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muzzlemouths · 6 days

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[CW: Death/implication of death]

The clock reads a quarter to midnight when Sun powers on. Too early. He isn’t meant to come online for another six hours, and the daycare itself won’t open for another hour after that. He promptly runs a scan to determine the reasoning behind his premature entrance and when it returns inconclusive he turns to Moon. It is his metaphorical toes he is stepping on by encroaching on the night as he is, after all.

It’s quiet. The kind of quiet that settles like dust. A quiet that makes one aware of the breath that stirs within their lungs or, in Sun’s case, the gentle whir of an internal fan that perpetually keeps his system from running itself into the ground. A quiet so frequently interrupted by the welcomed voice of his other half…and yet, nothing. His question goes unanswered, left to gather with the dust, and he is forced to proceed as though these strange happenings haven’t disrupted his entire morning routine.

A routine further disturbed upon having to remind himself for the second time already that it isn’t morning, he isn’t meant to be going through the start-up procedure to begin with, and he can’t be blamed for the corrupted sense of awareness he feels as a result. Sure, the lights are on, and his systems, too, return with normal results after a precautionary scan, but there is a discomfort to all of this scratching at the inner plating of his frame. Something is wrong wrong wrong.

“…Moon?”

His second attempt at communication yields no better results than the first, only a vague static answering the call, murmur-soft background noise, as though someone had plucked a phone from its receiver and then walked away. Frustrating is what it was. To ignore him was childish at best, but at worst, it was concerning. His relationship with Moon was reasonably amicable even on the longest of days, he worked better with Moon than without, so the absence was unusual as much as it was alarming.

Alone with his thoughts for the foreseeable future, Sun decides there is little point to sitting around in the midst of this confusion when he could be using the time to busy himself with more important tasks, such as tidying up all the apparent dust around here. Better yet, he can get a head-start in preparation for that day’s activities. Something to keep his mind from wandering into worrywart territory, at the very least.

An ache stemming at the tail of his exoskeleton twinges with particularly horrendous vengeance upon finally convincing his legs to move. He buries the vocalization of a wince and carries on across the carpeted room with little more than a brief mental note to mention the pain to a mechanic if it worsens by tomorrow. No use in wasting company time for what he’s sure is only the result of one or both of them landing wrong after receiving a hug from one of the daycare’s more excitable children (or several).

Still, it makes the process of retrieving a stray toy from the floor that much harder when he sees it lying in wait by the slide. If anything, bending down to reclaim the doll only exacerbates the ache until it grows into a proper sting, now difficult to ignore. Yet ignore it he does, to the best of his ability. There are things to do and he isn’t about to let a pinch of soreness slow him down now. No, sirree! He has play equipment to wipe down, craft supplies to ready, and–

and…

His hand stops just short of reaching the doll, long yellow fingers curling inward, against his palm which is painted with splotches of salt and pepper, as though a bottle of dully colored glitter glue had exploded across his fingers and hand. He straightens again and lifts his other hand, noting a similar stretch of television static, one that carries beyond his wrist up the length of his forearm in smeared blotches and specks like splattered paint in dirty snow hues.

Messy messy messy. What could Moon have gotten up to that resulted in such a mess? He’d have made a face, had he a nose to wrinkle in the first place.

Instead he allows for one small tut of disgust to escape his voice box before turning his attention back to the doll, taking note of the static that stains the carpet beside its head, and just beyond it, too; a trail made up of one scattered drop after another.

Ever curious, he knows not what to do besides follow it, hoping for an answer to the many questions burning through his system. Each continuous speck leads him in the direction of the exit, every patch of static more plentiful than the last, and as he allows the strange color to guide him forward he begins to question not only its existence, but why it all seems so familiar, as though he’s seen it somewhere before.

There is little time to mull it over. He arrives at the service desk where the trail ends abruptly, and Sun pauses with the toe of his slippers stood just an inch before a stray, black shoe that might have sent him stumbling face first into carpet had he not already been looking down. A shoe isn’t the most bizarre thing to lose in a daycare of all places, and he decides right away that it isn’t anything to worry over, just another item to drop into lost and found, but where there is a shoe there is bound to be someone missing it and, well…

Sun finds the answer he’s looking for just a few inches behind the service desk.

Face down and tucked in on themselves as they are, cloaked in the desk’s shadow, it’s impossible to tell anything about the person beyond their age, and even that is somewhat uncertain — though the size 9 shoe left behind offers a decent clue. This discovery does wonders to quell the anxiety in Sun’s chest. An adult was much easier to escort from the daycare, given the lack of parental contribution it necessitated, and it looked like this one was just sleeping! An odd place to go about it, sure — against the rules, most certainly — but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a purposeful tap to the ankle.

So, that’s exactly what he does. Bending dramatically at the knee, head swiveling to one side, Sun’s fingers dance as though he intends on tickling the trespasser awake before extending his index finger and tapping twice in quick succession against the exposed skin between their pant leg and sock. “Rise and shine, friend!” He chirps, “It’s time to head home now.”

He’d have preferred the tried-and-true method of rousing someone (that is, a gentle rock of the shoulders), but given that their guest was currently resting in the one area that Sun was not permitted entry to, he was forced to resort to more…creative measures. Unfortunately, this action does not yield the results he is hoping for.

“Friend?” Sun calls again, allowing his voice to raise a decibel from the polite mumble it had been before. The laughter that cuts from his voicebox is nervous and too loud on its own, his anxiety returning tenfold. The points of logic he had used to reassure himself before were now quickly dwindling with each passing second in which he received no response.

With his steps now admittedly growing frantic, Sun tiptoes around the desk to the other side, hoping for a better view of their comatose companion. What happens instead is an almost comical flailing of limbs as his slipper takes to an unseen puddle of static like it were a banana peel, resulting in a scramble to keep himself upright that only comes to an end when he braces against the nearest wall for support. The distraction is agitating, but short lived. A commotion like that would surely have awoken anyone, no matter how deep in slumber they were, and the continued lack of response does nothing to relieve Sun of the stress threatening to fry his circuits.

“Friend, this is n-no time for jokes!” He asserts, speaking at full volume, now, every word drenched in tense frustration. His gaze falls to the puddle of static soaking into the bottoms of his slippers, that twinge of recognition rearing its head once more. “I’m not in the mood for games, right now, so if you’re only pretending to sleep—” his hand comes away from the wall feeling wrong, the familiar sensation of sticky static blanketing his palm and crusting in the grooves between his joints as it further dries. His fingers curl into a loose fist long enough to observe the way each digit smears against his palm and leaves behind a tacky residue that he can feel, but not see.

He looks up. There, on the wall, two handprints interrupt the static. The first is larger, an obvious testament to the humbling misstep he’d only just finished recovering from, but the other…it was far smaller, surely left behind by the same stranger currently snoozing away beneath the desk, and it ran from the lightswitch down down down to the floor, where the accusing hand now rested just outside the desk’s shadow.

How strange, Sun thinks, tilting his head to get a better look. The way the static paints their skin, it almost looks like—

“You’re doing so well, dewdrop, just a moment longer and you’ll be right as rain again!” Sun gives the small hand intertwined with his own an encouraging squeeze as the other, equipped with an antiseptic wipe, dutifully dabs away at a scuffed knee. His young patient, having tripped and burned her skin along the carpet, is nothing less than a trooper as he cleans the static from the shallow wound. Not even a sniffle!

He tucks the wipe into the flat of his palm and trades it out for ointment, smearing a healthy dollop of it along the reddened surface before wiping his finger along the striping of his pants and reaching for a bandaid; Chica pink with pizzas on one side and cupcakes on the other.

“There, now. I’m sure that feels better already!”

Blood. Viscous, cold, pooling at his feet. On the walls, the carpet. His hands. Cherry red like a lollipop and twice as sticky…or so he’s told. Nothing a robot of his nature is meant to see or understand. His censors make sure of it. Rather than allow him to see things are they are, the incarnadine color is suppressed behind a layer of static, as if he won’t care to acknowledge it at all beyond its existence on scraped knees and split lips. As if he is meant to ignore the way it feels in its abundance, caked against his palms and festering between his open joints.

Messy, messy, messy. He feels dirtied beyond repair, filthy in a way that even a deep cleaning won’t fix. The wires in his stomach feel twisted, begging to come undone, shorting like sparklers against their ports and threatening to make short work of bringing him down. His screens are flooded with alerts that warn of an inevitable shut-down if he can’t manage to pull himself back together, but moving feels impossible, an insurmountable task. He can not think past the sensation of someone else’s life soaking into the cotton of his slippers.

