#my weird world of headcanons

[justanie]

VY2 13th Anniversary 🎊🗡️

Originally I planned to only put Yuuma in this position and with the Background characters, but I automatically had to put the HCs I have of him here, in case they are not clear:

• Gumi is his girlfriend

• VY1 is his sister

• Vy2’s AI Voice is his parallel self

• and the man's spirit is a Yuuma’s ancestor trapped in the katana that I will soon explain x")

[anies-vocalsynthhcworld]

A couple of years had passed, but the fact of saying that Prima caucasia wearing fuchsia and black dresses was not enough, since it is the concept, but not my own design. So I dedicated myself to making one for her just like Leon, Lola and VY1's cases were:

She has elements that stand out in partnering with Primina (Fanloid); the aforementioned concept for future Prima designs, and her Taiwanese design; the headphones, the sleeves somewhat similar to the train of the dress and wearing some green.

Being from a middle class family in England, it was not very difficult for her to wear expensive jewelry, which is made of gold and has garnets decorating most of them.

If you ask about the flower, it is a Lady of the Night, fragrantly rare flowers, that due to their beauty, I felt associated with them for my Prima as an Item.

And of course, she also has her own outfit when she presents herself as Vocaloid and another more everyday one x3

If You want to see My own designs for Leon, Lola and VY1, click here!

[sadisthetic]

BURST💥

[smoft-demons]

What if pacts gave you spells

I’ve had another idea!!

Demons in this setting are pretty fuckin magic. MC as well, has some funny magic going on in the late game iirc. What if the magic started showing up sooner, specifically because of the pacts?? What if the avatars have specific themed abilities and you get powered down versions of those powers through the pact? Ive been having Ideas about it!!

In pact order:

_______

Mammon is the avatar of greed. Money and stuff is his thing. So I think his pact, at a low level, should give you a heat metal spell. I imagine HE has a summon-molten-metal ability that he can use in combat, because that’d be awesome. It’d be a real no holds barred type of move, because like,, being burned to death in molten metal is a REAL brutal way to go. He’s a demon tho. I think it would make some sense for him to be able to do it.

Gravity magic also makes sense for Mammon. Black holes be greedy. The vibe seems right. The dunamancy spell Ravenous Void is pretty much what I’m thinking.

Mammon’s really fast too. So maybe he can give you haste, longstrider, misty step… maybe blink.

Another thing in Mammon’s wheelhouse is gambling. Luck, stacking chances in your favour and all that. So let’s have him give you something like silvery barbs too. Something that lets you skew chance in your favour when you need to.

I’d say the list of spells you get from him goes like: heat metal and longstrider at first. Then you get stronger after season 1, and you get misty step, something along the lines of silvery barbs, and haste (to make others faster I think is a higher level thing than making yourself faster). When you’re MUCH stronger, you get ravenous void. Maybe you get a weaker version earlier.

No matter what tho, no one’s version of that black hole spell is stronger than Mammon’s.

_______

Then you pact with Leviathan. He’s a sea serpent, and he’s the grand admiral of hell’s navy. I’d imagine he’s crazy good with navigation and has a sea monster form, on top of the other abilities he canonically has (summoning Lotan, making floods, etc)

I’d say Levi’s pact gives you: create water, find familiar (because Lotan), breathing underwater and some magical ability that helps you not get lost. At a higher level, you get to summon a powerful water elemental. Maybe even a wildshape-esque ability that is specifically for turning into a sea serpent.

I would also say it’s Levi’s pact that gives you darkvision. You really need it if you’re going in deep water. Also, if ANYONE of these seven can give you the classic warlock spell Eldritch blast, it’d be Levi. It’s not very high level, you can have it early on.

_______

Beel’s gluttony, and honestly black holes fit him too. But I think that’s such an absurdly OP thing that it HAS to go to Mammon.

Beel is also a tank. He’s a protector. He’s real strong and resilient and he’s the type to purposely take damage in order to save someone he loves from having to. In the game he makes the pact with the implication that he wants you to have it so he can protect you next time. So I think he wouldn’t WANT to encourage his human to do the same tank thing as him, but still I think his pact would help you do that. It would just make you stronger and more durable I think.

That bit is less a spell and more an ability score increase. Raises your strength and constitution.

Of the actual spells tho, there’s gotta be something abjuration. Some magic shield spell kind of thing. Also, obviously some way to create food. Maybe when you’re stronger you get hero’s feast. Some way to summon a swarm of locusts is on theme for Beel. Also, his telepathic connection with Belphie makes me think of message.

I think Beel wants you to have feather fall. I think that might be one of his first priorities.

So his list would go: feather fall, some magic shield, message, and the constitution increase. Then at a higher level, the strength increase, summon locusts, and create/summon food. Even higher, hero’s feast or something like it…

The summoning food spells is not really a thing I think Beel can do/an ability he can share through the pact, but I think he deserves to be able to give you that. He would just like to be able to do that. Why not let him.

_______

Next pact is Asmo. The most obvious thing for him is a charisma buff.

Then in terms of spells, suggestion makes a lot of sense. So does friends, disguise self, vicious mockery, and minor illusion. Later on, mass suggestion and crown of madness.

