#I want to save some of these ideas later. Perhaps with some of the screenshots I've taken | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

brushstrokesapocalyptic · 3 years

Text

it’s time for the “overanalyzing one-off lines” show!

so the very first thing magnus says when he sees pit in chapter 2 of kid icarus: uprising is as follows:

“Well, I didn’t expect to see an angel here. Hope this doesn’t mean I’ve kicked the bucket.”

now, i’m not sure if you’re aware, but that’s a really weird thing for someone to say, and it’s even more weird that no one comments on it. pit and palutena go on talking about unrelated things, as if that’s a totally normal and expected thing for magnus to say.

now, if you’re like me, you probably also didn’t really react to this line the first few times you saw it. it’s the second chapter, kiu has a lot of slightly-odd lines which turn out to be foreshadowing. me, personally? my first thought was “oh, i guess angels are probably associated with escorting the dead to the afterlife,“ and then i moved on.

they’re not, though. that’s what reapers do. and there’s no way humans have these two races mixed up. just fucking look at them.

do they look anything alike to you??? no. they don’t. which raises the question of why, exactly, magnus said that.

now, we don’t know a lot about angels as a whole. pit (and by extension dark pit) is emphatically not the gold standard of angeldom. we can assume he looks fairly ordinary for an angel, seeing as no one has trouble identifying him as such. beyond that, though, a lot of what we know about angels comes from what pit isn’t. for starters, he can’t fly. and there’s something else, too, but i’ll get to that later.

before that, though, i’m gonna go through the various unsubstantiated comments made by people with a dubious level of authority on the subject. (incidentally, i sourced these screenshots from the wiki— much more convenient than trying to dig through youtube for every single random conversation.)

without any further ado! let’s get into it!

Angels as Messengers

Gaol: Aw, Palutena’s little messenger boy. And Magnus, it’s always a pleasure. (src)

in the specific context of overanalyzing magnus’s first line, this is an important sentence to pick out. magnus and gaol are both humans, both with presumably a fairly similar history as mercenaries up until gaol got stuffed in a suit of armor. but while magnus makes a weird comment about death, gaol calls pit a messenger.

and pit agrees with her!

Viridi: I wish I had an angel to do my bidding. It’s like having an intern.

Pit: I’m not an intern. I’m a messenger of the gods!

Viridi: Poor Pit. Don't you know that the definition of angel is "errand spirit"? (src)

this particular conversation is the most insight we get into angels as a whole, i think. viridi thinks of angels as like divine interns, there to do little tasks for gods, and palutena doesn’t exactly disagree with her. pit says they’re specifically messengers, which lines up with biblical mythology. i could see the traditional role of angels in the world of KI being exactly that, showing up to tell the humans what the gods have to say because the gods themselves are too busy being petty jerks to do it themselves.

The Angel’s Code of Conduct

Magnus: You go in fully dressed? Don't you at least want to change into a...swimming tunic or something?

Pit: Oh, no no no! The angel's code of conduct says that we must always be ready for duty.

Magnus: I guess you wouldn't be an angel if you didn't do things by the book. (src)

Pit: Hey! You know the angel's code of conduct! I need to be prepared at all times! (src)

another random little thing is the angel’s code of conduct. without a larger sample size, we can’t know if it’s a real thing or just an excuse to save on laundry, but apparently it’s against the rules to not be on call at all times. in pit’s case, the duty he has to be ready for is doing palutena’s dirty work, but it can easily mean just about anything— including, of course, being a messenger.

No Warrior

Chariot Master: But you are no warrior, angel. Tell me, why do you fight?

Pit: I fight for Lady Palutena. And I fight for the people under her protection!

Chariot Master: That's not reason enough for an angel. (src)

remember how i said there was something else weird about pit? the chariot master seems to think angels aren’t very prone to battle— or perhaps even that they’re actively opposed to it. this lines up well with the idea that they’re supposed to be messengers, peaceful go-betweens for gods and mortals. this does not line up well with pit, the adorable weapon of mass destruction.

and it also does absolutely nothing to explain the question driving the whole existence of this post.

you know what does kinda lean towards an explanation?

No Other Angels

Pit: Do all gods have their own angels, like you have me?

Palutena: No, I don't think that's necessarily the case. (src)

i said before that the Intern Pit conversation had the most illuminating information on angels. this is what i was actually referring to. on its own, it’s pretty innocuous, but it’s just as weird as the magnus line. shouldn’t pit know about other angels, seeing as he is one himself? but he doesn’t know if there are other angels.

the only angels we ever see are him and his clone. no one ever directly references the existence of other angels, they only make general statements about what angels as a whole are like— statements which clearly don’t apply to pit, meaning they’re not just extrapolating based on the one angel that definitely does exist.

the one time someone does comment on the hypothetical existence of other angels, palutena gives a vague answer to the tune of “no,” the topic is changed, and no one brings it up again.

let’s go over everything i’ve established about angels up to this point. they can fly, they’re peaceful messengers of the gods, and pit is the only one that seems to exist as of the start of KIU.

it should be pretty obvious at this point what answer i’m dancing around, if it wasn’t obvious from the start. pit is the only angel around because all the other ones are dead. the reason why magnus said what he did is that his thought process went something like this:

See an angel.

Think “Aren’t angels extinct? Is that a ghost? Am I a ghost? I sure hope not.“

Make a quip about that.

Move on with his life, because he isn’t dead and evidently neither is this guy.

i’m not gonna pretend i went into this post with the intent of any other conclusion to that mystery. anyone who’s bothered glancing over a plot summary for the original kid icarus can draw that conclusion. it’s certainly what i did, reinforced by fics by people who had the same thought!

the truth, however, is that this was all a trick to get you to read my analysis of the theoretical nature of angels as a race. now that you’re invested, i’m going to dramatically throw aside my cape and reveal my TRUE FORM: telling people that fandom consensus is wrong, and my ideas are cooler and better than everyone else’s and you should all throw roses at my feet and bow before your king.

(or just, y’know, take it as the subjective analysis that it is. whatever floats your boat.)

Hot Takes

the original kid icarus does not actually tell you about angels going extinct. here’s the wiki article with the full text of the backstory, just for convenience, so you know what i’m on about for the rest of this post.

so, the part of the story that i think gets misinterpreted is this part about palutena’s army.

Medusa led a surprise attack on Palutena's army which could barely fend off the attack. Palutena's army suffered major losses and was heavily defeated in the final battle.

specifically, i think a lot of people interpret said army as having been made up at least partly of angels. sure, in the actual game it consists entirely of centurions, but you have to take old NES games with a grain of salt. i know i don’t buy for a second that pit was part of palutena’s guard before the original game (he was just too goddamn young), there’s nothing wrong with reinterpreting things.

recall everything i established about angels already, though. this is the hot official lore, from the game everyone knows and loves. angels are messengers, and if the chariot master is to be believed, never warriors. pit is an outlier. palutena’s army consists of centurions, not angels. if medusa wiped them out, it wasn’t because they were fighting for palutena.

(and honestly, i don’t think angels are necessarily associated with palutena exclusively. sure, she’s got the wing imagery, and she’s got the one known surviving angel working for her, at least up until pittoo is born. but angels are messengers of the gods, not messengers of palutena. again, pit is an outlier.)

which all brings us to the real question of this post.

what the FUCK happened to all the other angels? why is there only pit? why does magnus act surprised to see a messenger of the gods, and make a quip about being dead, if not because angels are otherwise extinct?! WHO KILLED THEM, AND WHY?!

thus concludes the “over analyzing one-off lines“ show. see you next, uh, maybe at some point if i feel like it!

(also another thought i had but couldn’t find room to fit it in properly: the gods don’t really act like angels are all extinct, but i feel like that can be explained through the sheer scale of a god’s lifespan. if we assume they were wiped out sometime around the original kid icarus (even if not as palutena’s army) then that’s a whole twenty-five years. that’s a long time for us humans, but for a god, that might as well be last tuesday. “yeah, i know what angels are like. sure wish i could have one. too bad palutena’s got a monopoly on the one single angel that medusa didn’t manage to wreck.”)

#kid icarus #kid icarus uprising #the things i think of at five am #i am just yelling and spewing thoughts and theories and headcanons #if anyone has their own thoughts to add go right ahead i am dying to know whether or not i'm actually breaking new ground with all this #or if there's some vital lore i missed #or anything like that #i am OPEN for CONVERSATION

178 notes · View notes

harleysarchive · 4 years

Text

Among You and Me - Corpse x Reader Oneshot (part 2)

Fandom: Corpse, youtubers Warning: Profanity, a lot of swear words, fluffiness, quite long Pairing: Corpse x f!reader Summary: You and Corpse continues with your conversations and it makes you realize that you have feelings for each other.

Requested

< Previous | Next >

After Corpse had followed you on instagram the two of you talked like nonstop for days. It almost felt like you had known him for years. You had the same humor and he talked about some horror stories he wanted to do and you thought they sounded cool - but not wanting to admit that they scared you as well. You talked about school and how stressed out you were for the essays and exams that were coming up soon.

“I have an exam next Wednesday so I will be off the internet the whole day :(“ you wrote and buried your head in your pillow.

“That sucks big time.”

“It doesss.”

“Wait… Then you will miss my upcoming stream that day :(“

Shit, you thought. You really wanted to see his stream but right now you don’t have time for it. Which sucks even more than school.

“Probably, I’m sorry :(“ you said and locked your phone to get ready for school.

Corpse POV.

I read the message she sent again and didn’t know what to answer. My brain was so tired so it had problems with coming up with coherent replies. I was not prepared for how the feeling of hurt and sadness that came with that response.

Why did I react like this, of course she has other stuff to do than to watch my stream…

But I couldn’t shake the hurt feeling from my chest. Even though we only had talked for a couple of days it felt like we had known each other for longer than that. She felt like a close friend almost. And when she was with me on my streams, it reduced my anxiety and my nervousness to know that she was watching, somehow it eased my nerves a lot.

Why do I need you there with me to feel safe? he thought to himself and started to type in a response.

“It’s okay, nail those exams for me ;)” he hit send. Thoughts fucking exams that is keeping you away from my stream.

Wait, wait, where the fuck did that thought come from?

I shook my head, trying to think about something else. I pressed on (Y/N)’s profile on instagram and started to go through her feed. There were some selfies, some pictures of nature and different places where she had been. Some pictures with friends and some with her family. I stopped on a specific selfie of her. She looked so beautiful on it, all I could do was to admire it - and her. Then I did something I thought I’d never do. I took a screenshot of the photo and saved it as my background on my phone.

I will never meet her so this won’t do any harm, I told myself before I fell asleep.

Your POV.

You threw your bag at the couch and fell down face first in the bed. School was killing you at the moment and it wasn’t better with the essays that were piling up on your schedule. You groaned into the pillow and then took up your phone, one message from instagram. You opened it and it was from Corpse. Your heart made a little extra jump everytime you saw the name appear, and that he had answered you. You smiled and read the text.

“It’s okay, nail those exams for me ;)”

“I will try my best to ace them, just for you ;)” you felt bold writing the last part. But what the hell right?

You hit send and waited for him to respond. He was probably asleep now, knowing his weird sleeping schedule. Not wanting to wait the whole day - it would drive you nuts and also give you thoughts like “what if I’m annoying or disturbing him?” “what if my message woke him up and he’ll get mad and never want to talk to me again?” “what if…” you know?

You opened your texted book and tried your hardest to study, but it was hard when your mind was constantly wanders away to Corpse - the man that has been on your mind all the time lately and you didn’t mind it really.

Is it possible to fall in love with someone that you haven’t met? you thought. Because if it is so, then I’m fucked...

Corpse POV.

I must’ve slept for more than three hours for the first time in weeks because I almost didn’t feel dead. I looked over at my phone and I had two messages. One from Dave checking up on me and one from (Y/N). I checked (Y/N)’s message first.

“I will try my best to ace them, just for you ;)”

I got a warm feeling on my chest reading the last part, just for you. I liked that. I liked that a lot actually, more than I liked to admit to myself. I looked at my background picture and there she was smiling at me. Even though it was just a picture from instagram it felt like she smiled at me. And only to me. Some confidence sparked inside of me and I messaged her again.

“Can I get your number?”

Your POV.

You had taken a break from your studying and were watching Mark, Bob, Wade and Sean playing Phasmophobia. It was hilarious to watch. Your phone lit up and you had gotten a message from Corpse on instagram.

“Can I get your number?”

You stared at the message, he wanted your number. Your thumbs were typing but were shaking so bad, all this kinds of emotions can’t be good for you.

“Of course!” you typed and then wrote down your number to him. You hit send and bit nervously on your nails. Not long after you got a message from an unknown number.

Hey is this (Y/N)?

Yes is it! Corpse?

Oh thank god! I was nervous I had typed in it wrong and were messaging some weirdo.

You smiled at the two of you continued your conversations throughout the evening.

Some days later it was Wednesday and you had one of your exams. You were a little bit nervous but not a lot. You had tried your best to study, even with obvious distractions, and you had got some informations in your brain.

Wish me luck on my exam! you send to Corpse, knowing fully that he was sleeping, it was early in the morning, or perhaps he hasn’t even gone to bed yet. Yoy got a ding on your phone.

Good luck (Y/N), not that you need it you are a smart girl. But I know that you are going to kill it 🖤

The heart in the end made your heart jump.

How am I suppose to consentrate when he sends me stuff like that?

The exam went like a dream, you knew all the answers to all the questions and it went by fast. You felt pleased with yourself and looked at the clock and it was just before noon. Corpse livestream had just begun!

If I grab a quick lunch I can get home before it is over! you thought to yourself and walked as fast as you could towards the school cafeteria and then straight home.

You made it just in the middle of the stream, they were playing Among Us and Corpse were super nervous. You felt bad for him because you knew that he was great at the game. He didn’t have to be so hard on himself. An idea popped up in your head. You donated 10$ to his stream and wrote:

“You are doing great Corpse and my exam went great ;) much love (Y/N)”

Now you were just waiting to see if he will notice the message.