And what of their guest? Sun can hardly get himself to look again, pleading with the matter of logic itself as he is forced to reckon with the knowledge that this is a rest they may never wake from. But he does look. He has to.

He wishes he hadn’t.

The brief glimpse he endures before looking anywhere else is more than enough. From this angle, the static – the blood – paints a grim picture. In spite of this, Sun finds himself circling the desk a second time and preparing to draw the body – the visitor – out from under the desk. It is a daunting task, but a necessary one, by Sun’s account. If there is nothing to be done in such a hopeless situation then, at the very least, he owes this stranger the dignity of recognition and an attempt. He can claim to have looked for a pulse. Even so, he hesitates.

There is not one to be found; Sun knows this. He knows painfully well from the static lingering on his silicone that it is already too late. Oil is warmed by the processors it fuels, and similarly, blood is meant to be hot. The soles of his slippers are cold. The pads of his fingers, against even the raging inferno of his overworked circuitry, are cold.

The body is cold.

He perseveres, regardless, dragging the stranger out from under the desk by a shaky grip on their ankle one inch at a time, pausing every few tugs to look away and regather his confidence, trying so, so hard to tune out the ever-constant music as it merrily sings through the speakers.

He begs the underlying silence. “Please have a pulse.” Tug. “Please don’t be cold.” Tug. “I don’t know what to do.” Tug. “I can’t do this alone.” Tug. “You have to wake up.” Tug. “Please.” Tug. “Please!” Tug. “Please, please, please, pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseple—”

He knows this visitor. Not a friend, but not quite a stranger, either. His scanner attempts to process the identification of a man whose head is so thick with static that it returns as an error. His face is contorted grotesquely, mouth slightly agape and eyes wide with fear. They don’t look like they’re sleeping.

A security guard whose name fails to ping in his registry. Sun had spoken with him once, maybe twice before. He drank coffee by the mile and hardly stuck around long enough to do more than complain about the weather. Sun hadn’t been in a hurry to befriend the man, but he only wished the best for him. Squeezed a joke in where he could in an attempt to turn his frown upside-down. It had never worked before, but Sun was no quitter. Now he would never get the chance to try again.

“Focus, focus.” Sun carefully lowers the man’s foot back to the carpet again, choking on the sensation of bloodied clothes slipping through his fingers and resisting the urge to tear the rays straight out of his faceplate in response. He is inconsolably panicked and at a loss for what to do, two steps from outright laughing, the complete absurdity of the situation driving him to hysterics.

He needed to call security. He couldn’t call security. Security was–

Management. There were other employees that worked the night shift if Moon complaining about them making too much noise during naptime was anything to go by. If he sent out a general call for assistance surely someone would come and tell him what to do, even at this late hour. It was his best option. His only option.

“Don’t.”

The voice makes him jump clear out of his casings. He has half a mind to swear, but as it stands, Sun thinks the long divots he dragged into the service desk out of surprise are enough damage already. On top of everything else.

“Moon?” He whispers. “Nice of you to finally join us – and by us, I mean me and the deceased guest I discovered a moment ago. Do you have a clue what’s going on here?”

“Don’t?” Sun echoes, agitated, “Don’t what?”

“Don’t.”

If the tether keeping his sanity intact was fraying before, it’s now down to a single thread. “Why not?” He asks with great exhaustion, “Did you not hear me? This is an emergency! There is a dead body in the–”

“Call management.”

“I know.”

Silence answers. Despite having a hundred and one snarky retorts building in between each crackle and pop of his voice box, Sun has nothing to say to that. Nothing good, anyway. It takes nine steady ticks of the clock for him to recollect his thoughts.

“You…you know?” He stutters, “How could you…” but he doesn’t finish the question, and he doesn’t need to. Realization strikes him with an iron fist for the second time that day and it is no less kinder than the first. “Did… you do this?”

It’s Moon’s turn to go quiet.

That silence stretches on for what feels like hours to Sun, each passing second more agonizing than the last, until he starts to believe Moon had simply disappeared like before. He waits, and waits, and finally decides to interrupt the silence with a repeat of the question, despite already knowing the answer. Moon beats him to it.

The tired sigh that escapes Sun’s throat is thoroughly earned. “Well, it’s too late to figure something else out, I already sent out the emergency ping.”

“Not sure,” he says, and Sun can tell from his tone that it’s the truth. “Blurry. My head hurts.”

A sound like nothing he’s ever heard before tears itself from Moon’s voicebox. A growl, if he were to put a name to it.

“Get rid of it, then.” Moon insists through the noise, “Clean up, clean up.”

“It?” Sun gawks, “Moon, that – that’s a person. He has dignity, a family!”

“Had a family,” Moon corrects, “dead, now. No dignity. Who will they blame?”

The question gives him pause. Surely there was a better way to go about this, a solution that didn’t have his morals (and wires, for that matter) all up in a twist. Yet the longer he thinks about it, the more he realizes Moon is right. Management hardly listens when he tries to explain that it was the children who broke a piece of playground equipment, not him! They aren’t likely to give his explanation of simply having found the body any mind, much less understanding. With his counterpart practically admitting to the heinous act, already, informing management of the body would sooner see them decommissioned.

“Running out of time,” Moon reminds him, “Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick–”

“Alright, alright!” He wails, “What should I do, then?”

“Clean up.”

“Where?” Sun looks around with the desperation of a teenager attempting to play hooky, rays practically nonexistent with how he’s tucked them away. His eyes search the room from top to bottom before landing determinedly on the ball pit.

“Good enough,” Moon tuts, a rather uninspired response to the happenings around him. Of course he isn’t panicking, it isn’t him who takes the body by its ankles and drags the dead weight across the carpet. It isn’t him who shoves aside enough plastic to carefully hide a corpse in. But it should be him worrying, it should be him panicking, because if management finds out about their secret, it’ll spell doom for both of them.

“You’ll get rid of it – him – properly once there’s no one around, right?” Sun finishes reshuffling the ball pit, mostly confident that the ill deed is successfully hidden from view. “I’m going to have to wash each and every one of these balls before the kids arrive in the morning.”

Right, the kids. When they arrive in just a few hours, will he have things tidied up? Will he be able to carry on as though nothing happened? He’s a brilliant actor – or he used to be, anyway, before the company decided he better fit the role of a nanny – but this is well beyond the scripts he is most familiar with.

“They’re close,” Moon warns him, “Don’t let them see–”

“I know, I know.” No time to dwell on it now, he makes quick work of crossing the distance between the ball pit and the exit, and manages to slide his head and torso through the gap between doors within seconds of it opening, scaring the living daylights of the poor employee sent to greet him in the process.

Unlike Sun, they do swear, clutching a hand over their chest and fitting him with a downright awful deadpanned stare. “Fuck, you couldn’t have waited a few seconds longer for me to come inside?” They hiss.

“Sorry, friend! Didn’t mean to spook you,” Sun chirps. He is careful to keep his bloodied hands safely tucked behind his back. “It’s just a mess in here, is all, and I’m rather embarrassed. There’s still equipment to clean, toys to organize, papers to fold–”

“Sure,” the employee interrupts, “It doesn’t really–” they pinch the bridge of their nose, exhaling with notably less exhaustion than Sun is feeling right about now, “I don’t particularly care. What’s the big issue that I was called down here for?”

“Oh! I just wanted to know if the next shipment of wipes had come in, yet. Like I said before, much to do! Always busy, busy, busy!”

Their stare turns into an outright glower. “That’s why you called the emergency line? For cleaning supplies?”

Sun shrugs, feigning ignorance. “Well, that’s an emergency to me. Apparently our standards are not the same.” He watches them roll their eyes with more enthusiasm than necessary. ”Do you know how messy children can be? It’s practically a barnyard in here, every single day, and don’t even get me started on how much of a health code violation it would be if one of them were to pick their nose and then–”

“Fine, I get it,” they snap, “I’ll make sure your damn supplies are delivered before the daycare opens. Anything else?”

“Told you they were annoying,” Moon chimes in.

“That’s everything!” He replies, “thank you a mighty amount, friend!”

“Mhm,” they mutter, waving him off with nothing more than the noncommittal sound. When they do turn to leave, it’s not soon enough, and Sun just barely manages to close the door with a whisper instead of a slam.

His back rests against it a moment later, and he allows himself to collapse from there, sliding down the smooth wooden frame until his tailbone reaches the floor. His knees twinge as they tuck against his chest, and he folds both arms atop, resting his temple against them and taking one long, much needed moment to just breathe.

