Tumgik
#but I can see it in theory
tadfools · 4 months
Text
You guys are commenting on the fics you read right? You’re at least leaving kudos on the Astarion smut and the pairs that have less than 20 fics for them too? You’re bookmarking stories you really like that are still being updated and ones that haven’t been touched in over a year right?
You know that even the smallest interactions are like cocaine to fic writers right? You understand how important a string of emoji hearts left behind on chapter at three am is right?? Right????
You’re treating AO3 like a community and not a content factory….right?
16K notes · View notes
possiblyawesometmblr · 11 months
Text
my brain just spat out what is simultaneously the best and worst potential end credit scene for fnaf
a bunch of cops are surveying the inside of the wreckage of freddy's. there's dead bodies. they're taking pictures. chatting amongst themselves. whatever. one guy in a detective style trenchcoat is standing off to the side. his back is to the camera. one of the cops breaks away and approaches the detective guy.
"so, what do you think happened here?"
"i'm not sure."
the entire audience freezes in horror as they realize. they know that voice. the camera pans around to face the guy, and slowly. matpat removes the sunglasses he's wearing indoors.
"but i have a theory."
smash cut to black. the theater collapses, killing me, in the audience, instantly--
21K notes · View notes
marenwithanm · 2 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
You know Zelda, most Links actually were children during their adventures. Breath of the Wild Link Georg who was over 100 years old was an outlier and should not have been counted
As you can see, I'm still not over the idea of a younger Link and older Zelda in alttp. She feels so bad about dragging a little kid into this whole mess 😭
1K notes · View notes
zecoritheweirdone · 10 days
Text
wanna preface this by saying that i am. So normal. anyway i just spent the last week redrawing scenes from mystery skulls animated but as that hermitcraft au i posted about a couple times. you guys should watch msa it is. so so good.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
983 notes · View notes
lonicera-caprifolium · 8 months
Text
Body-swap theory!!
okay, just putting this all together for ease of access, since it's been spread out across several posts now--
The day after it aired I watched the ending like actually 30 times and I became fully 99.999999% certain they switched places. I was initially thinking during the kiss, cuz of how the camera angle changes, but after watching an additional 20 times a few days later, I'm personally leaning much more towards them stopping time in the instance after "no nightingales".
Before the kiss, Aziraphale is saying "nice" things about the Metatron, but his face and voice keep switching to broadcasting distress, and they make it a point to show in ep 1 that Crowley can read him just from tone of voice
As they're pulling away after the kiss, they lock eyes and "Aziraphale's" expression shifts in the teeniest tiniest way, like a confirmation glance, before they shift back (and Michael Sheen is a master, so no chance it's not on purpose)
---(Like really, go back and watch how Aziraphale's expression shifts literally *a second* before "I forgive you" cuz the change is SO minute, but entirely different emotionally.)
Also the way he moves his jaw right after he pulls his hand away from his lips, is a bit from MS's Crowley (you can see it in the very last two seconds of this vid- link)
Aziraphale's hands -stay by his sides- after that, he doesn't clasp them at all, and it's particularly noticeable while he's walking to the elevator with Metatron. The way he walks is very stiff and precise, similar to after the swap in S1.