Corpse POV.

My hands were shaking so bad, more than usual. It was normal for me to be nervous before and during a stream but today my nerves were going crazy. I was making rookie mistakes as a impostor, like wtf I am supposed to be the number one impostor here.

Fuck I wish my hands would stop shaking so bad, why am I so nervous? Well I knew the answer to the question but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. (Y/N) wasn’t here watch and it sucked so bad. I felt lonely and anxious. I looked over at the chat and was that I had recieved a donation with a message.

“”You are doing great Corpse and my exam went great ;) much love (Y/N)” Why thank you-... Wait a minute, (Y/N)?” my voiced cracked at the end of the sentence and I am sure someone caughed up with my surprised and overly excited tone. I took up my phone and texted her fast.

Please tell me that was you who wrote that.

I waited and I saw the three dots going of, not helping with my anxiety one bit.

Yes it was me, I finished much earlier with my exam than I anticipated, so I hurried home to see your stream.

My heart became all warm over her message and I didn’t even notice that I had held my breath before I let out a huge sigh. She hurried home to watch me. My hands were shaking but not over my nervousness, but from excitement and, i don’t know happiness maybe. Three dots appeared again on the screen.

I couldn’t leave you alone when I know how nervous you get when you’re streaming.

Fuck... That sentence made me fall over the edge, if I haven’t already. I am falling for (Y/N) and I haven’t even met her...

Yet.

A/N: Upon many requests, here is part two! It made me so happy to see all the comments on my first oneshot and how well recieved it got. Thank you all so freaking much! :D

Tags:

@annshit @artist-bby @polahorvat @wibblytimey @sadlysober @usuie12 @lunaruss @yeolliedokai @fanworrior @kirislut @deathcompass @pillowjj @simonsbluee @reddeserths

#corpse husband #corpse #corpse husband x reader #corpse x reader #corpse_husband #corpse_husband x reader #corpse imagine #corpse imagines #imagine #imagines #harleysarchive #youtuber imagine #youtuber x reader #youtuber imagines

2K notes · View notes

carlyraejcpsen · 3 years

Text

alright, i’ve tried to keep quiet because i truly believe in karma and wanted this rp to close through the admin’s own actions and not give them any opportunities to blame it on me instead. it also felt like beating a dead horse, because i was sure they’d close the rp after losing a huge proportion of their active members and the majority of their diversity. however, after seeing multiple people sharing their experiences today, they are still posting promo posts and starting their event. so yeah, here’s my experience with @thevillagerp

NOTE: i no longer have screenshots from my conversations with the admins, as i blocked them when i left the rp for the sake of my own mental health, but i did save the text in my drafts, so the messages below are copy pasted. i have not edited them in any way. They also deleted my original anonymous messages off of their blog.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: racism, very vague allusions to homophobia and transphobia

so i was a member of this roleplay for around two months. during my time there, it was startlingly obvious that white fcs were preferred and prioritised, both from the fact that they got more plots and interactions in general and from the fact that admins never promoted diversity on the main. even now, they repeatedly say they “would still love to receive some more male and non-binary apps” while ignoring that they currently have a ratio of 8 fcs of colour to 24 white fcs. their diversity rules at the time were that 1/3 of a mun’s characters had to be played by an fcoc. so people could easily just play one or two white characters.

a while ago, i sent an anonymous message to the main asking if they had considered perhaps changing this rule to be 2/3 characters instead of 1/3, since there were so few muses of colour in the roleplay (as i said before, they’ve since deleted this from their blog so i cannot provide a screenshot). they responded that they had been thinking of upping the character limit to four instead of three, with a rule that 2/4 must be played by an fcoc. i gave them the benefit of the doubt and the time to enact this change, but nothing happened.

so a few weeks later, i sent them this message on anonymous:

I was wondering if you had thought any more about the diversity rules here? I know you said before that you were considering increasing the character limit, but I noticed that hasn’t happened and I wanted to know if that was a change we’re going to see or if you would consider changing the rules in another way? I’m really disheartened by the lack of diversity in the roleplay

at the time there were 18 characters of colour out of a total of over 60. they responded (again, i’m sorry i don’t have the actual wording since they’ve deleted the messages) that they had thought about it and decided against upping the character limit, but instead would be having a weekly “poc acceptance day,” where they would only be accepting apps with fcs of colour. they also said they were doing this “now that the waitlist was mostly cleared,” which meant that the rp was mostly at capacity anyway, so they needed to look more at how to encourage their existing members to promote diversity, since there weren’t spaces open for new people to bring them in.

i responded with another anon expressing my disappointment and pointing out that they had done more to prevent having too many celebrity characters than too few muses of colour, as at the time they had a ban on celebrity muses. i wouldn’t usually suggest a ban on certain fcs, but as it was something they had done for celebrity characters, then i supposed it was a reasonable option.

they didn’t even respond to this message and instead posted on the main asking me to come off anon to discuss it. so i did, and i sent them the following dm:

i didn’t want to come off anon because i honestly feel really ostracised in this group and didn’t want to make it worse, but i don’t want to drop this issue and you aren’t comfortable addressing it publicly so here we are i guess. like i said in my previous message, i really don’t see how a “poc acceptance day” is going to make anywhere near enough of a difference. people will just wait for the opportunity to play their white characters. there are only 18 characters of colour in a roleplay with over 60 characters. that’s less than a third, which is obviously concerning. what’s even more concerning for me is that these characters are more often than not overlooked. i am often ghosted when plotting, or people don’t even reach out at all when i like plotting calls or intro posts. and then i have to watch characters like leo almost exclusively interact with white women (i’m sure that’s not the only example, but it is the first that comes to mind as he is one of the more active characters).

so this issue goes so much deeper than there just not being adequate representation in the rp. i really tried to help, i suggested making it a rule that 2/3 characters need to be poc in my original ask and you mentioned upping the character limit in response. i was worried that my concerns were being brushed aside, but i waited a while to give you the benefit of the doubt and the space to discuss the issue. so you can understand why it was really upsetting today to learn that the one thing you suggested was dropped and instead replaced with something that is barely scratching the surface of the problem. and i don’t know if it was your intention, but by saying that you were waiting for the waitlist to clear, it comes across as not wanting to receive any backlash from people who would want to join with only white characters. and even if people did want to join with faceclaims of colour, they can’t because the waitlist is cleared. like i suggested, you could change the rules so that 2 out of 3 characters must be people of colour. or, as was your proposed idea, up the character limit to four. you could also put a temporary ban on white faceclaims until the ratio evens out. as i mentioned, it’s really distressing that this was something you were willing to do for celebrity characters, but not to aid diversity.

i also just want to make it clear that these have been the only anons i’ve sent, i know you’ve been getting other ones, but those weren’t from me!!

( for context, they were receiving anons from someone else claiming that they felt left out in the rp ).

i had hoped that coming off anon would show them that this was a very real issue which was affecting their members, as well as giving them a space to discuss it privately instead of on the main. they responded with:

Hi Em, thank you for coming forward. We really, really appreciate it and we understand it’s not an easy thing to do. We also appreciate you flying the flag for diversity so strongly. We can always strive to be better, we are on the same page with you here.

Let us just explain our decision making. Firstly, just to address the waitlist, that was certainly not at all our intention when we brought it up. It was a logistical decision with 5+ applicants having already waited a week for acceptance and aware of their position on a waitlist.

When we decided against upping the character limit (and therefore the 2/4 POC character rule), we thought a POC acceptance day could be a good alternative course of action. In our eyes, this was something that would probably bring more POC characters to the group than the 2/4 rule because we knew there weren’t going to be many muns taking up an additional fourth character. This was a rule we’ve seen other groups enjoy success from so we wanted to try it out here. Plus, we think a day that explicitly highlights diversity every week would bring the message to the forefront of everyone’s minds. As we said, we’re going to monitor this over the next couple of weeks to see if it brings any improvement because we’d really like to have it as an ongoing rule.

The non-POC ban is actually a measure we’ve spoken about too and we are considering putting one in place should this fail. Thank you for raising your concerns, know that we’ve taken them very seriously and we hope that you’ll trust our judgement in trying this rule out first to see where it leads.

first of all, i don’t think i even have to mention the wording of “flying the flag for diversity.” but the real crux of the issue here is that they supposedly wanted me to come off anon to discuss the issue, but instead just explained their idea further and didn’t take anything i said on board. they didn’t even say a single word about how i told them i felt ostracised and regularly got ignored. i knew from speaking to other muns in the rp who played muses of colour (and just from looking at the dash) that they felt the same way too, but of course was only speaking from my own experience.

i thought long and hard about how to respond to this, as i was so disheartened by their unwillingness to listen to their members and the fact that they didn’t care that i felt left out. it felt like they had asked me to come off anon just so they knew who was messaging them and therefore put a target on my back, so honestly the thought of being on the dash or talking to the admins made me incredibly anxious. before i had a chance, however, they responded again with:

Hi hun, we’ve continued discussing this issue over the last couple of days and we wanted to let you know that we’ve decided to put in place a non-POC ban instead. Thank you again for holding a mirror up to the group. We do hope that this will recorrect the balance.

so i waited to see how things would play out. they posted about this new ban here and pinned the post to the top of the main:

[ IMAGE ID: a screenshot from thevillagehq of an admin update, which reads: in the interest of keeping the village a diverse space, we are currently only accepting applications for POCs. please note that any apps or reserves submitted to us for faceclaims that are not POCs will be deleted. we will lift this rule once we see fit.

thank you for your understanding and your efforts in making this group a brighter, more inclusive and diverse place for all. /END ID ]

this rule remained in place for around two weeks, during which time they made almost no effort to promote it. the above post was pinned to the main page, but that was the only mention of the ban anywhere on their page, they didn’t update the rules page or even put a note on the application page about it. during this two week period, the admins posted 10 promo posts, none of which suggested fcs or even mentioned the ban or diversity at all. the ban was then lifted suddenly when the pinned post was removed and the admins just went back to accepting apps with white fcs. the ratio had only evened out in those two weeks (from 18 out of 65 to 24/50) because of people going inactive or leaving, and there was nothing put into place to continue to promote diversity after the lift of the ban. in the three days after the ban was lifted, the admins posted over 10 promo posts, the same amount they had posted during the entirety of the ban. it was clear that they had no intention of actually making changes in their rp and had only done so because i refused to drop the issue.

again, i thought a lot about what i wanted to message them. i knew at this point that they didn’t want to make any real changes, but i still felt like i had to make it clear to them how disappointing their actions were. once again, i was messaged before i even had a chance, this time for bubbling.

as you can see in the above correspondence, i had told the admins point blank that i felt left out and ignored in the rp because of the characters i played (aubrey plaza, mj rodriguez and keiynan lonsdale fcs. all of my characters were queer and used either she/they or they/them pronouns). as a general rule, the only people who wanted to write with me and have interesting plots with me were people who played other muses of colour. the rp had a rule that you must reply to 3+ muns on every character, which i had been doing. i had only been back from my hiatus for a few days at this point and had responded to 6 different open starters the day prior. their message to me read:

Hi hun. There’s something we wanted to address to you directly. It’s been expressed to us by multiple members during these last few weeks that they have felt excluded by your character within the group, especially when it comes to the friend bubble that has formed between Mars, Bowie, Luvena, Asher and others.

While we encourage the development of friendships and trust that this isn’t intentional, we have a zero tolerance for bubble roleplaying at The Village. We are aware that our three mun activity rules have been met by all parties involved, however, bubbling is usually a little more nuanced than that and it seems it has unfortunately begun to create a bit of a divide within the group.

We have already issued individual warnings to a few people within the bubble, however with multiple members still expressing their concerns to us, we decided it would be better to address the group as a whole. We hope that by pointing this out to you, you will try and branch out to your fellow members a little more from now on - and try and be a little more inclusive when it comes to everyone else in the group.

We take such matters very seriously as admins, and while we hope it won’t have to come to this, there will be consequential steps taken should we not see any changes in your interactions in the weeks to come.

as you can imagine, i was incredibly upset to receive this message after already telling them i didn’t get plots from many of their members and they had done nothing. even people who i had previously messaged continued to only write with the same few white characters. i don’t deny that we definitely had a friendship group between our characters, but there were multiple people in that roleplay, including the admins, who only cared about ship plots or plots with the same few muns. me and other people who received the same message had all previously told the admins that people aren’t plotting with us and gotten ignored, so receiving this message made it clear that they neither cared about us nor wanted us in their rp. and so i responded as below:

yeah i literally told you i felt left out because there are multiple people only writing with white characters and you never addressed it, so this message is honestly insulting. i have reached out to almost every new member, responded to multiple open starters and have tried to plot with as many people as possible. like i told you, i am often left on read or people don’t even message me at all. if people do message me, i am usually expected to put in all of the effort and if people aren’t interested in actually developing plots with me then i am obviously not going to force my characters on them. all of my characters are queer, non binary people of colour and the harsh truth of this roleplay is that people don’t care about them. i even wrote out a whole list of 20 detailed suggested connections in an attempt to get more plots and nothing came from that either. i’ve even gotten anonymous hate saying that offering to explain my characters’ pronouns was “patronising,” which i didn’t feel like i could approach you about because, when i told you about how i’m feeling excluded, you didn’t care.

so if i only have actual plots with the people who actually care about my characters, i make no apologies. i also don’t even have threads with half of the characters you named, asher being the only one, and have literally only just come off hiatus. so please explain how i am bubbling, because this really just feels targeted at this point.

you’ve made it endlessly clear that this rp isn’t a safe space for people who want to play diverse characters. the main was practically silent while you had a ban on white faceclaims, which you never actively promoted, and then you dropped that suddenly without putting anything else in place. you also deleted my initial anonymous messages asking about diversity as if you were trying to hide that there was ever an issue. you turned anonymous messages off, so that no one can safely criticise you. because i did that off anon and ever since it has felt like there is a massive target on my back. my characters have been “accidentally” on the activity checks multiple times despite me being on hiatus (people get a notification that they were tagged even if you remove their name from the list btw). plus when i asked for an extension on my hiatus, you said that you would allow it “just this once” which now makes me feel like i can’t come to you if i’m busy. right now, for example, i am in the middle of moving house, but i’m also stressed about trying to stay active because you have made yourselves completely unapproachable.

