#gene makes me feel very inconsistent in regards to him but i think i also appreciate that about him

[chxna-cheeseycake]

One time I got very silly with it and made whole Mystreet X Mandela Catalogue AU because it's virtually impossible for me to be into two fandoms at the same time without making a crossover AU at some point. It's actually been a second since I've paid attention to Mandela Catalogue and I def have to catch up on the new uploads but whateves I'm thinking about this AU rn anyways.

The AU is just pretty much the real Dante dying at like 4 years old in an accident and then getting replaced by an alternate. Gene is the only one in his family that remembers the real Dante dying because their mom Maria lowkey went through so much trauma by Alt! Dante that she can no longer remember that her youngest son is dead whoopsies 😙 But anyways, Gene doesn't say anything about it because he was also a child at the time and truly didn't understand what happened. Other than that, I lowkey made the AU a bit more silly as Gene just chills with his eldritch abomination of a younger brother like it's just a normal ass occurrence 💀 Their usual dynamic is literally just this:

Gene: Dammit, why isn't Zenix texting me back?

Dante: Beat him up within an inch of his life. Let him face true fear and suffering so he knows not to mess with you any longer ʘ‿ʘ

Gene: I can't do that, dude! He still owes me twenty bucks.

Lowkey the roles are slightly reversed but it's more notable when they're adults. At that point, Gene is definitely the one that has to prevent Dante from committing crimes on the daily. But trying to prevent your eldritch horror brother from wiping out humanity can be pretty grueling work at times. Dante has a soft spot for Gene (obviously) so Gene is pretty much the only one safe from Dante's silly (and HIGHLY deadly) alternate behavior <3 Alternate Overlord Gabriel does not like this though and tries to force Dante to get rid of Gene too. But Dante pretty much begs Gabriel to let him keep Gene, pretty much treating Gene like he's a stray dog or something. And eventually Gabriel gives in not because he actually wants to or anything but because he's tired of Dante's shit and just wants Dante to stop talking to him already 💀

Also Dante very clearly does not act like a normal human but Gene will always act as if Dante isn't doing the weirdest shit of all time. Not because Gene is genuinely oblivious to Dante's alternate nature but because he thinks it's funny to just pretend Dante isn't doing weird crap and enjoys watching people flip out over it. Gene even does this shit with Zenix and Sasha and it pisses the two of them off so much, especially Zenix who is secretly very creeped out but will deny that to anyone who asks. Dante and Gene just get really goofy with it in this AU despite the fact that it's based on the Mandela Catalogue because dammit I need to have some silliness with this brother duo. It can't always be angsty as shit even if angst is my favorite thing to write about lol.

[buckybarnesss]

This is sort of an out of left field question- but what are your thoughts on Peter and Talia being half or step siblings?

Obviously, they don’t look alike very much. And clearly genes are funky things and this is not damning evidence. But I think it’s a very personal hc to me bc I myself have a half brother who I love very much, but it does influence our interactions.

One thing I constantly think about is Peter being an unreliable narrator. And what we see of Laura from his pov is different than Scott and Stiles finding her body. Is he imagining she’s blond and looks more like him? Yeah sure this could just be casting inaccuracies. But it feels very personal lol.

Has Peter always felt a degree of distance with his family? Where did the idea of him being Talia’s left hand come from? Wouldnt he have been there in the alpha pack flash back if that was the case? Was he younger than Laura? This also brings to mind Papa Hale (who I like to imagine was a human part of the pack/another pack before him and Talia were in a relationship). Was Talia always a Hale? Or married in?

Anyway, I have many thoughts and questions. But I really appreciate your analysis and insight. Joining a fandom past its prime (affectionate) is sort of like being in the apocalypse where 80% of the fandom is dead, and finding a ‘survivor’ is a miracle. Anyway, if you feel like it, I would love your thoughts on it all :3

if laura hale is my roman empire than talia and peter's relationship is my holy roman empire.

@dear-massacre and i talk about this quite frequently. it's a problem fam.

i do have a talia hale and peter hale and the hale family feels tags.

we don't really have any information other than some crumbs jeff has thrown us within canon.

in my opinion talia is the hale. there's no other option put forth. derek's father is such a non-entity that there's zero mention of him. the hales are clearly an old family of werewolves and were part of the very founding of beacon hills itself likely connected to the nemeton.

not to mention, season 3 has a lot to do with derek learning from and accepting talia's legacy and the legacy of the hale family. it also directly contrasts the argents. the argents pay lip service to being matriarchal but we know gerard has been calling the shots for decades whereas it seems as though the hales actually were.

so when you get down to it you can pretty much headcanon anything you want for how the exact specifics of how talia and peter are related but what we do know is talia was the older sibling and peter the younger.

peter doesn't actually talk about talia very much if at all. however, his monolog in monstrous is quite illuminating on peter's headspace while he was in a coma and pre-resurrection.

i predicted this. i told-i told talia this was going to happen... something like this was going to happen... i said that they were gonna come for us... " the argents, they're gonna come for us. they're gonna burn us to the ground-- burn us to the ground." did she listen? of course not! did anyone listen? they listened to her-- yes!-- say that everything was going to be fine. that we were all perfectly safe...perfectly safe... but she made us weak! she made us weak. and what happens to the weakest in the herd? they get picked off by the predators! we used to be the apex predators, until talia turned us into sheep.