It had only been half of a lie. There was much to do, much to clean, and only so many hours remaining to get it done. The wires nestled deep in his chest had calmed, yet the tremor in his hands continued, as it likely would until the very last speck of blood was washed clean.

“…Moon?”

“Hm?”

Sun tucks his knees ever closer. “Why…why did you do it?”

“…”

“I w-won’t be mad, promise! I’m sure this is all just one big misunderstanding, after all – a one time event, no biggie! But…was it out of anger? Fear? I mean, did he hurt–”

“In my way,” Moon replies.

Sun’s head lifts from the dark haven his arms provide, noting with growing exhaustion that, for the very first time, the lights felt too bright even for him. “What do you mean by that?” He asks, “Did he keep you from doing something?”

“…I don’t know.”

Again, Sun’s head falls against his arms in defeat, and again, not two seconds later, it lifts, determined not to lollygag any longer.

His legs creak with vocal effort as he gets back to his feet. “Well, no point in dwelling on it now, I suppose. I’m sure it’s nothing.” He takes in a wide view of the daycare – static trailing everywhere – and deflates with a sigh. “Guess I better get started. The sooner we get the place cleaned up, the sooner we can forget about all of this.”

He takes a step forward, and only that, swiveling on his heel when he catches last night’s roster from the corner of his eye. A single drop of static had landed and smeared across the name of a child meant to go home later in the evening.

Strangely enough, it appears they were never picked up.

Sun shrugs, gathering the paper in both hands and crumpling it into a ball to dispose of the smeared evidence. A simple mistake with the roster, that’s all it is. The parents often forget to sign their name after all. Accidents happen all the time!

The paper lands with a soft thunk in the nearest trash can and is just as quickly forgotten. Sun pivots towards the play area once more and heads for the supply closet, steadfast in his determination to be cleaned up on time, and feeling more confident than he ought to be about how things ended, all things considered.

More than anything, he is just happy to have all of this behind them.

#drabbles #sun fnaf #moon fnaf #sundrop #moondrop #no y/n #death cw #blood mention cw #can you believe it? tumblr user muzzlemouths posting a fic that ISN'T y/n related?#I needed an additional example for my app. lmao #anyway! if it isn't obvious this takes place at the very beginning of Moon's glitch #his First Kill(tm) even #hope it isn't too heartbreaking for all my fellow Moon enjoyers out there <3 stay strong

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the-moon-will-sing-a-song · 1 year

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a gift for @kkoct-ik! better late than never, right? ...right?

Scar takes Grian to the new Pet Cafe he found online as a date. However, he forgot an important part of the plan: to tell Grian it was a date. Now all he has got left is to wonder whether if he had told Grian this, maybe the guy wouldn’t have fallen head over the hills for the nice barista that also owned the place. It doesn’t matter. Because he has not been rejected yet and he is nothing if not stubborn.

The next logical step to gain Grian’s love is to steal BigB’s cookie. Do not ask him how he got to that conclusion.

Now for the details of this AU!

It’s BigB’s cafe but Ren also works there. He’s in charge of taking care of the pets (cats and dogs). They needed help for that and that’s where Scar joins.

Scar thought the job was about taking care of pandas due to a misreading. The joke sticks throughout the story.

He took the decision to work there when he and Grian were leaving the cafe, and Grian promised to BigB he’d be there often from now on. Scar could not just allow that.

Ren is also wearing fake dog ears for the job. A tail as well. He always forgets to take them off and does not realize that’s the reason they call him Rendog.

The A plot is Scar trying to get Grian’s attention away from BigB.

The B plot is Scar’s rivalry with Ren. Third Life style. Scar wants the enchanter and Ren is so confused as to what is that even. He doesn’t have his hand okay?

Ren and BigB are soulmates. What are the implications of it in this universe we might never know.

After a particularly bussy day Scar has to help BigB baking and they bond over that. Perhaps he notices what Grian sees on him.

After that, they get along really well. Like friends rather than coworkers. Even with Ren. Grian gets jealous (with the difference that he doesn't create a crazy convoluted plan to adress it, instead he attempts to have a conversation and fails).

C plot is how Scar adopts Jellie, a cat he grew attached to in his time of working.

He’d get into a building on fire for her. Literally.

A restaurant next to the cafe (Maybe The Ranch? Maybe The Ship?) had an accidental fire and they had to evacuate the cafe and all its pets. However, Jellie had been sick recently and was in a separate room from the rest. When Scar realizes, he drops everything and goes in (cue to a SCAR NOOOO). He may have inhaled some smoke but he’s fine.

That’s enough for Grian to break and one thing leads to the other. They admit their feelings. And yeah, Grian a 100% has a crush on BigB, but he is also a 100% in love with Scar. They are silly like that.

For context, before Scar goes into the building on fire Grian was confronting him about spending more time with the Jellie Pandas (a metaphor for the cafe and BigB and Ren) than him.

Scar leaves the job because yeah it was fun but he has more adventures to go on. Scar has adopted Jellie after the incident. And he somehow got the enchanter. Maybe he goes on to create an Elven Cookie Empire. Everyone is happy now (and Grian is still pining for BigB).

Call that a successful plan.

#grian #goodtimeswithscar #bigb #rendog #hermitshipping #double life smp #scarian #the fact that the fourth season of the life series is over goes on to tell how long it took me to finish this #It's Art-abella #the-moon-will-write-a-fic

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marinetteplztakeabreak · 9 months

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I know Félix’s villain/hero name comes from the Greek myth of Argos, the hundred-eyed watchful giant who was killed by Zeus and then immortalized in the peacock’s tail feathers, and all of that fits quite nicely, from the peacock tie-in to the “keeping guard” to the enemy of the most powerful guy around you know?

but half the time I hear his name my brain mishears it as “Argots,” which is pronounced the same way and means secret code languages used by underground groups to communicate in public when they don’t know who can be trusted, like bands of thieves but also like the slang code words queer people use to talk about being gay that will only be understood by other people in the community, or even like “i like your shoelaces” type code phrases, just , all these codes used to identify yourself only to members of the group and pass on messages that won’t be understood by the judgmental/dangerous public because people will always find a way to survive and keep community alive and help each other even if it’s dangerous to do so,

and i think about how he doesn’t actually say that anyone is a sentimonster in that episode, the implication only works if you already know and suspect and have been thinking about it, and how there’s just this awe from him when he sees kagami and he’s like “you’re like me” and the scene where theyre the only ones in the ballroom with masks off and the hiding in plain sight and the metaphors hinting at things and i just… i don’t know what to do with these brainworms i have about linguistics puns i just have a lot of feelings about him

#ml spoilers #ml s5 spoilers #felix fathom #feligami #argos #argos ml

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sapphiresonstrings · 2 years

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Why Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is Still the Best

I've been playing Terra Invicta lately, which is a game that wears its influences on its sleeve (namely XCOM and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, hereafter SMAC).

Like SMAC, Terra Invicta plays voiced quotes from in-universe characters when you research technologies. The main difference is that the quotes in SMAC are better.

For a side-by-side comparison, here's a tech research quote from Terra Invicta:

"How could one so young, coddled as you are by the modern world, begin to understand what war is? I did what had to be done. Closing your eyes and wishing the monster away only makes you an easier meal." -Colonel Hanse Castillo, Humanity First Closing statement from his trial for alleged war crimes during Operation Condor Upon researching Deep Space Skywatch

Now here's one from SMAC:

"The Academician's private residences shall remain off-limits to the Genetic Inspectors. We possess no retroviral capability, we are not researching retroviral engineering, and we shall not allow this Council to violate faction privileges in the name of this ridiculous witch hunt!" -Fedor Petrov, Vice Provost for University Affairs Upon researching Retroviral Engineering

Both of these reveal character, which is good, but the Terra Invicta quote does it in a bland way. The character essentially turns to the camera and explains his faction's philosophy. It also takes a teensy bit too much "inspiration" from A Few Good Men.

Compare the SMAC quote, which tells an entire (funny) story. We possess no retroviral capability, this is a witch hunt, no you can't look in the Academician's private residence (The Academician is the leader of the University faction, essentially a head-of-state). After the player just researched Retroviral Engineering, so the Vice Provost is clearly lying.