the ratio only evened out slightly because members left. then suddenly after the ban you’re posting multiple promo posts a day??? you couldn’t get more obvious. i came to you about diversity in good faith, hoping that it was something you were unaware of, but you have made it abundantly clear that you actively do not want to promote diversity in your roleplay, we are just here to be witnesses to your ship. there are multiple members who are actually bubbling who have been brought to your attention, but nothing has been done. leo continues to only write with the same three white and white passing characters. charlotte pretty much only appears to write with leo and post a vague “message me for plots” post that wasn’t even tagged. both of you only put effort into your ship threads with each other and the occasional text threads. even with something like group events: while i’ve been here, there’s been a pride event that neither of your characters were even in new york for (an event where i was the only one reaching out and posting multiple starters, by the way); there was no event last month, and this month all you’re talking about is this housewarming party.

i’m really disheartened that it’s come to this, but i can’t be here anymore. please post unfollows for all my characters. you’ve said multiple times that we should trust you as admins, but this message shows again that i simply can’t do that. from the disregard of trigger warnings, to the way you treated being held accountable for the lack of diversity, to how you respond to people asking for hiatuses, this isn’t a safe space. even if i stayed, the target you have placed on me is making it insufferable to just write my characters in peace.

the other muns who received the same bubbling message (copy pasted btw, we all got the same one word for word) all responded with their own concerns and criticisms in responses of a similar length to mine. none of us received a reply, our unfollows were just posted the next day without any further responses from the admins. a few of the other members who had written and plotted with us chose to leave as well, which the admins wrote off as us just dragging them with us as opposed to them being able to make their own decisions and being aware of the situation (which was incredibly obvious. no promotion of a white fc ban, suddenly being active on the main once they try to stealthily drop the ban, then the majority of their muses of colour leaving???)

i haven’t paid the rp much attention since i left, as i mentioned above i blocked the main and the majority of the members just for my own mental health. but from a quick scroll through today i can see that the only change in diversity rules is that now instead of your third character having to be a poc, it is now your second. however, you still only have to have 1 character out of 3 have a fc of colour. so very little has been done, but of course i’m not surprised in the slightist.

these admins don’t want diversity in their roleplay. if you play any character who isn’t a rich, white, cishet neurotypical, please avoid it at all costs. it’s not in any way a safe environment.

#rpc #rpt #rp #thevillagerp #hope this makes sense i think there's a lot that needs context and hopefully i did a good enough job explaining #sorry to my non rp followers this blog is such a mess

59 notes · View notes

astermacguffin · 3 years

Text

Okay. I warn y'all that this is very much a Poast™. This is another one of Those Poasts™. You have been warned.

I very much blame (affectionate) @autisticandroids for this, since this is pretty much me trying to combine as many concepts as possible from the #mpregpocalypse tag.

In this au, Cas is pretty much just collecting babies left and right. The following stuff are all simultaneously true in this spn mpreg rewrite:

- Cas absorbs the deanlisa baby and carries the child himself. This is his first pregnancy. This is also the most "monstrous" of his children because of the godstiel stuff and the leviathans.

- For maximum effect, I don't want Cas to give birth just yet. I want Benny to see Cas with the baby bump and put the dots together in his head. I want Cas to give birth alone, after Dean and Benny already went through the rift. I want Naomi to take Cas out of purgatory and leave his child alone there. I want Cas to grieve for the loss of his child when he remembers. (We'll go back to this in the future.)

- Dean fucks Casifer at one point and impregnates Cas' body. (I mean, with Casifer peeling off his layers and thotting up the place while in the bunker? Not surprising tbh.) NOTE. I wanna be clear with something: this baby is Dean and Lucifer's nephil. I mean, biologically it's a Destiel baby, but with Cas' grace growing weaker and him being possessed by Lucifer, in terms of grace this is pretty much Lucifer's nephil. (But also not??? Because what allowed the conception to happen in the first place is Cas wanting it SO BAD.)

- No one else notices the conception of this baby because Cas hides it within himself (the same way he did with the deanlisa baby) and pauses the pregnancy at will.

- When Cas meets Kelly, they are very much BOTH pregnant with Lucifer's kid. Remember that screenshot where they both look pregnant and bonding about their babies? Yeah, this is inspired by that. When Cas touches Kelly's baby bump and they like soulbond or whatever, Kelly looks at him and goes "oh you're pregnant too?"

- Cas tells him that it's Dean's child, but leaves out the Lucifer part. They already have one Lucifer nephil in danger, he doesn't need anyone else knowing this secret (especially since he hid the nature of this child so well for so long). Kelly thinks he's hiding it because of the Dean part.

- They both know Kelly's not gonna survive giving birth, so they already have a plan: Cas will transfer the pregnancy to himself when it's almost time for Jack to come out (the same way he did with the deanlisa baby). Cas is confident that he'll survive what Kelly cannot. (His hubris, of course, always tend to bite him back.) Dean, Mary, and Sam arrive just in time to see Cas pregnant and about to give birth. Kelly catches them up on the plot.

- Cas dies of childbirth due to an unexpected complication: the pregnancy transfer triggers the birth of the other child inside him, which makes him give birth to TWO children. The strength of the explosion unfortunately kills both him and Kelly, rendering Cas' sacrifice as pointless. (As much as I wanna keep Kelly alive, the point of this au is to inflict as much damage as possible)

- Lucifer and Mary still get stuck in Apocalypse world, and now Dean and Sam have to care for TWO children, one of which is Jack (who still grows quickly) and...another baby? They have no idea who the fuck this baby is until they find two videos: one made by Kelly and one by Cas (a backup plan they made just in case one or both of them don't survive).

- In the video, Cas reveals that the child is his and Dean's nephil (again, removing the Lucifer part). Dean just takes it in stride (since they had enough sex in the later seasons for it to be a genuine possibility) and takes Cas's word.

- In any other scenario, Sam would definitely be teasing Dean for impregnating Cas. But since Cas is dead and they're still grieving, he shelves this conversation for a future time. (With so much plot happening, Sam never finds the right chance and eventually just forgets it. He's just happy that he was right all along.)

- They agree to never let anyone else learn about the baby's nature, which the baby seems to understand as well, choosing to not manifest any angelic abilities. In fact, the baby internalized Cas' instructions to keep all their secrets under wraps that the kid goes selectively mute throughout the series. (I wanna see Eileen teaching ASL to the kid.)

- The two babies scenario works great for two reasons: it satisfies my "give Dean a baby" instinct (that pretty much drives my baby jack truthing) while still keeping Jack the way that he is in canon.

- Dean lets the baby rest on Cas' chest for a short while before wrapping Cas up with the curtains. Both Dean and the baby cry over the body.

- I want to give Jack as many Problems Disorders in this au. I want him to be jealous of the way Dean treats his twin (because they're pretty much twins, right? They have the same grace-father, they got birthed by the same body, so yeah).

- Dean treats the baby with as much care and love while still treating Jack like shit. Sam once calls him out on it and says "Dean, they're both Cas' children." Dean throws out an "I can hardly look at the freak" rant. Jack wakes up Cas from the Empty, yada yada.

More fucked up shit below the cut:

- I wanna keep this as close to canon as I can, so Dean would still exhibit suicidality before Tombstone. You would think that the baby would at least hinder this instinct, but he genuinely believes that he's poison and that everyone he touches dies. (And besides, Sam is good with both Jack and the baby so they won't need me anymore, right?)

- Cas comes back, and things mostly stay the same as in canon (except there's now a baby there, who honestly won't influence much of the plot until later). Dean never really apologized that much to Jack in canon (and I still hate it) but in this au, it would work perfectly. I want Jack to believe that Dean still sees him as a freak, even if he's a bit nicer now that Cas is back. (I can and will put my entire pussy into the Dean-as-John, Jack-as-Sam parallels.)

- When Jack kills Mary, Cas hides it from Dean and Sam. We're going full Torturewife on this one, folks.

- Jack's truth spell forces Cas to confess that (1) Cas hid the fact about Jack's soullessness; (2) Cas lied about Jack killing Mary, and; (3) the Destiel baby is technically a Dean/Lucifer nephil. Chaos fucking ensues.

- Dean has to confront the fact that both of the kids (HIS kids) are Lucifer's spawn.

- Chuck doesn't really care about the baby since it never manifested any powers (yet), unlike Jack (who is a genuine threat to him).

- Moriah happens, Jack dies. (And it's even more fucked up now because despite being soulless, Jack remembers all the insecurities he got from Dean. The "It's okay, I understand" line Jack says to Dean while having a gun pointed to him is sooooooo.) Rupture happens, their divorce is finalized and Cas takes custody of the baby.

- Cas having some father-child bonding with the baby as a breather between all this fucked up stuff.

- The Trap happens, they make up, and oh? Who's this person who helped Cas escape and get the flower? It's the deanlisa baby, but now grown! Together with Emma! She was thankfully found by her big sister, Emma, when she was a baby in purgatory. She had to grow up fast and now they survive together.

- After eating Eve in order to save Cas, the deanlisa child is now technically the new Mother of monsters. Dean explains the Chuck problem, so the two choose to come with them to help.

- Cas never really explained the deanlisa baby, huh? When they get back with their now grown child (and Emma, who doesn't really hold a grudge over the entire Sam killing her thing) and Cas explains, Dean is baffled but takes it in stride. I mean, they just made up! He doesn't wanna fight with him anymore and he wants the family together again!

- They make the two stay with the baby so they'll be safe in the bunker while they try to trap Chuck with the Mark of Cain spell. It fails, of course. (But hey, at least there was sibling bonding time in the bunker.)

- Billie brings back Jack and they formulate a plan (Billie doesn't go evil in this one btw.) They strengthen Jack, Jack knows that he'll be a bomb and is totally fine with it. "Maybe if I do this one good thing, Dean won't see me as a freak anymore." Remember, Jack internalized a lot of the shit Dean said.

- Cas attempts to call out the self-sacrificial bullshit and that Dean actually loves him, but Jack insists. "You would do the same! In fact, you have done the same! (In reference to the Empty deal, which still happens here btw.) I'm just learning from all of you." If there's one thing I'm obsessed about in fics, it's when Jack calls them out for learning martyrdom from team free will.

- Dean finds out about the plan and tries to talk Jack out of it. They have a heart-to-heart, Dean finally fucking apologizes for all the complexes that he's given Jack, and Jack (for the first time) finally believes that Dean doesn't see him as a monster anymore. Jack stops the process so he doesn't become a bomb (but at least he's stronger than he was before).

- They call Billie to come up with an alternative plan. She considers the options, and says an alternative plan would be harder and would require more players in the field. "As long as we don't have to sacrifice any of our loved ones anymore, we're good," Dean says. "I don't think that's an easy request, but we'll try," Billie says, giving a pointed look at Cas. (Hmmmm, wonder how this would come to play later?)

- Billie points out that the destiel baby is in fact not powerless, but is instead choosing to supress their own power. If the child can be convinced to unlock their own capabilities, then perhaps they might stand a better chance at winning.

- They spread out to gather more allies: Sam goes to Rowena, Dean goes to Michael, Billie goes to Gabriel (yes, he's alive here), and the kids stay in the bunker with Cas to try and explore each other's abilities. (Since I hated the Michael-Lucifer nonsense of 15x19, none of that happens here. Lucifer doesn't go back and Michael doesn't betray them.)

- Jack finds out that he can push out all the energy he gathered for the bomb into a one-time-use blast. They find out that the baby can apparently enhance the power of whoever they're holding. And the new Eve apparently has traces of Godstiel/Leviathan still in her after being in the womb with them. (She also spends the time catching up with Cas because they've not seen each other for years.) Emma is just vibing there, adoring her powerful younger siblings and interrogating her father's...husband? Boyfriend? Ex? (She's still confused about their status.)

- This goes just like in S11, and they go all out and attack Chuck together until he's weak enough for Death's scythe. There's one shot where the kids are just holding hands to power each other for Jack to deliver a fatal blow. Billie is just around the corner, ready for the final blow, when Cas turns to Dean.

- "Dean, I need to say something." Cue the 15x18 confession scene, except this time Dean knows about the deal now. So the moment Dean realizes what Cas is doing, he tries to stop him.

- "Stop, please stop. Don't say it, you don't have to say it." Because of course, happiness is in just being, it's in just saying it. And Dean knows what true happiness would do.

- But unfortunately, Cas has to do it. (Billie talked to him about it, and her scythe won't exactly do a clean job with something as powerful as a Chuck-Amara hybrid. I don't know when or why they fused together since the bomb plan was cancelled, but it happened here okay? Yeah. So they need something that is guaranteed to be older and greater than God or the Darkness—the Empty. Billie can only go there, but she can't summon it to be on Earth. Enter Cas' deal.)

- Cas says "I love you," Dean reciprocates, they share a final kiss, and then Billie finally reaps God. The Empty arrives to take Chuck, and Cas shares one final moment with his kids before accepting his fate.

- Billie goes to the Empty to make sure the job was done, and she finally gives the Shadow the sleep that she promised. She uses her scythe on the Shadow, because death is the final slumber. (Of course, you can't exactly kill nothingness; she only destroyed an embodiment/personification of the Empty.)

- Post-fight. They're happy because Chuck is finally defeated but also...Cas. Before they even have the chance to process what the fuck just happened, Billie is back and she has Cas with her. "I just put the Shadow into sleep, so it's not like anyone would notice," she says. The problem is that Cas is still very much asleep. (He still has some grace here btw. Maybe he's not at full angel anymore, but he's not fully human either. There wasn't a need to cut out his grace without warning.)

- Dean and the kids crowd Cas' body. The baby's touch on Cas's shoulder (which burns a mark that parallels Dean's) is what wakes him up. Reunion kiss!

