouth, a clear request.

“Are you sure?” Michael asks, rearing back.

“I told you I like your tongue,” Elliot says.  Michael chirps - they’re frowning, but it’s a gentle frown, full of love.  “You cannot have forgotten how much I like your tongue.”

They do really seem to like his tongue, slimy as it is.

Michael gives in, kissing them open-mouthed, licking inside as gently as he can.

And Elliot moans, a happy noise, and he relaxes a little more, sliding their tongues together the way he knows they like.

They kiss for some time, and then Elliot grabs one of his wrists, placing his hand on their chest.

“We can just kiss,” Michael murmurs against their lips, “you don’t have to force yourself -”

“Dearest,” Elliot says firmly, “I like both your forms.  Take my clothes off.”

Michael’s hands move automatically, responding to the authority in their voice.  With as much care as he can manage, keeping his sharp claws away from their skin, he reaches under their back, unhooks the back of their dress and the clasp of their bra, and peels them out of their clothes with their help.

Elliot flops onto the bed and takes a few deep breaths.  “Maybe you had a point,” they say feebly.

“Do you want to stop?” Michael asks.  But even he can’t misinterpret this as lack of interest.  “Or you can just lie there.  I can take care of you.”

There’s a pause, then - “That sounds nice,” Elliot says in a small voice.

“Just relax,” Michael tells them, and kisses them again, cupping a breast in one hand.

Eventually, he moves downward, kissing at their jaw, and then their neck, and then biting - very gently - at their collarbone.  Just enough to tease them, not enough to break the skin.

“More,” Elliot demands.

Michael scrapes a fang down their chest, then licks at a nipple.

“Use your claws,” Elliot orders, and Michael does, tracing circles around the other nipple with sharp black nails that could so easily pierce through into flesh.  Why does Elliot trust him with this?

He closes his mouth around the first nipple, an apology for the thought.  He knows he shouldn’t be thinking things like that, but oh, it’s so difficult.  He doesn’t understand.

“You’re so good to me,” Elliot sighs, squirming just a little.

He does his best.  Elliot deserves it.

He draws patterns around one nipple and sucks at the other until Elliot squirms again, more urgently this time.  And then he moves down, pushing his boyfriend’s legs open, settling himself between them.

“Go on, sweetheart,” Elliot prompts when he looks up for approval.

He chirps, and carefully, he leans in and licks through the wet folds there.

“Yeah,” Elliot breathes, their hole fluttering under his tongue.  “Keep going.”

He does, licking at them again, and again, delighting in the taste.

“Tonguefuck me,” Elliot orders, and he does, pressing just the tip of his tongue inside them, and then working it further in.

It’s always a strange experience to tonguefuck them.  They’re warm and wet inside, and they squeeze around him as if they’re trying to pull him further in.  He obliges, pressing his face against them, wrapping his hands around their thighs, extending his tongue as far as it can go.

Soon they’re tensing in a way he recognizes.  He moves his tongue in and out, faster and faster, focusing on the textured spot inside them, and they come around him with a gasp of “sweetheart, Mikey, my Mike -”

Slowly, gently, he extricates his tongue, sitting up.  “How do you feel?” he asks, chirping.  Their expression is relaxed, and they don’t look too tired, considering.

“I want you to fuck me properly,” Elliot says, sitting up.

“I can get it myself,” Michael says, alarmed.  He puts a hand on their shoulder.  “You can just rest here.”

They hesitate, but they lie back down.

“What happened to not moving for a month?” Michael teases.

“I’m going to sleep for a week after you finish fucking me,” Elliot says.  “But after.”

Michael laughs and stands up, walking over to the dresser.  “I’m honored you think my dick is so good you’ll postpone your nap for it,” he says, fishing out his strap-on.  Carefully, he steps through the loops of leather, wincing at the reminder that this form has one too many joints in each limb.  The less said about his feet, the better.

“I can help you put that on,” Elliot says.

Michael turns his head in their direction and chirps.  They’re sitting up.  “I’ve got it,” he reassures them, and finishes fastening the straps.

… He looks ridiculous.  A being made of shadows, wearing a bright purple dildo.

“You look really hot,” Elliot says.  “Come here.”