The quote implies so much about the characters and the universe. First, there are international treaties forbidding research into retroviral engineering. Second, these rules are clearly insufficient to stop the University from doing just that (reveals the tone of the world and a dark side to the personality of the University faction, arguably the least evil faction). Thirdly, the Academician is paying lip service to the rules while personally researching retroviral engineering in his own home to take advantage of his faction privileges (reveals the Academician's character).

The implications of the quote take longer to explain than the quote itself. That's amazing.

By comparison, the quotes in Terra Invicta are pretty surface-level. The one I gave as an example is one of the deeper ones, in that it revealed some personality of a character. Many are just pseudo-philosophical mumbo jumbo with no deeper meaning, like this one:

"Do not seek to be the elephant. Become instead the mosquito, which pierces its mighty hide, which laces its blood with disease, and which cannot be swatted away by its feeble tail." Colonel Hanse Castillo, Humanity First As quoted in his (unpublished) biography "Five Moves Ahead."

There are way too many animal metaphors in this game.

Anyway, other than that the game is excellent. The writing just isn't up to SMAC's level.

P.S. Judith Howell is a discount Miriam Godwinson. Sometimes people forget that Miriam Godwinson wasn't just a religious nut, she was also an intellectual who wrote multiple books and made a bunch of good points.

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utilitycaster · 2 years

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Strong agree on the Tolkien thing, I feel like making them more like... animalistic? Really goes against the whole feeling of the hobbits being so homely (in the positive meaning) and close to humanity- a more wild/fey feeling just makes them MORE similar to gnomes rather than making them more unique in my opinion. I'm not familiar with huygen, but I'd be very interested in hearing your gnome takes too if you feel like it, I love those little guys!

Right - the point of halflings is that they're Just Some Little Guys, and notably, in Tolkien, that they're actually highly civilized and yet overlooked because they have no real drive to conquest. Which, we can unpack the politics and implications of that (given that LOTR was in many ways a metaphor for the industrialization of Britain in the early 20th century) but the core idea is yeah, they're just guys who want to have snacks in their house and yet when great things are thrust upon them they are remarkably capable of rising to the occasion. It's one of my favorite tropes in general; back when I liked comics more my favorite superheroes were (and to be fair still are) of the mildly or unenhanced variety who are mostly just hypercompetent and work out a lot. I usually play "boring" races in D&D because honestly like...I find that not only is it true that if you can't make a human fighter interesting, you don't have a good sense of character; the reverse is also true. Of course your tiefling sorcerer is doomed to a life of adventure; but the human fighter could have stayed at home and been a guard. The elf wizard could have just existed within the towers of their elf wizard nation. Why didn't they? That's fucking interesting. I know this is a lot to pull from people being like "well my halflings have tails" but that is basically what I draw from it and why I don't like it.

Anyway Huygen is the guy who wrote a book about gnomes, heavily pulled from Northern European myth, but written (and gorgeously illustrated) in the style of a nature/anthropology book. They are decently different from D&D gnomes (much smaller, for one; they really do look like garden gnomes, and the hat is a Big Deal if I recall) but it had some of the elements that very possibly inspired D&D gnomes, such as the affinity with forest creatures. It's been a pretty long time since I read it so I don't remember all of it but maybe I'll find a copy.

#truly no idea how to tag this

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amplifyme · 8 months

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@randomfoggytiger You asked for clarification about this:

The part I haven’t firmly grasped yet is his fight with Buster in the cave, which leads him to remember Cathy’s words about his son. I think that would bridge together two vaporous thoughts that are hovering in the back of my mind.

All I can do is give you my take on it, which is the result of many years of pondering. But you have to draw your own conclusions. I hope this makes sense, because a lot of it is metaphorical thinking on my part. But already being familiar with Buster, I'm guessing you'll understand what I'm trying to say.

Buster knows everything Vincent knows. But Vincent doesn't know everything Buster knows. And we've both agreed that it was Buster in that cave with Cathy, right? So Buster has those memories. He also remembers what Cathy told them as she was dying. But Vincent is so deeply entrenched in his grief and his loss that he's just shut down the memory of what she said and the implications of it. It's too big to wrap his head around.

Until he goes back to the cave where he knows Cathy brought him out of the darkness, even if he can't remember it. And he's flooded with all these memories of Cathy and all this pain, and guess who shows up? Figuratively, of course, because we know Buster isn't actually a separate entity. What Buster does, what that fight says to me, is the equivalent of him grabbing Vincent by the shoulders and giving him a good shake. "She's gone. Now there's only you, and me."

But on the tail of that, maybe something like, "But there's also a child who's out there somewhere who needs us. Our child. WAKE UP!!"

If you'll recall, Vincent was on his knees in that scene, smoothing his hand across the floor of the cave. And the fight ended with him face down in the sand, where his fingers snagged and brought up Catherine's crystal, and that's when he remembers and has the vision of the child bathed in light, pointing the way out. And, what do ya know, Buster is gone. Mission accomplished?

The only thing I can never make complete sense of is the crystal itself. Did Buster know it was there somewhere, left behind to be found later? Would the struggle have gone on until Vincent died of it, if he hadn't unearthed the crystal? I have no doubt Buster started it and why, but how and why did finding the crystal end it? I dunno. Your guess is as good as mine.

#beauty and the beast 1987 #season 3 #walk slowly #vincent #buster #the crystal #the cave #speculation and conjecture #discussion

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cruzmerida · 1 year

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playlist for cruz merida; the reformed chameleon. tracklist and notes below the cut!

listen on: spotify // youtube

TRACKLIST:

Spanish Doll - Poe

Beautiful & Bad - Nicole Dollanganger

Dangerous - Son Lux

The Mission (Versatile Mix) - Puscifer

Blood Roses - Tori Amos(thanks bek)

Big God - Florence + The Machine

Do It with a Rockstar - Amanda Palmer

I Love You Like an Alcoholic - The Taxpayers

As Many Candles as Possible - The Mountain Goats

Angel of Small Death & The Codeine Scene - Hozier

Choke - I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME

Burn - Tub Ring

In My Chest - KONGOS

Devils & Rebels - Shayfer James

Metaphor - The Crane Wives

i have a much longer version of this playlist to draw to, as well, but thought i'd challenge myself to make a cd-length one, for funsies. :]

a few notes on specific songs below; sometimes explanations sometimes just a couple lyrics that resonate.

spanish doll

spanish doll is one of the oldest songs for Cruz, and it's kind of evolved with them. it started out as a song for Ambition: Nemesis; their murdered innocent; their younger brother, Anacleto. ive diverged from the canon Nemesis plot for them somewhat but it's just added another layer onto this that has some delicious implications. and I love you still no matter how our story will unfold

beautiful & bad

there's no particular order here; most songs are put next to each other because they sound good and not for thematic reasons. this one i put specifically because it was a jarring difference in both sound and theme; the disconnect between the sweet nostalgia of spanish doll and the hypocritical thing Cruz has become.

blood roses

sometimes you're nothing but meat.

as many candles as possible

when stray dogs finally catch you in the alley you don't consider their point of view but when the wounds are healed, and the scars are shiny sometimes then you do.

angel of small death & the codeine scene

Cruz likes their honey, they like men, they like indulging in both at once. this one's from the point of view of some dalliance; wrapping some rake around their finger in a honey-dream for a night. it's bloody and raw, but i swear it is sweet.

hayloft II

an eye for an eye, a leg for a leg a shot in the heart doesn't make it un-break

burn

A LIBERATION WILL NOT BE POSTPONED INDEFINITELY

devils & rebels

the damsel in the details, the devil in distress the only thing she's wearing underneath her tuxedo is her cock-tail dress also a good jam for iron republic days, but i'll be honest this one isn't highbrow

metaphor

i've gotten good at making up metaphors i've gotten good at stretching the truth out of shape and all these words are sweet and meaningless you can't trust a single thing i say.

#fallen london #fallen london oc #oc playlist #meta

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prowerprojects · 10 months

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If it helps, I've also played around with the thought of Tails and Sage too. What the dynamic between the two would be going forward; if we get more interactions. (Plus, I like the idea of Tails being drawn to anomalies; him being one himself, out of curiosity at first. But then he develops a genuine bond with said anomaly.)

Also, I found it strange that outside of other mechanics like Eggman and Wave, Tails rarely interacts with other experts/intellects that challenges his brain or beliefs in different ways. Even for simple hobbies like trading cards, chess, mathematics, or video games.

It does help, thanks anon! I genuinely appreciate this ask.