- Happy ending! Michael (with Adam) goes back to heaven to fix things, and they are very much implied to be a couple. Midam rights babyyyyyy! Gabriel goes back to roaming the world and occasionally visits the kids.

- Sam and Eileen organizes a hunter's network and organizes a bunch of safety protocols and rehabilitation projects with the help of the new Eve (which most monsters obey, key word most). Oh, and Saileen definitely swings regularly with Rowena (and occasionally with Gabriel when he's around).

- Emma decides that she likes hanging out with the Wayward Sisters better (and you know what? Good for her). The new Eve decides to hang out there often as well (whenever she isn't busy with monster diplomacy or something).

- When Jack finally feels safe and peaceful enough, he reverts back to his child form. The baby, who has been selectively mute this entire time, holds their brother's face in recognition and utters their first word, which is "JACK!" Dean and Cas cry in joy over this entire exchange. (That's his twin! He missed his twin!)

- They move out of the bunker to get their own house by a lake or something. Whenever the topic of pregnancy comes up again ("Dean, when do you want another baby again?"), they can now playfully joke about it and Dean says something like "Don't steal someone else's baby again, okay? The next baby to be inside you needs to be mine." They're both stupidly horny about the subject, I hate them so much.

- Whenever there's an important event, they all celebrate it in the bunker for the extra space (because their family is, indeed, very large). END.

There's something poetic to me about the Empty being the one that beats Chuck in this mpreg rewrite because technically, the Empty is the Original Womb that gave birth to God. It it the nothingness of potential, the dark water of pregnant beginnings.

All this talk about the Empty and stuff also made me stop and think about the metaphysics of spn. The fact that the Darkness and the Empty are two distinct entities says something interesting about the metaphysical reality of spn. It doesn't treat darkness as a mere absence of light, a mere nothingness, but rather a thing/substance of its own. It's a very Manichean kind of metaphysics as opposed to a Platonic/Neoplatonic one. (Oh, St. Augustine would probably have a blast trying to unravel whatever the fuck is happening with spn.)

The fact that it's also Cas' free will that brought upon God's demise? Delicious.

(If you're still reading, congratulations for finishing my very long spn mpreg rewrite. Why did you do this to yourself tho.)

(also apologies if I didn't give a name to Jack's siblings. I haven't thought of a good name for them just yet)

#spn #destiel #mpregpocalypse #long post #literally what the fuck is this post #aster writes #spn mpreg rewrite #tw suicide #tw mpreg

164 notes · View notes

ao3riley · 2 years

Text

In light of the recent BSD chapter (98) I want to do a little bit of thinking out loud related to the current arc. I’m putting this all under a read more so anyone who wants to avoid spoilers can safely do so.

And I’ll try to remember to go back and edit in screenshots and stuff later, if I have the energy and don’t forget...

I think there’s a few things that the fandom may be forgetting about with the way the current arc is going. I don’t really have one solid prediction for how this is all going to go, but I do have some thoughts and there’s a great many things that wouldn’t surprise me if they happened.

1. This whole arc is not just a 10-D chess game between Dazai and Fyodor. The scenes with just them in it like to paint it that way, but they really don’t have a lot of power to change the situation as it’s unfolding. Most of their “moves” are plans that were set in place before they ended up in prison, or predictions of what their allies or opponents might do with only minor nudging and communication from them. Most of their influence on this conflict was already done a long time ago as they set their “pieces” in place and now are watching it unfold.

That being said, there’s also a game of highly advanced chess actually actively being played between Fukuchi and Ranpo. Both of them are making active moves against each other: Fukuchi with a growing power and legions and armies, Ranpo with dwindling forces and strategic surgical strikes. (Why are we not talking about this?)

I think Gogol’s silly game, pitting Fyodor and Dazai against each other, was actually an interesting idea, but I have this feeling that it’s all going to be rendered moot by other forces at play.

2. Chuuya: it’s nice to see him back! I’m not surprised he’s gone vampire, though, given how that was running through the Mafia when we last saw them.

I don’t think he’s actually there to save Fyodor and beat up Dazai, though, and here’s why: Fukuchi needs Dazai’s ability. He cannot access One Order without Dazai’s ability. What will actually happen though? I have a few different ideas here:

- Fyodor is in on Fukuchi’s plan and he took the card key to make it easier for Chuuya to drag Dazai’s scrawny ass out of prison. Every few minutes faster to get him to the box to unseal it brings the world closer to Fyodor’s goal. I have the feeling that he’d be okay throwing his life away to achieve this goal.

- Even if Fyodor isn’t in on the plan, it’s clear that the vampires are under Fukuchi’s control right now, which means Chuuya will answer to him, not to Fyodor. From the very beginning it’s been clear that the Decay of Angels have different goals and priorities, and that they don’t particularly care about stepping on each other if it still gets them to what they want. I don’t see Chuuya being on Fyodor’s side unless he’s been ordered to do so, and that priority might shift if he learns about Gogol’s game.

- Dazai has to make it out of the prison alive for Fukuchi’s plan. I have this feeling that he won’t be able to nullify the vampire ability without getting his hands on Bram (which may actually be how the arc finally tips in the ADA’s favor). The best we can probably hope for (with minimal character death) is that Chuuya (or another vampire) will bite Fyodor to save his life, leaving Dazai free to take the antidote to the poison (or perhaps he’s messed with his body so much that the poison won’t actually kill him? Who knows with him anymore, and it wouldn’t surprise me.).

3. I’d like to acknowledge the other players in this game too, even if we haven’t seen their impact in quite some time.

Remember back when Mori agreed to help if he could take an ADA member? We never heard who he was taking. And we haven’t seen him in quite some time. Is Mori safe? Did he get bitten too? Did he set plans in motion behind the scenes that will come up and disrupt everything that Fukuchi has going? (I find this likely.)

What about Natsume? He interfered in the conflict that pitted the PM and ADA against each other. What’s to say that he doesn’t have a few cards yet to play?

And of course we can’t forget about Francis. He has a stake in this game as well, particularly if he’s aware of the goal of the DoA. He’s built up quite a bit of wealth and power again since losing the Guild, and he could prove to be a force in his own right if used correctly. He’s still got Louisa with him, so there may be a long-term plan behind the scenes there, too.

Aya: I have mixed feelings about her and her involvement, but I think she is actually going to prove to be a game changing card, particularly since the ADA knows about her and has already stepped in to help. I think because of her, it’s going to seem like the ADA traded One Order for Bram, and then it will come down to who can get their hands on the other’s trump card first...or who can get Dazai’s ability there to shut down Bram/unseal One Order. Or is there another ability user who can nullify abilities like Dazai?

This whole thing is not as simple as I think a lot of people are boiling it down to, and I think that there are some things people have forgotten in their excitement over seeing Chuuya back or another favored character finally getting more screen/page time.

There’s probably more that I wanted to say, but it’s all escaped my brain now.

12 notes · View notes

sanoiro · 3 years

Text

Lucifer Meta: “Choices”

“Choice is a funny thing…-“

Those were Dad’s words not mine back in 3x26. Before P2 dropped I was always saying that episode should be considered one of the core episodes if we wanted to understand S5 and Dad as a whole.

“Give someone different options, different circumstances, will they themselves end up different?” -Dad in 3x26

Lucifer S5 P2 spoilers ahead (I will add more screenshots later on)

I always liked the idea of Lucifer having a choice although his vulnerability theory of mine back in S2 was born out of a different thought.

But angels self-actualise however that applies to wings, a face and powers. In Michael’s case it was his posture as broken as he felt. Otherwise how we could explain that only he tried to urge Chloe on killing him but was rather docile when he believed he would face an immediate death.

Now what we didn’t know is that Gods also self-actualise. Therefore it is a genetic trait if you like. So let’s take this concept when we study Lucifer.

Lucifer has made his own choices over the years and the choices he made were the ones that brought us to the events of S5. However something doesn’t add up. Like yes, he chose that face in Hell because of his shame and how he viewed himself. Lucifer admitted it in 4x08 and Dad confirmed it as well in 5x11. So what is the two things amiss? Well one mostly throughout the series? His glowing red eyes.

The majority of the fanfiction out there express his eyes as an evidence of his Devilness, a connection to Hell while I believed for a very long time it was a manifestation of him being the Lightbringer but what does that constitutes?

Back in S2 Mum constantly calls Lucifer her ‘Lightbringer’, Lucifer lights up Azrael’s blade alone fleetingly when angry at his mother in Trip to Stabby Town. When the Medallion of Life is put on the blade his pain over Chloe flames it up for several seconds before it stops. Only when Lucifer assembles the sword, the medallion and the binding element, also known as Amenadiel’s jewelry. But there is again something amiss. Lucifer does flame it up in 2x18 but Mum’s words suggested that with all the pieces gathered she could do it herself. In a sense it is how Michael did it. No lightbringing power needed but what is that power?

I’m sure you remember back the finale of S3 where Lucifer’s face is licked by fire, his Devil face shows and his eyes glow red. Cain then agrees with Lucifer that ‘You cannot escape what you are’ moving forward in 5x16 Lucifer says I love you to Chloe and he is set on fire very much like he did in S3. Then we see a light we have associated mostly with Mum and Chloe wakes up.

So let’s think of this.

Lucifer apparently since his birth is known as the Lightbringer for no apparent reason. He lit the stars sure but only Mum and Dad are adamant on calling him that the only two beings in the universe that were omnipotent and above all? Omniscient. But they had a pitfall. Not even Mum could see she would be sent to Hell. That leads us to believe that there are choices which lead to as Uriel said to ‘patterns’. Different choices, different patterns. A thousands paths we can take but we cannot which one eventually will be taken and probably Dad and Mum held an optimism.

So let’s assume that when it came to Lucifer they knew one thing. That he had the ability to become a God - perhaps that is why Mum searched for him as he was also a key on changing things, if he became God then essentially she had won but she knew his potential. Now that’s another interesting thing…. Potential.

Dad in S5 tells Ella that the darker the darkness the brighter the light. In Lucifer, Dad mournfully notes that his son has so much light it blinds even him (aka Lucifer). Perhaps what we as perceived as unseen darkness -even him- is, in reality, a blinding light. Like a torch, you have no idea how to adjust your eyes to and everything seems like it's not light but darkness. So Lucifer had to go from being blinded by his own light to target it outwards in order to light the room. That was his potential.

Lucifer’s potential for goodness had to be harvested as was his ability to love. He liked humanity, respected them to a point, loathed them to another. Still does actually. But here is the thing. Potential think of Lucifer like a piece of coal or a battery whatever suits you best. Coal can be used to start a low grade fire that can spread from there but by itself it is but a black piece of nothing. So what if what we witnessed in the past five seasons was Lucifer being a slowly burning coal?

Let’s go back to Pops in S1. Lucifer is vulnerable when he takes Chloe out of the flaming restaurant and although he was burned he managed exceptionally well. In S4 he gets out of the exploding building albeit Chloe is far away and his clothes are not burned… Now let’s go to 5x10. Funny if you think that Lucifer manages to stop the chemist flame from burning which is weird as yes he stops the oxygen source to the flame so it us put out but two things happen. One his sleeve gets burned but it is also put out once the flamer does. Lucifer blames it on the polyester mix when we know he does not wear any and if he does it should have spread more.

If Lucifer was completely invulnerable then his suit would have been fine like it was in S4. Sure we have seen bullets not hurt him but have an issue with his clothes but to quote 4x02, it’s all about fire not the suit-superman effect.

Now in 3x23 Lucifer realises that Chloe does not need him but she choose to have him in her life and as such he is willing to leave his 2x12 miracle knowledge behind. In 5x06 Chloe talks about vulnerability which is based on a choice of Lucifer to be vulnerable around her. But with that choice to forward their relationship in 5x07 Lucifer is also making the choice subconsciously to expose himself to her emotionally and physically. At that point that choice stops his vulnerability probably because there is nothing to fear from her anymore. His vulnerability per 5x10 made him felt something he self actualised physically the vulnerability he felt but when she accepted him in her heart and stared a physical relationship his exposed himself differently emotionally.

Therefore Lucifer is still by choice vulnerable to Chloe but not physically as now he is in a healthier place. He opens up to her he is giving a conscious choice to be vulnerable to her while his body stops this stress induced self actualisation -perhaps- of being physically vulnerable. When he is hurt he shows it, he tells her what is going on even if it takes some time. Perhaps at the kitchen at her apartment Chloe didn’t draw blood from his body but certainly did from his soul and he allowed that.

When Mum in S2 said that Chloe was the key she was correct but not for lighting up the flaming sword but lightening up Lucifer. Lucifer needed to reach the point of choosing to be emotionally vulnerable around her and realising he was capable of love and that he loved Chloe, loved humanity.

In 5x16 when Lucifer is starting to burn up, most I’m sure went back to Michael’s words of Lucifer burning to the crisp if he went to Heaven as he was banned. But here is the thing Lucifer made a sacrificial move like the kid in 509 did for the family business. The ring simply bought him time. Lucifer left Heaven but I do not believe he was banned from there or at least I believe that Heaven had a safety net. We saw that even Gods have limitations so let’s think of this:

If Lucifer had listened to Mum and went to heaven the ring would have bought him some time but eventually he would have been either expelled or died(?). Again there are many things to consider here:

-What does it mean to be a God? Is it about power? Is it about being a Creator? Is it about the choice to become a carer? Lucifer became a carer in Hell albeit a rather unconventional one and as we may see things will change.

-Dad and Lucifer have a common thing they love humans and humanity in general. No other angel aside from Amenadiel and only due to his son does do far and in Amenadiel’s case it is not unconditional.

-The fact Lucifer was willing to be God not just for Chloe but because the system was rigged and he loved humans like Daniel and thought that he had to protect the innocent or at least provide a chance for a second chance.

-The song in the end when Lucifer is presented as a God, we listen to the Klergy sing that in a sense it was always mean to be.

I know I have been all over the place but let’s return to the whole lightbringer Lucifer now. So remember Dad when he gets angry. He is meteorologically inclined. In the family dinner and not only there we hear a thunderstorm rumbling close by, lighting ominously lit up the room in a way that Lucifer’s eyes light up in a very eerie yet calm way in many instances, in Le Mec’s case included.

