#behold... Red Lancer

[ryuki-draws]

Boy's finally got an upgrade. First power-up form, let's go!

[onehobgoblin]

I'm thinking about GMing lancer after my friend finishes his adventure. He likes lancer a lot, but is the only GM of this system in the group, so I thought about giving it a try to make him happy (he really wants to play).

Since I pretty much only GM medieval high fantasy bullshit, and nobody really expects anything big from me since I'm very new to the game, I thought about making the story around a joke.

The frames from Horus all have names like "minotaur, goblin, manticore, lich..." so I thought about a Horus invasion game where they would need to deal with an invasion of goblins, destroy a giant spaceship called "Great Red Dragon" (GRD), and finish the game fighting a lich (mecha) in his fortress and his army of "ghouls" (homebrew horus mini mechas - size 0.5 - that can take parts of other mechas to repair quickly in battle by "consuming their flesh").

Defending the fortress there will be a giant walking laser cannon - named Tarrasque Cannon - which they will need to disable before landing their spaceship.

The real villain will be a rogue nhp called "The Beholder" who is mass producing horus mechas to take over nearby planets and create a giant body to try to ascend as a new machine god.

[professionalscrublord]

Gray Death Legion + 8th Crucis Lancers

The Chad Mercenary Company vs the Virgin House Military. Idk if they ever fought each other, but they were the 2 schemes I wanted to paint.

Caesar, Quickdraw, Starslayer, and Chameleon.

Behold: Lil' bitty skulls! Done with nail art brushes gifted to me, great for tiny details. Satin spray-varnish on the body. I'm pretty sure it's gloss varnish in there and the spray of droplets dotting the surface is what lends it the satin look.

Now behold: Numbers and House Davion crest! And rust. Got 2 rust technical paints recently, fun to use. Comes out a lil gritty to simulate pitting. Fresh Rust first, then Dark Rust more sparingly within the Fresh Rust areas. Matte spray-varnish on body, anti-shine on rust.

Medium lasers were done with Poisonous Cloud green acrylic with Orc Skin green speedpaint overtop. Small lasers were white underneath, then Fire Giant red speedpaint ontop. Large were blue+white underneath with Magic Blue speedpaint. Both got a tiny white dot for a specular highlight, then a heavy dot of gloss varnish for the lens glass. I really like the vibrant colors of these inky speedpaints.

Cockpits were Gold+Mars Red, steadily mixing more gold towards the top-left of each window, then a dot of white. Dark Tone wash around the edge.

Edge highlights done with Blinding Light speedpaint. Honestly the color comes out the same flat gray as the raw plastic which feels dumb to paint on... Looks good on the Crucis Lancers for areas where green paint chipped away to primer but hasn't rusted yet though.

[theplanetprince]

Schrodinger's Adolescent || Ch. 17

Fic: A03 || FFN

Fandom: Danny Phantom

Rating: Teens and Up

Word Count as of update: 117.5k~

Relationships: Dash Baxter/Danny Fenton, Sam Manson/Tucker Foley, Ember Mcclain/Ghostwriter

Characters: Danny Fenton, Dash Baxter, Sam Manson, Tucked Foley, Cujo, Johnny 13, Ghostwriter, Sidney Poindexter, Mr Lancer  

Additional Tags: Slow Burn, Slow to Update, Canon Rewrite, Post-Reality Trip, High School Setting, Fake Dating (Kinda), Unrequited Love, It’s requited but they’re dumbasses, one-sided attraction, fluff, I know the content warning is extensive, but I promise there’s fluff, tooth-rotting fluff, Danny Fenton has PTSD  

Content Warnings: VIOLENCE, DESCRIPTIONS OF CHOKING, STALKING, MENTIONS OF SUBSTANCE ABUSE, SELF HARM IDEATION

Chapter Summary: Ghostwriter has trouble proving his worth beyond finding new and inventive ways to complain about the situation. Oh, well, at least he has that in common with Danny, who appears to be acting more shifty than usual.

Author’s notes: Behold! A fight scene! I'm awfully sorry these chapters took so long to produce but I made up for that by giving you two stuffed into one! Please give me feedback, I'm gonna die without validation. -Voorhees 🥊

[Reblogs > Likes… Thx]

The scarlet dawn had barely broken past the thin clouds. The moon was still lingering in the sky—a claw of white against the blackness. The sounds of helicopters were distant but still… there. No birds were chirping. Only the blades of choppers disturb the air at a low altitude. They were under a vigilant microscope if the repetitive Amity Park radio cycle was to be believed. Martial law had been enacted until someone produced the Ghost Boy. Danny Fenton.

How could anyone sleep with their secret identity having been broadcasted live over national television, you may ask? The truth is you don't. You don't choose to rest. Your body refuses to acknowledge the cruel reality it occupies, and exhaustion weighs you down until you can't move. 

Danny slept in what he could only assume was the master bedroom of Dash's vacation condo. He was sandwiched between his best friends. He slept on top of the thin sheets. The weight of Tucker and Sam kept him there… it kept him alive. Sam's bristly split ends dug into his neck. She kept her arms crossed, but her head tucked down, down towards Fenton's chest. Meanwhile, Tucker's arm and leg flung across Danny’s body while his head lulled towards the nightstand where his glasses rested. Call it closeness or what, but it was comforting. They hadn't done this since what? Ever? 

It wasn’t the entanglement of limbs that caused Danny to stir this early in the morning. If he had it his way, he would sleep like this and never wake up. This heaviness that clouded his senses was warm, and blurry, and so, so safe. No, faintly, he could hear the stereo in the kitchen. 

Leave it to the Baxters to have one of the state-of-the-art speaker systems available on the content, but the kids were too tired to be in awe of such frivolities. It played a smooth mo-town number with such clarity; it was like having a live band playing in the next room over. The horn in the song blared—

“I said, Shotgun!

Shoot 'em 'fore they run now…

Do the jerk, baby,

Do the dirty now— 

Hey!

Put on your red dress,

And then you go downtown now.

I said, Buy yourself a shotgun now.

We're going to break it down, baby, now.

We're going to load it up baby now.

Oh, can you shoot 'em 'fore they run now?” 

He sat up. His head throbbing, and ears still ringing with the terror from yesterday. And those goddamn chopper blades. At first, Danny was convinced the song was just in his head, like how most things were. He thought if he kept his eyes closed, everything would just go back to normal. Whatever normal was for a Fenton. 

Though, there was no such luck.

Danny phased himself out of Tucker’s loose grasp, shimmying to the foot of the mattress. His feet found the floor shakily. Dash’s hoodie sat way, way too big on his thin body and ended by his knees. Pain shot through his legs from the epicenter of his heels. Agony mapped across his nerves from the waist down. It seemed his body was still holding a grudge. Waddling to the door frame, Danny lurched forward and grasped it for support, dragging the rest of his body along. It was always the aftermath that hurt infinitely worse. Holding back a whine, he took a sharp inhale and elected to keep muscling through it.  

The sound of his soles it the cool wood floor in an uneven gait. Was he limping? Could this be qualified as a limp? Perhaps. But he wasn’t a doctor. 

When balancing his weight from leg to leg felt like a herculean task— Danny’s shoulders parried between the narrow corridor walls. His arm landed on the table that held a clutter of papers and tchotchkes to gather dust. Danny just wanted to decay in peace like everything else in this tomb. The Baxters seemed to have the approach to excess the same way the Egyptians did. They wanted to be buried with their belongings. In some sense, the Baxters had to believe they could take it with them. After all, if they couldn’t, then what was all this for? 

Hobbling to the corner, Danny was hesitant to just enter the foyer. Wrapping his torso around the entrance, he leaned. Eyes still hazy with sleep, he squinted past the burning in his retinas from the sunlight that fluttered through the sheer white linen curtains. Had they left the terrace door open? Unlikely. 

His gaze followed naturally to the island with provided a small window to the kitchen. The song was still thundering with the brassiness of a big band. 

Thick rubber work boots stamped along the tile. Crossing the kitchen from the cabinet to the island to the fridge. 

Almost like they were dancing. 

The shape passed in front of the opening again, and Danny did his best to focus on the details this time. From the shoulders down and backlit by the emerging sunrise— 

Red. 

Red. 

Red. 

“Shotgun!”

“Shoot 'em 'fore he run now!

Do the jerk, baby,

Do the jerk now, hey!

Put on your high-heeled shoes,

I said we're goin' down here, and I listen to 'em play the blues…” 

Oh, no. 

Danny quickly darted behind the wall again. 

It was Valerie Grey. Of course. Of course, it was Valerie Grey. 

How the hell did she find them? Did one of the A-listers squeal? Did Dash tell her? 

The air swelled with the bitter smell of brewed coffee.

The ‘How’ didn’t seem to matter. What remained was a threat that he was in no physical condition to handle. 

Palms slick with a tidal wave of sweat, Danny scrambled back. 

CREAAAAK. 

His hastiness would be his downfall one of these days. 

The music faded out. A raspy and familiar voice floated on the waft of coffee and morning, “Hey.” 

In an almost automatic response, the freshman stuttered out, “H-hey…” 

A chair was pushed out, the legs scraping against the floor. Then a second. 

Val sighed and brought down a mug, “Do you want some?” 

“Sure,” Danny replied, tension still poisoning his every muscle. He was arched and stiff, ready for whatever may come next. 

Another ceramic cup clattered against the cupboard shelving as the ghost hunter set it on the splotchy black and neutral tone counter. The machine beeped quietly, and she prepared her mug first. Not much cream, not much sugar. 

“So…”  Fenton began, “How is this gonna work?” 

“I’m still figurin’ that out,” She said in a taciturn fashion. From here, it sounded like she had the hint of a smile. Val was always an enigma. 

Her boots beat against the tile again. A drop of sweat bulleted from Danny’s forehead and traced down the contours of his skull. 

Val’s aim wasn’t to spook her prey. No, that would be a rookie’s mistake. She was just simply preparing the table. 

“Even death row inmates are entitled to visitors, ” Grey quipped. 

He didn’t laugh. 

Approaching the table, he remained cautious as light on his feet as he could manage in his haggard state. 

Through her visor, Val followed his movements. She watched him slink in and take the chair across from her. Steam rose off the mugs and twirled around their breath.  As soon as it appeared Danny got comfortable in the elegantly carved wooden seat, she slid the cup over. He caught it. 

Val’s aura felt like a piping hot black coffee, trapped behind the rapidly warming ceramic skin. That mug would hurt your hands with its temper. You weren’t surprised by the sting in your palms, but you held on regardless. You were careful not to tip it over. 