We don't see the underside of Crowley's jacket collar after the kiss, at any point (it is for sure red at the beginning of the ep, you can see it right before he changes in Heaven)
The Bentley drives away SLOWLY, which is how Aziraphale drives, and we're specifically shown that it only plays other music for Aziraphale
the seats in the Bentley are black as it drives away. They're usually brown, and the only other time they're shown to be black is when Aziraphale drives (@picturesque-about-it broke down the times so you can see-link)
Tumblr media
---extra pic for anyone saying it's "cuz Aziraphale is lighter"-- the seats are still brown behind Crowley when he wears white
Tumblr media
there's people wearing yellow in -every- part of the scene showing the Bentley both before and while it drives away! (link for pics/credit)
Tumblr media
Aziraphale's smile in the elevator looks more like MS's Crowley. It's very similar to the trial during S1, but also (link)
Tumblr media
This also explains why they're on opposite sides than they're usually shown while the end credits roll
Extra points--
many good points made by other folks here, about cues and snakes in beehives and swap motifs throughout the season-- link
The clock! Someone mentioned how the scene is so quiet you can hear it ticking, so I watched the ending a further 50 times to double check----I need to preface this by stating, I don't think this is a working clock, mainly cuz the hands aren't 100% where they should be between the minutes and the hours, like -a person- moved them to that time manually
When they're talking, the clock is at approximately 9:25 (?, again the hour hand isn't precisely set), then they walk across the room, and kiss, and immediately after that the clock is set about 15-ish minutes later (link to timestamps)
Tumblr media Tumblr media
thanks to these bts shots, we can see that the clock on the opposite side of the room registers the SAME time difference before and after the kiss (link)
Tumblr media Tumblr media
the first time Aziraphale looks "towards the window", I'm petty sure he actually looks further back towards the clock, *focuses on it* as Metatron walks up to him, and then spends the ENTIRE REST OF THE EXCHANGE blocking the Metatron's view of the clock
we're shown earlier in the season that Crowley can localize his time-stopping to a certain extent, like when he stopped the doctor and the rest of the room kept going, so it is possible he only stopped everything -outside- of the bookshop
---I KNOW Neil said it's a continuity error, but he also fully said "No" about there being a season 2 just days before they announced it was already written and in production, so. Take him at his word if that's what you wanna do.
---also I DID go back and look it over, and the clock IS consistently specifically set the entire rest of the episode as far as I can see. From the shots when you have a clear view of the clock, the angels and demons enter the shop at around 6, Maggie and Nina leave at around 7, the Metatron comes in at 8-ish, Aziraphale comes back in at that approximately 9:25
(insight from someone who works in production- link)
the music right before the kiss scene is the same leitmotif (Life After Death) used when they originally started formulating the swap in season 1! (link)
the movie Stairway to Heaven (1946) is featured as a poster in both the opening credits and in Maggie's shop (link)
the climax of the film has one of the leads willing to "take the place" of the other in heaven
(they also used a time-stopping mechanic, and the chess book Gabriel tests gravity with also plays a key role in the film)
Tumblr media
and one last mention, extra food for thought--- the season's focus on their trusting one another, their history of performing "death (and heaven/hell) defying" feats together, and how they always get the trick right when it truly counts the most
that's what I've got so far!
If I'm right, they're apart now, but are actually more together then ever, and I find that terribly exciting. (And if I'm wrong, that's okay too! I'm just here to have fun.)
I'm not particularly concerned with very specific reasoning (that's for season 3 to tell us!), but I do think this theory is extra fun cuz pretty much any of the others could be the "why" driving it.
I'm not trying to convince anyone, or put down any of the other theories, so if you're not feeling it, that's okay! I'm just sharing what clues I'm seeing, so you can check if you see them too. 💕
2K notes · View notes
fox-guardian · 2 months
Note
I’m sorry but . Your butch Celia is fucking everything to me I think . She’s so <3 the everything .