There was always something brewing in Lucifer so when he gets to Heaven, with the same attributes Dad had and to a very different level, Lucifer experiences a metamorphosis. Now Mum and Dad didn’t have physical bodies but Lucifer did. Dad as well Mum in S5 provided us with a manifestation of a human body but they were not born in a flesh like celestial body like their kids did. So when Lucifer gets in heaven he is experiencing what Mum did in S2, he bled light but in a place of souls not on the earthly plane.

Again Lucifer’s body changes but he is not a ‘flesh sack’ as Mum puts it like Charlotte’s body was in S2 for Mum. He is still Lucifer that’s still his body but when Lucifer gets to Heaven he makes a choice again not just a throne to save humanity but his own life which of course leads us to the passage of the Revelation.

In the end, Chloe was the key and fuel for the coal to lit up to a full blazing fire. Not bad :) I mean he lit up Heaven long before he took off his ring ;)

“I choose you, I love you”

Michael, the Dragon & the ‘Virgin Mary’. But that’s a meta for another time, one that I have written in the S&S but will be updated for S6.

“And no matter how badly you want to nudge them in the right direction You know they need to find it on their own.”

#lucifer season 5 #lucifer spoilers #lucifer speculation #lucifer s5p2 #lucifer meta

23 notes · View notes

erifin-alt · 3 years

Text

Ok so I’m gonna go ahead and spit ball some Hiveswap theories despite the fact they may end up being incredibly wrong as expectations vs reality for the writing of Hiveswap is currently 6 feet under. This is going to be a long one, so to save y’all time the theories will be under the cut.

First off I’d like to state my own theory on the creature that that shot the train in the ending scene. Everyone is believing that it’s Fiamet’s lusus that did it, but why would Fiamet send her lusus to potentially hurt/kill Joey and Xefros especially knowing (or maybe she doesn’t) that Xefros is Dammek’s moirail? Honestly it wouldn’t make sense, given that she was the one that warned Joey about the world ending in 11 days. If it does end up being her lusus then she has a lot of explaining to do. Cause it kinda makes her a villain by hindering Joey’s and Xefros’ travel. Though I don’t think it’s Fiamet’s lusus. Here’s what I believe the beast could be-

1. The monsters from the first game.

We don’t really know the origin of the monsters from the first cut scene in Hiveswap act 1, and I don’t really think it’s all that much discussed. So where did they come from? Perhaps it was to do with something to do with the portal? Maybe. And we do know that the monsters can come in many varieties, including a monster with wings. (Though, more so bat wings compared to the feathered wings in HS:A2 final cut scene)

2. It’s someone else’s lusus. Okay, so I’ll actually be going into depth of how the beast looks like in the final cut scene. And with everyone theorizing that Fiamet’s lusus being an axolotl, I’ll try debunking the “Fiamet’s lusus shot the train” theory.

First off, the beast doesn’t even remotely look anything similar to an axolotl.

Let’s first look at the couple of screenshots I have (apologies for the bad quality)-

Does that tail look anything like an axolotl’s?? The answer is no, but of a course.

Here’s how an axolotl’s tail looks like btw.

Here’s some more screenshots of the beast that I managed to get-

Now, I know what you’re thinking- “But Erifin! Look at the side of the head! It obviously has external gill stalks like a true axolotl!!” That could be a red herring, though, as the things protruding from the side of it’s head could be fluff or feathers. And even it is gill stalks, and it IS an axolotl then why does it’s body look so different than that of an axolotl? Maybe because axolotl’s abilities of regeneration? It kinda seems far-fetched, to be completely honest. But who knows?

So who does the lusus belong to then? Well, maybe there’s going to be a new troll introduced in act 3 that will serve as act 3′s main antagonist Or maybe it’s just a wild lusus that itself will be the main villain.

So now it begs the question, what could this be? Well here’s some ideas I thought of:

1. It’s a weird lizard/amphibian and bird hybrid. It’s not the crazy for there to be a lusus like that, this is Alternia after all. I’m also getting some chameleon vibes from it. Though, this may be relating to the mythology of feathered serpents. Which, by the way, is a spirit deity from mesoamerica. Roughly around the same area that axolotl’s live.

2. A griffin. And yes, I’m bringing up mythological creatures into this. If the Pyropes can have dragons as a lusus then other trolls can have other mythological creatures as lusi as well. The body and proportions fit nicely to that of an griffin, even the tail! However, griffins don’t breathe fire so it’s unlikely that this is a griffin.

3. A chimera, to me this seems like the most obvious choice, sense chimeras are already hybrids to begin with, as if number 1 is true technically this theory is gonna still be true (at least somewhat). Chimeras in mythology are a mash of an lion, goat, and snake, and I’m sure if the crew wanted to make creative decisions they’d also add in some avian wings in the mix. The proportions are similar to that of a lion, the fluff can also be it’s mane. The need to be on a rock, and keep low to the ground could a be a mix of a predators stalking skills and the serpent part. The tail? Obviously the snake head. Oh, and chimeras can breathe fire as well. However the goat part has me thrown off, so who knows if I’m even right.

4. And finally, number 4, I was somehow wrong. Somehow this was Fiamet’s lusus all along, and somehow it is an axolotl. Who knows, we probably have to wait another 1000 years to find that out.

That’s it on the beast theory, now let me ramble a little longer about certain hopes I have about certain characters that may end up becoming more important in act 3. Particularly the trolls that show up in the final cut scene. That is- Martsi, Cirava, Lanque, Tyzias, Elwurd, Mallek, Ardata, Chaut, and finally, Marvus. Now why would they be important? I don’t really know either, but I can sure take a fucking guess! And given that the train fell into a river, I guess one can go ahead and guess that many of the trolls on the train did die. And given that the train was shot near the rust/bronze and gold/olive carts I think it’s safe to say that the most fatalities are going to come from the lower bloods and not so much the high bloods (high bloods are tougher to kill after all).

Hopefully all the troll call trolls end up surviving the crash, but considering hmmm y’know I don’t think it’s likely. But, one can keep their hopes up! However, I do think the certain set of trolls that did show up in the final scene will survive. But why? What will they do that will earn them the chance to live? Let’s get into that.

Martsi’s up first. She was the closest to the blast zone, so there’s a chance that she ends up dying later on. However, if she does live, and from what we have seen in her friendsim (regardless of whether or not friendsim is canon) she seemed to take interest in being a doctor. So I can see her trying to look for survivors and tending to their wounds.

Next is Cirava, I don’t really know what Cirava would do, perhaps they decide to join the rebellion after being convinced by Joey and Xefros. Especially given that Xefros is starting to gain more confidence and thinking for himself for once. Meaning Xefros may go around trying to recruit some trolls to join him and Joey. Or maybe it has to do with something with psionics? Though, that would mean all other gold bloods are dead or passed out. I hope Joey and Xefros do get a party of sorts while they travel I think that’d be fun!

Next is Lanque and Tyzias. Tyzias is a little more obvious, her want to change the system, especially the judicial system, could lead to her joining the rebellion. If Xefros and Joey are trying to recruit others she’d probably join in a heartbeat. Lanque is a little more complicated, I think he will die, but will come back as a rainbow drinker. He does have the title as a life player after all. I think he will die either because the crash killed him, or he died saving someone. I can imagine if the other jades do survive, they’d probably be very shocked. Personally I think Wanshi would take it the hardest as I believe he’d protect her, thus showing us a softer side to him. And as they mourn him he comes back! And it’s very much shocking for everybody! As a monster of sorts he may end up deciding to leave since he’d no longer fit in, since he’s technically dead. He could also take it as an opportunity to finally be free from his duties. His glow/immortality can even come in handy in certain parts of the potential game play.

Next are these two, as for what they’ll do honestly I think Elwurd is just there for fanservice and Mallek? Well, he may help with certain electronics if all the gold bloods besides Cirava do die. Like he takes apart certain parts of the train to make something? I do think they may want to join Joey and Xefros, but Mallek for rebellion moreover then Elwurd given we don’t really know what Elwurd’s loyalty lays.

And then there’s Ardata. She looks very suspicious, no? She may end up becoming a more important villain in act 3. Overall, she looks very...............shady.

And finally, the two eldest clowns. I don’t think they’ll join Joey and Xefros, rather I think they’re still going to be villains. Perhaps they decide to hunt Joey and Xefros down? Maybe they think they’re the ones who crashed the train?

That’s all I gotta say, I don’t think any of my theories will end up becoming true anyways. But hey, one can dream. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my rambling, and apologies if my writing is terrible and there’s grammatical errors everywhere. But what do you think? Let me know!

#homestuck #hiveswap #hiveswap act 2 #martsi houtek #cirava hermod #lanque bombyx #tyzias entykk #gaegrl elwurd #mallek adalov #ardata carmia #chahut maenad #marvus xoloto #long post #glub glub.txt

82 notes · View notes

sugarcomatosed · 3 years

Note

i love your stories so much!! and was wondering if you can give some writing tips perhaps? 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

Breaking this up into sections for you + putting it under a cut cause I went overboard. 😅

General Writing Tips

These work for both academic and creative writing.

Make an outline.

It doesn't have to be a formal one, but having at least a general idea of the scenes you want to include is helpful. If I know my fic is going to be a longer one (like Don't Hesitate was and my current WIP is), I break down the larger story beats i want to hit on a piece of paper or my iPad.

It's good to know what you're planning to do, in a any piece I usually have a single specific scene I want to do and depending on what it is, I might either just do the scene I want to or turn into something longer.

Draft, draft, draft.

I cannot stress the importance of going through and reviewing your work. This is a big part of any sort of writing.

Your first idea isn't always your best idea. As you work on a piece you might find your original idea is holding you back, focus shifts! Don't be afraid to let your work change as you go. It's not always easy to let go of your original idea but if you find it's not working, you have to let it change. Sections will need to be rewritten, things have to be readjusted to fit with later sections. Reread for clarity while you're drafting and look to see if this makes sense to you, or reads well to you. If you can't follow it and you wrote it, chances are your reader can't either. Did you use the same phrase again and again? Find and search it on your doc to double check.

Sometimes you have to cut things you really like because they just don't contribute to the fic anymore. Save those bits and use them somewhere else!In a lot of my longer pieces I will write a paragraph, realize that's not where it should go and cut/paste it into another part of the doc because the pacing/scene doesn't make sense where I had it originally, but it works somewhere else.

If you're stuck, skip around, come back and then stitch the bits you have written together.

Don't Focus on a Word Count

This might be controversial, but I'm of the opinion just because something is longer does not make it better. Some works are short, and that's okay! I very rarely try to aim for a specific count of words unless it's for a prompt exchange or a personal challenge. I write till I feel the piece is done. Some stories require more words, some require less.

Don't Hesitate is a great example of this again, because all I wanted to do was a bittersweet first kiss fic, but jumping write into the kiss wouldn't get the full effect I wanted. Meanwhile, with Old Habits all I wanted to do was write dumb comedic kisses, we didn't need a 2k preamble.

Get Someone You Trust to Edit

My go to editor for the past six years or so is one of my good friends. She has edited everything from college papers to my fics for me before I post them to read for clarity, find any funky phrases or misspelled words I missed, and I do the same for her when she asks! A fresh set of eyes makes a world of a difference. Find someone to trade fics with or ask a friend! They might have good suggestions you never thought of, or be able to tell what you were going for when you don't even know yourself.

I also rely on my friends a lot to brainstorm and talk my ideas out before I start because it helps me think and figure out what I need. It's super common for me to text someone and say "im gonna spitball at you, that okay?" and then spend twenty minutes chatting through my ideas.

Have Reference Material

For my 13sar fics, I regularly go back and review/screenshot videos of the dialogue to make sure I am staying consistent with story events, character nuance and small details. You don't have to go crazy, but it is really helpful to have your source material to go back to and check yourself against. In non creative writing I always had a pile of papers highlighted with my own notes on the margins.

Take Breaks/Pace Yourself

Know your own limits, and if you are working and working on something and it's not coming out leave it alone and come back to it. I'm really bad at this personally because when I get an idea in my head I want to see it through but sometimes you gotta step back! It's not healthy to keep working on things and overwork yourself. Stretch, get up go for a walk.

Write What You Want to Write

Don't focus on what people want to read. Focus on what you like. Find a topic, a scene, anything that you are passionate about and the rest will follow. The only time I write fic for other people is when I am writing for a friend. Even prompt requests I only take open ended ones, if I am not interested in writing it it's not gonna happen. I know it's super hard and I get really anxious sometimes about letting people down now, or worrying people won't like something but then I step back and remind myself this is a hobby and I'm doing it for fun.

Play to Your Strengths

You shouldn't try to write like me, you should try to write like yourself. Find what skills you have and use them to your advantage!

I can't give you a step by step list to write like me, because nobody in the world has my background! We're all unique. Everything I've listed so far I know because I'm not a beginner anymore! I'm in my twenties and have come from a strong academic writing background.

I took on an intensive course load in high school, and then went onto college for a sociology degree. I very rarely had test based finals and at the end of each semester would have five 10-15 page papers to submit. Straight up some of my skills come from having read and studied the works of anthropologist Clifford Geertz. I am not saying you should read anthropology/sociology texts. Unless you like that sort of thing lol

I also have 6+ years of theater experience (acting & directing), I use this all the time for my writing. When I think about a scene, I think about how I would work through it as an actor, how the character would move, and how would things read to an audience. The GOTE ("Goal, Obstacle, Tactics, and Expectation") method of acting by Robert Cohen is really useful hear if you want a more technical breakdown of what I mean by that.

This leads to a lot of what we called "business" in acting, doing small tiny things while you talk or move around on stage to give the sense you're a real human. I don't have to think or try on these sort of things because they're in my skill set already!

Things I do Personally

As in, these are not transferable skills this is just the stuff I do while working on projects.