He took a sip. It was bold and startling. Equal parts are refreshing. He took another, tightening his brow. It didn’t occur to him how dry his throat really was. 

The coffee was still scalding hot— but it didn’t seem to bother the dead teen much. 

Val eyed him. The expression under her hood must’ve contorted into intrigue or scrutiny for his very existence. Her lips peeled apart with a noticeable sound as she found her words. Looking at Danny, the first thing she could say was, “... In hindsight, this should have been obvious.” 

“You’d think.” Fenton gave her a defeated glance, the deep bags around his eyes were nearly purple. There was no victory to be found here. 

Crossing her legs at the thigh, she bounced her foot as if mulling over something, “You’ve caused quite the fuss.” Her tongue clicked, “Y’know that, right?” 

That much had been made clear. His silence was deafening. Danny stared at his reflection against her visor. He didn’t recognize himself. 

This would be no fun for either of them if he didn’t play along. 

“So…” Grey traced her finger around the lip of her mug, “You’re probably wondering how I found you?” 

“...No.” The ghost boy answered defiantly, “It seems that the powers that be would rather throw me every curveball possible than provide answers. I don’t think it matters if I know or not how you managed to track me down.” 

“I guess.” She replied sullenly. Val shifted her focus to a bowl she brought down. She set down a cardboard box in front of him, “You hungry?” 

“Starving.” The word came out quiet and cutting. 

Starving. It seemed since his half-life began, he was always hungry. He had become this cavernous pit that couldn’t be sated. It seemed he wasn’t hungry for food. 

They shared dry cereal in two bowls with their coffee. Valerie took down her hood to reveal a mess of coiled hair that was expertly maintained and held back by the world’s strongest elastic ties. Fatigue wore her face differently, she was intense and focused. Her spoon skirted the surface of her bowl with clicking metallic beats. 

They said nothing for a long time. 

Those helicopters were relentless and taunting. They could go anywhere in the world, but instead, they were here of all places. Amity Park is a place with no exits. People who were born here often never leave. People who end up here by happenstance don’t seem to make it that far either.

Both Val and Danny were doomed. 

“So, are you gonna slap the cuffs on me or what? Or does it bring you joy to draw this out, Val?” Danny calmly brought a spoonful of dry oats to his mouth. 

She repeated, “I’m still tryin’ to figure that out.” With one hand, she laid out her first option, “Vlad Masters is willing to pay a lot of money for you, the stipulation being— You: alive.” with her opposite hand, she unfolded her second choice, “The Guys in White were less… magnanimous.” 

Val’s eyes fell to her shoes. 

“You’re debating on killing me?” 

“That’s the thing,” Val chuckled awkwardly, “I don’t know if you’re alive or dead.”  She shrugged, “I don’t know if I could kill you.” 

Danny caught a small laugh at that, “Yeah, I guess I’ve never thought about it that way. It’s tough to give the ultimatum when neither one really fits.” 

He shoveled another spoonful of cereal into his mouth, “But you’re not a killer, Val.” 

She made a face at this, cocking her head to the side, “You’re confident about that?” 

“Val… I know you’ve had a gun on me this whole time. I’m not stupid.” Danny was exasperated and pushed his food around, “You could’ve taken a shot any time you’d like. You haven’t because you’re still trying to find an excuse to let me go.” Once more emphatically, the ghost boy stated, “You’re not a killer.” 

The sour expression on her features only deepened. 

Fenton held up his hands in surrender, the sleeves of his hoodie falling to his elbows unceremoniously, “Now’s your chance to prove me wrong. I’m too tired to fight you, Val. It's only gonna be a matter of time before someone else turns me in for the reward— so, why not now ?” 

Rooting through the front pocket of the sweatshirt, he slapped down a strip of photos taken from the instant printing machine at the mall. Danny took his chewed rat claw of a nail and pointed to the subjects in the frame, “This girl is not a killer!” 

Silence fell around them again. 

Danny bounced back into his chair. 

The bounty hunter picked up the photographs. Her gloved thumb caressed each of the subjects in the strip. Val could be stoic, but she had become entirely unreadable. She was flooded with emotions, too many to be precise. Gaze shifting to each of her friends that she had abandoned so long ago, she softened. Danny was right. This girl wasn’t a killer. 

This girl’s biggest worry was college. Her issues were parallel parking and student council drama. This girl didn’t have two jobs to balance with her extracurriculars. This girl hadn’t heard breath of the name "Vlad Masters." This girl had a house and a yard she hoped to inherit. She had a future. 

Against her will, the film in her fist crumpled. She had smashed it into a ball of nothingness. Twisted with her rage. 

Yeah, Danny was right. This girl wasn’t a killer. She’d never dream of hurting anyone. She recoiled at loud noises. She was a vegetarian in middle school. She planted trees on the weekend with her volunteer group. Val ran a hand through her hair along her curls. Her eyes were swimming with unwelcome tears— 

Danny Fenton made the killer.

She pitched the ball of film against the wall and stood up with a slam. Val had hoisted up the table, promptly sending it to the ground and out of her way. 

Before Danny had a fraction of a second to respond, her hands had already wrapped their way around his windpipe. And she squeezed… 

Thinking back on it now, it was impressive that she got him out of the chair and pinned him against the wall with such ease. The back of his head made such a loud crack against the drywall he couldn’t tell if it was the bone or not. But suppose that didn’t matter. 

“Don’t make this decision too easy for me, phantom,” Val hissed. 

“In a way, it’s kind of full circle, huh? You ruin my life; I end yours—” Her grip tightened. 

It wasn’t the lack of oxygen that would do him in, Danny was sure of it— but he’d rather not have a ruptured neck. He really liked talking. Fenton writhed against her grasp, choking for his voice, ”R-Ruin? How—?” 

Howling wildly with laughter, Grey’s tears caught her mascara and left thick tracks down her cheeks, “You and goddamn family are nothing but a plague. You’ve done nothing except break everything you touch! Everyone who comes within reach is infected!” 

What was she talking about?

“Me, Sam, Tucker, Dash, the Westons, Vlad— Everybody in Amity Park!” 

A blackness crawled along his sight, distorting her grinning face— 

“You ruin everything, yet you’re the only left standing? And for what? What does that earn you?” 

Danny tapped her wrists with his sleeve-covered hands. Trying to wiggle what little distance he could. She was smart to attack him with her suit on— couldn’t phase through it. 

“Here you are, not a hair out of place.” Val demanded, not from Danny but from whatever higher power was willing to give her an answer, “What’s so special about you?!” 

She repeated, hushed��� “What’s so special about you, huh?” 

Truthfully, he wished he could tell her why. Danny wanted to tell her everything she wanted to hear, so she could stop looking at him like that. It pained him to look at her like this. This isn’t how he wanted to end things. Danny wanted to say whatever he could to ease her mind. He wasn’t anything special— stubborn, maybe. 

His eyes were—his eyes were bulging out his sockets. He could feel it. Danny croaked out, “V…al… plea…se.” 

The hunter’s eyes remained fixed on the ghost boy’s neck. Her goals were unclear, but whatever she was doing was effective in shutting him up. What was her plan? Squeeze until she severed his spinal cord, effectively draining all life from him? Cut his jugular open to see what was inside? What was for damn sure is that she had enough of being haunted! 

Glancing up, Val saw blue eyes and a black hoodie. In an instant, she was transported to last Christmas. She spent her winter break with her friends because her dad was away on business. It was the same story every holiday season. Loneliness filled her heart.  Dash was in a similar boat. The quarterback was wearing this exact hoodie. She recognized the bleach stains around the collar from where she dotted it with the brush because Baxter made her laugh too hard. Val was his go-to for bleaching his hair; his hands shook too much. Paulina would come over with leftovers from whatever grandiose meal her family made… saying they wouldn’t even notice she was gone. The memories were hazy, nearly colorless, and desaturated. They were on a muted loop in her brain, but she could taste the peppermint and hot chocolate that burnt her tongue. The hoodie still reeked of bonfire smoke. 

Some things couldn’t be washed out. 

Releasing, Danny dropped to the floor like a stone. His boney knees hit the hard floor. 

Val clasped her hands together as if trying to talk herself out of repeating the mistake. She held her fists to her forehead, sticky with perspiration. Chest heaving, her body, racked with shudders. It was like the air itself had become too thin, like she was isolated on a mountain of her own making, screaming for help that would never arrive. 

Why’d you stop? Fenton nearly blurted out— but no legible noise would come out. 

“You have to live… ” Val exhaled and strolled to the balcony door. Narrowly throwing the glass panel off its metal track, “You have to live with what you did to me. To us.” 

Her arms fell to her sides, and her hands squeezed together again, aching for the hold on his neck. The bounty hunter placed her palms flat on the glass, “You know what you did. And You want punishment. I’m not under anyone’s orders.” 

Replacing her crimson hood, she gathered her hoverboard, “I’m not going to give you the satisfaction.” 

Danny was sure his ears were in the next room over. The ringing returned, and the thundering of his undead heart swirled with his adrenaline. The only thing he could see was spots and color. No details. The ghost boy folded in on himself and remained on the floor long after Valerie left. 

Fenton didn’t know it, but somehow, Dash Baxter had saved him twice. 

“Shit. Shit. Shit .” The wind whipped his ivory-white hair out of his face at Mach-speed. 

What the hell was wrong with him? 

Why did he do that?! 

Why did he say all those things?! 

The Phantom kept chanting his mantra. Tree branches meant nothing as he bulleted by as an invisible entity— the only visible evidence that something was indeed traveling around the forest canopy was the snapping of twigs and the intense gust. Without a shred of doubt, he knew that was his fastest getaway yet. 

Oh, he just wanted to go home and lock himself in his room— that was beyond embarrassing! How could he lose control like that?! He wanted to crawl into a shallow hole and just die. 

Ghostwriter was right where Danny left him. The hiking trail behind the pond in the central valley. The Phantom came in for a rough landing. Narrowly taking out the spindly author in the process. 

Ghostwriter glared down at his junior, “What’s— what’s happening with your face?”

Hunched over his knees, Danny held out his hand, “Give me my earpiece.” 

“It would kill you to say—” 

“STEPHEN!” 

Without any more commentary, Ghostwriter tossed the device by flicking it from his thumb. 

The Phantom snatched it out of the air and ordered, "We have to get out of here."

Jazz spoke up through the crackling noise on the other end of the line, "Well, it sounds like someone had an eventful pee."  

"Huh?" Danny exclaimed sharply.