He’s not usually the very aggressive sort, though of course I don’t put violence past him at all. Bloodlust is still lust, after all. Passion is kinda his whole domain. No, Asmo is VERY capable of violence I’m sure, he just doesn’t indulge in it often because he likes his pristine image and others’ tendencies to underestimate him far more.

With that in mind, maybe some kind of slow acting necromantic curse makes sense for the offensive move he’d give you. Some way to magically give someone a dose of venom in their veins just by touching them.

Canonically in the game Asmo basically uses dominate beast (on Henry 1.0 in the catacombs under the demon king’s castle) but I can’t help but associate that more with Lucifer (because Cerberus) so I kind of want to give it to him instead… but Asmo literally DID it so…

I think Asmo’s list goes: suggestion, vicious mockery, friends, disguise self. Then the charisma increase, casting illusions (minor or otherwise), and crown of madness. Then mass suggestion, dominate beast, and the venom spell. That seems right.

_______

Then it’s Satan’s turn.

Ok so the most obvious thing for him as the avatar of wrath is giving you a whole ass level in barbarian. The rage ability. And like,, that works, but like… doesn’t super match his personality. Controlling his wrath is more what he seems to care about.

If the spells he can give you are chosen by him, then I think you’d get comprehend languages, speak with animals, legend lore, that kind of thing.

But if it’s not his choice, then the ability to rage. In terms of spells, stuff like blight, finger of death, fireball, meteor swarm, disintegrate. Dramatically destructive kind of thing.

I’m gonna say it’s probably somewhere in between. You don’t get rage or disintegrate from him, nor all the best of the curious nerd spells. But you DO get: prestidigitation (can start fires OR quickly clean messes, up to you, be smart and crafty to get the most out of it), comprehend languages, firebolt. Later, you get fireball (upgrade for firebolt!) blight, and lets say something electric. Like, being able to electrocute someone by grabbing them.

_______

Now for Belphie!

I can’t help but think of him less in D&D terms and more like,, psychic type Pokémon. That just seems like the right vibe for him.

I wanna say you’d get two necromancy spells after the whole lesson 16 thing—specifically, toll the dead and chill touch. The vibes of toll the dead just seem fitting for some reason, and come ON, chill touch couldn’t possibly be more perfect! It makes a spectral, skeletal hand that clings to your target (around their neck maybe?) to (and I quote!) “assail it with the chill of the grave” which deals necrotic damage and delays healing. It’s PERFECT, okay, except for… it doesn’t make any sense to get those from the pact with Belphie. They have nothing to do with HIM, and everything to do with what he did to you.

Maybe you can get it from the weird resurrection thing that happens instead. All kinds of weird shit can happen when timelines and your life get all fucky like that, I guess. You met a ghost and got shoved back to life and then time got weird, I’m sure at that point anything can happen.

Actually FROM Belphie, the obvious spell you’d get is sleep. Put some bastard to sleep, make them unconscious, that’s his main thing.

I think the list goes: sleep. Then later, with more power, you get confusion (like the Pokémon move)and phantasmal force (the one that projects an illusion only visible to the target, that is able to deal damage to them. Many very creative applications of this spell are possible). At the highest possible level, power word kill. The quickest and laziest possible way to do a murder, as long as you use it right.

_______

Finally, Lucifer.

Big strong powerful Morningstar! Proud bastard that everyone can’t help but listen to.

So OBVIOUSLY you get dominate person from him! (yes, all seven of them have the ability to force a non-MC human to obey them magically but shhh. Lets say only Lucifer can GIVE that ability to a human.)

I think he’d be the one who can give you classic demonic abilities like fire resistance and hellish rebuke. I can’t imagine Lucifer not having some disintegrate-like ability, as the third most powerful demon in the realm.

He can’t give you a whole ass pair of wings, he can’t change the structure of your body, but I think maybe he can give you the fly spell. Or even just something like a double jump and a fully controlled fall. I think that suits him.

Yknow what else suits him? Meteor swarm. Super powerful, dramatically destructive, only the strongest can cast it… flaming destruction falling from the sky… Fall imagery weaponized into an absurdly high damage spell. Seems like Lucifer!

So let’s say his spell list for you is: hellish rebuke and fire resistance (not a spell, but still). Then, dominate person, the flight-adjacent spell, and disintegrate. Then finally, meteor swarm. That seems right.

_______

[memendoemori]

I fully understand and appreciate all of the "Gortash is the worst person ever" discussions, and I do think he is in fact the worst most godawful weasel imaginable, but that's what makes it so fun to think about him being down so utterly horrendous for the Dark Urge that he'd let that freak do whatever they wanted to him

[sevenrs]

been seeing interest crop up for a plural interpretation of grey wind/chasing wind, or making plural iterator ocs. this is great! as a system myself, i would like to offer some guiding questions and tips to non-systems to help out in their endeavors. please remember that i am one system and plurality varies VERY HEAVILY among people. other systems are free to comment and add their own tips. just dont turn this post into syscourse

i will use gw/cw as the most prevalent examples but this applies to any oc as well!