with that said i do have my own ideas on their relationship given what we know. visionary is the episode that does the heavy lifting in the entire goddamn show in regards to this.

the age inconsistency comes from bringing back the younger actor from season 2 to play peter in visionary. it makes peter appear closer to derek's age than he actually is. i think it's almost part of peter's manipulations. it's his attempt to manipulate the audience as well just like he did lydia.

there's just simply no way talia hale didn't know about peter's everything. she was not only his older sister but she was his alpha. i think peter and talia may have been more similar than people want to believe.

peter is a lot of things. many of them contradictory. he loved his sister and clearly mourned her but that doesn't mean he didn't resent her just a little. he did still after all go with derek to retrieve her claws and i think there's something twisted up in him about how derek resembles her and begins to become more like her.

when you begin to sort of dig into what we know about the hale family the more one begins to question if talia was as benevolent as people assume she was. there's some seriously morally questionable things that occurred. talia did some shady things.

the real big one is that she coerced corrine into carrying her pregnancy with malia to term. the likely explanation is talia did this because she knew this would decrease corrine's power.

corrine is pretty explicit about this with what she says to malia:

you know, your real name isn't malia. you don't have a name. talia hale took you away from me before i could give you one.

and

corrine: i'm not going to stop, malia. i'm taking back what you stole from me. malia: i didn't steal anything. corrine: but you did. corrine: and I don't care if you're a willing participant or not. talia hale spent nine months trying to convince me of the miracle of childbirth. you know what it really felt like? a parasite. talia said it was a gift, that the coyote passes down part of her power to her daughter. she called it "beautiful." i call it "theft."

she also took peter's memories of malia's existence which considering peter's reaction doesn't seem like he had much say in. so in effect talia removed peter's agency.

she probably felt she had valid reason for doing these things. corrine was a threat and dangerous person but still it's really, really questionable. it still ended with malia's adoptive mother and sister being killed and malia going missing for years because corrine was vengeful over losing her power. talia was still alive when this happened.

of all people talia had to be aware of peter's -- you know -- everything and she probably held the leash. he wasn't a problem so long as she was the alpha and could control him.

talia also had to have been aware of and likely either approved of or encouraged him taking a mentor sort of role with derek. we see peter having a keen interest in derek in both visionary and the season 4 flashbacks.

like, who do we think ran off and told talia about what happened with derek and paige? who likely instructed peter on getting rid of paige's body and helping to cover up her death to protect derek and the family?

i actually fully believe she knew peter was skulking about the werewolf summit and may have even told him to do so.

talia is like the mona lisa smile of teen wolf. she's inscrutable but we get impressions about her and what she was like via the people that knew her. her children, her brother, her advisor and peers.

[demonsfate]

I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT JIN'S EMAIL TO HER IN TEK 4 LMAO orz I'm sorry. But yeah I agree with you. I also think he didn't tell her all the details likely for those reasons. But he told her enough to warn her and give her an idea of what kind of person Heihachi was. Which makes her attitude in Tekken 5 all the more confusing. I'm guessing Jin was so confused because he swore he had told her Heihachi was a pos, still does and yet here she is trying to go back in time lol. I think that's the game where things start to get worse with the writing. Granted Tekken has never had top writing but still. It actually makes me a bit sad because I was introduced to the games with 5 and I'm very fond of it (bc nostalgia but anyway)

A lot of shit happens in the Tekken series, and it makes it easier to forget it when the game's plagued with inconsistent writing. Hell, there are many things forgotten or straight up misconceptions within the fandom. (Many people still believe Kazuya made a deal with the devil to not die as a kid, but that only happened in the OVA) HELL, even I sometimes forget certain things, and I end up making headcanon posts that don't comply to canon just because I forgot about something. 😅

I looked it up for more info regarding the "email" Jin sent, according to some sources (such as the PAL version of the manual) Jin told her he suspected Heihachi was gonna have her assassinated...? Whiiich unsure if that's just a mistranslation from the PAL edition or not because I don't see why Heihachi would do that. He did it to Jin because Jin was no longer of use, he never cared about Jin, and Jin has the devil gene. But Xiao hasn't really done anything to warrant an assassination, unless Heihachi feared she'll uncover the truth regarding Jin's disappearance, and turn on him. But again, I'm unsure if this is true, or if the PAL version just added more because they thought "dangers" was too vague, or assumed that's what it meant when talking about the dangers. But who knows, we all also know how wonky the official translations of the series can be.

There's also a lot of issues with time travel. Such as, even if Xiao had succeeded, it'd be a possibility that Jin would've never been born. (After all, Jun only met Kaz due to his shady treatment of wildlife animals). But I won't delve too much into this just because it's just a silly story that means little. I don't even know how canon it is, considering that Xiao's ending in general isn't canon I don't think. Time travel, I'm pretty sure, is still not something that can canonically be done in the lore LOL.

Oh, Tekken 5 may be my favorite Tek game. (It's in the top three along with Tek3 and Tag 2) But I also very much enjoy Tekken 6 and we all know how I feel regarding its story. Basically, Tekken games can be very fun but not have the story that matches their quality of gameplay LOL. And I belieeeeve I wrote here very recently that 5 was the start of the atrocious writing. Although Jin was still relatively in character in 5, it did set up his villain arc with the ending. Xiao was flanderized to hell as we've discussed. Characters that didn't have joke endings before now have them (see Heihachi and Lei, probs more that I'm not thinking about rn) which set up the premise of not taking most of the cast seriously. (Tek7 DEFINITELY had an issue with most endings being pointless and comedic) So yeah, whilst Tek5 wasn't as bad as Tek6 in terms of story, it was suffering symptoms of it. Like a pre-illness or something LOL.