Find a Vibe™️

I come into any fic with usually a goal I want to hit, a line of dialogue or something I want to capture. Just like, the general idea of a feeling a song even if the lyrics don't match up. Make a mood-board, a playlist, just find something you wanna do. It's less about the actual words on the page and what you're aiming to do.

Look to things that inspire you

Don't Hesitate got written because I wanted to write a fic that captured the same vibe as a scene in Macross Frontier, where two characters have a bittersweet kiss before the final battle and that scene still has me fucked up six years after watching it.

My current WIP is doing the same thing but with the song All I've Ever Known from Hadestown. Two characters working through loneliness, the sudden feeling of falling in love and the frustration that feeling can bring on sometime.

I don't plagiarize them word for word, but these are scenes that inspire me! I also patchwork quilt ideas together. Using Don't Hesitate again, I also ended up pulling from a bunch of shoujo anime, Toradora, Sailor Moon, Yona of the Dawn, Princess Tutu...specific scenes I enjoy to blend and create something new.

Goof Off While You Write

I name my documents stupid things, I write dumb placeholder dialogue or vague sentiments like "insert better word here", I make memes when I'm struggling and roast myself and my predictable tastes.

I spent twenty minutes texting a friend Juro's name with different letters spelt out and then the "fuck your chickenstrips" vine saying it was Juro during destruction. Just have fun with it!

Listen to J-POP On Loop for Hours at a Time

i am not kidding I do this all the time. Perfume, AKB48, anime idol osts, Sailor Moon's OPs/ED, vocaloid songs. I like technopop and Japanese is good because it usually doesn't distract my brain since I only know random phrases, but still know what the meaning og the song is.

I love music, it helps me vibe out.

Thank you so much for enjoying my work ;o;

I hope this is useful to you in some way! I'm so sorry it's so long winded but I am overly thorough and love to teach people ;w;

#sugar speaks #sugar writes #okay to reblog

19 notes · View notes

incarnateirony · 3 years

Photo

So here we are, The Great Supernatural Rewatch, 01.01 Pilot. If unfamiliar with this rewatch, please check my Objectives and Bracketing post [x], and then my Methodology Notes [x]; Also, reminder that I’m not the only person doing this, though each in their own ways. My Objectives and Methodology are my own.

I’m trying to get a little ahead of the official Jan 3 start date, since I know I will... inevitably fall behind, and this episode was ripe for the initial pick-through for the inevitability of a thousand call backs.

That said, with level 1. SYNCHRONIC: As it reads, unto itself, as best divorced from future knowledge of the story, it’s difficult to do much actual “meta” as much as review and commentary since literally it’s all character and story introductions. There’s some to be had, but beyond things like lighting, the Level 1 viewing tier is not going to lend towards much beyond basic archetypes, and a lot of mythology breakdown. This post will be heaving Level 2 weighted as a result. Most tier-1 posting is going to be an early build of key words, phrases and signs to assemble throughout the season watching (and tap back on later for tier 2 by tagging.)

Also a few unannounced side projects; I’m about to start a “Combat Counter” and “Marksmanship Counter”, to see how Sam and Dean handle both in physical battles/scraps over time compared to each other, and who has the better overall aim in the long term.

Some things saved in this post will seem random and arbitrary, but are potential flags I intend to keep, mostly for later level 2, DIACHRONIC study.

Now to get to the meat:

STUDY: REWATCH/REVIEW STAGE

Allow me to lead with: this episode even unto itself is a fine spectacle of just how much the genre shifted over time. I am a huge fan of David Nutter’s directing; many would know him from, say, Game of Thrones. He didn’t stay long--just Pilot and Wendigo--before moving on. But some of his touches stayed with the show for a few years. The entire ambiance is a giant testiment to survival-horror, a grimness to it, even if the CW itself could never truly capitalize on it. The mood and ambiance was successfully played on. The entire episode is rife with cloudy lighting beaming between bars and through windows, bold silhouette shots, and more that gives an air of mystery even after some characters are established. Dynamic shots are plenty.

Your early reading here isn’t going to tell you much you don’t already know, but is for filing, review, and even reminder/refresher purposes. As the season unfolds, there’s going to be more to interconnect, obviously. If you would like to read more observations on actual parallels, scroll to the DIACHRONIC STUDY header. If I’ve taken a screenshot, even in Synchronic, it’s because it’s a flag I do expect to come back up in diachronic study later and need to catalogue for future parallels and address.

So, imagining it’s 2005, we’re watching Supernatural for the first time. We’re in a very different world, Both in the show, and in the real world. A standard, haunting discord rattles the minds of the audience as a tree moves like a hand towards the window of a suburban home.

We see a classic, nuclear family in this standard home, saying their charming goodnights to an infant. But within moments, we’re told in every classic way that everything is wrong. The infant’s mobile turns on its own accord; the clock stops.

It’s 8:12pm when the world goes haywire. The decorative moon in the room flickers, growing dim. The mother wakes to the sound of a distressed infant on the baby monitor. She rises from bed in her gown.

This is a point I’m left to negotiate cursed knowledge: to all visual cues, the mother’s attire appears to be white. The audience perceived it as white. But we know it, and Jess’ gown later, was actually pink; the film stock failed to capture it. Both short term and much louder in the long term, these two colors can deliver two very different meanings. But for us, a viewer consuming a digital medium with no knowledge beyond what they published, I’m left to decide that the text seems to determine her in a white gown.

The wife sees a stark silhouette, asking if the child was hungry, assuming it was her husband that quieted her. She turns away, tapping on a flickering light over an old marriage portrait that one can only assume was a previous family generation. She descends the stairs.

Here she finds her husband is sleeping. Panic takes her, bringing her to the room. Quickly, chaos erupts. As does she, once seen bleeding down onto the hand of the father from above the crib. We see her, sunken eyes, already dying, screaming without a sound. Silent. Unable to make a noise.

The camera details the desperation of the father rushing his infant to his older child. “Take your brother outside as fast as you can, don’t look back. Now Dean, GO.”

I’m unclear what John thinks he’s going to achieve running back in for Mary as fire takes the home. But soon, he finds young Dean, 4, outside, holding an infant, “I've got you Sammy.” John erupts out of the house as the windows begin to blow, sweeping in to carry Dean, who carries Sam.

As the fire department arrives, the first cords of a song we would later come to recognize as Americana haunt through otherwise chilling music that climbs actively to punch out through our first cold open.

The Winchesters are our first cold open.

We find ourselves in modern day with the rick of a rock cord, and a young woman in a white nurse outfit adjusting her earings while framed by an image of John and Mary--the mother and father--in a picture frame. Though she calls for Sam, we see nothing of Dean--not even a picture. The image on the counter tells of a life Sam(my) was too young to even know, but perhaps is in his blonde-haired woman who teases him about halloween while standing in front of a mirror.

Sam is clearly in his young prime, celebrating his LSAT with a 174 score much to his chagrin with friends dressed up in all styles of wardrobe. Behind Sam a neon black cat sign may just jinx his future in warm but dull lighting; ghostly drapes hide behind Jess in a blue, sharper light.

Sam’s friends perceive he must be the Golden Boy of the family. Jess is proud of him. “What would I do without you?” “Crash and burn.”

Night onsets. Dim lighting feels dusty despite the otherwise hopeful environment. Heavy creaking, groaning, footsteps; Sam rises on instinct, spying an open door and catching haunting noises--sounds. An intruder. And one fateful fight. The choreography spares little.

In actual combat, the intruder--quickly identified as Dean--comes out on top. (Combat ticker: Sam vs Dean: Dean 1) Easy there, tiger. As Dean haunts, revealing his roguish personality quickly, he’s then gotten the better of (this is not going to be considered a combat ticker, it’s not actual combat, but aftermath).

Sam challenges why Dean broke in, but Dean knew Sam would have never picked up without him. They’re interrupted from their silhouetting by the light flicking on, and Dean further displays his roguish charm, enjoying her smurfs, not dreaming of her getting dressed; but soon, it’s down to business--Dean says it’s private family matters. Sam, a unit in the doorframe with Jess, says it can be said in front of her. Until the fateful line: “Dad’s on a hunting trip, and he hasn’t been home in a few days.” The camera zooms on Sam’s set jaw to tell the audience how much weight is in that line as the audio itself drags a raw cord of suspense.

The dizzying stairs are a descent into a world Sam seems to have left behind, with the audience viewing from below. Quickly, we’re introduced to ideas: the Poltergeist in Amherst, the Devil’s Gate in Clifton, “always missing and always fine.” Sam’s bitterness is thick: rather than telling him not to be afraid of the dark, “dad gave me a .45″, though Dean challenges what he should have done. They soon stand in a cage of sharply lit bars, arguing if this was what their mother would have wanted--to be raised like warriors.

Dean challenges if Sam would want a normal apple pie life; Sam slaps back: not normal, safe. “And that’s why you ran away.”--But John told him to stay gone. Regardless, Dean doesn’t want to do it alone. Sam asks what he was hunting, and why Dean wasn’t there; Dean was working a voodoo thing in New Orleans.

Dean reveals Jericho, California--10 men over to years on the same 5 mile stretch of road.

The “Ran it through A Goldwave” is a funny side comment but I’m not gonna get into why beyond LOL “through a goldwave”, that’s-- whatever. But we hear, in EVP, “I can never go home.”

The average viewer, at this point, isn’t going to be deeply instructing the story parallels--and in the scheme of it, Sam’s fear of going home barely scratches the meta surface. We do know John has been missing for three weeks. And find out Sam has a Monday deadline for his entry to lawschool, “whole future on a plate.” Jess worries over disappearing with his family, reminding of the deadline, but he promises to be back in time.

A sharp cut to JERICHO, CALIFORNIA. The driver shares similar concerns to Sam, “if I miss it, dad’s gonna have my ass,” he tells his girlfriend on the phone. A woman in white appears down the road as the car clock fries at 10:17, asking to be taken home. “Take me home?” “She lives at the end of breckenridge road.” “A girl like you shouldn’t really be alone out here.” She hikes her skirt. “I’m with you. Do you think I’m pretty? Will you come home with me?” hell yeah.

They arrive at a dillapidated home. “I can never go home.” No one even lives here. He steps out, turns around, and she’s gone. An eerie handprint appears on the window.

He decides to leave, clearly feeling the offsettling vibes, but isn’t alone. She steams with animosity in the backseat.

He looks into his mirror.

And wipes out.

After a violent death, we cut back to our boys and another exposition: credit card scams (jesus, could sam have yelled it any louder?), breakfast in a gas station bag, you gotta update your casette tape collection--why? because for one, they’re casette tapes. Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Metallica--it’s the greatest hits of mullet rock. “House rules Sammy, Driver picks the music, rider shuts his cakehole.” “Sammy is a chubby 12 year old.” “What, can’t hear you.”

ENTER, JERICHO

Internal impala shots galore will end up being a major vibe of our next few years. A spunky guitar theme plays that we will eventually come to know. Dean pulls out a cigar box full of fake badges ranging from FBI to Bureau of Tobacco from the glove box, quickly showing us how deep this path goes for them already.

The cops review the mystery: no fingerprints, spotless; we find out that the victim was dating the cop’s daughter, who was posting missing flyers downtown. The boys introduce themselves as federal agents, are challenged for being too young, and Dean sasses his way through, “that’s very kind of you.” -- while gathering basic intel, we quickly find Dean’s tongue getting ahead of him, calling their lack of ability to find a connection beyond them all being male victims, calling it crack police work. The brothers’ dual personas exit the crime scene with a cuff upside the head from Sam to Dean, a bickering match, and Dean leaving a Mulder and Scully crack on the cops.

They quickly find Amy, the girlfriend, and lie to claim that were Troy’s relatives and had heard about her, and move to a diner to talk about events.

No major unusual things to warrant events; Sam compliments her necklace. She jokes that Troy got it for her to freak out her parents for “devil stuff”, but Sam quickly educates her on the pentagram meaning the opposite, a symbol of protection.

But there are weird rumors in town--people talk. In-sync, “what do they talk about”; a local legend. She tells them of a girl murdered on centennial where anyone who picks her up disapears forever. The brothers quickly move on to a library with a clunky monitor, fully dating us; not just the lack of good cell phones and wifi, but the equipment and the appearance of the search engine alone. Right, we’re watching this in 2005.

The brothers slapfight again, but Sam shows that even away from the life he never lost his prowess. He asks, “Angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?” and searches for suicide. 1981, 24 years prior. “Our babies were gone and Constance couldn’t bear it.”

So they go to see where Constance took the swan dive.

The brothers begin to fight.

SAM Dean, I told you, I've gotta get back by Monday—

DEAN turns around.

DEAN Monday. Right. The interview.

SAM Yeah.

DEAN Yeah, I forgot. You're really serious about this, aren't you? You think you're just going to become some lawyer? Marry your girl?

SAM Maybe. Why not?

DEAN Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you've done?

SAM steps closer.

SAM No, and she's not ever going to know.

DEAN Well, that's healthy. You can pretend all you want, Sammy. But sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are.

DEAN turns around and keeps walking. SAM follows.

SAM And who's that?

DEAN You're one of us.

SAM hurries to get in front of DEAN.

SAM No. I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life.

DEAN You have a responsibility to—

SAM To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. And what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back.

DEAN grabs SAM by the collar and shoves him up against the railing of the bridge. A long pause.

DEAN Don't talk about her like that.

They’re interrupted as Constance appears, diving off the cliff, and immediately taking control of the Impala.

“Dude, who’s driving your car?” Dean holds up his keys.

They flee, over the bridge, and share another movement. One more fake card later, they find themselves in John’s room, room 10, in a motel. Sam remarks that the place is covered in Salt, and Cat’s Eye Shells. The entire room is covered in case work and lore.

I’ll break down the lore of these in a later mythos reblog, though the Asmodeus one really catches my eye for reasons outside of this episode.

Sam finds a photo-- a distinctly different family than the one on his college dresser. There, it’s John and Mary as an ideal image that framed Jessica. Here, it’s the life he walked away from. But while Dean heads out, he’s spotted by police, and their old coded dialect pops out, “Five Oh, take off.” Federal marshalls confront him: They’re looking for his partner (cue Wincest fans trying to make meta that’s about to be shot down one scene later, in the distance), fake US Marshalls, fake credit cards, is there anything about you that’s Real. My boobs.