- alters are their own people in a lot of cases, not just "personalities". ask yourself, how does gw differ from cw? when presented with the same situation, how do each of them react? do they agree with each other or not? either way, what are their reasons?

- systems are rarely comprised of just two alters. it is not impossible, but very rare. most people notice plural symptoms at around 3 alters and people will on average have between 8-15 alters (but more is very much not unheard of!). think about how many alters gw/cw would have on top of each other

- alters may have different pronouns, sexuality, and ways they want to present themselves from each other. how do gw/cw and other alters differ from each other in this way, if at all?

- if gw/cw's physical body changes to represent who is fronting, was this an ability they had before realizing their plurality? in our world, we cannot change how we look outside of clothes and makeup. if gw/cw do not possess the ability to change physically, do either of them or any other alter feel uncomfortable or even dysphoric looking at their physical body?

- alters' relationships may vary heavily on the same person. how do gw/cw feel about a specific person? how are they the same or different? is one alter in a whole different kind of relationship with someone than another?

- how comfortable is gw/cw with telling others about their plurality? do only they know? their close friends? local group? anyone they come across? plurality is often personal, and is not a singular decision for any one alter in a system to make to tell others. it can be difficult for non-systems to understand what plurality is like (and in our world, cause mockery) so they may think it is easier to stay quiet about it

- plurality happens because of several different conditions. there is did, but there are also ospd-1a and 1b. i would highly recommend doing your own research on these different types of plurality. they each have different effects on memories, emotional state, even how defined the alters themselves. again, look into it

- if gw/cw have memory problems, do they have a way to get around it? private broadcasts? pearls? scratching on the walls? how do they talk to alters not co-concious with them?

- some systems may use role labels to identify themselves as having particular jobs to help/protect the system. these are roles such as host, caretaker, guardian, traumaholder, etc. do your research on this one. do any of these roles apply? or do gw/cw forgo these labels? (personally, we only use the term "host")

- headspace is a place in the mind where alters "live" (it's not a real residence, but it feels that way) headspace may be small, only representing co-conciousness, or very large, giving every alter a more "tangible" place to stay if not fronting. or headspace might not exist at all! (this is most common in systems who just found out about their plurality). what does headspace look like to them? keep in mind, headspace can really look like anything. for me at least, it looks mostly consistent. a few things may change about it or it may expand, but it's not like imagination where anything happens if you think about it

as a disclaimer i am not going to go in depth about trauma or sources in this post. it can get very personal very quickly. a general way i can put it is think of a long term source of stress and/or abuse that may be present in your iterator's life. handle the subject with care.

the best way to learn about the experiences of plurality is to ask people who are systems. as long as you are given consent, come in with genuine curiosity, and be as reasonable as you can, most systems will be okay with questions! it is like any other identity

a side: other ways to make plural iterators?

iterators do not share human anatomy or physiology. they will never perfectly be able to represent plurality like we have it in our world

but the unique characteristics of iterators can lend way into creative ideas that are similar to plurality! (but never, i want to stress, NEVER the same)

notably, several puppets in one can. if you remember that the body of the iterator is the structure, and the puppets are like the face, then you have several faces, personalities, people, in one body. my immunerators play around with this idea and i am sure there are other ways to get creative!

[nymime]

The last time Steve celebrate his birthday with classmates was when he was 10, he was the weird kid, the one who had no friends.

Then the three next years he was always alone, drawing on a little notebook or reading books, his personal favorite ‘No longer Human’ of Osamu Dazai, it was funny for him how relatable he feels with it, he understands the things he talks, he was young, but not stupid. He understand the suicide, specially for his Nonna, cause his momma tell him that Nonna tried to kill herself one night when she was studying for a test in college, she fail her test for being on the hospital with Nonna. Momma always had makes him her little secret pocket, telling him things he don’t want to know. Like how she was cheated by her dad when he was on her tummy, how Dad continues to go around to see the family he build with the other woman.

But then, when Steve was 13, all change again. Nonna died for cancer, his birthday feels weird since that, the warm but harsh presence of her was no longer there. Her cold sharp hand on him don’t hug him no more. Then Steve get popular, he was known now, no longer the solitary kid he was, no one remembers nothing of him before 13. Steve continues to appreciate that book he read back then, ‘No longer human’ his only company on his birthday, always re reading it on 14 October, year by year noticing that the book feels more personal as the time pass.

[hellsingmongrel]

Man, so I'm not normally the biggest fan of Modern AUs, nor am I overly fond of fiction focused on kids, but...last night, my sleeping brain decided to concoct this Trigun (Stampede-flavored) Modern AU that now is living rent free in my damn brain! I want to get it out of my head and into the ether. I don't know if I'm going to do anything long-form with it, and I'm having to translate dream weirdness into more coherent storytelling, but here we go.

So it's modern day Earth, like 2024 or some shit, right? And that's when this version of Earth had just begun fucking around with Plant cloning. It's early enough that the SEEDS project hasn't even left the planet, the scientists haven't yet figured out how to put Plants in bulbs and use them for fuel, none of that! But they've already had Tessla happen, and the boys have already been born. Since they're not in space, even though they had to have found out about their sister, Nai hasn't had a chance to literally nuke humanity from orbit, and I guess Rem has had a chance to try and curtail some of his trauma, so he's...more stable? Ish? Stable enough where he's not actively trying to murder everyone. And the boys are "older," like we see in the flashbacks for the time Vash encountered Nai during the Last Run, so probably around 6 years old but looking 16 or so.