Tek3 was actually the first I was introduced to. My brothers CLAIMED we played Tek5 as kids because we rented it before when it was new...? But oddly I have like ZERO memories of it. I only remember playing Tek3, Tag 1, and Tek4. Which I played Tek4 very little because as a kid, I saw the limited amount of characters and thought "why would I play this when I can play Tag 1 with LOTS of characters...?" xD

[auburnfamilynews]

Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

Uh.

Don’t know if you heard, but college football got canceled last night because of the pandemic. That’s right. We didn’t get to play Georgia in Athens, and we definitely didn’t get our doors blown off and we definitely aren’t waking up this morning thinking about everything from the good old days to coaching changes and all things in between.

I wish.

SNAP JUDGMENTS

Thanks Gus. I’m done

-James Jones

We’ve been prolonging the inevitable for some time now but here’s the truth. Gus Malzahn has a clear ceiling & a clear floor. He’ll keep this team bowl eligible & he’ll give teams hell at home but he won’t win another championship as Auburn’s head coach. As much as it pains me because I genuinely like the man, we are being left behind by the top tier SEC programs. Tonight was an embarrassment to everything Pat Dye did for this Auburn football program. We will likely have to wait a year due to COVID but the truth is that Gus is done. Here’s to hoping we can knock off LSU in Jordan-Hare.

War Damn, ya’ll.

-AU Nerd

Well..... I picked Georgia to win this game because I couldn’t trust Gus to win a game in Athens. Man I hate being right sometimes. But the omens were there yesterday.....

#1 - This day started bad when news came out that Cam had tested positive for COVID.

#2 - Then on the basketball side, JD Davison, as I figured, committed to Bama.

#3 - It was announced that SEC Freshmen of the Week Jaylin Simpson was out due to injury, a huge loss.

#4 - We didn’t have Shaun Shivers or Eli Stove on offense, also due to injury.

So we were behind the 8 ball before this thing started. And then it just snowballed from there.

I will say in a positive that Tank Bigsby lived up to his name and I’m excited to see him continue to get better.

Basketball starts in 7 1/2 weeks though.

War Eagle!

-Will McLaughlin

I said before that this was a game you absolutely could not lose. You were going against a walk on quarterback who was 5th string earlier this offseason. Georgia looked like garbage against a team that hadn’t won an SEC game in three years. Auburn’s 3-10 against Georgia in the last decade.

Well, we lost that one. There’s no X’s and O’s needed. You just got punked. Sure, it’s one loss in a weird year against an Uber-talented team, but it’s indicative of where this program is. Can we beat anyone? Sure. Are we a top half SEC team? You bet. But I’ve given up hope that this regime will ever get us to the top. War damn.

-Ryan Sterritt

The better program won this game tonight. It has been over a decade since this series has been competitive, so tonights result should come with no surprise. Simply put, our standard that Pat Dye built has been diminished into a distant memory. We’re extremely comfortable being 3rd in a division on a regular basis with 3 wins over our in-state rival in 8 years, all at home, while we simply do not compete for Sixty Minutes on the road against the teams that we want to beat.

For as bad as this defense looked tonight, we should be appreciating what the championship-level defense of 2016-2019 was, all led by a generational talent up front who is now starting as a rookie in Carolina. This defense was always going to struggle by comparison. But it’s the offensive side of the ball that has been an inconsistent disappointment for large chunks of every season since 2015. And truthfully, our offensive line, which was patched up in 2017 with transfers, has not been right since around 2016, or around the time the prior staff’s recruits funneled out (Braden Smith excluded, but it’s clear he’s an outlier with regards to recruited talent along the OL from this current program). This version of our offensive line is probably more gifted than last year’s in some aspects, but they have yet to have 4 consecutive weeks of practice thanks to COVID. Even then, at an upward trajectory we should expect this offense, led by a legacy quarterback, to be misused through various points of this season and into next. It’s our standard, after all.

So, it begs the question. Not for today. Not for this year. Maybe not for next year. But at some point, who are we going to choose to be when it comes time to take a good long look in the mirror? We’d all love to go there now, but fiscally you are kidding yourself if you entertain it. So, I’ll just say when that day comes what I want to be able to say when we look in the mirror is that we want to be a program that consistently contends for championships. We want to be a program that will outwork our rivals. We want to be a program that expects to beat Georgia, LSU, and Alabama or have a fair shot no matter if the game is in Jordan-Hare Stadium or the very gates of hell themselves. I hope that’s what we’ll want. But my fear is that we’ll beat Alabama in Auburn next year and just enjoy the memories of when we were a legitimate program that built upon itself. That’s what Pat Dye did. And that’s what’s been wrong with Auburn ever since we stupidly decided to let him go. We once could look in the mirror and say that we were the toughest team anyone on our schedule had to play. Now? We’re telling the truth when we say that our opponent is supremely more talented than we are. And that’s a damn shame.