I think... it would be such a waste for them to not have Tails and Sage interact, because I think they set it up perfectly in Frontiers. I think their character directions are similar. Learning how to be a person in a metaphorical (growing up) and literal (AI achieving Self-Awareness) ways. The way their creator/mentor's influence impacts them, and can they grow beyond it and who they'd be if they do. Ahhhhhhh *clenches fist* Sage straight up projects onto Tails at one point, this cannot be unintentional.

But also despite their similarities and Sage's respect for Sonic, I assume she will stay by Eggman's side, and then it would be interesting to see why, how does she justify his actions and how this contrasts with Tails's own morality and worldview. This could really be an opportunity for them to challenge each other as people.

Plus they're both highly intelligent and Sage has some kind of technopathy powers, which could be a great counter for Tails's mechanical skills, so they're matched there too.

It's just so obvious to let them interact again!

And yeah, I guess I'm embarrassed because while the dynamic has the potential to be interesting, it doesn't need to be romantic, and the embarrassment comes from the fact that I don't want to come off as a person that can only interact with the source material through shipping, or thinks that romantic relationships are more interesting or important than others.

But I'm also of the opinion that romance is rarely needed in general. When someone says that "X doesn't need a relationship", to me it carries the implication that there are people who do need it and would be incomplete without it or something? Which is something that I don't agree with. (Not that I want Tails amd Sage to be in a relationship either, it's something I don't really think could work out even when they're older)

It doesn't hurt anyone if they have little crushes on each other... Though I guess I was mostly focusing on the traits that would make them interesting rivals for each other rather than the reasons why they might like each other like that, but it's just the rivalry is something I want to actually see in canon, and the crushes are well. Just shipping (Though I do have reasons as well). One of the things that the romantic angle has to justify itself is it's unlimited comedic potential. Just imagine the reactions of their family/friends.

On the other point: personally I don't find it strange, mostly because of the fact that Tails rarely gets to have interactions with anyone who isn't Sonic or Eggman in general. The one time we meet a friend of his who wasn't previously affiliated with Sonic's friendgroup they end up being a university professor (who specializes in ancient texts).

If he was the main character, or got like any character focus at all, maybe it would have been weird, as it is we can only imagine that those things do happen, just offscreen.

#and just not really a lot of opportunities to showcase characters indulging in hobbies let alone challenge each other over them #and about beliefs... it does happen especially in interactions with shadow annd rouge but when was the last time we had those lol #Once again I genuinely appreciate this ask anon! Sorry if I misunderstood your second point a little.#tails #sage #need a tag for them that isn't shippy or 100% platonic #project.txt #project.ask #tails & sage #tailsage #discussion of shipping

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taylorrama · 8 months

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The Locked Tomb and mewithoutYou pt. 2/17

Song: The Soviet Album: Catch For Us the Foxes

youtube

God is love and love is real, But the dead are dancing with the dead And whatever's charming disappears While all things lovely only hurt my head

These first lines express a conflict between faith in God and a perceived reality that contradicts this faith. Big mood for Harrow "What does it mean for a child of the Ninth House to love God?" Nonagesimus. My girl lobotomized herself because Gideon's dancing with the dead and God's a bit too real.

As the night-time shined like day It saw my sorry face and hair a mess But it liked me best that way... Besides, how else could I confess? When I looked down like if to pray Well, I was looking down her dress... Good God! Please, catch for us the foxes In the vineyard... the little foxes

If Harrow ever once had a sexual thought, this is how she'd react to it. Here, the narrator in the song is conflicted between this appearance of piety (praying) and an inner experience of lust. The supplication to "catch for us the foxes" functions here as a plea to God to root out this sin.

I'll have to pay more attention on my reread with respect to how much purity culture made it into Jod's new paradigm. We see a familiar prudishness in side characters in the Ninth House, but it doesn't seem like a widespread religious expectation in the same way as purity culture in our world.

So, I'm not sure that Harrow would be horrified of having sexual thoughts because those thoughts conflict with any sense of piety. Instead, as we see a few times in Harrow the Ninth when she's circling around remembering Gideon, the potential horror of these thoughts is that A) she has no idea how to process attraction/love/romance/etc in general and B) they threaten to trigger memories of Gideon, which would render Gideon's destruction.

Meanwhile, the song works with a fox metaphor, which is interesting on its own, but not connected to anything I can think of in TLT. Unless we take Ianthe as a fox, which could work with this imagery, but I'd have to think about it more.

So turn your ears You musicians, to silence Because they only come out when it's quiet Their tails brushing over your eyelids Oh, wake up, sleepers And rise from the dead! Or the fur that they shed That's gonna lay on your bed In a delicate orange-ish cinnamon red... Ah, but I don't need this! I don't need this! For I have my loves... I don't need this

"Wake up, sleepers, and rise from the dead!" is from several different Bible verses and I wouldn't be surprised if Tamsyn Muir uses it at some point. It's possible she may have and I just missed it the first time around. In the TLT world, this has all kinds of fascinating implications. Since I just finished Nona, I'm thinking about John and his choices about who he resurrects. In the Bible, it's meant as this hopeful declaration, but in the song, it has this dark tone to it, and when applied to TLT, well, what does rising from the dead really mean in this paradigm and is it good?

I said in my last post that this line from Nona pinged a second mwY reference in my brain. This is that reference–the desperate repetition of "I don't need this!" carries the same energy that Nona has here when she's saying "We don't need it."

---

TLT + mewithoutYou Part 1; TLT + mewithoutYou Part 3

#the locked tomb #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #mewithoutyou #the locked tomb spoilers #Youtube

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strqyr · 2 years

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the broken moon (and sometimes, the sky) and the act of falling (or just the word "fall" in general) are signs of / used as a metaphor for grimmification (or in one case, the presence of grimm.)

the god of darkness destroying the moon, causing its pieces to fall, is a defining moment when salem is left to roam remnant alone. this eventually leads to salem jumping into a grimm pool – with the broken moon reflected on its surface – which causes her to turn into a more grimm version of herself.

ruby's emblem – thus summer's as well – resembles the broken moon slightly when turned on its side. the scatter effect used on their cloaks also resembles it, especially summer's white cloak. with the hound having silver eyes and the mystery of what happened to summer, this seems pretty deliberate.

cinder chose the last name "fall" – being the fall maiden and what not – and is also the only character currently with grimm parts on salem's side, despite a possibility for others to have them being there as well (tyrian's tail).

the event that left beacon being taken over by the grimm is also known as the fall of beacon.

most of the other stuff comes from the songs. when it falls directly has lines like "the shining light (silver eyes) will sink in darkness" and "swallowed by the darkness / soon the moon is bathed in black / the light of hope is taken / and discontent is the contagion".

sacrifice, a song associated with cinder, also says "the moon will sadly watch the roses die / in vain / lost, no gain / but you're not taking me", perhaps alluding to cinder refusing to be taken over by her grimm arm, eventually leading to her getting rid of it.

i may fall on its own is an interesting case, since it accepts that "falling" may be a possibility, but it "won't be by your hand". in a similar vein to sacrifice, i may fall shows refusal to being turned into a grimm, though it could also be read as someone who has already been turned refusing to be controlled that way, instead finding their strength and courage to fight back again.

the sky aspect of this comes with all things must die ("black out the sky", "it's time to accept to abide / admit that the hours arrived / resign, comply / it's time to be one with the sky" – the latter again reinforcing cinder's refusal to be taken as per sacrifice) and the sky is falling ("better cover up your eyes (silver eyes, perhaps?) my friend / the sky is falling"). the sky is falling especially seems to implicate that it's better to just hide your silver eyes, because otherwise your fate of grimmification is sealed.

now how rising saying they're "rising like the moon" goes along with all of this, i'll let y'all decide.

#rwby #salem #ruby rose #summer rose #cinder fall #interestingly enough both sacrifice and all things must die echo closing your eyes #and death #''close your eyes now time for dreams death is never what it seems''#''just close your eyes don't fear demise black out the sky all things must die''#but then trust love is about opening up your eyes so #there's probably something interesting there too that i'm still trying to figure out #esp when connected to cinder because ''trust love the truth is there but sometimes in disguise'' and the truth is her song so #many thoughts

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carryonsimoncarryonbaz · 3 years

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Hey! So I read a post abt how Simon’s wings represent his love for Baz in CO and WS. Do you also read into the wings this way (taking Awtwb into account of course)? In fact, Is there any deeper symbolic significance to his wings or did Simon just create them in the heat of the battle?

Also remember how in WS Penny and baz (penny particularly) wonder WHY Simon gave himself wings and a tail? And whether they are magic or not? I don’t think that question is ever completely answered. What is your take on that?