Tumblr media
[ID: Digital drawings of Celia Ripley from The Magnus Protocol on a gray background. She is a slim, muscular Korean woman with pale skin, short black hair, dark brown eyes, dimples, body hair, and eyebags. In all drawings, she is wearing black rectangular glasses, and snakebite piercings, industrials, and x-shaped stud earrings, all gold. The top two drawings are of her in casual wear, with a light green t-shirt with the short sleeves cuffed, purple cuffed jeans, light green socks, dark green Doc Marten boots with gold laces, and a green belt with gold hardware. The upper left drawing is of her from the shoulders up, holding a purple mug with both hands and taking a sip while looking up, and to the right is a full-body of her sitting holding the mug with one hand and leaning slightly on the other, smiling at the viewer. There is a note that says "casual mode" pointing to both of them. The last drawing on the bottom left is much smaller and is of her wearing a light green button down, dark green trousers, light green socks, dress shoes, a belt, wrist cuffs, and shoulder holsters, all purple, and a black necktie. She is kneeling and aiming a golden pistol with a serious expression, and she has a second gold pistol in her other holster. This drawing is labelled as "spy!Celia theory/au" and "(I'm gay let me have this)" end ID]
~~~~
never apologize she is everything to me also <3
661 notes · View notes
egophiliac · 8 months
Note
I love the idea of teenage Malleus hating his new baby brother Silver but slowly falling for him
words cannot express how much I adore that Mal's reaction to seeing a human baby for the first time was "the fuck is this. why does it look like that. gross." (then he immediately got stuck on babysitting duty and the rest is history)
I am SUCH a sucker for that trope of "non-humans being fascinated by normal human behavior", so between that and all the delicious angst going on I was eating VERY well. >:) Malleus being so impressed that two-year-old Silver can walk, because it took him twenty years to stand on two legs! Lilia barging in on the Zigvolts at 2 AM being like "he won't stop crying what do I do"! Lilia trying to feed Silver rats and Malleus being like "...please just stick with what the books say to feed it"! it is all so. chef's kiss.
Tumblr media
2K notes · View notes
local-diavolo-anon · 10 months
Text
i apologise if i'm posting this much about the DLC but i am very excited
so theory time! this time about Glamrock Bonnie!
someone found Glamrock Bonnie in bonnie bowl and someonw else got his pieces from the gamefiles and stuck the model back together (the images are not mine, i have no idea who even psoted them ebcause they've been reposted a crapload of times, but i know the originals came from twitter)
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
i feel a bit sad than logically he was there the whole time during the main game as well and we simply couldn't see him
but also: He has claw marks on his chest, which i think pretty much confirms that monty is the one that broke him apart.
however. that's not nearly enough damage to decommission a glamrock animatronic, as we have seen.
Tumblr media
hell monty looks like this in the dlc and he is still kicking (probably by the power of god tho) and i remember seeing THIS video some time ago, so let me bring you something a bit painful:
most people i've seen pinpoin monty's actions toward bonnie as envy and resentment, however in monty golfs whenever we see character cutouts or holograms Freddy is the one in the shadows, always. wouldn't have made it more sense for monty to try and attack someone he quite clearly disliked instead of bonnie? we know freddy and bonnie were close, so with some stretch you could even say monty was jealous of freddy's relationship with bonnie (but i'm not going to account that here) If the theory from that video is true and bonnie was the first and only trial test of the grlitchtrap virus on a full glamrock animatronic, what if monty noticed? what if monty saw that bonnie was acting weird, and when confronted him realized something was severely wong for a reason or another? and either to prevent the spread of the virus, OR simply out of self preservation he was forced to fight with bonnie? because if the mimic were to see someone noticed him, he'd likely try and make them disappear in one way or another so my theory-timeline is: Bonnie was infected, started acting weird, wandered around and ultimately ended in monty golf, monty saw him and went to him, then noticed something was wrong, bonnie attacked him to make sure nobody knew, and monty had to defend himself.
i'm fairly sure this is at least somewhat correct because Monty's claws can do some serious damage, and definitely more than what Bonnie's torso and head show. (edit: yes even without upgrade, Monty still has very big and sharp claws, realistically they could totally do that amount of damage, + in the original draft of the game, from Monty you were supposed to take his legs, and the claw upgrade was not a thing at all, yet it was always hinted he did caused bonnie's decommission)
all of this to say that bonnie more likely was decommissioned not because of the damage, but rather because because when technicians tried to fix him they noticed something had infected him, and to prevent any further spreading they were forced to deactivate him.
1K notes · View notes
albino-parakeet · 1 month
Text
Tumblr media
Did I nearly cry multiple times while drawing this because I was listening to Safe and Sound by Hannah Jern-Miller on repeat… yes.
Couldn’t think of a background so you get the silly page it was drawn on.