And until we are at that crossroad of having to answer that question, this numbing feeling of normalcy over performances like tonight are more painful than the loss itself. This should not be normal. This should not be numbing. This should be a wake up call. But if history has shown us anything, it’ll just be another lost night in Athens, GA until that day of self-confrontation arrives.

-Josh Black

Lopsided, brutal 60 minutes. How does this team bounce back next week? That will tell us a lot about this team, their coaches, and their leaders.

-Josh Dub

-AU Chief

Everything that’s been said or needed to be said about the game has been said above. Listless effort. Less talent. No heart. No prep. No adjustments. No will to win, save for one player, a freshman. It doesn’t need to be rehashed because you all watched what happened last night and that was as embarrassing an effort as we’ve seen likely since Baton Rouge in 2015.

Josh Black talked above about Georgia being the better program, and it’s true. We should be mad at Gus for not being able to manage the roster so that we don’t have total turnaround on both lines to go against the recruiting behemoths on our permanent schedule. Despite his faults as a head coach, Gene Chizik’s staff was built to recruit, but he had to bring that standard up after Tuberville’s failures. Not to shove blame off of Gus, but there’s a reason that Georgia and Alabama were able to find their footing and become top tier programs so quickly Auburn had the upper hand. Auburn was it. Tuberville was able to turn those 2 and 3-stars into SEC stars. He didn’t need to get the blue chips. BUT WHAT IF HAD TRIED? Imagine if Auburn was winning six straight in the Iron Bowl and going against Mark Richt at the same time as they were signing 5-star players. Alabama never gets its footing after one year with Saban, because he’s got real competition in the state. Auburn would have been established. It began there.

Now, it’s been too easy to recruit against Gus. He makes it easy on himself. When you see what Alabama does with a Jaylen Waddle, you’d like to go there and become him instead of Anthony Schwartz. Yeah, they tried last night with Schwartz, but it didn’t hit. You hit a couple of those plays and everything loosens up. We’re supposed to be good enough to convert those plays. Meanwhile, there’s little solace taken in the fact that Gus was right when he said that Georgia had the best talent in the SEC, and Kirby was wrong when he said we did (even facetiously).

10 years since our last win in Tuscaloosa, 15 since our last win in Athens, 21 since our last win in Baton Rouge. Those are staggering numbers. What do you do? Fire Gus? It’s already been said, and it started as early as the second quarter last night. Who do you get? Therein lies the rub. You can’t grab some hot young assistant. You have to compete now. Would we give a Dabo type of hire the time he needs? Clemson didn’t really get competitive until his fourth season. Take three years of beatdowns and then we start to play? Nobody’s patient enough for that.

We may be stuck here with that kind of a game every so often, quite honestly. There’s likely not a better alternative at this point, but there are things that need to change. We can’t get trounced on the recruiting trail anymore, but there’s no reason we shouldn’t be getting wrecked by our chief rivals. We can’t mismanage a roster like this, and we can’t go into a road venue and show literally nothing. Damn.

-Jack Condon

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2020/10/4/21501195/snap-judgments-4-georgia-27-7-auburn-6

[afilitaria]

Could you please tell us more about your eo characters? They seem delightfully interesting ^^

I have homework to do so no doodles this time around but thank you for the distraction ehe

Which ones? To be honest I have way too many . _ . I love all of them and I’m ashamed of being bias to Snow ehehehe~ I’ll put down some of my faves here then; not everyone is here because that would take forever… hello wall of text

(Also, the writing tone is super inconsistent, whoops! Feel free to correct inconsistencies or offer suggestions, since these aren’t set in stone right now~)

Snow (EO3/EO2U/EMD): Runaway prince, prefers the title of Strategist rather than a Sovereign (I mean, it’s basically what he does? And he’s not -really- a Sovereign anymore). He’s naive and trusting to anything that seems amiable (”How was I supposed to see the guy’s face?! Am I the only one without x-ray vision in this party?!”) but will kick your ass in a game of chess or tactical warfare. He’s also sometimes a total wisecrack, like during the Ginnungagap third floor; he summarizes it as “So we’re not the chosen ones, but since you’re desperate, you’ll take anyone at this point?”

Also hands down abuses Proof of Nobility in EO2U early game just so the guild doesn’t have to spend money on inns, but would spend 420k en on a bow. “We’re so broke” - Snow Afilitaria Aurelis 2k17

I see EO3 as the prequel story to the EO2U arc, which is his adventures in Armoroad after leaving Afilitaria and before being reunited with the Aurelis brothers and Eden, who at the time are in the EOU arc. 

EMD, uh, it’s full of crack headcanons on my end because in my entire guild roster, only he, Alexander, Akihiro and Yukimura make it there (Aki being the blue haired Wanderer). So, after the events of EO2U, Snow wanted to go travelling with only Alexander, but the Mizuharus stow away on the boat ride to Aslarga because they figured it’d get boring in H.Lagaard. That’s EMD for me. Yup.

Alexander (EOU/EO2U/EMD): Snow’s royal guard and protector, the only one he accepted. Personality varies; early on in the story, he is very lighthearted, cracking jokes and puns (*cough Punvoke cough*), but as time goes on and he loses Snow for the nth time, he gradually becomes more and more serious, scared of how closer and closer Snow gets to death every time, to the point of becoming overprotective.