He obeys, kneeling on the bed in front of them.

“Okay, I really am too tired to do anything,” they say, sounding like they’re worried that he’ll be upset.  “You’ll have to do all the work.”

“It would be my pleasure,” Michael tells them, chirps, and lines himself up.

Carefully, he pushes in, holding their thighs open.  And then he thrusts forward, and thrusts again, chirping, and does his best to aim for the spot that makes Elliot’s face scrunch up the most.

“Harder,” Elliot says, so he thrusts harder.

“Faster,” Elliot says, so he obeys.

“Use your shadows,” Elliot says, so he summons tendrils of darkness from the corners of the room and winds them around his boyfriend’s nipples and clit, softly flicking at the sensitive nubs of flesh.

He chirps, suddenly desperate to know that he hasn’t hurt the person he loves most in the world, and relaxes at the expression of bliss on Elliot’s face.

“Darling,” they gasp, and he chirps again and again, flooding his senses with the knowledge that Elliot is experiencing pleasure because of <i>him</i>.

They come down from their orgasm, and Michael dissolves his shadows, easing the dildo out of them.  He dissolves his hips, too, just for a moment, not wanting to bother with undoing the straps, and tosses the harness and dildo onto the floor.

“Come cuddle with me,” Elliot demands.

Michael laughs, happy, and drapes himself over them.  “Is it naptime now?” he asks.

Elliot wraps their arms around him.  “Maybe,” they say.  “Will you be okay?”

Michael smiles into their soft hair.  “I think so,” he says.  He still hates that he tripped that kid, but… it really was just a small mistake, wasn’t it?  Elliot doesn’t love him any less because of it.  “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Elliot says, their voice suddenly exhausted.  “Wake me up if you need me.”

Michael presses a kiss to the top of their head, and relaxes into their hold, and chirps in awe at how wonderful his boyfriend is.

“I will,” he promises, and underneath him, trusting and warm, Elliot drifts off to sleep.

[starlightshore]

barring the no mercy route being an influence in this case, how would you describe chara's personality? I cannot describe them well at all despite them being my favorite character. they're too complex lol. all of the meta i can find at this time as them described at both extremes of innocent & evil but i don't think that's accurate

TW: discussions of canon dark topics such as abuse , death and suicide

i love talking about chara, i've talked about them at length before lmao. thank u for giving me a chance to talk about my beloved child.

you can actually read a character exploration i'm doing in a mini-arc for Askfallenroyalty. actually, if you want one condensed post, this comic sums up chara's motives

My interpretation:

chara is an abused kid and suicidal kid*(1) who ran to mount ebott to die.*(2) upon learning that monsters are made of love and humans aren't*(3), chara began to hate humanity. the deltarune prophecy*(4) makes them to be The Angel despite being a human. Feeling undeserving of this title and obligated to fulfill it, Chara wanted to be a good kid more than anything.

But then the buttercup pie incident happened. They've accidentally*(5) poisoned asgore and came up with a plan to ensure the prophecy could be fulfilled and take a hit against humanity. Two birds with one stone -who cares if it's also a personal win too? then obviously the plan goes up in flames and they and asriel are murdered. then asgore wants to kill of all humanity.

your influence*(6) gets Chara onto a path of redemption or a path of destruction, mirroring the deltarune prophecy's two main interpretations.*(7)

in summery: chara is a scared kid trying to fit into a world that demands violence by the past actions of the previous generations. The war massacred monsters and locked them up with a kill-solution -ensuring that further violence would be needed to be free, thus continuing the cycle of violence.

chara is just a kid. they knit, they make macaroni art, they loved their family and had a best friend forever.* (8) but they're also vengeful, they cared so deeply for monsterkind they were ready to die and had no idea they'd be awake as a soul, they were prepared for death. they're complicated, you can't have one side without the other. while i’ve never wanted to murder anyone, i can still relate deeply to chara and see myself in them a lot. the tragedy of them -the fact they never really got a “happy ending” like everyone else just haunts me and it’s why I spend so much time making AFR. I just... love this character so much, i want this kid to be happy. (not that it could ever be easy to get there, happy endings aren’t free.)