Flat colors and a Timelapse undercut:
Tumblr media
(Flash Warning‼️‼️ I am very indecisive when it comes to shading so a heads up)
379 notes · View notes
dotted-clouds · 18 days
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Replaced.
382 notes · View notes
Text
Tumblr media
I just know Raine’s palisman has such a nerdy, dumb name. If Raine is naming their first rebellion the BATs, and their second one the CATs, both of which are heavily themed, you bet your ass this silly little fox has the stupidest pun for a name.
I bet they named it Trot. Short for Foxtrot. I’m melting this into my canon and it can be pried out of my cold, dead hands.
2K notes · View notes
snekdood · 6 months
Text
so uh
Tumblr media
for 1. most people are gonna take advantage of black friday and wont see your specific niche tumblr post, I hate to say it
2. the us isnt running out of money for war any time soon, so...
3. this is just antisemitism???????? all we need is some (((echoes))) around the us and israel and then I'd have no reason to suspect otherwise from op...............
#why in tf do you think they care that much about getting your money rn and not before in any other war?#does it. mayhaps. have something to do w jewish people being involved now?#our tax dollars go to the govt regardless and has been for years and we already have an obscene amount of funding for military shit#preeetty sure they're not concerned about getting a couple hundred tumblr users money...#and also pretty sure one could only believe that if they're paranoid about jewish ppl.................#hard not to put two and two together and figure out op is prolly antisemitic and hopefully they just dont realize it#i say hopefully they dont realize it bc thats better than someone who knows and is pretending to be a leftist still.#if anything this pause happened bc its thanksgiving and biden doesnt wanna think about it over the holidays. thats p much it.#thats the only amount of conspiracy theory im willing to believe in this situation lmao.#but that ^ still assumes that biden has some sort of control over this that he really doesnt#and i dont think netanyahu cares that much about thanksgiving tbr...#it sounds more like to me that op is seeing this from a very american centric pov and assumes everyone celebrates thanksgiving#or cares enough about it to remember the dates.... i dont think this is as planned as op is making it out to be and any insinuation#that it IS planned sounds like conspiracy theory talk to me personally. i dont think biden is hittin netanyahu up and going#'hey thursday is thanksgiving and would be the perfect time to pause so we can (((get peoples money))) out of them#asiftheUSdoesnthaveplentyalready' like i just really dont think that convo is happening lmao.
578 notes · View notes
campbenji · 9 days
Text
if Chaos Theory doesn't have a scene where all the kids are in the van in silence and someone starts singing Dave's Demos what's the point
201 notes · View notes
idle-compy · 6 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
i am feeling so many emotions rn
407 notes · View notes
svsss-fanon-exposed · 4 months
Text
Examining SVSSS Canon: 1/∞
SHEN YUAN'S PIDW-READING TIMELINE
One question and argument that comes up frequently in SVSSS fandom is, how long did Shen Yuan read PIDW for? Was he following it from early serialization, or did he simply binge everything toward the end?
This question isn't exactly one that is easy to answer either-- considering that there are actually various direct quotes that could be read in contradiction to one another regarding it.
Based on the information in the novel, we are left with several potential theories as to Shen Yuan's reading timeline. In this post, I will be presenting these theories, along with supporting evidence from the novel.
Theory #1: Shen Yuan picked up PIDW and binge-read it from beginning to end for the first time in 20 days before dying
This theory is directly supported with a quote:
He’d spent twenty days binging the novel from start to finish, so he had clean forgotten that whump-filled arc of pointless abuse that covered Luo Binghe’s beginnings at the sect, okay?! (7 Seas, Ch. 1)
In the original text, this line is 他可是看了二十天才看完的. Broken down, this is literally "he indeed read it (他可是看了), it took him twenty days (二十天才)to read the whole [novel] (看完的)."
*note 可是 may also be equivalent to "however" or "but" in some circumstances, but is generally used to provide emphasis.
However, depending on where one puts the emphasis and pairs syllables in the last part, there could be different interpretations. If read as 看 完的 it implies "read the entire thing," but if read as 看完 的,it implies "finished reading." I read it the first way, but I don't know if that is the "most correct," so there is some ambiguity there.