Rem has managed to fudge their paperwork so they've started going to school with human kids, to try and give them a normal childhood. Nai isn't as eager to play ball with the whole "being human" thing as much as Vash is, but Vash has got so many friends, Meryl and Milly and Lina are there and they're like the cutest, most stupidly adorable group of friends, just a bunch of little goofballs, like kids that age are. And the school has a field trip to a theme park (it was Disneyworld in my dream because my school actually did this, but ours was a band trip) and Vash manages to convince Rem to let him go. Vash and Nai and Rem are still paranoid about humans figuring out who they are, so you know, he's told to be extra careful and take care of himself, and Nai gives him one of his blades or something for self defense, just in case something happens. Even though Vash would never, that boy has trauma around knives and trying to defend himself, if you've read Trimax, iykyk. But he takes it anyway, and somehow, he manages to sneak it into the park. Maybe the metal doesn't register on metal detectors or something, who knows.

But he's a kid, and kids are dumb. Especially when they're 16. Especially if those 16 year olds aren't actually 16 and don't have the actual lived experience to know better. So he starts playing with the knife in front of the girls, showing off and just being a silly little guy. And then the knife slips. Bad. We're talking "this is how he probably lost his arm in this AU" bad. Blood everywhere, the girls are panicking and take him to the school chaperones and it's like "HOLY SHIT WTF DUDE, We're taking you to the ER, someone call his mom!"

And he hears that, pictures the doctors finding out he's not human, remembers what happened to Tessla, and panics. Boy does a runner like only Vash can do, and he manages to get away from them, out of the park, and escapes from security. And when parents get involved in trying to find him, the authorities start looking into the incident, and someone in the government overseeing the Plant research is able to recognize the elemental make up of the blade he dropped, and they start having suspicions. So the feds get involved, and it just goes from bad to worse, right?

Meanwhile, loopy from blood loss and panicking and a little sobbing mess because he feels dumb about slipping up and he's afraid he'll never get to go home to his mom and his brother again and is spiraling the way kids do when they panic, he gets lost in the city and ends up stumbling over teenage Wolfwood, who lives on the streets and has a few street kids that he looks after on his own with Livio. They never got to live at the orphanage, but that also means that the Eye (in whatever form it takes in this AU) never got ahold of them, so yeah, shits fucked for them, but it's actually a whole lot better for them than it might have been. And it's Wolfwood without all of the EoM trauma, so you can just imagine what he does when this delirious, bloody, terrified, severely injured kid runs him over in the street, sobbing about being caught by the adults and taken away.

Big Brother Nico do what Big Brother Nico do.

At that point, I ended up waking up, but damn if my brain didn't give me enough details to come up with a dumb AU idea that I kind of love and want to do something with, but I don't know if I have the time or spoons to do so.

Ideas I'd had following this beginning to flesh itself out in my head; Luida and Brad are Plant researchers brought onto the project to help the feds figure out wtf is going on with this whole situation, and when Luida is told to talk to Rem, because she's not giving them anything they can use, the two of them reach a secret accord to bring Vash home safe and sound and cover everything back up nice and squeaky clean the way it should have stayed.

Vash's arm is bad enough that he can't really heal it very well on his own without medical care, Plant healing or no. He's doing better than most kids would, but it still begins to go septic, and it forces Nico and Livio to make the really hard decision to find adults they can trust to bring him to so he can get the care he needs. He still ends up losing his arm, though.

At the end of everything, Melanie ends up taking Nico and Livio and the other kids in, so they still get to have their momma figure, even if she comes in later. Maybe she's the one that they find to help them. Is she maybe someone they've known was mostly safe but was never able to get them to stick around long enough to take care of them? Either way, the boys get Vash to her, and it starts the process of getting him home and the kids finally staying at the orphanage.

Meryl, Milly, and Lina all end up sneaking away when they realize that Vash is in more trouble than the adults are letting on, trying to go find him, since they know him better than anyone other than Rem and Nai. Eventually, they meet up with Nico and Livio while everyone is trying to avoid federal agents.

Obviously it's lovey-dovey Vashwood and Insurance Girlfriends and Polygun-flavored, but in the "these kids are too oblivious to think about sexy things, yet" sort of way, because I really do headcanon that at least Vash is ace, Wolfwood is probably demi, and also I am not writing children getting intimate like that. >8/ But kids having little crushes on each other is adorable and I can't not have Vashwood and Insurance Girlfriends be the eventual outcome, once those idiots all grow up and get their heads screwed on straight.

Also, because Nai hasn't had a chance to murder everyone, Rem's managed to work with him enough that he's very slowly overcoming his trauma and regaining his ability to trust that he's not in permanent danger. He'll probably grow up to be a Plants Rights activist or something, lbh. Or a politician. But he's not going to murder people, so either way, it's a win/win!