"I just got done telling you're approaching Dash's neighborhood, and then you suddenly yelled 'I have to take a leak!' in a way that wasn't too loud and too much information—" 

The ghost boy shook his head, "Right, sorry. I'm back now. Uh, continue your thought, Jazz." 

"Right." The elder Fenton tutted, "I've managed to use a sample of Johnny's hair to break down his ecto signature. I've managed to track down his frequency to the park."  

"Should I be concerned about why you have a sample of Johnathan's hair?" It suddenly occurred to Ghostwriter that he was in the presence of ghost hunters—highly incompetent ghost hunters, but still.

"Uh, long story short," Jazz hit a few keys on her keyboard, "We, kind of, sort of, dated." 

The author squinted at this, "Yikes." 

"Yeah, anyway, it turns out he was trying to use my body as a vessel for his real girlfriend."  

"Mega Yikes," Danny restated.

Jazz informed while double-clicking a spot on the map to zoom into, "I broke up with him, in case you were wondering."  

Ghostwriter wasn't. But if the game was hating Johnny Thirteen— play ball. He ran a hand through his goatee, "Uh, You go… girl." 

Paying the older specter a glance, Danny didn't say a word. But his eyes held an unwavering disappointment.  

"Sorry, I'll try not to do that again." Ghostwriter mumbled.

Jasmine's voice squeaked through the speaker, "Alright, just keep walking down this trail. I'm sure you'll run into something eventually." 

Still tight in the chest and reeling from the encounter with Dash in his room— Danny wasn't exactly prepared to run into something else.

Dash looked at him like he'd seen a monster.

He wasn't all here. He never was. Parts of him were in that room back there; some were still at that table with Val. On that stage at that end of year televised concert. Some of him was still in that basement; hand posed over the start button of the Fenton Portal.

Danny had done his best to patch up those holes in his chipping armor. But it felt like one of those nights where he couldn't predict what would happen next. Apprehension was blinding him. It was thick like a fog. What was he going to do tomorrow? How was he going to explain that ? What about any of that was marginally okay? 

Stay away. Just stay away from him. Focus on your job, soldier.

It sounded easy enough on paper. Just stay away from Dash. Fenton's solutions started off reasonable, like ditching their shared classes together, and then bloomed into full-on teen dramatics like moving to a new content and starting fresh with a new identity. 

What made it difficult was that the guy followed him around like a beat dog, searching for any shred of kindness. How could you stay away? 

What is wrong with me? 

Danny kept his mouth shut as his mind screamed at him to get a grip. He was brought back to reality by his sister's voice.

Both ghosts passed through the park, occasionally stopping to interrogate something suspicious about their surroundings. More than once, Stephen cowered behind Danny at the sight of a goose.

There was something to be said about what was wrong with The Phantom, it wasn't nearly as funny as whatever was wrong with The Ghostwriter.

The lights along the crunchy gravel path flickered with each panicked breath Stephen took. He wasn't lying. He was a quick study. The Ghostwriter was visible… not totally in color. It was like his voice and body were out of sync, like an imported karate movie from the seventies. It was hard to fathom in a purely scientific language. Danny hypothesized that Ghostwriter was on the lowest setting possible, like a dimmer switch. He would shudder in and out of focus. When he seemed particularly riled up, his colors would saturate and nearly burst off his body with a harsh glow. 

Sidney often occupied that uncanny valley between corporeal and not. Often just honed in on one person's energy to make himself visible to that one person. As if setting a frequency on a radio. It was about finding the right channel, so their forms weren't just incompressible masses. Though Sidney had numerous years of experience walking the Casper High halls and getting a feel for his surroundings to get his presence just right.

It was clear Stephen was floundering with no real goal other than to be tangible and interact with things larger than a headphone. He looked winded, just walking a few feet. It was hard to buy from his getup and general constitution that he was alive during the Reagan era and not the Victorian age. Everything about him shouted, 'I'm a nebbish lad over-encumbered with diseases and frailties. Look at me faint!'  

They walked. 

And walked.

Danny's footsteps were the only thing keeping back tidal waves of horrid and intrusive thoughts. A lot were just violent colors flashing across his mind's eye. Just when it felt like he reigned in his twitching and impulsiveness—

A hand pressed onto his chest, stopping him, but just barely. Ghostwriter's claws dug into the elastic fabric of Danny's jumpsuit. It was a warning—a nearly paternal gesture. 

He didn't say anything. He just narrowed his eyes. His pupils constricted to two tiny shards. The author's blade-like ears began to move. They folded out and adjusted to the noise of late-night joggers. 

The Phantom didn't know they could do that. His attention was split between studying Ghostwriter's reaction and the thing in front of them.

"What's happening?" Jasmine was concerned by the lack of activity on her end. 

With a shrug and more honesty than he put forth all night, Danny said, "I don't know…" 

Eventually, the siblings got their answer. The Ghostwriter nodded his head towards a bush barred with downed branches, "Up ahead."

Caution snaked his way into Danny's voice, "Do you think he's there?" 

"Aren't you supposed to be the brave little flatliner?" Stephen hissed, his forked tongue flailing against his serrated teeth. He was out for blood. It was clear he wanted to do some damage regardless if he had the ability or not. The Ghostwriter snapped, "Go check."

Danny reflexively bubbled his right hand in ecto-energy, "Stop calling me that." 

The Phantom made his approach. Slow. Methodical. He took giant sliding steps, careful not to disturb anything around him. Taking down a branch revealed the silver rims of Johnny Thirteen's motorcycle.

Bingo. 

The two spirits stilled. 

Dropping the branch, the teen took a moment to blow some stray hair from his face, “Hey, you’re basically a walking dictionary, right? What’s the longest word I could carve into this thing with my house keys—?” 

“Don’t get overzealous. He could come back at any moment.” The ghostwriter buried his fists into his navy cardigan and pulled something out, “It’s best that we stake out this location and wait for him to return with the element of surprise.” 

The object in his claws was metallic and bounced the moonlight back into Danny’s eyes— 

“What’re you doing?” 

Stephen unscrewed the cap on his ornately engraved flask. The design on the front and back was of the sigil of his manor, the lion, with its jaw open in a roar. He threw his head back— gulping down. Eventually, the would-be author shuddered, “I’m not making the mistake of dying sober twice.” 

Danny exclaimed under his breath in wonderment. Ghosts can get drunk. Who knew. 

However, his sister was less impressed.

“This is why mom put a shield on the liquor cabinet…” 

Just as soon as Stephen downed the flask, it refilled again. His limp hand fell a little with the weight of the liquid. Wiping his mouth with his knitted sleeve, the ghostwriter’s grey skin became darker. His eyes became round and void like a crater on the moon. 

“Wow, you almost look relaxed,” The younger shook his senior specter lightly. Stephen’s body sluggishly followed under Danny’s hand. 

A loud thud hit the gravel behind them. Disturbing the rocks and dust unfurled into a massive plume. A black shape dropped like a deadweight from the trees, nearly on top of the two spirits. It was fast like a bullet, sending pine needles and cones scattered to the brutal night wind.

The apparitions popped in and out in sync with the bursting of several bulbs down the trail. They evaded the projectile with ease, though they were still expecting retaliation. Without hesitation, the ghost boy prepared his fists ready to fire a warning shot until he saw the faintest flash of ginger hair in between the camera shutter and blinding white snapshot. 

Fuck. The Phantom exhaled. Can this night stop scaring me? 

It was just Weston.

[deadlytrio]

FFXIVWrite2022 | 01: Cross

Ishgard.

It was truly a magnificent city to behold, especially for someone who’d spent most of her life in Thavnair. All too happy to be out and traveling the world, Vairuit was continuing to pave her path with her eyes forward. Two years had passed since she traveled to Gridania, gaining apprenticeship with the Lancer’s Guild in the forest that was lush, green and teeming with magic. 

As the Sun Seeker crossed through the Gates of Judgment and into Foundation's stronghold, snow pelting her in every direction, there was only one thought that danced through her mind.

Twelves above, who can stand this cold?!

Coming from the warm and bright landscape of Thavnair, the Female Miqo'te could only look at the somewhat desaturated world that was Ishgard. Her training in Gridania was complete, but to become a true Dragoon, she had to take up the lance and train with the best dragon slayers in the realm. Vairuit was prepared for the harsh training and the grueling hours on patrolling the outskirts of Coerthas. She wasn't prepared for how completely different the weather was going to be.

"I should've picked up some bloody furs before leaving Gridania," she muttered, rubbing at her arms as her spear bounced across her back. The leather gear she sported was enough for most climates. 

Emphasis on the word "most".

The many citizens, mostly Elezen and Hyurian, scuttled past her without a second glance. It shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise. Ishgard was starting to open up its borders to the other nation states. Word was the Lord Commander of the Temple Knights had progressive thoughts to improve the nation and its relationships with the other city-states of Eorzea. Then again, it didn’t really have anything to do with the Seeker. If it meant creating better living conditions for everyone around, then who was she to complain?

Every country had its slums, after all. Thavnair was no different. But the idea of free commerce helped to blur the lines between rich and not-so-rich in her country.

“Excuse me, Miss?”

Craning her neck, Vairuit lowered her arms down to her sides as a man dressed in chainmail approached her. His jet black shield had the head of a red unicorn emblazoned across it - the few snowflakes that fell on it melting and sliding along the surface. 

Curious, she couldn’t help the slow tilt of her head as the taller Elezen approached her. “Yes?”

He gave a deep bow and Vairuit couldn’t help but take a step back, unsure of how she was supposed to respond. Should she have bowed also? That didn’t seem appropriate since he hadn’t stated his business with her yet. “Pardon my unsolicited approach, but are you Vairuit Mao by any chance?”

“I am.” Her eyes narrowed and she had to make a conscious effort not to frown. Traveling out in the world taught her not to be so candid with strangers, lest they take advantage of you. A lesson she, unfortunately, learned the hard way.  “Who’s asking?”

“My name is Torsefers and I am a Knight of House Fortemps. Count Edmont de Fortemps spoke of your arrival and how you came highly recommended by Guildmaster Deepwell. Sir Bale and Lord Haurchefant also mentioned your potential to serve under the Dragoons as you helped them many times during your training and stay in Camp Dragonhead.”

Vairuit visibly relaxed, straightening her posture as she gave a polite bow to the knight in turn. “Ah, yes. Sir Alberic Bale was an excellent teacher and Lord Haurchefant mentioned that I would be granted an audience with the Count, but on what I wasn’t told.”