It is also implied later that PIDW was already very long and full of plot holes when he began reading it:
So, if back when he’d just opened this baffling book, this Proud Immortal Demon Way, which was so full of landmines that it was practically high art, to the point that those landmines had become its very style... He would definitely have grabbed the brick that was the entire fifty-volume set and showed them what their brains looked like when splattered across the ground. (7 Seas, Ch. 21)
Though this could be related to the final length of the novel, and the "fifty-volume set" is likely exaggeration or metaphor. In one of his forum posts, he also says:
I understand what OP is feeling. I’ve been reading this novel lately, and it’s so damn long—long and pumped full of filler... ...All my fellow readers have already roasted the setting for the last three hundred thousand words, so I won’t say more on that. (7 Seas, Ch. 26)
This part where he says he has been reading the novel lately, implies that he began not too long ago, rather than following it for years. Of course, Airplane already at this point finds his username and comments familiar:
His eyes automatically highlighted that familiar ID “Peerless Cucumber.” (7 Seas, Ch. 26)
So it could also be said that he is downplaying his dedication with that statement. He does, however, state that the other readers have roasted the setting, but doesn't mention that he himself has done so. Additionally, the "three-hundred thousand words" mentioned may refer to the comment section, not the novel itself, so there is still some ambiguity to that point.
Theory #2: Shen Yuan has been reading PIDW long-term throughout serialization
There are multiple quotes directly supporting this theory:
He could guarantee it on all the youth and frustrations he’d wasted following this twenty-million-word-plus serialization for years. (7 Seas, Ch. 6)
and
Everything that had happened before was as unto smoke. From today forth, as he walked the jianghu, he would use this ID, which had been plastered all over the comments section for years. (7 Seas, Ch. 9)
The second quote may refer to comments sections on Zhongdian literature in general, but the first one is more directly referring to PIDW. There is a slim but unlikely possibility that he referrs to the years he has spent within the PIDW universe, rather than just reading the novel. That possibility is made even less likely by the following quote:
Next, let a veteran reader of this novel, Shen Yuan, omit the countless fanservice-y details and concisely summarize the million-word epic for everyone… (7 Seas, Ch. 1)
Where it refers to him as a veteran reader of PIDW specifically (and this TL is consistent with the original implications). It's unlikely for him to be referred to as a veteran reader if he had only been reading the novel for twenty days.
As one can see, if you go by either of the above theories, there are direct conflicts and contradictions, and arguments to be made either way. This could be written off as inconsistency. However, there are two additional options and theories which can resolve those conflicts.
Theory #3: Shen Yuan had been a casual reader of PIDW for years, but rushed to finish reading it through to the end in 20 days
One possibility is that Shen Yuan had been reading PIDW casually over several years, but wasn't caught up by the time his death drew near. Shen Yuan's cause of death is a matter for another post, so I won't discuss it here, but the following quote lends some support to this reading:
“Dumbfuck author, dumbfuck novel!” With his dying breath, Shen Yuan spat this final curse. Who could have imagined that an upstanding young man like him—who had properly purchased the website’s VIP currency and read the novel’s official version—would find himself persevering before his untimely death to finish a novel so stallion, so money-grubbing and overly padded, that it left him speechless with rage? How could he not curse? (7 Seas, Ch. 1)
Here, it seems that Shen Yuan may have been aware of his upcoming death, and so he may have wanted to hurry and finish reading the novel before he died. In the original text, the phrase is: 临终之前坚持看完的, which can be broken down as "before his untimely/sudden death (临终之前), he persisted to finish reading [the novel] (坚持看完的), though this may also be read as "he persisted in reading the entire novel," depending on how one puts emphasis in the sentence (same issue as the first quote in theory 1). 临终 means literally "near the end," but is a term for death or one's deathbed. Another way to translate 临终之前 would be "before meeting his end."