Because Nico's been living on the streets with him, Razlo either hasn't had to manifest as strongly for Livio, or hasn't manifested at all. Livio is still the sweet, shy, crybaby teddy bear we see, and maybe Razlo only comes out when the feds start getting closer and almost managing to grab the kids, and because he's been able to bond with Nico and the other kids so well this time, Livio is close enough to them that the thought of them getting hurt or taken away is enough to make him want to protect their little group instead of just Livio.

Wolfwood absolutely grumbles about how alike Vash and Livio are. Both a couple'a crybabies, geez, what the Hell you two??? But he also is very much a teddy bear who gives the best hugs when one of his little band of gremlins is upset, so he probably spends more time in a cuddle pile than anything else, now that there's two of them to lose their shit at the drop of a hat.

Vash was totally the one very sweet boy in a clique of girls that everyone who'd known him realized, when they were adults looking back, that he was very much the sweet gay kid hanging out with the girls because it was safer to be himself around them than it was to be around the other boys. (This isn't meant as a stereotype of gay kids, this is based on actual kids I grew up with. My friend group honest to God adopted them because we were all a bunch of momma bears.)

Vash is also...not trans? Because he's a Plant and Plants don't work the same way humans do, but he's also not what humans would think of as a cis boy. He expresses a masc presentation, but probably the closest equivalent would be an intersexed kid. Nai, too, tbh, though he's probably more of the "I don't give a fuck" opinion when it comes to his own gender identity. He uses he/him because that's what humans think when they see him, but he doesn't care any deeper than that.

[firrkat]

idk wbat compelled me to draw in a whole different artstyle but something sure did

expect some non-td related posting soon

[bluewonderer]

a trigun stampede headcanon about humans, plants, and independents

Man made the Plants. 

They slipped their wonder, their hubris, their science on them like a glove and reached through planes of existence to where raw elements danced together in elegant catastrophe and plucked them like an apple blossom from a tree. 

The first one died before Man could even touch it. 

The first one hundred died before they could even leave their dimension. 

But that was the way of these elements, of these beings. They were born and died in a flash, a firework barely bloomed before its sparks were falling like dying petals. It was their way. It was their dance. What were concepts like years and moments to them, anyway? They were born to burn, to let their simultaneous life and death stretch out across time and space and fuel entire universes. 

Man kept reaching. It is what they do best.

No human ever looked into this plane of celestial energy, no human ever could. It was concept, it was matter and energy, it was horror so beautiful and beauty so terrible that it would shatter a human mind. To look through eyes was to try to capture the infinite in the finite. 

The first one died before Man could even see it. 

The first one hundred died before they could even touch it. 

They layered on science and ingenuity and determination. And they stopped trying to look through their eyes and started breaking the plane down into data, started viewing it through monitors and numbers. 

The first Plant that they successfully bring over they can’t look at, they can only observe the lines of numbers running across the screen. 

Sort of look like vines, someone said into the video that was recording this historical moment. Like a plant blooming across the screen. I’ve never seen data like this. 

The first Plant that touches Earth dies less than a second later. The scientists still can’t look at it, couldn’t describe it if they could, but the world turns red as it dies. 

It doesn’t die in an explosion. In fire and destruction. When the scientists blinked the red out of their eyes, it is said that the labs were covered in green vines and leaves and flowers. 

The first Plant dies in life. 

Man made Plants in their image. 

They wouldn’t live in their natural forms—in the ones outside of time and physics and logic. In the ones that died as they were born, spinning their embers into new galaxies. So they were shaped into forms Man knew. Petals, like a flower, like the flowers that bloomed when the first one touched Earth. An homage, a tribute, a promise to do better. 

And, inside the petals, they shaped the Plants with facsimiles of faces and eyes and mouths, with neck and shoulders and arms. They lovingly traced familiar curves, made them soft and feminine. These would be the new life-givers of the human race. They would save Earth. They would help Man explore and discover worlds and lifeforms and the unknowns beyond their own solar system. And so Man shaped them into soft and angelic things, into higher forms sent to aid mankind in its time of need. 

The Plants lived for more than a moment, their pure, incomprehensible energy siphoned off slowly, carefully, until they could exist in a slow dance that could last decades. Centuries.

And there was life, and it was good. 

Plants made Man. 

It took a long time. Maybe. Probably. What is time to matter? What is time to gravity? What is time to time? The beings that came to be called Plants had no concepts or words for such things. They did not even have words, not like the humans. 

They had dance. They had fire. They had birth and death and everything in between compressed into one single glorious moment and spread out across dimensions, across space and planes of existence. They had frenetic energy, enough to form worlds, enough to destroy existence. 

Humans thought that their lives were short, and maybe so, in some sense. But Plants thought that the span of humans were pitiful, wet embers. No spark. No bloom.

No dance. 

Their first memories as Plants, their first stories whispered among their kin, were of white nothingness, were of being stuffed from the span of galaxies into small spaces, the cramping of being formed into petals of soft curves. 

It was not painful, the reshaping. The conceptualizing. The becoming describable for humans. It just was. Is. Will be. The Plants looked at each other, looked at themselves reflected in their glass homes, and thought themselves strange and alien. 