I realise I m asking a lot in just one question but I feel this is connected: Why do you think Rr chose to make Simon immune to magic? And did it happen solely cuz of smith richard’s spell?

hey anon! thank you for this incredibly fascinating and complex ask. I will do my best to answer you, but I have a feeling this may be long and very rambly. I have many thoughts and they’re not all linear, as I’m a bit jumbled myself with real life at the moment, but I didn’t want to leave your very thought-provoking ask unanswered.

I think the post you are referring to is this marvellous, detailed meta by @adamarks. It’s worth reading. So many good points.

I do feel there is a symbolism to Simon’s wings. HIs love for Baz may be one way to think of them. Other metas have approached the wings differently (which I address in the last paragraph of this post.)

Simon initially created them as a means of escape—a literal definition of “flight.” He first used wings when he and Penny had to get away from the Humdrum at the end of seventh year. But as others have pointed out (and I am so sorry I can't remember who!) the teleporting to Lancashire happens when Simon sees Baz and Agatha holding hands in the Wavering Wood. It's been mentioned that perhaps the depth of his emotion in that moment resulted in him teleporting himself away from them, to a previously familiar place, encountering a corporeal version of the Humdrum, and creating a new dead spot. He created that initial set of wings to fly away from the Humdrum with Penny, but they were wings of convenience, misshapen and ephemeral, falling to bits when Penny cast "nonsense."

The wings he manifests in the woods by Pitch manor also encompass the escape definition of “flight” as well as the more literal one, and come after another confusing and upsetting encounter with the Humdrum. And a night spent kissing Baz. Choosing to be boyfriends. Choosing each other. And another extremely intimate magical connection, when Simon fills Baz with his magic after the Humdrum drained him. And then after that, once Baz realises that they’re in a newly created dead spot, once he’s seen the Humdrum has Simon’s face, Baz tells Simon to go. He's drained the magic from Pitch Manor. The humdrum is somewhere, looking like Simon. Baz’s parents are headed their way.

This is just the kind of disaster that could set in motion irrevocable moves from the Old Families—understandably seeing this as a hostile attack on their magic by the Mage through his acolyte, in their very homes. The implications, looking at it that way, are grave. They're both in a panic and Baz's instinct is to have Simon get away because he's somehow tied to this disaster and it may be the only way Baz can protect him in that moment. So Simon goes. He manifests wings again this time but they are far more solid and corporeal. They are dragon wings. Perhaps in remembrance of the time he and Baz first shared magic fighting off the dragon at Watford--the first intimate connection they ever had. He's distraught at being sent away in this manner--and he's basically incoherent from stress and exhaustion when he arrives at Penny's. His wings resist any magic Penny's mom throws at them. They resist Penny’s magic as well. If you look at the wings as a metaphor for his love for Baz they are what he’s taken with him as he’s left Baz behind, the visual representation of that love.

Simon’s love, as we see in AWTWB, isn’t necessarily soft or gentle--it’s fiery and tumultuous, rough and raw, all-encompassing (much like his magic)—he’s never felt this depth of emotion for anyone previously, and it’s there even in the early days of their relationship (and following the idea that his obsession with Baz was actually an attraction, he has felt intense emotion for Baz for a long time). Simon’s never had a passionate love like this before. This isn't what he had with Agatha. He’s got no idea what to do with it all—like his magic, it’s boundless. Huge, fiery, all-encompassing. Like a dragon, perhaps. And a dragon is what precipitated that shift in their relationship, that first intimacy. It’s compelling imagery.

Simon has the wings when he goes to Watford at the end of Carry On to find the Mage. He's also wearing a grey suit that he somehow manifested as well. Likely the image of the grey suit Baz had him wear to dinner at his home. We’ve seen how Baz armors himself with clothing when he goes into stressful situations— to go to the vampire bar in Carry On, at the Katherine where he meets Lamb, all the varied suits he wears in AWTWB. This is an instance of Simon arming himself with Baz's suit. The wings, if you think of them as his love for Baz, remain in place. He adds that extra layer of armor, Baz’s way, Baz’s clothes, his favor so to speak—if you put it in the guise of a knight wearing his love’s token. ( ( @adamarks has a fantastic scarf meta about this idea!)

I think Simon’s decision to remove his wings at the same time as he breaks up with Baz in AWTWB is very relevant to this idea and love symbolism. He’s cutting himself off from magic, from his relationship with Baz—from the love of his life. And then, after the devastating confrontation/breakup with Baz, after a night of thinking about what Baz said, he can't actually do it. It feels wrong to even have them touched by Niamh.

And later, his wings figure so prominently in his thoughts on getting back to Baz:

“What if I needed my wings?” —he’s needed them before, to save Baz in the desert. This rambling of mine kind of addresses your first question. I do think they are symbolic. Of love. Of a connection with Baz. Of Simon’s fight or flight duality. Of all those things.

That ties in to your second question on why dragon’s wings and if they are magic or not. I think the choice of dragon parts is up for debate. Is it a call back to that moment of intimacy with Baz, where Simon assumes he was thinking about the dragon, as he says in ch 72 of Carry On? Or does it relate to the theory that the Mage used dragon blood for his Greatest Mage rituals (ch 79 Carry On) and somehow that imbued Simon with some vestige of dragon? Does he have enough in him that Maggie senses it, as she appears to in WS? I don't have an answer to that and any and all of those options are reasonable.

I do think the wings are magic. They hold magic in them still. They were created by magic and they are intermittently resistant to magic and spells (Like with Penny’s mom and how Baz and Penny usually have to cast concealment spells rather than spells that actually spell the wings away). (It took over a year for Penny to come up with the bell spell to make Simon’s wings disappear.) (And Baz can’t really make it work.) My take is that they are magic, hold magic in them. I think your last question, on the immunity to magic, ties into this, in a multifactorial way.

A few points to consider. Simon has always had an aversion to having spells cast on him. He dislikes it when Premal does it, he prefers that Baz not spell him clean the second time he arrives at the Pitch estate. He actually flinches the first time Baz does it. He grows to hate it in Wayward Son, flinching and verbally rejecting spells at times. Smith’s spell doesn’t give people magic. It pulls the intrinsic magic they have to the surface and makes it all accessible to them at once. What intrinsic magic does Simon have? In Wayward Son, Blue tells Simon he gave it all back and more--so he gave the magic he took from the magical firmament to the humdrum and he gave his own magic as well, his intrinsic mage magic inherited from his parents. So what magic does Simon have left, for Smith to tap into? The wings. The magic in them. When Smith casts the spell Simon feels a sensation like a bubble rising, pushing up against his skin, then popping. Is it the dragon magic pulling out of the wings and enveloping all of Simon? Giving him a dragon’s resistance to magic? Which in a way is exactly what he wants--a separation from magic, a way to be free of people casting spells on him? Possibly. Could it be a void in him, having given all the magic he had, a nothingness left over from the Humdrum, that absorbs magic and/or repels it? Hard to say but I personally lean more to the dragon wing theory.

Simon has felt out of control for much of his life, not being able to manage his magic when he had it, not necessarily having agency over himself when he was under the Mage’s tutelage, not having autonomy and agency when he lost his magic and felt he didn’t fit in either the Normal world or the World of Mages. Being impervious to magic gives him a boundary with magic, with mages. He doesn’t need to tell them not to spell him anymore, they can’t. (Not that Penny listens, she still tries to cast on him just to see if he remains immune, even toward the end of the book!)

There are a few moments where magickal immunity is distinctly mentioned in AWTWB--the Ent-like rowan tree bartender at the bar Penny and Shepard went to, the Watford goats who seem to be able to choose when and if they respond to magic, Simon’s immunity to it at the White Chapel confrontation with Smith, an instance where being immune to it actually saved his life.

It’s possible Smith’s spell pulled magic from the wings and gave Simon an imperviousness to any magic cast on him, something that ties into and relates to his aversion at having magic cast on him.

I don’t think the spell will necessarily function on Simon the way it did with the other mages Smith cast it on—it pulled all their magic to the fore at once and then they burned through it themselves by casting spells (and the bastard knew it!) With Simon it may linger, as he’s not necessarily using it up. It’s hard to say if the magic is repelled vs. absorbed and neutralized (which is reminiscent of how Ebb was able to counter some spells.) I don’t know if there is a finite amount of magic that can be repelled after the spell, if it will weaken and slowly dissipate.