Anyway. The family of Aurelis was a powerful force in service to the Afilitaria noble family, and Alexander lived a carefree life, with the role of heir delegated to Orlandeau, the eldest. However, one day at the age of 13, their parents and servants were one day all assassinated, with the three children as the only survivors as Snow hurriedly sent forces to come to their aid. Seeing how they now had nothing but their lives, Snow took them in, and Alexander felt indebted to him and vowed to serve him for the rest of his life, in lieu of Orlandeau’s original duty, and he trained to be a knight.The story goes about as smoothly as you expect (not at all?), and Snow, being only 9 years old running a country on his ill parents’ behalf, constantly breaks down in stress when no one is watching. Alexander is the only one to notice and lend his shoulder for him to cry on, and well… I think you could guess the rest.

Hm? Why is Snow’s story summarized in Alexander’s section? Because Snow is a comic relief character. It wouldn’t feel right to put anything serious in his bio.

Orlandeau (EOU/EO2U): Anti-social, quiet, jargon spouting Orlandeau is generally regarded as a mad scientist by the Alchemist Union of H.Lagaard, but he does a lot for them; developing new technology and medicine with the help of Zero and Eden. 

Certain teams in said Union despise him however; in the past, he was in said team in the efforts to create homunculi, the perfect, superior life form. However, the project was largely abandoned and the team moved onto researching means to strengthening already existing life; however, Orlandeau refused to give up, taking copies of all of the team’s research and using it to create Zero; who was, by no means perfect, but something of an improvement; he made the mistake of using his own genes and as a result, Zero is slightly physically frail, though his magic power is beyond even his own. 

Zero (EO2U): I think you guys know about Zero; Orlandeau’s homunculi who developed a fascination with the War Magus Union. It took him a while to be accepted in there, seeing how he is an artificial life form, but in the end, they saw it as a means to end the sort of rivalry between the Alchemist and War Magus Associations, and work together.He’s a bright, bubbly, cheerful guy despite his looks, and is known as Doctor Zero to most, as he often volunteers in the hospital whenever needed with Eden.

Unfortunately, with these two, I’m not sure what else to say that I hadn’t covered already in a previous ask!

Vessalius (EOU/EO2U): Vessalius, like his eldest brother, is not so much a talker, but he is at least capable of holding decent conversation. He can be quite distant and hesitant to get close to others due to the trauma of losing his family.

He was the one whom took the news of their parents’ assassination the hardest, being only 10 at the time. Unlike Orlandeau, who regarded the event with calm, almost inhumane realism, and Alexander, who drowned his sorrows in favor of helping the one who saved them, he burned with the desire to exact vengeance on the people who ruined their life. He grew to be an assassin, learning thieves’ cant and slowly inching his way into their underground society, where he eliminated them one by one.

Then, with that done, what was left of his life? Snow was against his becoming an assassin in the first place even though Vess assured him he would not lay a hand on any innocents; Snow was still convinced nothing good would come of it and could not allow Vessalius to continue living in the castle if he wanted to continue this path. Safety precautions, plus Snow’s outlook for the country was of peace, not a stack of power-plays twisting into politics- thus, Vess left, and after his mission was finished at the age of 16, he abandoned his job as assassin and sought to become a survivalist. He settled for a while in a quaint little town and befriended the local medic, a fellow named Eden; who was being worked to death.

Eden (EOU/EO2U): Life Medic who loathes to hurt… though that changes during the events of EO2U, where he realizes he could be helping the team fend off their opponents, and thus, hello level 20 Medical Rod and Heavy Strike. He is generally cheerful, though clumsy and airheaded, but can recite ingredients for various types of vulneraries off the top of his head.

I mentioned before that Eden tires easily. He eats and sleeps a lot, and burns enough energy while adventuring to metabolize; but for the most part, the unnatural energy intake is due to the life energy that overflows in him.As a child, he never knew his parents; his mother died giving birth to him and his father completely unknown. He was raised at an orphanage, where his talent for healing was quickly recognized and taken advantage of. He spent many days and nights working, treating the endless stream of warriors who came to exchange coin for healing. He was willing to do this- though he received very little of the money, he believed this was at least what he owed to the people who raised him.

Let me reiterate that he was being worked to death. The survivalist Vessalius saw this and tried to convince him to stop, but he refused, and in another stroke of MoralityFail.exe, Vessalius kidnapped him and took him to Afilitaria, where he begged Snow to take them in. Eden wasn’t happy about this. It takes a good few years for him to forgive Vess.

The overflow of life energy is a result of his childhood spent tirelessly treating people; his body is so used to exerting so much magic that he grew to always generate far too much.

Valens (EO2U): Actual prince, Snow’s little brother and current Sovereign of Afilitaria. Due to in-country riot, he’s had to hide for an undefined set of time and the signal to return still hasn’t come. Asking Guild Aurelis to take him in may not have been the best idea, but at least not many people know who he is in H.Lagaard. He’s a bit of a brat and snarky as hell, and rules with an iron fist (which explains his country’s dismay, but he actually does a good job at keeping order.)

He hates Alexander with a burning passion and is always picking fights with him. Alexander is too happy to fight back, resulting in many bullet holes in his armor and slashes in Clover’s. Snow and Clover, while they both agree this rivalry is pointless, can’t really stop it at the moment.