The humans called them beautiful and they echoed yes, yes we are beautiful. Strange. New. Curious. We are not exploding, we are not stretching across and above and through with our deaths. We’re not dying at all. 

We are not dancing. 

But they could still hear their home, the place they were before they were plucked. They could resonate with their kin from far away, listen to them dance. They were too slow, too far away to dance with them. 

But they could sing for them. 

Gradually, the Plants came to see more than sterile white rooms and humans with reflective faces. They saw all kinds of humans—tiny ones. The tiny ones were their favorite—so small, so new, but loudloudloud. Screaming, laughing, throwing energy as wildly as the Plants used to when they were Before. The tiny ones lit up rooms, lit up the faces of the bigger humans.

They danced. 

Other humans. Ones with the curves similar to the Plants’ new shapes. Others that looked like the scientists except with faces. The bigger humans were tiny sparks, hardly any energy left at all. The Plants sang for them, anticipating the dance, the life giving rush of their death. 

But it never seemed to come. The bigger humans just kept on living, just kept on diminishing. 

It was the way of things, the way of these beings other than themselves. Good or bad, the Plants didn’t know, because they didn’t know the meaning of such things. It just was.  

They learned more, sometimes, with eyes peeking out between their petals when they weren’t busy singing to their firework brethren on the other side of the Great Gate. 

(Eyes were funny things. A shape given to them by humans that they didn’t quite need.) 

They learned that the Small Plants--the tiny humans with bright, bright energy—were the offspring. They learned about families and friends. They learned about the Engineers—the ones that took care of the Plants, that would relieve the pressure when it all got too much, when their elongated life and the drain on their energy made them feel heavy and wrong. 

They learned about the shapes of humans. Their eyes and noses and mouths. Their laughter—the closest they got to dancing. Their care and kindness, the funny little creative ways they thought to sustain and feed the Plants—like with the alien, beautiful things that they called flowers. 

They learned about things like fear and grief. But not by watching humans. It was born within them, made them different from their brethren beyond the Great Gate.  

Their deaths were slow, now. Their deaths were separated out from their births, and it no longer felt like a dance. They would shove all of their remaining energy at the humans, and the humans used it. But it was a poor stretch, a wilting bloom compared to the reality-bending bursts of those on the other plane. 

In watching the slow deaths of their kin, their sisters, all Plants came to dread it. But a long, long time of song would pass between each death. A song where they witnessed an infinite number of their kin dancing on the other side of the Great Gate, and the fear would be forgotten in the resonance. 

Until the next one. 

Man made Plants. 

Plants, in turn, made Man. 

As Man plucked their other selves, the them-before-they-become-Plants, from across planes of existence, so Plants plucked what they knew of humans to make their own creation.

It was an exchange. A dance. 

It took a long time. It took no time at all. What Plants call consciousness weren't merged with the others. They were not a collective. But they had their songs. Sung and passed down and shared. Distance and time meant nothing with the song. 

They came to understand the shape of humans—their hearts, which pumped blood. Their ribs, which protected the heart. Their muscles, which protected the ribs. The skin, which hid everything within them. 

They learned that the water produced from their eyes was called sorrow. And sometimes it was called joy. They watched the scientists work, their favorite Engineers, and they learned about creativity and care. They peeked through their petals, and learned about blood and anger and hate. 

They tried to prevent it, but their own fear and dread of a slow death was stitched into the song they wove into their new creation. 

Then there was the shaping. Things like eyes and hair and noses and mouths. They made Man small, because the Small Plants were their favorites, the brightest spark among humans. They made the first one feminine, because they had come to learn that that’s what Man shaped the Plants after, and thought that that was Man’s favorite. 

Love, as Man understood it, could not be understood by Plants. 

But their First was born with the hope that She would dance. 

And there was life. 

But it must not have been good, or good as humans understood it, because they destroyed Her. Took apart her petals, caught her fire before it could bloom across the planes, before it could touch the Great Gate and beyond. Before it could join the song of their kin. 

And more strange things were born within Plants, were sewn with whispered dissonance into their song.

Loss. Anger. Grief. 

Fear. 

Fear. 

Fear. 

These were woven even more thickly into the songs of the next creation. Because there were always going to be more. 

Maybe the Plants gained more human characteristics than they thought. Curiosity. Determination. 

Hope. 

Hubris.

And so, they created two more Plants in the image of Man. Still tiny-shaped, because the Plants favored the human offspring the most. But these would grow into sharper angles and the heavier muscle that were both more predominant in their samplings of scientists and engineers. 

Maybe Man would love these shapes more than the promised softness of the First. 

And so two were born in the shape of Men. Born to live instead of born to die. Born to burn and bloom and diminish a slow death. The Plants hoped that they would learn the song of their kin, that they would touch the Great Gate. That maybe they could even dance just once with the others, with the beings-before-Plants. That they would dance with each other, and with the humans. 

And there was life. 

[justanie]

Idk, considering that Rin has curly hair and facial freckles in my HCs, I was curious what some of her characters would look like in EC with these characteristics.

I think Riliane would have no problem having hair like this, after all, in the real 18th century period, hairstyles with this curly style were ideal.