And frankly, seeing this hurt kid get demonized just rubs me the wrong way, and it feels completely against the morals Undertale tries to tell with it’s story. I see it as a cautionary tale against violence and dehumanizing others for the sake of hate and violence. how kids can be influenced by the violence -or kindness around them. you don’t need to forgive the ones who hurt you, but killing them is not always the solution -though sometimes necessary as framed in the Undyne the Undying fight.

People get both Undertale’s themes and chara wrong the most, and for the game that’s meant the world to me it bothers me more than it should lol. It’s a Good Story, and I don’t mean to frame my interpretation of the character or themes as 100% canon and I know Mr.Fox’s brain to confirm it kinda deal, but with all the time I’ve spent analyzing and thinking it over I do think it’s not off in the general direction of it lol. And besides the author’s intent isn’t really the end-all-to-be-all. It’s what you get out of the story and the themes that matter and stick with you. No one can take that away from you.

Sources and evidence:

"* If you're cuter, monsters won't hit you as hard." -faded ribbion flavor text * "The ends of the tools have been filed down to make them safer." -gardening tools in New Home (and iirc Toriel's home as well, too lazy to double check rn) * Where are the knives. -no mercy chara (this and paired with the previous imply there are no sharp objects in reach of chara's home because chara can't be trusted with sharp objects out of self harm. This doesn't necessarily mean abuse but paired with them hating humanity so deeply, being suicidal and a child it paints a picture of abuse.

"* I know why (chara) climbed the mountain.* It wasn't for a very happy reason." -asriel post pacifist epilogue dialogue

"* Love, hope, compassion... * This is what people say monster SOULs are made of. * But the absolute nature of "SOUL" is unknown. * After all, humans have proven their SOULs don't need these things to exist." -Library book on monster souls)

* Legend has it, an 'angel' who has seen the surface will descend from above and bring us freedom. - gerson

"* It takes at least a human soul... * And a monster soul. * ...* If you want to go home... * You'll have to take his soul. * You'll have to kill ASGORE." -Alphys. Because boss monster souls are the exception and can persist after death for a short period of time, Chara could of killed any of the family members to escape the underground. this implies escaping wasn't the goal -it was to die (considering they already attempted suicide to fall underground the first time, this is explicitly suicide.) the plaque doesn't mention or speak like monster/human fusion's consumed soul would be aware. chara had no way of knowing they'd be awake. also the whole thing with the pie is a prank. cups of butter. -> buttercups. putting flowers in a pie is a joke to do, we see Chara is similar to Toriel (they mimic her speech in the no mercy monologue, they say “greetings” as she does like how Asriel says “howdy” like Flowey does. Chara makes puns and jokes in the flavor text all the time.

https://imgur.com/a/zP18P -dog food bag at different LV. "When the protagonist first encounters Mad Dummy, they are given the option to beat it up. Choosing to beat it up prompts one of three responses depending on the protagonist's LOVE." (source: undertale wiki)

If the protagonist’s LV is 1, the response becomes "(You tap the dummy with your fist.) (You feel bad.)"

If the protagonist's LV is between 2 and 4, the response becomes "(You hit the dummy lightly.) (You don't feel like you learned anything.)"

If the protagonist’s LV is between 5 and 7, the response becomes "(You sock the dummy.) (Who cares?)"

If the protagonist’s LV is 8 or higher, the response becomes "(You punch the dummy at full force.) (Feels good.)"" This implies Chara (who is the narrator) will feel different about the dog food -which references the classic phrase of "glass half empty/full" showing your out look in life. Then hitting the dummy show's Frisk's out look on violence depending on LV. Note that by the end of it, it's no longer "you feel..." but "feels good" This is Chara.

      7. “* Lately, the people have been  taking a bleaker outlook...* Callin' that winged circle the  'Angel of Death.' “ -gerson “* Only the fearless may proceed. * Brave ones, foolish ones. * Both walk not the middle road. “ -the first plaque in the first puzzle room with Toriel. The idea is to walk on both the left and right sides -you can’t go half way in the middle. this mirrors the “true” endings are only accomplished if you stick to no mercy or pacifist only.

     8. literally their home in New Home is a treasure trove of pre-game chara characterization.