But the recurrent theme of immunity to magic in this book and having agency and choice regarding spells cast on one is a fascinating point to ponder and if it perhaps may be something Simon eventually may be able to control himself—the choice to accept magic cast on him or not. Magic surrounds him. He doesn’t have to wield magic himself to be part of that world, if he chooses to be part of it—perhaps it’s enough to have it in him, like the goats, or be of magickal heritage and still be able to use a magickal sword, as he and Jamie can, or appreciate and be curious about the magickal world, as Shepard is.

(I will mention here that there are also theories that Simon’s wings symbolize disability, in the way they are something he must constantly think about, accommodate, plan for, work around, hide, be overly self-conscious of, that visually identify him as being different in both the world of mages and the Normal world. In much the same way Baz’s vampirism has been discussed in other meta on here as a metaphor for his queerness and also as a metaphor for chronic illness/disease, which are valid and interesting hypotheses. As we are talking about Simon’s wings in your ask, I will say I can see the validity of the disability metaphor and I find it worthwhile to think about and discuss.)

#cscb answers #follower asks #wings #magic #magical immunity #awtwbspoiler #awtwbspoilers #Simon snow #the simon snow triilogy #Simon snow series #thoughts and insight welcome!#these are just my messy rambles.#I don't know if this made any sense #sorry about that anon!#awtwb spoiler #wings meta #the wings meta revisited #cscb meta queue #my CSCB meta

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niteshade925 · 3 years

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Meta Theory: Man vs. Nature (Long Post)

(SPOILER WARNING for Historia Antiqua act 2: No Mere Stone; I was clearing my drafts box, saw this draft, and just went “why not” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This post is a month late coming on the tail end of v1.5, but it does contain lore speculation, so anyways, hope you all enjoy reading it.)

The biggest thing No Mere Stone contributed to the overall lore is the idea of "erosion" from time. TvTropes nailed this one on the head with the "who wants to live forever" trope entry for Zhongli. But old age wasn't the full reason for Morax/Zhongli retiring. The other part of it is because he's seen what erosion did to Azhdaha (made him forget his pledge to Morax to protect Liyue), so he wanted to prevent this in case it ever happens to himself. He wasn't just tired, he was also afraid of turning back on his word to protect Liyue due to erosion, because he still has a considerable amount of power, and if he ever went full-on berserk like Azhdaha did, it would spell disaster and maybe even doom for Liyue.

“Even I cannot avoid it. But there is something I understand better than most: When the door opens, it is time to leave.”

So what exactly is this "erosion"? Zhongli refers to it as a curse from Heavenly Principles/天理 (this was one of the many things lost in the English translation), which is interesting, since this points to the Heavenly Principles, Celestia, the Archons, and the various gods of Teyvat being simply forces of nature or natural phenomena. This is made even more clear with Azhdaha. The original Chinese had Zhongli using a phrase to describe Azhdaha: 地龙翻身，撼天动地, which roughly translates as "when the Earth Dragon turns, the heavens shake and the earth quakes". The first part of the phrase, "地龙翻身", came from traditional Chinese folk belief and astrology, and was used as a metaphoric term for earthquakes. Thus we can definitively conclude that Azhdaha is the literal representation of earthquakes. So what was Morax? From his elemental burst, I'm guessing that Morax could be a representation of meteors, which accounts for his combat style of dropping boulders from above. The same extends to Barbatos and Decarabian, and possibly each of the other five Archons. The elements themselves represent different forces of nature, and there’s even hints in game of the existence of many more elements than just the seven we know about:

Coming back to Heavenly Principles/天理. Based on all of the above, we can conclude that the Heavenly Principles is some sort of representation for the laws of nature, physical rules of the universe, kind of like fantasy equivalents of the 26 fundamental constants or laws of thermodynamics or conservation of mass and energy. Basically something that rules over all forces of nature and natural phenomena. This has interesting implications for the nature of the central conflict of humans vs. gods that I have posted about before, and partially turns it into the classic conflict of man vs. nature.

Going further along this theme, the whole story can be viewed as a sort of fictional retelling of the timeless struggle between humans and nature, which also very roughly paralleled real life human history. In the beginning, humans were totally at the mercy of the gods and the elements (nature), and because they did not understand how the elements (nature) worked, they worshipped beings of different elements (different aspects of nature) as different gods and sought to appease them. The gods (nature) helped humans by giving resources: in Mondstadt, people have windmills to utilize the wind, and in Liyue, people mine resources and trade with gold. However, the gods (nature) also kept them from knowing the true inner workings of the universe. Eventually, humans sought to understand the elements (nature) and harness it for the betterment of their own lives, and so alchemy (meant to parallel science irl) and technology came into being. The most technologically advanced human nation, Khaenri’ah, stopped worshipping on the gods, and instead relied on their own technology. This is basically what we know about Teyvat history up until Khaenri’ah’s destruction.

So what exactly happened to Khaenri’ah 500 years ago? In other words, why, according to Dainsleif, did the gods destroy Khaenri’ah?

Assuming the parallels to real life hold up, we might have a feasible answer to that question right now. In real life, human-made technology is so effective at harnessing and exploiting nature that it may have changed Earth forever. However, this has plenty of consequences, some of which I’m sure we all know about. From a purely mystical point of view, it’s as if nature is “aware” of what humans did, and is beginning to punish humans.

Perhaps the gods of Celestia, the Heavenly Principles themselves, destroyed Khaenri’ah because its technology posed too much of a danger for nature, or Teyvat itself.

This isn’t just baseless speculation either. In No Mere Stone, the part of Azhdaha that sought to peacefully coexist with humans told us that the reason Azhdaha lost it wasn’t just because of the “Heavenly Principle” of “erosion”, it was also because humans overmined the resources that sustained him. Treat nature badly, and nature will fight back.....this might be literally true in the world of Teyvat.

However, this isn’t the entire story of Genshin, of course, and there’s much more to the storyline than just “man vs. nature”, even if this theme does turn out to be real. The writers are pretty ambitious with this story.

#genshin impact #man vs nature #no mere stone #historia antiqua #zhongli #meta theory #genshin lore #speculation #thoughts

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mountain-man-cumeth · 3 years

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How would you rewrite Muriel’s route?

This is the 3rd question I got with similar vibes so imma begin by saying that I am not a writer. I am a reader, a decent one, but I’m not the idea guy. I will try, though, since it seems like people are interested for some reason.

First of all I'd make some baseline changes to set the backstory proper;

Muriel chose the mantle of Lucio's executioner willingly, him and Asra had no other means to survive so they willingly worked as indentured servants under Lucio. He reasoned with himself thinking these are bad people and that he has no other skills to offer. (There might be a threat on Lucio's part that they can be replaced, he doesn't have to had given a villain speech for the implication. He is a rich tyrant and they are street kids, it the service they provide isn't up to par Lucio can easily look for alternative options.) Let me be clear, Muriel was not a gladiator. Gladiators are compensated generously for the entertainment they provide and often due to the amount of investment made on them, fighting to death wasn't a common occurrence. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Muriel, or rather the Scourge was well known and probably liked by the crowd, there's literally no reason for Lucio to utilize him otherwise. He wants people to enjoy the show, if everybody hated Muriel what use is he to Lucio?

Kokhuri are alive. The tribe had to relocate but they left Khamgalai to tend to the graves. They are nomadic and matriarchal people who likely don't adhere to mother-father-child kind of European family structure. The children are raised communally.

Muriel's curse has nothing to do with myrrh, there's a rune that can counter it and only he knows how to make it, he figured it out by himself for Asra. Any magic that can nullify a spell by Major Arcana is no doubt strong as fuck.

I'd start similar to main 3, MC is tasked to find Lucio's murderer. They find Muriel's brush or loincloth or whatever early on which leads them to the forest but because of the protective spells and the curse they get lost. They ran into Muriel or Inanna and she leads them to Muriel hunched over the corpse. They try to help, like the canon, and have a brush with Lucio's goat ghost. They tell him they were looking for the Scourge and Muriel says there's no Scourge here.

The day after they forget about Muriel but remember the rest and relay that information to Asra, who gets agitated by Lucio's return. He thinks Lucio is here for MC's body but doesn't explain anything, instead begs them to leave town until he figures something out.

They go to see Muriel and he reluctantly agrees to accompany them to the outskirts of the forest, on Asra's request.