The knight gave a broad smile, gesturing for her to follow him as they made their way past the throng of people milling in and out of the main plaza by the large Aetheryte crystal situated near the city center. “Count Edmont wished to make you a ward of his house, but only upon your acceptance of course. He wishes your stay to be fulfilling and comfortable, as well as to familiarize yourself with our culture here in Ishgard.”

“Well, I certainly hope the Count can provide me with a means to survive this unpronounced weather.” Chuckling, she folded her arms against her chest in a vain attempt to warm herself. “I have to say, this is going to take some getting used to.”

“If the tales I’ve heard are to be believed, I’m sure you’ll acclimate just fine, Miss Mao.”

“Just Mao will do, Sir Torsefers.”

Torsefers nodded, flashing her a warm smile. “Only if you refer to me simply as Torsefers.” 

He held his hand out to her and she grasped it in a firm shake.

“We have ourselves a deal then.”

[klonoadreams]

Lostbelt timeline were Andou became a Demon after the massacre, killed Doma and overtook his place, and looks like the Okou to Muzan's Ryoma. Still remains friends with Daki and Gyuutaro(hell Daki accidentally made her love to taste of frogs via a silly bet about eating a frog and thus Andou grew confused on why frogs taste good), and after those two were killed she went after Zenitsu and Inosuke to make Tanjiro hurt the way she does after he helped kill her two precious friends.

behold, the au that was created from me pointing out that Muzan's Michael Jackson nickname reminded me of Sakamoto Ryouma from FGO, who I was also pointing out, "My first thought was this dude"

AND

FUCKING WHOOPSEES

And then @gluten-free-okami got fucking VALIDATED by Lancer Sakamoto Ryouma

All you have to do is give Oryou a bit of melanin (since Andou has a prominent olive tone), and boom, you got Andou in the blursed no good, very bad day timeline, where she's stuck to Muzan's side.

Alternatively, you also have Andou in the not as cursed, not a very bad day timeline, where she just eats frogs and is otherwise, bonding with Nezuko while Tanjirou is trying not to stress out over the fact that, "How am I GOING TO EXPLAIN THIS TO HIMEJIMA?!"

aka, shit went down in the red light district maybe.

She is not all there, but she is happy with frogs. Is probably a danger to Zenitsu regardless, because now she is even LESS aware of EXPOSED leggy.

anyways, that's what we jokingly refer to as the Lostbelt AU.

[the-chaos-chrew]

Hello and welcome to this terrible blog made to share comics and dumbness between a ragtag group of internet friends

Behold, our cast of characters

Featuring

@coopmaloop as the big guy

@serfuri as the smart guy

@lilsvec as the leader

@schrodingers-tabbycat as the lancer

And @eftelpe as the heart!

The above drawing is by moi, inspired by the below drawing that belongs to Red from OSP

[entropic-introspection]

So having finished out Endwalker msq (though I need a few more pieces of gear to take on Pandaemonium) I am. So incredibly amused by all these stupid coincidences of having narrative resonance with a character initially made as a joke. My WoL is Ketter Rami, a catgirl Seeker of the Sun, under the guidance of Azeyma. I started as a lancer in Gridania, and I main Dragoon/play that thru msq.

[[[MORE]]]

So take a wild guess at the basic coincidences I’m laughing at. I somehow picked all the Sun aligned options on a whim, and lo and behold, Azem (the sun) fun. Hell, I went with a blue and yellow eye because Ketter Rami was based off of Cat-Ra. ((Ket)ter- (Ra)mi) You can argue that either eye is her more natural color, and the other is influenced by Hydaelin/her past. Or they’re entirely insignificant, and it just looks cool :p

Obviously, being a dragoon thru Heavensward is gr8. You get to hang out with Estinien who was about ready to kill you a few role quests ago! You keep being his mirror, as he is overcome by the power of Nidhoggs eye, and you borrow Hraesvelgrs to save him. You go wandering around with dragon dad Midgardsormr (<3) who understandably did not trust you at first to carry the burden of protecting this star. His last bastion of hope. You get to fight the Omega, a remnant of what killed his people and chased him across the stars. I legit teared up that 1) dragon dad expended the last of his energy to protect us and 2) he then woke up long enough to give permission to use his scales. HES A DAD OK dragoons are here to fight against or with the dragons and I’m gonna fight for dragon dad

Fighting Ranjiit, in his partial dragon form, as dragoon >:3 Like yes this is my speciality now die. You know the poor WoL was leaning on her spear for half of the Amaurot nonsense, trying to keep the light in. Graha Tia and I look like siblings, with us being ~the same height+red hair. Which is great because I love our sad catboy as a brother, and now we don’t look so lonely in these cutscenes with all these white haired bitches

The wretched body swap in Garlemald, where not only would it be a new body for Ketter to learn, but where the fuck is my goddamn tail to counterbalance me. Why are Garlean ears so shit, wait is this how helmets feel for everyone else. When I got to visit Elpis, one NPC commented on my ears and tail, saying they made it obvious I was a familiar like Meteion. A perfect disguise! Reaching Ultima Thule as a dragoon, and Estinien and I having a quiet convo away from the others about the dragons only we can see, the history we are both too familiar with.

Also I can imagine many fun things about Ketter, like how her tail puffs up or her ears flick back, how I hate most of the metal helmets in the game and how they look with kitty ears but that also tracks because would you trap your ears in a big bell. Awful. She will just forgo that shit.

[rametarin]

The Unseen Hand.

Gaster theories are cool and all. But I have a new take for those interested.

Spoiler’d, because uh. I legit don’t want to ruin any surprises. So, read at your own risk?

Have you ever noticed the prevalence of face shapes on architecture in Undertale? And I don’t mean Undyne’s house. Though, seeing that stylized house start crying as it’s set on fire create the pattern may’ve been a bradcrumb.

I mean, shit like this.

Notice the grey metal extremities that might verywell be comparable to arms. Notice the lights lining the body. Notice how the elevator doors could be said to resemble mouths. Notice the three white spaces between the lights that could be mistaken for mouths of grinning teeth.

They’re like giant monsters that became stationary.

And before Deltarune came out, which Toby started work on before Undertale, we never would’ve had the spade shaped faces of monsters like Lancer and his dad to base this off of. But, now that they exist, this image, in the context of faces in architecture, can take on a whole new possible meaning.

Look at the doorway. One could easily imagine it’s meant to represent a mouth.

This one is like the others, but it has something else. A third eye, or perhaps some sort of other monster standing/floating in front of it?

I’ve just suspected that these enemies are somehow of particular interest for a while, now. Just as an aside. There’s a big emphasis on hopes and dreams in Undertale, willpower and faith shaping reality. And at least since Beholders became a thing in D&D, obviously before, eye-beasts related to dreaming reality to being different have been a thing. In pop culture at least, related to mind powers and manifesting reality to be different. It’s a reach, but I’ve always felt like this was a tease.

Anyway. Back to my original point.

You remember how Alphys was logging about her determination experiments, and was originally trying to make an artificial soul to put in a robot? And at best, Alphys made a shell for a ghost to inhabit. But her experiments were also in injecting human soulstuff into things that were neither monster, nor human. Like say, flower seeds.

But what if...... bringing animation to the soulless was not limited solely to plants? Why not..... computers? Or inanimate objects themselves?

Or hell. Entire buildings.

Look closely. It’s kind of abstract, but we have.. a rectangular heart ontainer, and two red lights above that could do as eyes, in a pinch. And a crude fascimille for a mouth.

But consider for a moment. Consider the possibility that The Core, basically being synonymous with electricity and technology in the Under, had long since become its own entity. A combination of human soulstuff appropriated by a previously soulless machine, forming its own personality and will.

Furthermore, when you fight Omega Flowey/Photoshop Flowey, you don’t just fight a being made of plants and soulstuff. You fight THIS horrid abomination.

Which starts as a smile with an equality sign for eyes, before going demented. We see a similar face made in the True Lab on the last entry after freeing the amalgamates.

And what does Flowey do? He absorbs the souls to become a weird combination of computer, machine and plant, bearing the six human souls.

I don’t think it’s a coindence or just diagetic allegory to ‘merging with the videogame itself’ to become this robotic flower. I think Flowey merged their spirit-stuff with the human souls, AND with the Core. That beast we saw wasn’t purely Flowey. It was Flowey fused to somebody else. An entity, a party, that whether Undertale or Deltarune, has not revealed their name or intentions yet.

All it would require to exist in Deltarune is if there’s any force doing experiments with human Determination.

And I think Gaster is a red herring, here. The Core itself might be alive, whichever universe.

Consider the possibility that the Core itself might be, in some semblance, alive. Willful. And wanting.. something.

[ffxiv-swarm]

prompt 20: ishgardian flirtations

It’s a spur of the moment decision, really. Evrard is restless, and Busari is back from a too-short mission that’s left him with far too much excess energy. And it’s been much, much too long since they’ve done it. Maybe now Evrard won’t completely embarrass himself. (A rapier dropped on his foot. A spell singing his eyebrows off. Worse ways he hasn’t discovered yet.)

“Spar with me.”

There isn’t space inside, so they have to take themselves to the front yard. Evrard’s never been more grateful for their location; they’re far enough out of the way of most foot traffic to avoid attracting any curious onlookers (or worse, people trying to offer advice. He hates people who think they know the ways of red magic but can’t actually tell a fleche from a zwerchhau, and the less said about those who think Busari, as a spear-carrier, must be a simple Gridanian-style lancer the better.) The scrubby grass crunches under their boots as they step out, and he takes a moment to center himself. His rapier is a reassuring weight at his side.

And then he lifts his sword and his head, and fixes his lover in his sights.

Busari is a glory to behold. He always is, all steel and spikes and power. He’s not in full armor, but the loose tunic is just as good a sight with the way it drapes over his solid frame. And he’s smiling as he readies his practice spear. “By your word.”

He counts off inside his head. One. Two. Three.

“Now!”

Busari lunges, and the world slows. They both know to pull their punches, but it takes all Evrard has to keep moving, to stay at range—and here’s where he begins to regret his choice of weapon, for one cannot cast spells with a spear in their face, but getting far enough away to focus his aether means sacrificing the ability to bring his rapier to bear. Still, the chance to think on his feet is exhilarating.

Step. Turn—there, an opening—damn, he’s parried me. Back and circle and back—breathe—

Inhale. Exhale. A scintillating burst of magic, blinding but harmless.

Busari staggers back, and Evrard strikes.

He’s panting, hair in his face, sweat making his shirt unpleasantly clingy. His voice comes out rough. “Do you yield?”