Clover (EO2U): Gunner with no magical or physical prowess, but would probably attempt to disassemble a Yggdroid for analysis if he saw one. Would he succeed? Who knows.

He is Valens’ only royal guard because no one else would do it. He cares for Valens, to the point of aggressively going trigger happy on his assailants, but also understands the error of his ways and constantly tries to steer his direction into a less tyrannical and more peaceful rule. He is always very, very tired, drinks a lot of coffee (to the point of begging Regina to teach him how to make H.Lagaard Coffee out of Labyrinth materials) and is generally a calm and mellow person. Some exceptions apply on that last note.

Kiel (EOU/EO2U): The Hexer who swears too much in Latin (or the equivalent of thereof). I previously said he was a memelord, but unfortunately, memes don’t exist during the time period of EO2U, so in reality, he just has a personality that would translate to a memester in a Modern AU or something; loud, boisterous and mischievous.

He’s bound to Caeli by contract and has ownership of his soul in return for his magic power, but has yet to actually force control over him, if ever. He just appreciates Caeli’s company and probably just has the contract in effect so Caeli is capable of magical bardsong. Unfortunately this means they can’t be apart any more than a hundred meters or so, but Kiel probably enjoys this.He’s also really bad with names. He frequently calls Ginnungagap “Gingersnap”.

Caeli (EOU/EO2U): Also not really a memeadour due to timeline constraints. He just has the personality of one, though unlike Kiel, is a bit more mild and gentle about it.

So, did anyone notice the elven ears in the last drawing? Caeli is from a distant land where elves are hidden from normal society and prized as a slave commodity to humans. He was/is very good at singing and was kidnapped by adventurers who then sold him to a noble house that kept him caged up and forced him to play music for them. His magic power was sapped from him as they knew he would use it to escape, and thus Kiel, who was undertaking some sort of witch’s rite (which involved cursing/hexing those deemed fit to be punished), came to the castle and heard his beautiful, yet hauntingly sad song, and decided to set him free, soon after which the two fled to Etria.

Akihiro (EOU/EO2U/EMD): In which the second EOU/EO2U Ronin and male EMD Wanderer are all the same person. The rope ribbon’s under the kasa, apparently. He is the most undisciplined warrior you will ever meet, which translates to min-maxing the hell out of his stats whenever possible (high str and agi, but def and vit don’t exist, what is Clear Stance?). 

He was a Ronin that was second son of some Lord Mizuharu, from the Orient, and got disowned for bringing shame to the family time and time again. It’s because of this he set out to regain his honor, but his small understanding of the common language and his weak constitution weighed him down greatly, not to mention his abhorrent sense of direction. He ended up joining Aurelis during events of EOU, and accompanying them to EMD, where he picked up the class of Wanderer. He is proud of the great feat of scaling Muspelheim from start to finish by himself with only a bag full of sigils and bread. No one knows why he bothered to do it. Yukimura still mourns the loss of their supplies.

(You know, I was awfully close to making Akihiro in EO3 as a Shogun, were it not for deciding to instead make Natsume. He was so close to being everywhere.)

Yukimura (EO3/EMD): The first son of Lord Mizuharu, Akihiro’s brother, and a ninja. He has a very prickly personality and constantly scolds Akihiro for his lack of discipline. He does care for his younger brother though, and to this day, Akihiro still doesn’t know how much Yukimura has defended him from their parents’ ire. (He’ll never admit it.)

The events of EO3 has him travelling with the intent of finding his younger brother, knowing that if there’s one way he has to go about this, it’d be “go adventure all over the globe and hope you run into him, because chances are he’s doing the same thing.” Instead, he finds his long lost rival Natsume. “I’m surrounded by idiots.” - Yukimura Mizuharu 2k17

Natsume (EO3): Shogun, of the Ishikawa family. There’s a really weird love/hate relationship between him and Yukimura. He’s a complete and utter tease toward him, calling him the unauthorized nickname Yuki, much to his embarassment. He follows the EO3 crew around under the pretense to his family that it would be beneficial of them to have alliances with Mizuharu, Pendragon, Auditorre and Afilitaria, but that’s all lies; he just wants to get out of his duties and adventure.

He’s a smooth talker and constantly hits on Yukimura, who just jabs coldly back at him, though it’s pretty clear that said ninja doesn’t appreciate him flirting with other people either (that revelation came with a good concussion, courtesy of Snow). But, is he jealous or does Natsume just piss him off? Who knows.

Lyrald (EO3): Originally a cleric, he was the bastard son of a king from a distant land, and sought to gain his acceptance. After a mission to apprehend a drug-cartel gone wrong, he ends up framed for the crime and has to flee the country, knowing now he can never return, and is aided by a Ronin- who despite his lack of sense of direction, proved more than able to cut down their assailants. He learned basic martial and protective arts from the man and intended to follow him, but the two were separated after he elected to distract their pursuers for Lyrald to escape.

He doesn’t even know his name. Which results in many offhand allusions to Yukimura and him unwittingly describing the same person.He joins Snow and Yukimura, who both recognize him and are no fool to believe the media’s lies- later joined by Galahad, Edmund and Natsume.

Galahad (EO3): Zodiac scholar, the son of noble house Pendragon from a distant land. He’s travelling for no other reason to expand his knowledge, though his family insists he do it for their name (after all, they wanted him to be a knight, but instead he pursued magic arts and they didn’t even complain that much; it’s the least he can do). He’s very quiet and arrogant, often refusing to have level conversation to those who he deems not intelligent enough (and sassing those who are; Orlandeau being a case in point).