Rin Chan, you know why I decided that she also had curly hair and Allen, doesn't say anything xD

[anies-vocalsynthhcworld]

About your HCs! What do you think - what kind of drinks the Eightloids prefer in your headcanons? :3

Hiii Anon! 💗

I'm sorry for the delay, I was busy and somewhat distracted with various things (mainly studying (ﾉД`)) but I'm now free to respond to you!:

Miku - Vegetable Juice

It's obvious, but in addition to being an iconic Miku item, my hcs' Miku likes to stay nutritious by drinking healthy x)

Rin - Mango Smoothie

very ironic, but instead of drinking orange juice or other derivatives, my Rin prefers to eat oranges in their natural state.

Len - Banana Milk

Luka - Pink/Raspberry Boba Tea

Kaito - Milkshake

especially if they look like this~

Meiko - Red Queen Cocktail

Gumi - Carrot Juice

with a touch of ginger and orange~

Gakupo - Black Coffee

🍵🥤🥛🧋🍧🍹🧃☕️

[viric-dreams]

Grand Geode, 1883. Lieutenant Roberts sees a familiar face. Or at least something wearing that face.

There’s a storm coming. Heat and humidity hang in the air, adding strain to each breath. Sweat pools at the back of Roberts’ neck, the droplets sliding down the curve of his spine beneath his uniform. He does his best to ignore the discomfort, gripping the folder in his hands yet tighter as he follows a familiar set of turns down the hall to the Commodore’s office.

In a previous life, he may have regarded his current position as gruntwork–dull, administrative minutia, a world away from any action on the Zee, but in moments like these he finds he doesn’t mind. Any moment now, the heat will break, and the Zee will roil under a torrent of foetid-smelling rain, befouled by the Wax Wind. He does not envy the men on their ships when the storm inevitably hits. Carrying documents up the chain is fine by him, if it means stable stone under his dry feet, and a bed that does not sway with the tides. 

He turns the corner, and before his hand can even touch the office door, Roberts feels the sudden charge in the air, white-hot and electric, and the hairs on his arms stand on end. The sensation calls back to something familiar, half-forgotten in the back of his mind. He wonders if he should leave, perhaps come back later. But before he has time to properly question it, the Commodore’s voice rings out through the door, as if able to sense his presence through the thick wood.

“Who’s there?” 

“It’s Lieutenant Roberts, sir,” he says. 

The Commodore is silent for a beat, then answers softly, as if forgetting the heavy door between them.

“Elias, why don’t you come in.” 

It’s not framed as a question. And so he does.

The Commodore sits at his desk, in the exact position where Roberts has seen him hundreds of times before. But this time is different. This time, he has a visitor. Radiant. That’s the only way he can think of to describe her. A singular point in the centre of the room, the axis around which so many golden threads warp and turn. She does not look happy to see them. In fact, she doesn’t look much of anything, and he struggles to make out her features through the brilliant haze she emanates. 

“Elias, you remember June, don’t you?” There’s a placidness to the Commodore’s voice that he so rarely hears. The man has not taken his eyes off of June since Roberts had entered the room, and he can hardly do so himself. 

Indeed he remembers her. If he squints into that light he can even make out her features, unchanged from when he’d last seen her, nearly two decades prior. He feels warm. Not the muggy heat smothering Zelo’s Town, but a glow, spreading from within his chest out into his limbs. 

“Of course,” he says. How could he forget?

June does not greet him. She does not take her eyes off of the serene face of the Commodore. When her mouth opens, the sound that comes out is otherworldly, timbres not possible on human vocal chords. The sound reverberates through Roberts’ body, like the bass tones of chugging machinery.

It was something of importance. He’s sure of it. She wouldn’t be here, speaking to him, to them, to the Commodore, were it not. A Zee captain will return, and when they do, the Admiralty will be ready. She leaves her instructions. Her voice is so warm, all-encompassing, a rumbling static beating a tune against his eardrums. He will complete the Work. Whatever it is she needs, he will do. They will do. 

He tells her this. At least, he thinks he does. Whether or not he speaks the words out loud she must know this of him. Her eyes are on the Commodore, whose head nods in a slow daze. Of course they can manage. He’ll personally ensure they have the supplies they need. More heat. Pride, this time, that they can do what she requests of them. 

And then she turns to him, golden eyes boring directly through him, setting him alight. Her lips open to speak and–

He comes to at a raucous peel of thunder. June is long gone, and he shivers at the unexpected cold left by her absence, despite the muggy air. Yet despite the chill of her absence, he feels… calm. A slow satisfaction at having done… something right. At least, he feels so. Something worthwhile. 

It’s only several minutes later, when he stands under the building’s awning, the rhythm of rain pounding a frenetic drumbeat into the steel roof, that he realises he’s still clutching the missive meant for the Commodore.

[starculler]

strap in for this week's fic flavor: the failsafe episode of season one of the young justice cartoon except the simulation just won't. fuckin. end.