Busari swallows hard. A tiny drop of blood wells up where the blade rests at his throat. “I do.”

He breathes out slowly, calming his racing heart. Belatedly, he remembers to lower his sword. “I can’t believe that worked.”

“Once.”

And then Busari is laughing, and he’s smiling back.

His lover really is amazing.

[fuwafuwamedb]

Singularity Subspecies V: The Holy Land: Jerusalem: Jerusalem of Holy Sin - Chapter Nineteen

Chapters: Prologue - Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four - Chapter Five - Chapter Six – Chapter Seven – Chapter Eight – Chapter Nine – Chapter Ten – Chapter Eleven – Chapter Twelve – Chapter Thirteen – Chapter Fourteen – Chapter Fifteen – Chapter Sixteen – Chapter Seventeen - Chapter Eighteen

_________ 

It felt like a hole had formed within his chest. Like a part of him had been carved from his chest and set before him on a platter.

He could feel the surge of mana near him. He could see the anger in the other’s eyes and he agreed. He couldn’t agree more.

How dare this beast steal what was theirs from their side? How dare this monster destroy something so refined and beautiful from this world? Things such as this… they had no right to live.

His power surged forth. He let the mana drip from his person, glaring back at Gudako.

“Release my noble phantasm.”

“Ozy…”

He turned his gaze to his brother, seeing the nod.

An accord was met.

There would be no true forgiveness. He could see his brother was still hurting. He could see there were stresses and pains between them that would never come to a close…

However…

There were those who meant something to them. There were people whom had come to be of value and use to them. They could appreciate an innocent in the midst of their hatred. They could understand how to set aside their problems.

Nefertari had expected better between them. She had loved them both despite their hatred and their pains.

Nefertari had believed in them. She had seen the depths of them and she had marveled at them.

“Ozymandias,” Gudako declared behind him, her voice echoing in the air around them. “I command you to use your noble phantasm.”

He began with the surge that went through him, feeling the hand pressing to his shoulder as a tome rose next to him. The ten lines of text glowed bright, the surging with golden light.

“So long as my faith remains,” his brother declared, closing his eyes, “so long as I have people whom I hold dear to me, I will never allow tyranny or death to plague my people. Hear my call, oh my dear lord, whom I hold close to my heart. Allow me your TEN COMMANDMENTS!”

He could not comment, couldn’t stop himself to see his brother’s attacks. He was surging the depths of the palace to split open, grabbing the demon and raising it up towards the heavens.

The surge of hellfire struck just as he rose it up and blasted at it with the light of the gods. The pyramid slamming down was hitting both the attack and the enemy.

The power burst out, whipping his cape and his brother’s robes. They could see parts of the palace crumbling, the floors shaking beneath their feet. They stood together there, immobile. They stood together over the body of the woman who had believed in them.

The woman who had loved them…

The demon pillar screeched as it descended back to the palace depths. They could see it heading for them, but they both were needing a moment. Ozymandias could feel the attack about to hit-

“GIL!”

A barrage of gates opened before them, blasting back the demon pillar with liquor and swords. Spinning around, Ozy and Moses could see the suit of golden armor walking in, the woman on his shoulder holding the man’s armor with one hand and raising her hand with the other.

The golden king smirked, holding up his hand and glancing at the woman sitting upon his shoulder.

“Shall we show them how a master and servant fight?”

“Just be sure to give me a candy when we’re done,” the brunette on the king’s shoulder replied.

The laugh echoed before more were coming in.

Karna blasted up from the floor, landing in a flash of fire. Those calm eyes looked at the demon pillar attempting to make its way to them. His eyes drifted to the other lancer climbing up from the depths of the palace.

“Cu Chulainn.”

“After you, Fireball,” the Celt replied, spinning his lance into position.

“EVERYONE!” Gudako looked around, laughing a little. “LET’S SEE SOME NOBLE PHANTASMS!”

“Watch a plain human like me show the value in average,” the brunette on Gil’s shoulder declared, moving before the man and opening more of her gates. “Behold the powers of one who can sate the heart!”

Ozymandias grinned, feeling the fires and the alcohol burning the world around them. He could feel the heat and feel the winds of Ea beginning.

His hand pressed to his brother’s shoulder. His cane rose once more.

“Brother.”

Moses looked at him, pausing from his preparation to attack once more. His lips parted, but he stopped. He shut his mouth and smiled, those eyes simply gleaming softly.

He shook his head.

“To call someone so hellbent on vengeance like me by such a name… My brother…”

They looked together to the demon pillar, raising their weapons again.

Once more.

With everyone else.

“RAMESSEUM TENTYRIS!”

>> 

Gudako stood up, shaking on her feet.

“Master,” Mash was rushing over to her side, starting to push her back onto the couch when she held up a hand to stop the woman.

“Please. I’m going stircrazy on this couch.”

Mash hesitated.

“Please,” Gudako tried again. “Mash, take pity on me.”

It’d been a week. The palace in Jerusalem had been destroyed. Gudako had seen the demon pillar fall into the depths of the palace and the world had begun to fall apart around them. They had all begun to run to the exit… all but Moses.

“BROTHER!”

“I wish to see its death with my own eyes,” Moses had told them. He held Nefertari’s body in his arms. “…This is our end… at least, for now.”

They all knew the drill.

They couldn’t take the others with them. The only one who would be able to come back was Hakuno. Hakuno- or Ninkasi, as she was supposed to be called- was the servant to Gilgamesh. However that worked, it meant that she could come home.

Karna and Cu had grabbed Ozymandias, rushing them down.

Sheba had laughed the whole way down the stairs, declaring this a majesty that would have made the king of Jerusalem happy to see the fall of the palace.

“Solomon would love this!”

They had run all the way to the wagon, climbing upon it a moment before Gilgamesh had called forth his damn ship and flown ahead. Ozymandias had grabbed the damn thing with his cane and the rest of them had grabbed him as they had found themselves flown from the destruction and wreckage.

Screaming, they had been flying when Gudako had felt the last of her mana trickle away.

Her arms had let go, the sound of all the servants screaming after her as she’d begun to fall…

“You’re lucky Hakuno caught you,” Mash told her, shaking her head with that statement again. “You still hit the waves of liquor hard.”

“She’ll be fine,” a voice perked up.

The woman in golden robes entered the room, smiling softly as she gave Mash a small bow.

Mash rolled her eyes, still smiling at the sight of the woman.

She was funny.

If nothing else, she seemed to really understand how stubborn servants could be. The moment she’d awakened, she’d found Hakuno telling stories to Mash and Da Vinci about Gilgamesh causing trouble for her. The lot of them had been laughing at the thought of Gilgamesh freaking out about some spicy tofu when Gudako had sat up.

“Hakuno,” Gudako greeted.

“Hello Master,” the woman replied, smiling. “I have seen to the other servants. They seem eager to try to help you recover faster.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Gudako…” Mash shook her head. “You thought you saw…”

Gudako shook her head.

They wouldn’t have that conversation again.

Hakuno cleared her throat.

“Mash,” the woman addressed, “Could you check on Ozymandias for me? He was gambling with Iskander and Gilgamesh when I left him.”

“They’re gambling? Oh no…”

The Shielder rushed for the door, slamming it shut behind her. They could hear her yelling for others.

“You will be fine,” Hakuno reiterated.

“He said I would,” Gudako agreed.

She had let go of the others, seeing the sight of the others crying out for them. She could see the others falling into the distance.

“HAKUNO! CATCH MY MASTER!”

The woman had fallen towards her, casting magic upon the world around them. Waves of beer splashed over the lands, filling the lands around them, sending her falling now into waves of the dark brew. She could feel herself being washed away over the kilometers of land, towards the cliffs and mountains in the distance. She could see the jagged rocks, feel her lungs burning with the overload of waters and the burn of the alcohol.

She was going to die.

Then a figure had come, delving into the hearty waters after her as she sank. She could see the red hair, feel the arms around her.

They broke the surface, her face pressed to his chest.

She could feel the figure swimming them to the sides of the valley, escaping the waters with the blasts of mana from the other.

Gudako had looked up, coughing and spluttering. A hand pressed to her chest, sending another surge of mana into the world. He had made her all but vomit up more of that liquor.

“You will not die here,” the voice… so familiar that it brought tears to her eyes… “I will not let you perish, Gudako.”

“…Romani…”

The woman at her side had showed up when she’d come to, pulling her into her arms and sending a blast of her brew into the air.

Vimana had landed nearby. They had called for the rayshift and left the singularity behind, resolved and concluded.

“I didn’t see him,” Hakuno confessed quietly. “Not for more than a second.”

Gudako nodded, closing her eyes.

“We’ll find him.”

“I know.”

Her friend was out there. He was watching over all of them.

Old friends, as it happened, were as close after months and years as they were after seconds away from one another.

They still cared for one another, despite it all.

“Shall we try summoning Moses again?” Gudako offered.

Hakuno grinned, “Sure, but we should probably let Ozymandias meet his wife afterwards. I think Nefertari has had plenty of time to design her room.”

[post-office-inbox]

Undertale & delta rune Sequel/Prequel/Post-Genocide/AU Theory

There seems to be a disagreement about what delta rune is in regards to Undertale. According to Toby’s Q&A that this is an alternate universe where choice does not matter. He also stated that Undertale and its characters had a happy ending and that nothing we do here can affect them.  But there is still some discourse in weather the game is a sequel/prequel/post-genocide/au/some unholy combination of that. Strap in, I think it’s the last one.

To clarify, there will be four characters I will be mainly focusing on that the games seem to revolve around. I’ll be clarifying each one and how that character makes each of the “quells” possible.

Sequel: OK, this is the one that goes right into Meta territory. I think it is safe to say that in Undertale you were part of the story. Not Frisk, not Chara, you: the player. You are controlling the vessel in the game. This is backed up by how if you boot up Undertale Flowey calls YOU by the name you entered. Delta rune confirmed this by asking for YOUR name. You the player, and when you save low and behold, that is the name that gets put on the save file. Not Kris, your name.

So, we are controlling Kris for this adventure. That is why he ‘knows’ things that he couldn’t possibly know about characters that we know from Undertale. Like Alphs and Undine being together or knowing San’s even though both characters don’t know what we are talking about. Interesting enough Kris has information that we the player don’t have. When you go to inspect the card for the reindeer and he asks you why it looks like we (the player) have never seen it before. Also cute reindeer from class seems to be weirded out by the way Kris has been acting, so we the player are controlling Kris’s actions, not Kris himself/herself. Also, both in Undertale and in this game, right after cut scenes Frisk/Chara/Kris will turn to face the camera, right at you. This being an RPG maker game where you have control over what happens to the character sprites, Toby did this deliberately.