Edmund (EO3): Hoplite, Galahad’s assigned guardian during his pilgrimage. He actually does most of the talking on behalf of his liege and is quite friendly.Edmund is something like an adopted brother to Galahad, taken in by his father, and would gladly do any mission issued by him.

Lugh (EOIV): Sniper and head of the guild’s Tharsis branch. Honestly useless af in a fight,  but designs everyone’s clothes (and I mean every member from every branch’s redesigns) and calls all the shots. It me.

Varil (EOIV): Smol Medic. He’s 150% of Lugh’s self-restraint and will Caduceus him to the floor when his fudanshi-mode activates. Their origin is largely unknown and they will tear the third wall a new one.

(That ended up wayyy too long that’s like 2k+ words what the heck; anyway, thanks for the interest, Anon!)

[jamfingers]

Some Background on That One Super Famous Cluster B Personality Disorder and Some Brief Meta Tying It to Kai Parker’s Problematic (but Fine AF) Ass Because I Said I Would Do This

Okay, this isn’t a research paper, so I’m not going to put ref points throughout the post, but I’ll write down the full names of the texts and articles I used at the bottom in case you’re interested in checking them out yourself. Some info/pics come from old annotated notes, but I likely will only use those for examples provided by previous professors. NONE of these visuals are mine, they’re copyrighted and I’m posting them for educational purposes. I’m making no profit off of this. Obviously. This is a damn fan blog. 

First off, lets talk behavior and psychopathology, then I’ll get into like...the barest bit of some of the complex anatomy and physiology behind them. Then I’ll talk Kai Parker a little and how he fits this. This post is gonna be hellaciously long, since it’s an academic reference/meta, so read more under the cut:

Personality is something pervasive, long term, and generally not mutable in a person. And individual’s personality will develop in childhood and are measured by rating the general patterns of disordered conduct/socializing of traits known as the big 5: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. These traits, like anything dealing with the mind, are measured on a spectrum and patterns of extremely high pervasiveness of traits in some areas and extremely low pervasiveness in others that results in a diminished or troubled quality of life is what results in a personality disorder.

Personality disorders are sorted into 3 groups called clusters:

Kai falls into cluster B - he has antisocial personality disorder (ASPD from here on, can also be noted as APD), historically called “sociopathy”. ASPD is more commonly diagnosed in men than in women, (although this might be in part due to societal/gender biases of both the patient and the clinician, but I digress), with a prevalence in the clinical population of 3.9-5.9% and in the general population of 1.0%-1.8%. It’s rare, but not the rarest personality disorder by any means. No unicorns here.

I personally denote ASPDers as the biggest con-artist assholes you’ll ever have the displeasure of meeting, but that’s not very academic, so I’ll copy my one of my textbook’s format and break this up into a few categories. More information can be found in references.

Clinical Description And Criteria:

“I am entitled to break rules.”

That right there is the sun with which ASPD revolves around. The disorder is characterized by extreme selfishness and disregard for others, highly impulsive and risky behavior (like drug use, reckless stunts, fighting), and unusual emotional responses and fits of rage, but no deficits in reasoning ability. People with ASPD know what they’re doing, understand the social norms/ rules behind them and don’t care. In regards to the Big 5 personality traits this is what they look like (L is low, H is high):

And diagnostic criteria for ASPD on the DSM-5 looks like this:

YOU HAVE TO HAVE DISPLAYED CONDUCT DISORDER AS A CHILD TO BE DIAGNOSED WITH ASPD AFTER 18. Remember an individual’s personality develops in childhood and is long-lasting. Conduct disorder in children is diagnosed with this criteria:

ASPD has a pretty high heritabilty (about 40-50%) and it’s fostered in hostile environments characterized by lack of warmth, exposure to violence, high negativity, parental inconsistency or parental ASPD, and/or poverty.

While ASPD is associated with poor impulse control, there is still no deficit in reasoning ability. ASPDers with a high intelligence quotient (IQ) are less likely to get caught or engage in illegal or destructive behavior because they know the game. They’d rather be free to fuck people over than in a system and can be quite adept at hiding their traits. This leads me to psychopathy. There’s still some debate about whether psychopathy should be considered different from ASPD, but most clinicians these days agree that psychopathy as a subset of symptoms that fall under ASPD. So just like all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares, all psychopaths (at this point) are ASPDers, but not all ASPDers are psychopaths. 

Psychopathy:

Defining characteristics of psychopathy include:

If you’re having a hard time reading this, the red and blue branches indicate what aspects of psychopathy are influenced by what bit of anatomy dysregulation. AMG - amygdala, PCC - posterior cingulate cortex, MPFC - medial prefrontal cortex. The coronal slices (red, bottom blue) are as if you’re looking at a person face to face - your left is their right. Top blue is scanned from the right side (See that scrunchy round thing behind the straight part? Below the “PCC”? That’s the cerebellum behind the brain stem. It’s in the back of your head, to help with orientation.) Middle blue is as if you and the person are facing the same direction, but you’re taller and looking straight down on their head. Hope that helps you out!