So, because he was persisting/persevering in finishing the novel (either the whole thing or just to the end), it may be that he expected his incoming death, or that he simply wished to persist in reading the novel to its end and his death still occured unexpectedly.
坚持 implies some level of urgency or steadfastness, but it may not refer to reading the novel quickly, but simply dedication to slogging through all of the bad porn and reading it to the end, rendering this theory a bit shaky.
Theory #4: Shen Yuan had been reading PIDW since early serialization, but re-read the entire thing in the 20 days before his death
This theory would resolve all potential conflicts-- making it true that he both followed PIDW's serialization for years and read the whole novel in 20 days. As to why he re-read the full novel, perhaps it was because the final chapter had been posted or was coming up, and he wished to reread from the start in preparation for that-- this could also drive him into an even greater rage about the contents of the novel and how repetitive and filler-heavy it is, as this would become more and more obvious on a binge-reread from start to end.
One weakness in this theory, though (pointed out by @verycharismaticdragon) is that if he read it twice, it would be less likely for him to completely forget details as mentioned in the first quote. Not entirely impossible-- one can still forget details even after multiple read-throughs, but just less likely to completely forget.
Theory #5: When Shen Yuan began reading PIDW, he binged all available chapters in twenty days, before following it consistently afterwards.
(theory courtesy of @verycharismaticdragon)
While this would not be particularly likely if the quote from theory 1 and the quote from theory 3 were linked together, those two quotes don't necessarily have to be linked-- it's possible that Shen Yuan would have binged the entire novel as it was at the time he found it in twenty days, then decided to continue reading as it updated, persisting and persevering because he wanted to reach the end despite the novel's trashiness, and then ended up dying.
Particularly, this makes a lot of sense in the context of the following quote:
Even though this famous Lord Cucumber spewed criticism constantly and without end in “Great Master” Airplane’s comments sections, his subscription payments and demands for updates never waned. (7 Seas, Ch. 26)
If Shen Yuan hadn't been caught up with the novel (as theory 3 would state) then it wouldn't make quite so much sense for him to be demanding updates, and if he hadn't been reading it for even a full month, there was no reason for him to make consistent subscription payments.
*******
Ultimately, which theory you choose to believe depends somewhat on the way you view canon-- whether the seemingly contradicting statements were intentional, or whether they were merely a consistency error.
These are the only theories that I can think of, but feel free to add any additional theories + support quotes and analysis if you have them!
One final note, in regards to WHEN DID SHEN YUAN START READING?
If it's true that Shen Yuan began reading PIDW earlier in serialization, how early was that point? Was he reading it from the beginning, or did he start later?
I personally believe it was later. Though he says he was following the novel for years, that could mean anywhere from two to four years since the total serialization of PIDW took place over four years:
How could someone who’d cursed “dumbfuck author, dumbfuck novel” remember ancient content from the beginning of a serialized novel that had been running for four years and covered an in-narrative span of two hundred years? (7 Seas, Ch. 1)
While it's hard to place exactly when he started reading, it seems that Shen Yuan began to read PIDW before the Immortal Alliance Conference arc, as he discusses the novel's online performance before that point:
Before this event, Proud Immortal Demon Way’s performance online had been steadfastly lukewarm. But once the Immortal Alliance Conference Arc debuted, the reviews, comments, subscriptions, and tips all soared into the heavens. It wasn’t only because from that point forward, “Great Master” Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky abandoned the last of his already minimal moral principles... there was another important “it” factor. It was, in fact, the main element that had first compelled Shen Qingqiu to follow the novel until the end. The demonic beasts! (7 Seas, Ch. 4)
It also seems that he wasn't entirely dedicated to reading the novel before then. However, he may have caught up with the serialization a bit later-- for example, if he started reading just before the conference, he would have known that it was a little-known novel before, and been able to watch the rise in popularity in real time even if he himself hadn't caught up to the conference just yet, before only deciding to dedicate to reading the full novel once he caught up to that part.