And of course where Chara directly interacts with you at the end of a Genocide run. AND Kris looking at you with a knife in his hands, throwing out his soul, the culmination of his being, the thing that we controlled him; is now locked away. And we can’t do a damn thing about it. My point is that for us (the player) this IS a sequel. The game that comes next. “Undertale 2”. The next point of reference that we can see and can control. Or rather NOT control as the narrative says: our choices don’t matter. That brings us too:

Prequel: Flowy tells us over and over again that “In this world it’s kill or be killed!” If we substitute the word ‘world’ with ‘game’ we (the player) can infure that in this game our choices matter. That depending on how we act we could kill or save anyone or everyone depending on our choice. Deltarune tells us up front that “in this world, your choice does not matter” that is telling us that in this game, evens will play out no matter what we do. One of the most frustrating parts about a prequel is that it is just telling you stuff that happened before the main event.

For example: in a story about Alfred, batman’s butler (I cannot frikking believe they are making that a movie) it does not matter what he does or who he met along the way, by the end of the film, he will become the character we know. We end up with a bit of predestination. Who will be our Pennyworth in this situation?

Sans. And possibly Papyrus.

In Undertale it is established that the two skeleton brothers just showed up one day. No other explanation was given and it was just sort of hand waved away. Later we got all the connections to Gaster and that lead to some speculation about this vague origin. Now, here comes delta rune. We see Sans outside of what is clearly a building representing Grilbies. And if you listen carefully HE SOUNDS DIFFERENT! His little ‘he he he’s are speed up from what we heard in Undertale. I think the Sans we hear here is younger, more fast talking. A bit more inexperienced, not seeming to know as much as he did in the old game.

There is this lovely theory going around that Sans is actually a Darkner. That does answer an obvious question I didn’t think about until then. Where is Sans moving from??  Answer: The Dark Word you just spent so much time getting out of, duh. (Papyrus not so much but?)

So we have his origin and possible timeline:

Born in the dark world ->

came to Hometown (possibly through the same door you and Susie got through...) ->

Something terrible involving Gaster AND Kris gets him sent to the underground in an alternate timeline/world ->

Undertale happens.

That’s how he knows that ‘kids like you, should be burning in hell’. He has already seen one world be shattered by one kid in a striped shirt go crazy and kill everyone. And that leads us to:

Alternate Universe: The tale of two Asriel’s. Or three possibly. Everyone is trying to figure out where the heck the beginning bits and the end bits ‘fit’ into the timeline. They kind of skip over the part where you are in a completely different game for the entire time, you know hello? Ralsei is one of the three party members for most of the game and is reveled to be a sort of espy for Asriel. Susie (and possibly Kris) seemed to understand this due the vast amount of “??????????????????????????????” she gives after he takes off his hat. We know that Kris has a brother named Asriel matching up with the one from Undertale (honestly I thought for sure that meant the ending of Hunger tale was cannon). With the bizarre way everyone in Hometown has a counterpart in Undertale why would there need to be a second Asriel?

Let me introduce what I think Toby is going to do here: enter the multiverse. Now it could be that delta rune and Undertale are alternate timelines instead of straight up different universe. For now though I will be treating them as different universes. We have three ‘worlds’ that we know of: Undertale, the light world, and the dark world. If I had to guess the dark world is somehow a reflection of the light world so they also have characters that are similar to Undertale counterparts, see The Legend of Zelda: A Link between Worlds. The Light and Dark worlds also mirror of how the humans and monsters were on against one another.  We should be on the look out for characters in the dark world that matches with the ones in the og game.

I had a thought that maybe Sans is the Dark world counterpart of Papyrus so that instead of treating themselves as they same person they decided to be brothers instead.

I do wonder who the ‘Knight’ is that Lancers dad was talking about though.

Most of the rest of my thoughts are me just trying to project without much evidence. Until we know how Gaster and his followers fit into all of this I don’t think we can get much more out of it. Buy this being bizaro world the last one is:

Post-Genocide: Chara you poor creepy child. As everyone knows, in a genocide run, you kill everyone. Chara eventually takes over and kills you the player. Even though Flowey thinks you are the sibling from his childhood. You are not. You are the player controlling the character. The evil came from you. The vessel might become Frisk once you decide NOT to kill anybody but then Chara comes back and kills everyone anyway.

Now, we are in an alternate universe. Where our choices (the players not Kris’s) do. Not. Matter. And there is no Frisk, only a child who is this universes version of Chara. He did not die like in Undertale so now we live in a universe where that less than happy kid grows up into a less then talkative teenager. Where is Frisk then? Did Frisk’s own reasons for climbing the mountain (as hinted at by Asreil at the end of the game) never come to pass? Did just straight up die? We don’t know.

And having us act like a kid that may not exist in this universe really doesn’t sit well with Kris and he throws his will (US!) is in the cage. We told him about stuff. We knew about the other Universe and how things were different. And how little Kris was actually a guy called Frisk and he was a happy person that made friends and talked to people and didn’t kill anyone. If you didn’t do the Genocide ending anyway. Then you were…Chara.

Yeah, that’s the ending of delta rune ch1 guys. We see Kris throw us into a cage and since we were controlling him, he knows about the genocide ending. Since we told him how, he knows exactly what to do. A normal (if creepy) kid got possessed by some beings from some weird dimensions and knows exactly what to do with them. Pulls out a knife from nowhere and smiles (the kids smile, not one we made ) and his eyes glow red like in a photo he has seen through our eyes. The ones he is looking into as the view goes black. He has seen the ending and he has seen us and he knows he can kill us. All he has to do now is to kill everyone else. And he’ll do it too, because we can’t do anything to help BECAUSE OUR CHOICE DOES NOT MATTER!

TLDR: All four theories are true. If we look at them from four different characters.

The player – It’s a sequel because it is what you play after the 1st game.

Sans – Prequel because this is the world/timeline he comes from: see quicker voice

Asriel/Ralsei * – Are both au Asriel because of light/dark world and might have further indications that we should look out for  * and a bunch of other people

Kris – Post Genocide because we controlled him and now he knows that’s an option.

[pizzafishandchips]

14 - Some people call this wisdom

For Fictober day 14. I’m going to be busy this week so I’ll be a bit behind for a while but at least I’m chugging my way through it! 

I had a really fun time writing this since it’s for a pairing I don’t write often and I wish got more love. Behold my rarepair hell, the Red Duo for which I will one day fill the empty troves of AO3 for. (For extra effect, perhaps listen to Michael Buble’s “Sway” as you read this. And please also refer to this piece of art the artist shiloriin so beautifully allowed me to request!) 

Set in Persona 5 timeline. Pairing: P5 protagonist/P3 femprotag. Big spoilers for anyone not past November in the game below. 

Masterpost

Masayoshi Shido was one extra son of a bitch, Kotone couldn’t help but think.

Stuck on a giant boat, then stuck again in a ballroom of Shadows, separated from the rest of the team. And here she thought cruises were meant for relaxing vacations.

The denizens of Shido’s cognitive world milled about, and the two thieves could feel their hidden eyes watching them. The exit sat on the opposite end of the large, heavily decorated room. But reaching the other side with the gauntlet of Shadows that lay before them would prove to be quite a challenge.

Joker radioed in. “Oracle, you out there?”

“Loud and clear, leader.”

“Any idea on how we get out of here?”

“Looks like there’s just that door on the other side… If you’re asking for a secret route to get around all those Shadows, I got nothing. Doesn’t look like there’s anything of the sort in the layout for this area.”

He sighed. “Great. Well, there doesn’t seem to be any other option. Lancer and I will do our best to get out of here. We’ll regroup beyond those doors.”

“Got it. Oh, and Joker?”

“Yeah?”

“I can’t get a good reading right now but… There seems to be something off about that room.”

“Hm? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Not too sure but… Something about the way those Shadows are behaving seems a bit different. Call it a hunch, but there might be some sort of gimmick to that whacky ballroom. I’ll try to collect more data and let you know.”

“Alright.”

The connection dropped. Joker joined Lancer’s side as she carefully surveyed the scene before her. Indeed, despite their presence within the room, the Shadows didn’t seem to mind much beyond acknowledging them. They simply wandered the room, never in one direction, never making an effort to leave.

“Oracle’s right. There’s definitely something up,” she noted. “They’re not just cognitions, but no one here looks to be important like the last few.”

“She did say something about there being a gimmick about this place. Maybe something we could use to get out?”

“Like those cage match type things you did in the casino? I don’t know how I feel about having to fight all these guys…”

“Well, standing around won’t get us anywhere. We should try and get a move on.”

Just as they were about to take their first step, music from nowhere started filtering into the large room. Like robots that were just activated, the Shadows stood at attention. Guided by some invisible force, they flocked together into pairs, and the two were shocked to see the masked beings dance in rhythm with the music.

“Man, what century is Shido’s head in?” the navigator chimed. “Do people really dance like this these days? First mice, now this?”

“It’s probably because he likes getting people to dance to his own tune,” Lancer guessed. “He sees people as just puppets to be strung along, after all.”

“Well whatever it is, it’s a good distraction for us. Come on, we can make a break for it.”

“Joker, wait--”

He leaped forward onto the marble floor. But before he could get too far, the dancing Shadows suddenly stopped what they were doing, turning their focus on him. The duos broke apart, their humanoid forms shifting into the amorphous forms of soon-to-be Shadows as they pounced on the boy. Lancer quickly snatched the end of Joker’s coat and wrenched him back toward her.

Again, as if a switch had gone off, the otherworldly creatures stopped. Their forms reverted back to their human guises, and the waltz resumed, as if the two were never there to begin with. Joker, having fallen onto the ground after his companion released him, dusted himself off and regarded the scene with confusion.

“Looks like as long as we don’t cross past this point we won’t get any unnecessary attention,” Lancer noted, shaking her head. “But there’s the issue of actually crossing the floor…”

Realization dawned on Joker. A grin slowly stretched across his face, something that made Lancer quite nervous.

“I think I know how to get across the room.”

She bristled. “I don’t like where this is going…”

His grin ever growing, Joker bowed, offering a hand to his female companion. “May I have this dance, my lady?”

She stared in disbelief. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“My codename might suggest it, but this isn’t a joke.”

“I don’t… Joker, I can’t dance.”

He flashed her his most reassuring smile. “That’s alright. I can do well enough for the both of us.”

“Well, I don’t… I can’t… Ugh, alright. Fine.”