Just putting a flag in the name Sheriff Pierce, we’ll figure out if that’s ever valid to anything later. But he tells Dean of the trouble he’s in with a room full of missing people and devil worship, for Dean to snap back he was 3 when they went missing. But they knew he had more than one partner. An older man. John’s journal is thrown out (Wincest meta dies a terrible death beyond previous scene)

Again, I’ll translate the FUTHARK in a follow up post, this is already taking a lot of time as it is.

Meanwhile, Sam is investigating the leads they and John both found. Previously spoken intents to burn her has him ask about her being buried at an old plot by Breckenridge at their old place.

SAM And why did you move?

JOSEPH I'm not gonna live in the house where my children died.

SAM stops walking. JOSEPH stops too.

SAM Mr. Welch, did you ever marry again?

JOSEPH No way. Constance, she was the love of my life. Prettiest woman I ever known.

SAM So you had a happy marriage?

JOSEPH hesitates.

Putting a flag in this for later.

But Sam decides to call the man out.

SAM A woman in white. Or sometimes weeping woman?

JOSEPH just looks.

SAM It's a ghost story. Well, it's more of a phenomenon, really.

SAM starts back toward JOSEPH.

SAM Um, they're spirits. They've been sighted for hundreds of years, dozens of places, in Hawaii, Mexico, lately in Arizona, Indiana. All these are different women.

SAM stops in front of JOSEPH.

SAM You understand. But all share the same story.

JOSEPH Boy, I don't care much for nonsense.

JOSEPH walks away. SAM follows.

SAM See, when they were alive, their husbands were unfaithful to them.

JOSEPH stops.

SAM And these women, basically suffering from temporary insanity, murdered their children.

JOSEPH turns around.

SAM Then once they realized what they had done, they took their own lives. So now their spirits are cursed, walking back roads, waterways. And if they find an unfaithful man, they kill him. And that man is never seen again.

JOSEPH You think...you think that has something to do with...Constance? You smartass!

SAM You tell me.

JOSEPH I mean, maybe...maybe I made some mistakes. But no matter what I did, Constance, she never would have killed her own children. Now, you get the hell out of here! And you don't come back!

Sam is flushed out, and makes a fake 911 call to break Dean out, pointing out that the husband had been unfaithful. More dramatic silhouette shots really capture the early spirit of the piece, with Dean using a phone booth in lieu of other options. Hell, Dean was able to find a phone booth, let that take you back. They determine that John left Jericho, and establish his ex-marine habits with the coordinates, 35-111 that Dean had lied through to the cop. But while on the phone, the woman in white appears in front of Sam on the road, non-crashing.

She controls the car again, and forces him to drive to a broken home, repeating, “I can never go home.” Sam recognizes: “You’re scared to go home.” And that’s when the creepy ghost rapey vibes start, mounting him, demanding he hold her, she’s cold. “You can’t kill me, I’m not unfaithful.” He argues. You will be. Just hold me.

As she goes to rip out his heart, she flickers with the beat of his.

Dean breaks into the scene, unloading 12 shots into the ghost with iron bullets to disrupt her manifestation, giving Sam time to sit up and say, “I’m taking you home.”, where he drives through the house. Dean helps Sam out of the car, only to be telekinetically pinned by a dresser to be disabled.

The lights flicker again. Children manifest, water runs down the stairs, looking eerily like the light could be the Winchester’s old home

Here, she falls when reunited with her children. Sam clarifies--she could never go home, she was too afraid to face her kids (while not viable for the synchronic study, for my own sanity I’m going to note this season, Home will be all but mandatory to touch back here.) Dean says Sam found her weak spot.

They drive down the road with a blown headlight, Sam using an old map and ruler to locate the coordinates. But it’s realized Sam isn’t going with Dean to blackwater ridge, colorado 600 miles away. His interview was in ten hours. Dean declares, “I’ll take you home.”

There’s banter over meeting up later, and being a good team, but Sam goes inside and calls for Jess. “You home?” He finds a plate full of cookies with a note “missed you, love you” and relaxes in bed with the distant sound of a running shower.

And of course.

And so it began.

SYNCHRONIC STUDY: IN-EPISODE PARALLELS

In a first episode, there’s only so much to address. While we may question how much the Woman in White being in White may have been intentional with Jess and Mary, who wore pink (a diachronic full text body note later), in the initial review, it’s worth mentioning for the reasons in part 1 I’ve decided to air towards white in the final text product. Resultingly, the tie between Constance->Mary->Jess seems tangible. But it isn’t really so simple.

“Home.” Home is a huge keyword.

"I can never go home." within the episode unto itself, Sam is struggling to well, get back home. And frankly, returning home is the key of it. (hears distant uppity Wincest stans) The difference here is, this isn't a direct parallel, of course, as much as a general ambient mood that will haunt is forward through the show, even if current viewers just watching episode 1 don't recognize it yet. Sam going home kills Jess, essentially; or at least witnesses her death. At the same time, Sam fears returning to the hunter life, or more doesn't think he can because John told him not to come back. But now that Jess is dead, well, Sam can never go home to the life he was building. He has no choice but TO go back to the other home--the hunter life. Even if he’s certain it’s not what Mary would have wanted for them.

DIACHRONIC STUDY: IN-SEASON PARALLELS, LOOKING FORWARD

There’s no way I’ll have them all in mind, these are just what are flagging me along the way.

1.09 Home As the “Home” rewatch is not that far away, I’m going to save this as a placeholder with general notes about “Mary apologizing to Sam,” even if frankly, she should have to Dean too. But even if, at the time, the exact details of the deal may or may not have been established or hashed out by the authors--we’re not picking at arguing if the authors intended it or not here. Here, Mary apologizes for her deal. Here, Mary apologizes--for drowning her children. For magnetizing this poltergeist to this place that she demands let her sons go, where she forces the spook to let go of Sam. She couldn’t really go home in the truest sense until that passed. (I’ll have deeper chain-link connections on this looking-forward once actually at the episode.

DIACHRONIC STUDY: IN-ERA PARALLELS, LOOKING FORWARD

They’re here, but not pinging me at 1 AM beyond vagueblogging about Lucifer showing up as Jess to haunt Sam and the inevitable time travel episodes about Mary, so placeholder for later updates.

DIACHRONIC STUDY: BEYOND-ERA PARALLELS, LOOKING FORWARD

Obviously compare to above-dropped screenshots.

11.04: Mistakes were made.

Listen, Dean’s grimace seat has been in discussion lately, don’t blame me for thinking of Joseph’s mistakes right after the season as Dean-mirror Pastor Joseph. Funny how Sam’s get shown and Dean’s don’t.

11.23/12.01: Mary’s return in the (white or pink, I’m rolling with white as-above) gown, and all extending details.

12.22: Mary's dreamspace.

12.23: Dean, Castiel's death, Sam removing Dean

15.01: Woman In White, We've got work to do

I feel like the Woman in White is the most interesting of these that hasn’t been as talked to death as, say, the 12.23 elements with the Destiel parallel. After all, the Woman in White largely focused on Sam. It was his fear of home. It was him being faithful to Jess (and being unfaithful can be more than sex, really; after all, he made a promise to come back.) But in season 15, it’s Dean that the ghost of the jilted lover approaches, shortly after Dean nearly killed Jack in his pain. Was Dean the weeping woman? Or was Castiel? Who held the animosity in the back seat?

Or is this a shared path? As Dean puts the Equalizer away under the Cigar Box, he has his own haunting issues in the mirror.

Those will be addressed more deeply when we get to that episode in like half a year. But for now, I’m just putting a pin in it. With a side scribble of “Cas got his Secrets/Mary, Sam got his serial killer and clowns and Dean got... the woman in white with Belphegor.”

15.02: Road Closed

15.03: If one insists Mary and Jess’ dress are pink, Rowena’s dress upon wedding and unbirthing to death (and queendom)

15.04: I still think about Jess (shortly before Eileen’s return.)

15.13: If one insists Mary and Jess’ dress are pink, atop the eventually-addressed meaning of lighting (death and transformation) vs the Empress symbolism (fertility, rebirth), Castiel in pink light.

15.15: If one insists Mary and Jess’ dress are pink. Amara’s trenchcoat.

15.20: Beyond the obvious quotes, and the (IMO failed) attempt at nostalgia, there’s honestly very little callback to the original episode.

That’s it on first glance, I’m sure more will rattle out as we go forward. Well, mostly. Keys to the Legacy from Mint Condition is flagging me alongside control mechanisms like Castiel losing control of his vessel. But those are thoughts to put pins in for now and develop later.

COMBAT COUNTER:

DEAN VICTORIES: 1 (sam vs Dean)

MARKSMANSHIP COUNTER:

DEAN SHOTS: 12 shots, 12 hits.

(hits for any individual will be considered accurate even if targets teleport/flicker out as long as it should have hit the body)

The mythology pasted all around John’s Room is worth a second trip, but off the top of my head I see the Bell Witch and Asmodeus from the Lesser Key of Solomon (near the motel door).

I’ll reblog later to add commentary on that.

47 notes · View notes

maxismatchccworld · 4 years

Photo

Welcome back to our latest - and last! - Deep Dive into the gameplay of The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting Stuff Pack. I’ve really enjoyed sharing the designs and development of this pack with you, and I hope to continue doing these sorts of posts in the future. It’s been a super cool experience, and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these! In today’s post I’ll talk about the feature that is core to everything in this pack, Knitting! Once again, I have to remind you that we’re still in active development on the pack and so some things may change between now and the final game. Now, let’s talk about some nifty knits!

READ IT I PROMISE YOU GONNA LIKE IT!

In order to start knitting, you’ll need to purchase a Yarn Basket from the Build/Buy catalog. You probably remember voting on these baskets a while back. This was the winning design, presented to you now in all its colorful glory! Don’t like color? That’s okay, because we included a solid black and white variant.

We have one more knitting basket coming too! Remember this one?

The basket acts as the crafting catalyst(neat term, huh?) similar to the Easel or Woodworking Bench in The Sims 4 base game. But unlike those examples, the Yarn Basket is meant to live in a Sim’s inventory so that they can take their knitting anywhere they want to go. Knitting itself is relatively straightforward: click on the Yarn Basket in your inventory, OR, with the basket in your inventory, click on the chair you want to sit in while knitting (perhaps a rocking chair?) and select the Knit interaction. Your projects are saved to your Sim, so you can pause your progress at any time and resume later, and even juggle multiple projects at once. Starting a project costs a small amount of Simoleons for the cost of yarn, but nothing too outrageous.

(Children can knit too!) As a Sim levels up their knitting skill they’ll have access to new patterns. They’ll start with knitting socks and beanies, but as they grow more skilled they can tackle more challenging projects like sweaters and toys for kids. But if you only want to specialize in one thing - perhaps knitted mailbox cozies? - that's fine too! Just keep knitting anything and everything, and you’ll be level 10 before you know it. Speaking of knitting skill, sometimes your skill is reflected in your knitted work, or rather your lack of skill. Knitting projects can fail, and when they fail they can get weird. But it’s all subjective, and maybe you’ll end up accidentally knitting the cutest derpy companion, or the perfectly itchy sweater. No mistakes, only happy accidents!

(Just own it.) One of the niftiest parts of the knitting skill is unlocking the ability to Teach to Knit, where Sims sit down together and have a knitting pow-wow. We wanted this to feel special, so we got a really sweet animation for it (Thanks Haeju!). Now that you can infect other Sims with the knitting bug, no yarn ball will be safe!

(The knitting needles aren’t finished on the Teach To Knit interaction yet, but trust me it's SUPER CUTE.) So, what can you do with all these knitting projects? Lots of stuff! Not only can knitted objects be listed on Plopsy, but you can also Donate them to charity. If you want to surprise a loved one, try Gifting a knitted object too. If you want to destroy all traces of your knitted failures, you can Frog the object and start again! If it's a particularly nice Sweater that you made, consider Adding it to Wardrobe to make it available in Create-A-Sim to all family members.

(Everyone appreciates a nice gift!) We want Sims to be able to knit something for their whole family. Not only will Sims be able to knit Toddler Onesies, but Baby Onesies as well. So put your little grubworm in a handmade knitted outfit. I’m sure they’d thank us if they could! (And if they didn’t like it I’m sure they’d be polite about it.)

(Here’s a sneak peek at some of the concept art for new clothing for the littlest of Sims!) It also felt like a good idea to add an Aspiration to tie this passion for knitting all together. So if you want to master the fuzzy art of knitting, consider signing your Sim up for the Lord(or Lady) of the Knits Aspiration. With yarn running through your veins, there will be no knitting mountain too hard to conquer! Master the Aspiration and you’ll be rewarded with the Sacred Knitting Knowledge trait. What does it do? Lots of stuff! What does it unlock? Something special! Am I being vague? I am! Come on guys, I can’t share all the secrets quite yet.