In general, with regards to criminal behavior, high IQ psychopaths are called “subclinical” psychopaths and are not generally studied bc...well, they blend in. They find other, legal or discreet ways to fulfill thrill seeking behavior.

Psychopathy has some actual distinct differences in the brain that can be physiologically measured. It’s typically shown by differences in the the right amygdala and the anterior rostral prefrontal cortex (arPFC from here on), especially on the right side. (The right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for emotional recognition and expression, while the amygdala controls fear responses/recognition and the PFC in general controls different aspects of higher cognition. In this case, it’s likely the conversion of emotionality to morality, since emotions play a large part in fostering sympathy and from there moral judgement.) See?

Integrative Biopsychosocial Model of APD:

Bio (Genetics and neurobiology): Twin and adoption studies show that ASPD is highly heritable, but it’s the gene-environment interaction that is integral for ASPD development. ASPD is an endophenotype - the underlying aspects of disorder are genetic (low levels serotonin and dopamine (the chemical neurotransmitters), or in the case of psychopaths, low levels of serotonergic or dopaminergic axons (the anatomy that receives the NT)) and provide the unique emotional aspects of ASPD, but the social behavior presentation is guided by the environment (early childhood stress, lack of social guidance, etc). The arousal theory, if you’re interested, is based of the endophenotypes and can explain how certain behaviors arise from them (i.e. ASPDers, esp. psychopaths, are stimulation seeking bc of low response in reward systems (serotonergic/dopaminergic)). *I add on dopamine bc it’s an important chemical in the brain’s reward system, but serotonin is the key one.

Psychosocial (mental and environmental): Inconsistent parental punishments, lack of punishment for aggressive/antagonist behavior, environments that propagate violence, high risk-reward and fearless psychology all lend themselves to the development of the disorder. 

The disorder is like a measuring cup and each influence is water filling it until the water level reaches the mark where the disorder presents itself. 

When it comes to ASPD, prevention, not treatment is preferred. Redirecting behavior patterns in kids with conduct disorder is your best bet compared to trying to get a fully formed, highly aggressive ASPD adult to behave.

Here’s a case study from my abnormal psych textbook depicting what the you’d most likely see in clinical ASPD case (i.e. in “the system” , like prison or a hospital):

(See why I said con-artists asshole? Ryan’s a fucking dick.)

References:

“Abnormal Psychology: An Integrative Approach” 7th Edition, David H. Barlow & V. Mark Durand {This is the book I used in my psychopathology class, which is for...understanding pathologies of the mind lol.}

“Neuroscience” 5th Edition, Dale Purves {Great book for detailed anatomy and physiology of neural circuits, and I didn’t get into like I could, but the emotion chapter is dense and that’s a lot of info to slam you with.}

“The Foundations of Behavioral Neuroscience” 9th Edition, Neil R. Carlson {Easy to read and a great general capstone text} 

Okay, so now that we got the science, on to Kai Parker:

Right, so I think it’s safe to say that, canonically, Kai mostly fits the criteria for ASPD, but you’re def free to go back over all that up there and do your own comparison. We all know how Kai is an admitted “sociopath”. Considering Joshua Parker’s behavior, we can probably take a gander on the genetic component and considering the entire Gemini premise, plus the way Kai in particular was raised as the outsider in his family, we have an idea of the hostile and warmth-lacking environment that fostered it.

Because it’s TVD, I do think Kai was written to cater that whole “handsome, suburban white boy gone wrong” schtick, but I also think he’s one of the most subtly well-fleshed characters that show ever produced. There’s this one article I read for a neuro lit course (“Loneliness and associated violent antisocial behavior: analysis of the case reports of Jeffrey Dahmer and Dennis Nilsen.” authored by W.H. Martens and G.B. Palmero) that really stuck to me in a pervasive way and it’s about how chronically festering feelings of neglect and loneliness, of feeling like an unaccepted outsider, drove Dahmer and Nilsen to take their victim’s lives in a misguided way to dissuade the loneliness.

Having read that makes me wonder how Kai, the fictional serial killer, reflects his real life counterparts. The drive for merging and becoming coven leader is something that would force others to acknowledge him, which ties into his “black sheep” speech, his “I was never hugged as a child and my siblings were kept away” complaint (There are a lot of inconsistencies in his dialogued back story that bother me, but it makes me wonder if he ever lied about his past: “my favorite memory is when I finally beat him to death” and the preceding story about Mario Kart with the bby bro seems like something he might have just made up to fuck with Elena), and other vocalizations he’s made about his past which point to him being the misfit and desiring a sense of belonging. While we know Kai’s ASPD is a part of his characterization, this to me seems out of the norm for this disorder, simply because it indicates an understanding of sympathy that is unwittingly emotional.

Of course, Kai could also just want to be able to lord the world’s biggest “FU!” over his abusers.

Either way, anti or not, when using the ASPD/sociopath argument to defend or dismantle Kai as a character, I think it’s a good idea to keep in mind that Kai was written inconsistently. He shows very little impulsivity or recklessness in 1994, one trait which is almost a given with ASPD, nor was he flightly/irresponsible. He always had some end-goal or plan in mind. This was pre-merge. But he was also manipulative and showed no regret about the people he hurt. Obviously, each case of the disorder is unique because they exist on a spectrum, but the pattern and criteria are there due to broad commonalities in each case. The way the media tends to portray ASPD is not all consistent with the way the disorder presents irl.