With great trepidation, she took his hand. Joker pulled her tightly against him, securing his hand on her hip.

“Relax. Just follow my lead.”

With a twirl, he spun them onto the ballroom floor. Lancer tensed, ready for the Shadows to strike like before. Yet not a single attack occurred as Joker maneuvered them between the other dancing pairs. She could only afford to be surprised for a brief moment however, her attention suddenly captured by trying to keep up with the leader’s footwork. He was actually quite a good lead, moving slowly enough that she could keep up. Within a few seconds, she had the steps down. Joker, delighted, picked up the pace little by little, throwing in more spins and complex step sequences. Lancer gladly took on the challenge, mirroring him and matching each move.

They were able to get through part of the way before trouble struck. Though up to that point the Shadows behaved as Joker predicted, it was soon apparent that that was not the case for all of them. From the back several creatures appeared, lunging at the duo.

Not missing a beat, Lancer threw off her mask and summoned a Black Frost. The black doll-like Persona conjured towers of ice, easily dispatching their assailants with a sinister giggle.

Not to be outdone, Joker tackled the pursuers from his side with a summon of his own. Hanuman pranced across the floor with his own sort of grace, cutting down their foes with quick flourishes of his blade.

As more foes appeared, the two added a bit more flair to their attacks. Joker lifted his partner, swinging her around so she could give an oncoming Shadow a solid kick to the face. Lancer latched back onto him and pivoted him around, giving him the opportunity to aim and land a gunshot on another.

“This idea is so...ridiculous!” Lancer laughed as her Lilith razed down a small group.

“Some people would call this wisdom, actually,” he smiled in return.

This was how they danced across the ballroom, an elegant whirl of blazing guns and flashy summons. With each step they grew more and more in sync, even as the tempo to the music changed. The two Wild Cards needed no words between them as they swayed through the mass of Shadows. Even their attacks were beautifully choreographed. Had anyone been watching, there would be no doubt they were the true stars on the floor.

At last, as the song drew to a close, they reached the threshold of the exit door. With the final held note, Joker dipped Lancer backwards, her knee wound around his hip. They stayed like that, catching their breath as the music ended, the Shadows returning to their aimless meandering as the pairs separated.

Slowly she rose from the dip, and their faces drew close together as they continued to hold each other. Both of them were grinning as they breathed, unwilling to break their held gaze.

“Wooooow, you guys. Congrats, you have successfully tango’ed--salsa’ed?--your way through the room. You didn’t even wait for me to give you more data,” the navigator interjected. “Are you going to stop making googly eyes at each other and get out yet? We’re all here on the other side, waiting.”

Joker reluctantly released his grip on her hand and waist as their bodies relaxed. Lancer slowly drew away from him, her hands sliding down his arms and lingering over his fingers.

“For someone who didn’t know how to dance, you did really well,” he complimented.

She smirked. “Only because I had a great partner.”

“Maybe we could do this again sometime. With less Shadows trying to kill us, hopefully.”

“Sounds good. I look forward to it.”

“Hm. Shall we?”

Lancer nodded as he pushed open the door for her. She winked as she walked past him, and Joker couldn’t hold back a chuckle as he followed, the door sliding shut behind them.   

[cracking-the-mind]

My Thoughts on Delta Rune

This is probably going to go all over the place but I just need to put my thoughts down somewhere before I can really go forward with any of my speculations.

I’ll give you the tl;dr version first: The game is not finished yet (obviously) and it could GREATLY go with some expansion on its game mechanics and enemies as well as giving depth to the secondary characters in the story. That said, what we’ve received in the first chapter is something that I still enjoyed greatly and is something that I’ll be thinking about for months to come. I’ll be patiently waiting for the next chapters.

I’ll stick my in-depth analysis under a cut for you to save people from a wall of text.

I guess we’ll go in chronological order? Right, okay, the beginning of the story. It feels... incredibly melancholy and lonely despite the people waving at the car as you drive by and the happy music playing. Your/Kris’s entire side of the room is devoid of decoration save for a red wagon and a bird cage that I’m not even going to touch with a fifty foot pole for right now. You then learn that Asriel’s your brother and that he’s gone off to university, leaving the small town he lived in behind. And from what you gather as you go along in the story is that you two were inseparable and him leaving had apparently taken a toll on you. Now it’s just you and your mom in a house that feels all too big for the both of you. It’s just you.

Now, the beginning school bit left me on edge for the sake of how it could hit so close to home for so many people. The social outcastedness despite how others may (poorly) attempt to include you. It’s... jarring in a sense. Now, you’re left without a partner in group work due to you being late. The teacher then pairs you up with Susie, the other social outcast/bully in the class, but sends the both of you off to get chalk before the work can begin. If you go around and talk to everyone before leaving, they give their condolences and are already planning your funeral because Susie is apparently going to murder you.

And, well... she threatens you like she’s going to. And the part that gets me is that for the whole time...

you don’t fight back.

As Susie slams you up against the wall of lockers with one hand and threatens you again and again, you do nothing. You hang there limply without moving a muscle.

Though plot armor prevails and you survive (if you were murdered, what kind of story would the first chapter be? Actually... that’d be a very interesting ending point but I’m not going to go any further with that.) and you continue to storage closet that’s black as pitch. Lo and behold, an entire kingdom of Darkness is in that storage closet. You and Susie are separated briefly and you’ve somehow changed clothes in to something straight out of a JRPG. Spoilers, you’re in one.

And thus, you and Susie both wander the paths before stumbling upon a section of a kingdom that has a giant geyser spouting from it. And there, you meet Ralsei, and prince from the Darkness. He claims you’re both heroes that are destined to save this place. Now, as much of a giant prick Susie has been to you so far, I relate to her in the sense that she doesn’t want to have any part of this weird acid trip that she’s having and just wants to get back. (Even though she is apparently okay with apparently letting everyone die around her if she doesn’t cooperate. It’s a tough pill to swallow and I don’t necessarily blame her for trying to call the bluff about what Ralsei is saying.)

Before that, you end up meeting (and fighting) Lancer, an enigmatic person? monster? who’s apparently been tasked with capturing or dispatching you under the king’s orders. You eventually get the advantage in the fight and he flees. Now given a real taste of the things going on in the kingdom, Susie begrudgingly agrees to go along with it and the adventure truly begins.

Whew, that went on a lot longer than I thought. I’ll try and keep things a lot briefer now.

I’ll be honest, I really didn’t trust Ralsei at first. He explains things in thorough detail a lot and was always kind and patient, even if very a little gullible, from the get go. Plus, it always felt like he was never surprised from any kind of event in your adventure. Though he does end up being a staunch ally all the way through even though he was the person who made Susie defect because she was very un-hero like. Perhaps it was just my skeptical nature that distrusted Ralsei so much? Who knows.

Lancer reminds me very much of Papyrus in a sense. Despite their vocal reasons of why they’re doing such a thing, what they apparently needed the most was a friend. And that comes in the form of Susie. They get along like two peas in a pod when they’re designing their ‘evil’ schemes. He’s incredibly nonsensical ( He doesn’t even have a walk animation! He just slides along the floor.) and seems to be motivated mostly by his own whimsy. I’d even call him immature at times. He has some incredible facial expressions, boy howdy. I snorted very loudly when I saw that facial expression. You know what I’m talking about. He enjoys digging holes for some reason? And then putting salsa and other various things in them?? Even though he’s clearly stated that he’s one of the ‘bad guys’ he doesn’t hesitate to join up with you for a little bit to just chat and such as you’re walking. Though he does inevitably lock you up once he realizes that you’re going to have to leave and take down his dad, the king.

I’ve read a few things where people really did not like Susie, despite how she grows as a character. She acts very much like a brute and doesn’t bat an eye at beating people down for her personal gain. In the beginning, you can’t control her in battle and you have to use your first turn to warn others about her attacks. Susie leaves the party constantly and is vocal in that she hates that she has to put with this hero crap. She’s realizes this (most likely even before she even fell down) and decides to just roll with it. She lets herself be placed in the brute category so people don’t have expectations from her. And from that, she ends up isolated. Though once she ends up becoming a ‘bad guy’ for a little while, she legitimately enjoys herself as she’s scheming with Lancer. Though with that, there’s a side of Susie that most people aren’t likely to see, a side that cares for her friends. She gives Lancer that fruit from the tree that he hasn’t tasted even when she’s hungry and she praises them both for their work. With Lancer, she could just be herself and be accepted for who she is. Which is why she ends up feeling so betrayed when Lancer locks her up with both you and Ralsei when you reach the castle. In her battle with Lancer, I was so torn in what I wanted to do, but I ended up forcefully moving the soul to hit Lancer’s bullets until he moves them out of the way. When she realizes what she’s doing, she first continues to attack until she ends up purposefully missing, stopping the battle. From there, they have a heart to heart and I couldn’t help but smile as she realizes that her actions have been getting others hurt and what’s worse, she ended up hurting her friend because she wouldn’t listen. While she doesn’t show it in an outright way, she comes to rely on both you and Ralsei and will listen to commands you tell her to do. (Also, if you go back and do group ACTs against different enemies, you get some fun dialogue.) She even comes around and deems you and Ralsei her friends after your fight with the king. Her motivations/backstory clearly do not excuse her actions, but they do help explain why she acts a certain way. And when she does try and change herself, I find that to be incredibly admirable.

Also, I don’t think this bothers much explaining, but the music holy SHIT. Toby Fox still has not disappointed in the slightest in any of the music so far

Now that that’s over and done with, I’m going to go through the world, the enemies, the battle system, and finally the ending.

The world itself is incredibly linear. And yet, I didn’t find much problem with how it was laid out. It has secrets and it rewards you for finding them with maybe different gear or an item. It rewards you with information if you perhaps talk to people more than once or with hints about how to spare an enemy. Though a complaint that I would have is that it’s certainly too small. I felt like I was blazing through the world and missing things when I was not, in fact, missing anything. It did so well in immersing me in the world with the game play and music that I lost track of time.

The enemies are all unique (barring the stronger versions in the castle. I feel like that that’s almost obligatory for every kind of RPG.) and have different kinds of ways to spare them as well as different kinds of bullet patterns. This kind of ties in to how short I find the game is, but I found the enemies to be lacking in variability so the fun of the encounters kind of wanes quickly if you backtrack at all. Additionally, I found the enemies to all be incredibly easy (bar one). For my first run, I had a total of one Game Over. And that’s including my fight with the King and the Jester. On a different note, both the King and the Jester were my favorite fights, too. One for the difficulty and one for the creativity behind it. You can guess which one is which easily enough.