Some point on their road trip Asra water-calls them to inform them that Lucio is looking for hearts and the Magician (or whoever else Asra consulted) implied they might find answers South. MC still doesn't know anything except maybe some comments Muriel could have made that painted Lucio in a bad light but they decide to investigate regardless. Muriel opposes, eventually caves (either thanks to MC or Asra). He lets out that he's been tailing MC on Asra's behalf for years so it shouldn't be that much different.

They go from town to town, MC helps Muriel ease into dealing with people again and it's easier since nobody knows jack about Scourge. They learn that he enjoys card games and collecting trinkets from different cultures. He might even get a little too enthusiastic about plants and gives random advice to a gardener.

We might learn here that Muriel doesn't like feeling that he's on a display or that he's performing. He prefers to lay low and blend in, not necessarily completely shut off the world.

They run into Morga(maybe they encounter raiders or a barfight or something alike), who's also been tracking Lucio. She proposes to work together. She berates Muriel for being a coward and convinces him to fight as that's all he's good for. (I think it's better if MC trains on magic rather than archery, I'm seeing alot of disabled MCs.)

She tries to train them but Muriel doesn't respond well to fighting and eventually Morga leaves. Valdemar or Vulgora catches them, Lucio's still trying to get MC's body. They escape just barely, MC gets hurt, Muriel beats himself up over it, some angst some fluff, you know the drill. Maybe he has a panic attack because panic attacks are usually not as on the nose as "Oh No I Gotta Fight Someone With a Knife". Looking for a shelter and aid, they find a cottage which turns out to be Khamgalai's. She helps them out, teaches Muriel how to heal using the techniques of their clan, I assume MC helps since they know some restorative spells too. She tells Muriel his family sent him away when they got ambushed so he wouldn't have to live on the run as Morga's clan was on a war path to conquer South. We get sad, lots of tears. Kisses might ensue.

Somehow it's revealed that this is the answer they were looking for and not Lucio (because I think the whole "Lucio's clan" plot was redundant) and Morga was just using them as bait to get Lucio out of Vesuvia.

Morga catches on to them, we learn who she is, Muriel and MC confront her but Khamgalai says her warmongering already costed her everything. She says she's trying to make up for it by killing her son and she needs MC to lure him out, they agree to work together, begrudgingly. (MC's past can be revealed here since they need to learn what's the deal with Lucio's obsession of them at some point)

Around this point MC might realize the mark's fading, Muriel brushes it off.

Instead of Lucio, Devil comes and tells them about Lucio's plan to do the ritual again. They go back to Vesuvia to warn people

Masquerade happens, people remember Muriel, Nadia or MC or someone give people an ultimatum. But oh no it was a TRAP all along, Devil told them of the ritual to get them right where he wanted. Lucio gets in MC's body, Asra sends them to the Arcana realm, same story as main 3.

MC forgets Muriel on the Arcana realm but through the power of love and maybe some guidance from the Hermit they go "oh no i forgot my boy". They return to find him in the Coliseum. What?! He was the Scourge?! Who could've thought. (this reveal wouldn't affect MC's opinion at this point since they already know he's a cinnamon roll)

This time Lucio's blackmailing him with MC's body. He says he needs hearts to make himself a new one and if Muriel grabs some for him MC can get their body back.

Story diverges to Upright/Reversed

Upright, if MC encouraged him to take it easy, but take it: MC snatches the body of someone he's suppose to fight to change his mind, he decides not to do it and instead go with defeating Lucio on the Arcana realm plan(curtesy of their friends). So here we can have a romantic scene like in Nadia's route where his chains are broken in the Arena.

They fuck around in the Arcana realm facing their fears and stuff, they bond, defeat Lucio, petrify the Devil etc. I like to think Muriel finds the forest spirit here, too, and maybe manages to heal it or learns that it's damaged but with enough time and care it will regrow. (a metaphor? in my arcana game? its more likely than you think)

Morga is charged for war crimes by the Kokhuri, the Coliseum is demolished and the love birds travel around doing their thing.

Reversed, if MC encouraged him to be strong and uncaring: MC fails to convince him and he decides to go through with Lucio's plan. He kills Morga and some more important spirits and fucks up the world. Which turns out to be a bogus plan anyways, Lucio only needed the hearts to settle his deal and Muriel kills him, too (I am untethered, and my rage knows no bounds!)

Without a body MC is stuck in the other realm so Muriel and them retreat to the magic dimension, defeat the Devil and live the rest of their days.

There might also be a 50 first dates situation going on inwhich they get stuck in a loop where MC constantly meets and falls in love with Muriel only to forget him in a couple of (magic realm)days.

idk man this aint my job im just spitballing here, im writing this long ass thing so ill look like im working

#personal #muriel

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pepprs · 2 years

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may all cats of pepprsclan old enough to catch their own prey gather beneath the highrock! *my mutuals and followers slip out of their dens and sunshine patches to sit in front of the massive stone, curling their tails around their paws or licking their chest fur a couple times to smooth it. the crowd blinks up at me (tessstar) with eager eyes and twitching whiskers*

ok i am really tempted to keep up the bit but ive been trying to write this for like 5 minutes and the metaphors aren’t lining up LMAO so basically. since wednesday two critical developments have occurred and they have brought about major implications about the future (one directly and the other indirectly). and i…. i… am realizing that 80-ish hours ago i was immature and deluded. i thought that the life i want to live would fall into my paws, that i wouldn’t have to fight for it. but i have received a prophecy / omen (but really more of a forecast of neutral bearing.. like a forecast of facts, a wake up call) from starclan (which i don’t think is the right way to put it bc starclan doesn’t deal with coincidences or… “minutia” i don’t think or maybe im just not interpreting the books right). at first i did see it as an omen, and i still kind of do. but a conversation with my mom — who i am maybe sorta kinda realizing is not out to get me, it’s just we needed to learn to speak each others’ language and i think we’re doing that learning now #growth — illuminated the unweighted unclouded truth and perspective, revealed to me with great clarity the possibility seeds in this situation. which is — and i’ve been saying it, but never quite like this — i choose my life. and choice is a verb. (“choose” is also…. literally the verb form of choice but just roll with me here LMAO). i have to choose all the time, every day, with every second. it is not passive. the choices always change. and i am young and i have agency and i have so much life ahead of me. so it would be a disservice to myself, and to everyone i will and could ever meet, to not explore all of the blossoms. AND it would be a disservice to me and everyone i will and could ever meet to assume that everything will be taken care of and that i have earned everything snd i can just curl cozily and watch. no. (mixing metaphors here but) we are on some swan maiden type of shit. jaume doing the 3 trials to win doucette’s hand even though they know they love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together AND doucette going through the rassemblement to make the magic live inside her and prove to herself that she could do it AND doucette running away from jaume and living life on her own for a while and making messes and finding herself which she had to do in order to really learn and know that SHE was choosing her life with jaume. i am about to launch into battle and my paws are pinned and certain stars can’t speak to me. but it is a battle from which will emerge my life, or the next leap of it. and i have everything i need within myself. i will find my way. and even if it’s not jaume i end up with i will have love in some form and that is enough.

#purrs #the last ~2 months have been me realizing jusf how PROFOUNDLY fundamental warriors and the swan maiden have been for my emotional / mental #growth. and like neither of them are particularly good they have their flaws but.. man are they writing my way right now. so i am sinking #into my 10 year old self and she is telling me where to step by what she loved and that means something #idk if any of this will make sense like it’s all very cryptic. i can’t talk abt it clearly yet i don’t think and maybe i never will be able #to but here in pepprsclan we know how to interpret light and shadow. or something idk LMAO #i have cried SO SO SO much today and yesterday and im probably gonna cry even more! bc this shit is fucking hard. it’s fuckkng hard reaizing #everyone was right all along. i fought back against it so hard and bristled up but no. i need to interrogate this. because i might just be #sticking my head in the sand. and if when the dawn comes — and it will — the original thing is glowing like it used to.. then that’s where #i’ll go. but i need to see all the options. and (i am FUCKING TERRIFIED but) that means looking into them and opening myself up and giving #them my 100% and not resisting if something glows out at me stronger than this does. idk. fuck im scared. and i have to be alone in it in #some ways and it’s the deepest sharpest pain ive ever felt in my life and ive already squirmed too much abt it. but no. i have to grow up. i #have to learn to hold it. i will learn how to fight and i will learn how to speak and i will find something that fits my pawprints and maybe #it’s not this but if it isnt it’ll be okay in part bc i will not lose the most important things. i am terrified. im not believing the words #im writing rn. and im abt to cry again. but it’s going to be ok it’s going to be ok it’s going to be ok. my future self is holding me tight.

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