[romanianwilkinson]

MONSTER CAMP QUOTES STARTERS

A collection of sentence starters from the game Monster Camp. Feel free to change words and pronouns as desired. CONTENT WARNING(S) FOR: Monster Prom/Monster Camp spoilers, suggestive, cursing, crude content

“ I just have it here because [NAME] insisted that I offer it, as a marketing stunt. ”

“ And lastly, super-horny-type players no longer get a charm buff against tsundere types! ”

“ War machines don’t turn me on or anything! ”

“ I don’t wanna be weird, but do you mind if I climb inside of you and play around with your main turret? ”

“ A wine to DIE for, you say? Well, darling, don’t threaten me with a good time! ”

“ This one just says ‘ hmu with that reaper dick, daddy ’. ”

“ You on your phone, as always! Probably making blogposts on your Tik Tok page. ”

“ Yeah, you really don’t want to witness a repeat of the last time [NAME]’s diehard fans went without a selfie for fifteen minutes. My tailbone still hasn’t completely healed. ”

“ Now hold still, this will only hurt for a moment --- ”

“ Yay! You found a shenanigan! ”

“ My poems all have two or three emotions in them, AT LEAST. ”

“ CRYING IS OBVIOUSLY A COMPETITION TO SEE WHO CAN SQUEEZE THE MOST WATER OUT OF THEIR EYES! ”

“ No way, really? The way to WIN at poetry is by LOSING at life? ”

“ I dunno, maybe fall in love with someone who’s married and develop an opioid addiction? ”

“ HELL YEAH, SPEEDRUN! ”

“ It’s morbid, but... kind of romantic? ”

“ GASP! Google+? Are you kidding me? The psychopaths behind that global tragedy are here?! ”

“ Prison has changed me, [NAME]. Would you like to trade me some cigarettes in exchange for my fundamental dignity? ”

“ Undermining the laws of reality, subverting life and death, that’s the kind of stuff my followers expect. But CHEATING? No way. ”

“ Though we are imprisoned in chalk jail, we are free in our hearts. But our hearts are also imprisoned in chalk jail. ”

“ Um, no, I am NOT groveling. I am posing a dignified query to [NAME] that just so happens to be performed on my hands and knees. ”

“ I didn’t know you condoned playing the friend card to get free labor, [NAME]. ”

“ Ah, but saving the world doesn’t put avocado toast on the table. We indie seancers and necromancers need to pay our rent too, you know. ”

“ And as you know, I am illustriously Internet-famous, so if you could shower me with adoration and give me the pizza that would be fabulous. ”

“ Do you wanna fuck the pizza or not? ”

“ Are you ready to go swimming? I must admit, darling, I’ve always wondered what you would look like while... wet.”

“ Did you turn this date into an orgy without consulting me? ”

“ Gosh, I love it when you insult me! Please do it more! ”

“ Now who wants to make a baby? ”

“ What if she puts a curse on me that makes me magically forget the location of the clitoris?! ”

“ Hey, don’t knock wacky decisions that endanger us all! That’s how I always manage to stay a step ahead of my nemeses! ”

“ Oh gods, I’ve killed so many monsters, just for being monsters. This is making me question my entire moral foundation. I NEED MORE THERAPY. ”

“ I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: fish give better pedicures than people! ”

“ You’re not tricking me into parenting a stupid egg. I’ve never fucked even ONE chicken! The egg is not my son! ”

“ You came to visit me at camp, Daddy! ”

“ Don’t be ridiculous, I know your brand of horny, [NAME], and this ain’t it. ”

“ I thought we both agreed to be nothing but vague and haughtily aloof about our past dalliances. ”

“ Point EAST, compass! EAAAAAAAAST! You dumb fuckboot!!!! POINT! EAST! ”

“ One time I was told a soul’s worst fear was bugs and I inadvertantly sent The Beatles. It happens to the best of us... And the worst of us. ”

“ SOMEDAY I SHALL DEFEAT YOUR FIVE STRANGE FEET! ”

“ Why do you keep suppressing your monster half? Embrace your true nature! ”