Speaking of Battles, the battle system itself is an improvement from the criticisms that I could understand some had with Undertale. You now have three party members that have different abilities and stats and you can all do group ACTs. If you plan correctly, you could probably finish a fight with multiple enemies in around two turns. There’s now a tension gauge that allows you to do special abilities for the characters and even rewards you for being daring in the bullet patterns. Now, with that, the fights are quick but end up getting repetitive relatively quickly due to it. That also coincides with the enemy variability, but I’ll stop from beating a dead horse.

Now, once the King has been dealt with and the Fountain sealed, you and Susie are cast back to their regular world. It’s now well past school time, and you and Susie split, with her talking about how she wants to go back to that world tomorrow. And now, the entire town opens up to you to freely explore. There’s plenty of faces, both old and new, to talk to. And with happy music playing, it’s like Undertale’s last hurrah where you could go around and chat with everyone.

But even still, the world seems very... cold. Your classmates around the town are all shocked you’re still alive, but apparently don’t care enough about you that you didn’t return from the supply closet for hours when they just talked about how you might’ve gotten killed. Undyne and Alphys don’t even know each other, even when they live in such a small town. Gerson is dead and the ones from the Determination experiments have all passed. Several people remark how you’ve changed for the better for some reason, which is good. Though they then also passively remark how weird you were previously. Catty and Bratty hate each other and call one another posers. The bunny running the diner gives you a hot chocolate out of pity when she started reminiscing about you and Asriel visting and getting hot chocolate every Sunday. Asgore, your father, lives in abject poverty. He lives above his flower store and its sad the kind of living conditions he deals with. If you read the notes on the floor, he’s past due on his rent and he’s mocked about giving away flowers out of kindness and needs to start selling them. Still, it’s heart wrenching to me that Toriel kept the kids and the house while Asgore is left with pretty much nothing. And Toriel still hates his guts when you give Asgore’s flowers to her.

Sans and Papyrus have just moved in to town with Sans apparently taking over the local grocery store. There was something about the way Sans acts to us that just rubs me the wrong way. He gives us a fake phone number for crying babies and then jokes about how he fucked your mom last night. It’s not even that stupid punning that he does, it’s just being rude to somebody he just met. What is also concerning to me is that Papyrus hadn’t left the house yet. He’d probably be one of the first people to be running around, introducing himself to people, don’t you think?

Anyway, now that that’s all done and you’ve talked to everyone, you’re tired and you go to bed to go to school the next day. And then during the middle of the night, Kris is thrown from their bed and begin walking like someone possessed or a zombie of sorts. They then proceed to dig in to their chest, wrench out their SOUL, and throw it in to the bird cage in the wagon. And then, out of nowhere, they produce a knife and smile a too broad smile. And then it ends.

Okay, inhale... exhale. WHAT THE FUCKKKK. I’m sure the rest of the people who played this game weren’t entirely expecting that ending. But now, it leaves everyone with even more questions.

My overall thoughts on this game are still incredibly positive and a lot my criticisms have to do with the length, which is something that shouldn’t be much of a problem once another chapter is released. Though what is sad to me is that a lot of what made Undertale endearing to me has been altered in to something more depressing. Or unwelcoming even. Though I don’t have to compare it directly to Undertale due to, as Toby said, it not being related to Undertale much at all. Just a similar set of characters. However, this is still the first chapter and the lore and story has still much to be explained and divulged. I eagerly await for more.

[141-point-12]

Harvest, Amber, spice, orchard, bonfire, cinnamon, maize, quilt and pumpkin. :3

amber - share an unpopular opinion that you may have. 

I didn’t care for Metal Gear Solid 3. Like... at all, really. 

White chocolate has its place and people should stop hating.

spice - have you ever encountered a house that you believed to be haunted?

Hmmm. No, I don’t think so. Spooky sure because all shadows are hiding creepy monsters but not actually haunted.   

orchard - share one thing that you’d like to happen this autumn.

Ah! So many good things are already happening??? I’m going home for the State Fair for a weekend. And in November I’m going to Japan! We are going to some new locations and I’m really excited. >o< (Also we will be gone over Thanksgiving so I guess we can have fried chicken or something for dinner.) 

I guess I would really like it if I could find some motivation to get some writing done? I have a lot of fics collecting dust and I feel like maybe people aren’t following them anymore or whatever but finishing would make me feel a lot better. 

bonfire - describe your dream house.

I actually love my current house so much? We have plenty of space, great showers and water pressure, and there’s even a built in puppy door. Our backyard isn’t HUGE but we have a great view over this storm drain facility (which sounds terrible, but it’s essentially a man-made pond). I’d love it if we had some kind of gazeebo or shade or an additional big tree that gave the yard a little more shade. We even have a guest room and the previous owners had a swanky mini movie screen setup that we got them to leave behind so that’s our TV room. We have one room that doesn’t really have a job yet (might be a guest room etc in the future) so it literally just has a ball pit in it. XD

cinnamon - if you had to live in a time period different than the present, which would you choose and where?

As a not terribly good looking woman of color the past doesn’t look terribly hospitable to me so uh... maybe like I can just press FF on all this current political bullshit by a few decades because I really, really believe in my heart that we are in the dark before the light and we are fighting our way towards a better time. I really hope I get to see it.

maize - share the weirdest encounter you’ve had with a stranger on the street.

When I first moved to Austin I didn’t have a job so I would take the bus to different parts of the city to try and figure out where things were while my husband was at the university. One day I ended up at a food truck park while wearing my Valentine’s lolita skirt. (Feb in TX is warm enough for skirts and tees.) While I was eating, a lady with red hair, probbbbably in her 50′s (?) started chatting with me about how much she loved Austin and how she lived in a “big old hippie house” with a bunch of people and gave me a Disney princess Valentine. XD 

quilt - how do you take your tea (or coffee)?

Even though I’ve been drinking regular, run of the mill coffee since I was a kid (my dad would put tiny amounts in the creamer cups when we went out to Waffle House etc) I’m a cream and (fake) sugar kind of person. I like sweet tea but I try to do half and half sweet and regular and have slowly been drinking more unsweetened iced tea. Hot tea still needs something sweet though.

pumpkin - do you think that humans are inherently good or bad?

I guess it’s a cop-out if I say “humans are inherently human”, isn’t it?

harvest - what fictional character do you most identify with? Why?

I think Sayaka Miki is the character that I had the most... visceral (?) and strong moment of identification with for reasons I’m going to put under a cut because I know for a fact you haven’t seen PMMM. (We should watch this sometime.)

I relate to Sayaka for exactly the reasons I think a viewer is meant to, any probably some that I’ve draped on her. Sayaka is a “good girl”. What I mean by that is not that she is moral (she is, as best as she can be), but that she is trying to live up to a concept of what a “good girl” is or does. “Good girls” put other people before themselves. They’re loyal. They fight against bad things with everything in them until they have nothing left because putting their wants or needs first isn’t “good”. 

The problem with this is that it’s not sustainable. You have to take care of yourself. You have to put yourself first sometimes. Even if you have friends to support you, if you aren’t there for yourself, it’s a broken system that is just waiting to fall apart. And that’s exactly what happens.

As a young girl- I fell into the same kind of conditioning that I think Sayaka may have. Be a good girl. Be patient and kind and nurturing. Care for others, even if you are hurt in the process. “Good girls” are selfless. This was supported in most if not all of the fiction and media I consumed, be it Western or anime. And to be honest, it almost got me into some real trouble as I bent over backwards to appease other people until I finally reached a point where I felt uncomfortable enough to finally say “No. This is not okay. You aren’t allowed to dictate everything I do. You aren’t thankful for what I’ve already given you and I deserve something in return.” 

I’m not sure why that finally clicked for me, but it did. I guess I just got pushed far enough that I pushed back and lo and behold, the people who I was killing myself for suddenly vanished. They had no use for me after I stopped being a doormat for them. It hurt but it put me on the track to finding my own happiness, finding people that appreciated me, that wanted to be an equal partner in our relationships. 

And that is what happens for Sayaka as well. It takes a pretty serious downfall and death, essentially- before she can realize this. (It has been confirmed that there is no possible timeline in which her death doesn’t occur, but in the end she is okay with that and goes on to become Madoka’s herald, and comes to appreciate the people that really did care for her.) So maybe a fundamental breakdown and re-evaluation is necessary before someone like me is capable of rediscovering their path. 

Oh and the fact that she’s a lancer. An adjustable lancer at that, which is the character archtype I see myself as. She goes from red oni to blue oni depending on the person she’s supporting and I relate to that so hard.

[talan-dracht]

FFXIV IC Class Knowledge - Talan Dracht

D I S C I P L E S   O F   W A R

Raised in Limsa by a father who was more tha nwilling to hide what his real career was, Talan was taught all manners of fighting with fist and axe to sufficiently defend himself. It was only when he met his ‘Old Man’ in a Limsa tavern that he truly found skill with a weapon he’s held onto for a majority of his life.

GLADIATOR || PALADIN: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master MARAUDER || WARRIOR: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master DARK KNIGHT: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master PUGILIST || MONK: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master LANCER || DRAGOON: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master ROGUE || NINJA: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master SAMURAI: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master ARCHER || BARD: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master MACHINIST: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master

D I S C I P L E S   O F   M A G I C

Raised around little to no interest in magic and showing exactly the same aptitude in the magical arts, Talan is the quintessential example of a non-magic user.

CONJURER || WHITE MAGE : Unskilled |  Novice | Adept | Expert | Master ARCANIST || SCHOLAR || SUMMONER: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master ASTROLOGIAN:  Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master THAUMATURGE || BLACK MAGE: Unskilled |  Novice | Adept | Expert | Master RED MAGE:  Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master

D I S C I P L E S   O F   T H E   H A N D

If bartending and serving were good trade-skills to have, Talan would have a wide variety of skills to behold. However, they aren’t, and Talan was never really afforded a craftsman’s education. Thus, the eager and meager bits of any trades he’s learned from those more proficient with or tried on his own are the only experience he has.

CARPENTER: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master BLACKSMITH: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master ARMORER: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master GOLDSMITH: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master LEATHERWORKER: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master WEAVER: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master ALCHEMIST: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master CULINARIAN: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master

D I S C I P L E S   O F   T H E   L A N D

While growing up in LImsa, fishing was a natural past-time for Talan (other than trying to tame, catch, or otherwise follow Chocobos). He’s got a natural knack for it, but has never developed his skills beyond that.

MINER: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master BOTANIST: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master FISHER: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master

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