As I’ve mentioned previously, we’re trying to get as much cross-pack functionality for knitting as we can. Cats can play with Yarn Baskets and Yarn Balls, there will be new Club rules for Knitting, new class electives at University, and knitting counts for Emotional Control, just to name a few. I’m hoping Knitting feels nice and snug alongside our other gameplay systems. Now let's have a chat with our lead Object Modeler, Beth Mohler! Conor: Can you tell us a little bit about what an Object Modeler does on The Sims 4? Beth: As an object modeler I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make objects work in The Sims 4. This is actually a very involved process, and somewhat different from the wonderful work our environment team does. We work with designers, concept artists, engineers, animators, vfx artists (basically everyone!) to make sure that Sims can use an object properly in an animation, or that all of our objects will work with each other. Once we understand the design for a new object, we will create a rig, a block model (a very generic version of the object used to help us make more of the same object in the future), and a footprint (tells us where the object can go and how Sims move around it). Once those are tested by animators and other disciplines we can model the final version, create UVs, and add textures. We also hook up and test everything in the game to make sure it all looks good. There is a lot to think about when it comes to making objects because we know players can find so many interesting ways to place and use them in game. That makes it a very fun challenge to make them work with everything else we’ve built before. Conor: What feature are you most excited to work on in Nifty Knitting Stuff? Beth: I’d say I am most excited to work on the rocking chairs! I love that we are bringing them to the game and can’t wait to see them in some cozy living rooms or on porches. Conor: What are some of the challenges you are facing working on this pack? Beth: One of the biggest challenges is ensuring that the knitting itself looks good and is fun to watch! This is a challenge given that it needs to work for everything you can create. Figuring this out takes a lot of iteration between modeling, animation, engineering, design, and art direction so that we come to a conclusion that will work the best given our time and technical constraints. Another interesting “challenge” is the fact that I crochet as a hobby myself! When you are knowledgeable about something (yarn!) in real life, working on it in the game it can sometimes be hard to separate the things you know and may expect in reality from what is possible or best within a video game. I have to make sure to keep a balance and to conceptualize how we can best convert the knitting experience into The Sims 4. As someone who also generally enjoys interior design and architecture, this is actually one of my favorite challenges and one of the things I love about working on objects in The Sims 4. Conor: What is your favorite feature you have ever worked on in The Sims 4? Beth: I think it has to be a tie between the mini fridge or the robotics table in Discover University. That pack was the first time I got to really take an entire feature from start to finish. I’ve been with Maxis for a while, but I’m relatively new to The Sims 4. Both of these objects had some complex features we wanted that required a lot of iteration. I learned a ton about the technical aspects of our game during the process as well. I’ve also worked on a few very cool things between then and now, but those can’t be shared yet ; ) As a fan of The Sims since the very beginning I am so happy to be able to share a little about what I do on a daily basis on The Sims 4 with you! I haven’t been on The Sims 4 for quite as long overall, but some of you may also recognize me from my time on Sims Mobile where I shared some of our workflows on Twitter for making a juice bar. Thanks! Conor: You shared a screenshot of the In-Progress Rocking Chair in our Rocking Chair Deep Dive. Can you share an updated screenshot now that the Rocking Chair is further along? Beth: I would love to! I hope everyone has been enjoying seeing the progress on this object so far! Here it is a little further along. This program allows us to set the rules for the object materials, footprint size and rig it should use, as well as all the color variants and swatch colors you see in the catalog.

Thanks Beth! By the way, Beth is on Twitter @SimGuruBeth, so be sure to Follow her! And thanks to all of you Simmers for following this pack’s development, this has been a really fun project in a very crazy time. A big thank you to my Stuff Pack teammates, and especially SimGuruSarah who edited my inane ramblings and wrangled the miscellaneous bits for these posts. While this concludes my design Deep Dives, we still have more forum posts with development insights on the way! Keep checking the Community Stuff Pack forum and we’ll have more fun stuff to show off in the weeks to come. Until next time, SimGuruConor

Source: The Sims Forum

#s4cc #s4mm #ts4cc #ts4mm #maxis match #thesims4 #S4 news

271 notes · View notes

morganaseren · 3 years

Text

OC Introduction

Tagged by: @illusivesoul Thanks! Sorry this took so long!

Tagging: @this-is-something-idk-what, @noeldressari, @alessandramortt, @theherowarden, @jellydishes As per usual, I can never figure out who has or hasn’t been tagged by this. No pressure if you don’t want to participate though! Below is the template you can use.

My answers will be under the Read More.

---

Fandom:

Role:

BASICS

Full Name:

Nickname(s):

Pronouns:

Sexuality:

Occupation and Titles:

Birthday & Age:

Physical description:

Clothing style:

BACKGROUND

COMBAT & SKILLS

Preferred fighting style:

Special skills:

RELATIONSHIPS

Family:

Love interest:

Best friends:

PERSONALITY

Positive traits:

Negative traits:

Likes:

Dislikes:

Fears:

Guilty Pleasure:

Hobbies:

Fandom: Dragon Age

Role: Inquisitor

BASICS

Full Name: Niamh (pronounced “Neev”) Cousland

Nickname(s): Neevy (from Sera), Brat (from Leliana lolol), Storm Pup (mostly from her late mother’s side of the family)

Pronouns: She/Her

Sexuality: Lesbian

Occupation and Titles: Niamh is the leader of the Inquisition forces and is also hailed as the Herald of Andraste. Although all her rights to the Cousland estate along with any titles associated with it were forfeited the moment her magic manifested, her ties to her family name are still recognized and vice versa--perhaps especially so now with her being Inquisitor. Thus, in accordance to an older tradition from her late mother’s family, she is also titled the Storm Wolf of Highever per her brother Teyrn Fergus Cousland.

Birthday & Age: Niamh was born on the 3rd of Cloudreach in 9:08 Dragon, so she’s 33 as of Inquisition and 36 as of the Trespasser DLC.

Physical description: She’s a woman of middling height (5′6″ or 168cm). Niamh’s hair is pitch-black, which settles asymmetrically around her face with a longer fringe covering one of her eyes--a pale, misty-grey hue. Physique-wise, she’s full of wiry muscle, especially along her arms, shoulders, and back--testament to years of heavy staffwork.

Clothing style: This is more dependent on what setting she finds herself in. Around Skyhold or in more official circumstances, she tends to garb herself in formal wear such as the one seen below.

When she’s out and about on missions, her attire consists more of cloth and leather as depicted in the screenshot above. As a native Fereldan, she has a tendency to favor fur in her overall field outfit, which is evident in the black Great Bear fur seen along the spaulders atop her shoulders. Then, as an occasional artist, her sketchbook is ever present, constantly hanging from her belt as she draws flora, fauna, and anything of interest in her travels to properly document later. Littered amongst the sketches are also occasional plans for whatever project she’d like to work on back at Skyhold.

Art and crafting is ever her way of relaxing.

Despite being an artist, her color palette in terms of clothing remains relatively simple even if the cut of them are always finely-tailored. She favors darker colors overall with white and varying shades of grey. Occasionally, a splash of color is thrown in every now and again for visual emphasis.

For instance, the red scarf you see on her is a gift from Bethany Hawke. ;3

BACKGROUND

Niamh is the youngest child of Bryce and Eleanor Cousland.

She was born beneath a violent storm that only settled as her newborn cries filled the world--a telltale sign perhaps of the destiny that would later be laid out before her.

She was taken away to Ferelden’s Circle when her magic manifested at the age of four. Niamh was the youngest to enter Kinloch Hold that year, and she was inconsolable for several months as she struggled to adapt to her new surroundings and the many strangers that were meant to be her new family of sorts.

Of all the mages present, she was closest to Jowan since he was only a year or two older than her, and the then young boy was responsible for drawing her out of her sullen shell--enough to where she could finally be comfortable with interacting with others after months of frightened silence. The two children did everything together and were otherwise inseparable. Unfortunately, their relationship would later become strained as they entered into adolescence, especially as Niamh grew into her magical abilities and surpassed him entirely in power, astounding the likes of First Enchanter Irving and Wynne--both whom became her respective mentors--with her command over the elements.

Niamh was able to successfully undertake the Harrowing at the age of seventeen, earning the right to be recognized as a full-fledged mage. She was never designated an Enchanter throughout her time in the Circle, for she had no personal apprentices of her own. The few new ones to arrive at the Tower were assigned to those who had passed the Harrowing before her, but she was content to help them and the Senior Enchanters however she could. Her kindness, patience, and calm diligence earned her easy friendships.

...or at least she thought so until some of her colleagues turned on her with Uldred’s coup following the onset of the Blight.

Caught between blood mages and Templars who believed she had a hand in Uldred’s machinations, she likely would have succumbed to either party eventually had her sister Saoirse--now a Grey Warden--not arrived to help cleanse the Tower of abominations and save First Enchanter Irving and the remaining Senior Enchanters.

For her efforts in saving them, Niamh was allowed to accompany her sister on her travels across Ferelden along with Wynne. She formed a fast friendship with Leliana early on, and it eventually led to heavy infatuation on Niamh’s end, but it stuttered to an abrupt halt when she realized her sister was also in love with the bard. Believing that she had nothing of worth to offer to Leliana as a mere mage, Niamh buried her feelings for the other woman, watching from afar as she fell for Saoirse.

Saoirse was as bold as all great heroes could ever hope to be, and so she was well-suited for Leliana, but it was Niamh who tempered much of her sister’s impulsiveness, especially when it came to matters of diplomacy.

---

"Can't we just--"

"No." Niamh just kept her gaze forward as they walked out of the Deep Roads, refusing to look at her sister.

"But it's a good idea!" Saoirse insisted earnestly.

"Saoirse, in no world where you throw the crown at the two candidates for Orzammar's throne and expect the least most concussed to be King can ever be considered a 'good idea,'" Niamh deadpanned.

---

Yet, for all her brilliance with tactics and matters of negotiation, Niamh was unable to convince Saoirse to allow Morrigan to use her Dark Ritual despite knowing it would have saved any of the Grey Wardens from being sacrificed. Worse, her sister made her promise not to tell Leliana of Saoirse’s own plans to slay the Archdemon in the final battle.

As expected, it resulted in Saoirse’s death.

Racked with guilt over never telling Leliana the truth of the matter, and believing she had been left the last of the Couslands--a mage that Thedas would have never recognized--she disappeared following the end of the Fifth Blight. Niamh placed herself in a self-imposed exile abroad for over a decade until news of a Conclave by Divine Justinia was brought to her attention. The Divine had hoped to bring together both sides of the Mage-Templar War and negotiate its end.

For Niamh, this led her to return to Ferelden. It was her last hope to see if the world could finally begin to change for the better.

Instead, she was given a far different destiny...

COMBAT & SKILLS

Preferred fighting style: She prefers keeping herself at range on the battlefield, for it allows her to better survey it. She sees everything like an intricate chess game, and she always tries to place herself and her team at the best advantage to overcome their opponents.

As a mage, Niamh incorporates a lot of staffwork in her fighting, especially when it comes to casting magic. However, when she was living abroad, she had to learn to adjust her fighting style altogether so that she would never be suspected of being a mage. As such, she taught herself to fight with spears and polearms, as they were still similar enough to normal staff-fighting that it wouldn’t require a completely new foundation with which to work from.

Because the new style of fighting required her to be within relatively close quarters of her enemies, she learned to try and limit the time of the engagement with them as much as possible with quick, brutal strikes. That methodology happens regardless of how many opponents there are. A quick takedown means a much quicker escape after all. As a runaway apostate, she couldn’t risk leaving a trail of bodies behind her wherever she went.

Special skills: Niamh is specialized in all the elemental houses of magic although she favors lightning the most. During her time with the Inquisition, she also specialized in necromancy--much to the surprise of many.

RELATIONSHIPS

Family: Of the renowned Couslands, only she and her older brother Fergus remain, but despite their years apart(she honestly didn’t know that he survived the Battle of Ostagar until she returned to Ferelden in 9:41), they remain loving and supportive as always toward one another. Of her late mother’s family, the Mac Eanraigs, she gets along well with them, especially her Aunt Eithne (who will be making her first official appearance in chapter 24 of OtSttCA).

Love interest: Leliana (although they won’t be an official couple until close to chapter 30 or so)

Best friends: Dorian, Sera, and Cole. She views the three of them like younger siblings, which was an admittedly odd feeling for her at first, given that she’s the youngest of her own siblings.

Of her other companions, she is also closest to Vivienne although Niamh sees her more like a fond, maternal figure than a best friend. She greatly respects how the older woman was able to take her status as a mage and turn it into a position of power within the Orlesian Imperial Court, especially when so very little of it was ever afforded to their people. When it comes to the mage allies she gathered from Redcliffe, she trusts Vivienne’s judgment in overseeing them along with the Knight-Enchanters Niamh requested of her back in chapter 13, especially since Niamh travels so much between missions. Then, when it comes to just about anything regarding Orlais, she goes to Vivienne as much as Leliana or Josephine, mostly wanting the insight of a mage in regards to the culture and politics seen there.

Then, of her War Council, Leliana and Josephine are her absolute favorites. Niamh and Leliana have so much history between them that it’s impossible to separate themselves from one another, and she appreciates Josephine’s sweet nature as well as her diplomatic acumen.

PERSONALITY

Positive traits: Her adaptability. There’s an almost... chameleon-like nature to Niamh at times. As such, she can acclimate herself to whatever her environment asks of her and find a way to thrive in spite of it all. She’s also quite intelligent. Ever the eternal student, she constantly looks to expand her wealth of knowledge. Had she not been born a mage, she likely would have done well as a scholar in the world of Thedas. Niamh is also benevolent, always seeking to place more kindness into the world rather than contributing to the bad already within it.

Negative traits: After years of being taught rather toxic, religious doctrine from the Chantry in regards to mages, Niamh has rather low self-esteem, especially when it comes to the subject of love. She doesn’t believe herself worthy of Leliana for instance. As brilliant as she is, her mind can be rather restless at times. This can lead to overthinking outside of any tactical or official setting, which tends to feed back on her latent anxiety as a leader. Then, having spent a decade constantly on the move, she’s not used to staying still for long periods of time, which lends itself to some trouble, especially if she’s injured. She is quite literally the worst patient ever. :P

Likes: Storms, the ocean, mabari, tea, strategy games, sweets, books, art

Dislikes: The Chantry, Templars, discriminatory behavior, incivility,

Fears: The Rite of Tranquility, outright failure as a leader

Guilty Pleasure: Niamh has the most terrible sweet tooth. If given half the chance, she’d get her entire day’s sustenance through sweets alone. She actually does like fashion; she just couldn’t allow herself to indulge in it since her nomadic lifestyle before joining the Inquisition didn’t permit such luxury. She’d happily window-shop the entire day away if given the opportunity.

Hobbies: Sketching, painting, crafting, reading, chess

#OC introduction #Niamh Cousland #...i really do ramble a lot don't i? lol #Niamh FAQ

17 notes · View notes