“ Wow. I didn't think this was possible, but I guess I was... wrong? About social media? Oh dear God, is this how grandparents feel?!?! Am I a GRANDPARENT?! ”

“ I don’t know! I was relying on my friends to cover up my bold and idiotic statement! ”

“ ... I ate the oars. ”

“ PSYCHE. The ocean can eat my ass. ”

“ So pucker up, [NAME]! I'm about to declare mouth war on your FACE! ”

“ YOU FOOLISHLY FOOLISH FOOL! You're showing our inexperience! YOUR HONOR, THE ENTIRE LEGAL TEAM PLEADS THE FIFTH! ”

“ That's right. I'm talking about a classic Transylvania Hot Tub, a Seth Brundle, and a REVERSE Reverse Romanian Wilkinson. ”

“ Sorry, I was in your ribcage seeing if I could use it to cut strips of crepe paper into confetti and then I got lost in your kidneys. ”

“ There's nothing sexier than a doomed romance between a dating sim player and a hot fictional character. ”

“ That's right! I secretly replaced one of you with a bear while no one was looking, to teach you a valuable lesson about the art of disguise! ”

“ Enchant my armor. I’m going into the lake. ”

“ For VIOLENCE REASONS! ” 

“ This stupid lake monster called me short the other day, but I was too low level to crush him like he deserved. ”

“ That dumb wet dinkhole won't know what hit him! But it will be me! I will hit him! ”

“ No, YOU'RE a fuckshark! Also, what does that even mean?! ”

“ You seriously didn't notice the enormous needles those interns jabbed into your veins as soon as [NAME] got here? “

“ It all makes sense! The Camp Dome is just an elaborate ploy to distract us from the giant mouth that eats campers! “

“ This is the BEST show I've ever seen in my life, which is now at an end! “

“ Am I high, or did he just tell us EXACTLY how to foil his evil scheme? “

“ What, like a few severed heads and visions of my grandpa screaming in horrendous pain are gonna freak me out? Where I'm from, you can buy that stuff at IKEA. “

“ ERROR: Due to the sixth mass extinction, the slaying of leprechauns is inadvisable. “

“ Then why do I have half-finished scarves, decoupage, pot-holders, friendship bracelets, and a taxidermied rabbit in my skeleton? “

“ The wang elemental. ”

“ I also have an uncle who works at Nintendo as a copy machine! “

“ What flavor of ice cream AM I?! Now I gotta know. HA! You know what I should be? 'Pistachio.' Because my outside is HARD, but I'm full of NUT. “

“ I mean, life is a bit like... this sandwich! No, stay with me, I'm going somewhere good with this. “

“ A survival situation without any sexy fun time isn't worth surviving in the first place. “

“ Rut the RUCK?! ”

“ The ' ambulance of the heart ' is just a regular ambulance! Ambulances treat all organs! ”

“ Yeah, that's why I made sure that my so-called ' emotional armor ' was also ' actual armor '. “

“ And being yourself is the key to living your dreams, which is the key to self actualization, which is the key to being really good at sex! “

“ So hot I'd buy that even without free shipping. 10/10, call me some time. “

“ Hi, quick question: does it count as kidnapping if I'm abducting you so you can help me do a thing you already agreed to help with? “

“ I could be wrong, but are you just upset because you DON'T have a skeleton that's inside your body? “

“ I'm gonna get SO FUCKING RELAXED MY HEAD WILL EXPLODE! “

“ Whoah, whoa, hold up. You're fucking my grandma? “

“ No, [NAME], that is a popcorn bag full of more dynamite. Put it down. “

“ I hear that at least 70% of people on Patreon aren't murderers! “

“ If you want cash, just rob banks like the rest of us! “

“ Did it work? Do you feel any less horny? ”

“ FUCK YEAH, LET'S PUNCH THAT MOUTH IN ITS MOUTH! “

“ Yes... incidentally, we are no longer allowed to enter Italy. “

“ Is anyone else turned on right now? ”

“ Yes! Yes! I know what you're feeling! I suddenly see how marrying a corpse isn't okay! “

“ JUST LET ME IMPROVE YOUR SELF ESTEEM, MORTAL! “

“ Look, choose whatever you want, but I'm not responsible for whatever you put in your mouth. ”