There are many possibilities and uncertainties in regards to Shen Yuan's reading timeline, but I do think there is enough information here to form decently solid theories-- so I will leave it to my readers to decide, now that the information has been presented, which ones they think are most likely and which they wish to use in their analysis.
291 notes · View notes
feroluce · 2 months
Text
I've only recently started having my own thoughts about Emanator!Sampo and I think my favorite version of this is that he is technically an Emanator, it's just that he doesn't talk about it because Aha is a dick who only blesses people that don't want it and Sampo hates it here dkjxkdkdck
Aha blessed the Mourning Actors! A whole faction of people who have specifically made it their life's mission to resist Elation! They made a literal worm their Emanator just to see if it would be accepted into the Genius Society! And when it wasn't, Aha just as easily killed it and tossed it aside! So I feel like there is a good possibility that Aha looked down at Sampo, this little oddball who doesn't seem to even like Epsilon or a lot of the Masked Fools and was like.
Hey.
You know what would be really really funny.
And I feel like being an Emanator wouldn't even be a plus for Sampo, because of how he operates. Sampo excels at blending in; he managed to smuggle himself onto a planet
that had been isolated for 700 years,
with only one (1) single city on it,
and going even further, he snuck himself into the Underground,
where the population is even more sparse,
and STILL. Not a single accusation of him being an alien! Not even after the Astral Express lands and proves that interstellar space travel is possible! Sampo is so thoroughly ingrained into Belobog that yeah, some people admit they don't know his origins, but none of it ever comes with the question of whether he actually is a Belobog native or not. Sampo knows exactly how to blend himself into his surroundings in the most subtle way possible. And being an Emanator, something far more powerful than any normal human or Pathstrider could ever hope to be, would only throw in a massive extra variable for him. Sampo would have to be so so careful to keep a lid on his Emanator traits, to keep up the appearance of being totally normal and average at all times. It doesn't help him at all.
And this part is pure indulgence, but I love taking Aha's closeness with mortals, and THEIR tendency to take human form, and twisting it into a case of THEM using Sampo as a vessel.
I want Aha to look at Sampo the same way all of us look at Sampo. A chew toy. A plaything. Something to shove through the meat grinder. Aha thinks Sampo is hilarious and a funny, silly little guy, and THEY want to put him in Situations just to see what he does. Sampo is not a fan.
This though, this is what makes Sampo so wildly entertaining as a vessel. Because Aha knows that Sampo does not want to be a vessel, does not even want to be an Emanator, and THEY find it SO much fun to watch the mental gymnastics he has to pull to convince himself he's ok with it, this is fine actually, because he's not exactly about to tell off a literal god. He doesn't feel like getting a smiting today, please and thank you.
Because squeezing yourself into a human vessel is so different than merely adopting a human disguise, there's already a human soul in there, it's kind of a tight fit. If Sampo doesn't make room, doesn't all but dissociate right out of his own body, it could cause. Consequences.
And so, Aha always gives a warning, just to watch him squirm.
It begins with the sound of bells.
Just little ones, at first. Small, clinking little sounds that could even be considered nice. Something almost gentle, like a wind chime in a pleasant breeze on a warm day. This is the signal for the countdown.
Sampo breathes in, breathes out. Makes himself as small as possible within his own body.
The bells rise and multiply, tinkling wind chimes give way to sleigh bells, to shopkeepers bells, the sound of something inevitable approaching, something entering.
Sampo breathes in, breathes out. Dilutes himself, weaker and weaker concentrations.
The bells rise and rise, multiply and multiply, celebration and tragedy resonating in the sound of church bells, ringing bright and loud, the sounds of weddings and funerals both the same.
Sampo breathes in, breathes out. Becomes like smoke, like vapor. Hollows himself out.
Empty, empty, empty until he echoes, like a bell, like something with the sole purpose of being shaken and rattled around, a thing to be struck, the sounds jarring and punched out and gasping and piercing the air, the lung, the eardrum.
Sampo breathes in.
Beaten he rings, bashed in he sings.
Aha breathes out.
191 notes · View notes