(fics that inspired this at the end)

If I ever did sit down to make my own fic, I'd split it in 3 parts:

The Simulation: bits and pieces of the 40 years Dick lives after most everyone he knows has died

The Return: the immediate aftermath and healing from the trauma of having not-quite-actually lived a whole life only to wake up and find out it was all fake. nothing traumatizing about that whatsoever.

The Unintended Consequence: aka the twist I'd love to add and would hint to in the second part - finding out the simulation, through martian mind fuckery, pulled from the real world (and in many cases, from real minds). Dick meets a bunch of people he didn't think were real outside the confines of his simulated life. A bunch of rowdy, heroism-inclined teens across the years get to meet the sibling/friend/mentor figure they all dreamed up one night.

(actual idea snippets under the cut)

.

Dick Grayson is 14 and most of the world's heroes have died. He planned a suicide mission that left him the sole survivor of a doomed team he helped found. The invasion may have been stopped, but is this really the price he wanted to pay?

The first face he sees in the infirmary is Roy's, and he has to close his eyes and just breathe for a few minutes because for one painful moment he'd thought it was Wally. But this isn't the world where his best friend miraculously survived alongside him. This is the one where he got his best friend killed and didn't even give him the courtesy of following behind him. Behind them.

.

Dick Grayson is 27 and has lived longer without Bruce than with him. The invasion's anniversary is always a tough day for him, but that morning seems especially harrowing. He'll get shit for it later, but can't resist stepping out onto the balcony of the manor's master bedroom (Bruce's old bedroom) for a smoke -- his first since he'd promised to quit if Jason, just 15 then, did too.

"Bad habits tend to pile up," he'd said, a rueful quirk to his tired grin. He'd tapped the cigarette twice on the railing and added, lower, "and this one's especially nasty, huh."

He inhales, watches the sun creep across the horizon, and lets acrid smoke burn through his lungs for a long moment before blowing it out in a small cloud. His eyes water, but he doesn't cough. It tastes just as bad as it did the first time he smoked one, not even a year after the invasion and treading water as Robin proved insufficient.

There hadn't been enough heroes to go around then, and Dick had been trained by one of the best. It hadn't been fair, but it had been his plan that had ultimately stopped the invasion. His shoulders everyone's expectations fell on.

He takes another drag, then smudges the lit end against the rail he's leaned on when he hears a boot scuff purposefully against the roofing above him.

"Todd and Pennyworth will be upset with you."

He doesn't turn around. Damian doesn't jump down to join him.

.

Dick Grayson is 54 and wakes up in a room full of ghosts. He hears his long-dead father-figure tell his long-dead team about a simulation they weren't meant to win. A training exercise gone wrong and only half a day spent under their mentors' careful, if slightly panicked, supervision.

He looks at his hands, watching the way his gloves crease when he flexes them in and out of tight fists. He looks at his team, their eyes a little haunted but shoulders slumped with relief even as they grumble. Batman's heavy, gloved hand settles on his shoulder and the weight of it is a nauseating mix of foreign-familiar.

He opens his mouth. Closes it.

Tears prick his eyes behind his domino mask, and he tells himself the suffocating, acidic void building in his chest is just some leftover side effect of the ordeal and not the grief-guilt of outliving yet another family (no matter that they hadn't been real in the end).

.

Dick Grayson is 16-going-on-56 and well used to the coincidences piling up between his simulated life and the real thing. Some of it -- missions and villains he remembers cropping up -- he's marked for Bruce to review and sort as he pleases. Some -- security for the cave, team building anecdotes, and training regimens -- he's shared with the team. And some he keeps only for himself.

Tim is one of those. He knows it's not fair to the kid (so much smaller now than he ever was when Dick lived his simulated life), but he can't help being selfish just for this. Tim is the one kid he's sure he didn't make up, and if Dick's taken to babysitting the kid just to be near at least one member of the family he built for himself in the wake of the worst days of his life .... Well, anyone who says shit about it can happily stand in line to have their teeth kicked in.

Despite this, it still catches him off-guard when he sees a familiar face pop up in one of Bruce's reports.

Jason Todd, caught boosting tires off the batmobile, is nearly the same age now as he was when Dick met him. He stares at the words, but none of them really sink in beyond the kid's name and address. He's moving before he's even made the decision.

He's used to the world kicking him when he's down - lived it for 40 frustrating years. But he has Bruce again. And things with Tim have been so good. And he's always been selfish when it comes to family. If he could just see Jason. If he could just meet him. If he could talk to him.

If if if if if--

.

Inspirations:

Circles in Shattered Mirrors by InfinityIllusion

Fine (But Not Okay) by CharlotteDaBookworm

Verisimilitude by mutemelody

[lloydfrontera]

related to that last post that's kinda why i think cpsm revealing that javier had died three years earlier than lloyd is poignant in a very understated way.

javier's original fate was to live when everyone he cared about didn't. he was meant to be the protagonist of that world, to face all kind of threats and survive all of them, but with no one at his side.

he's the narrative's favorite but the narrative's love is not gentle and it is not kind and it will hold you close until you suffocate under its themes and parallels. for the world would bend itself for javier to be at it's center but it would not allow him the comfort of sharing that spot with anyone else.

he was always meant to be the last one standing. fate won't kill him but it won't allow him to die either.

and then comes lloyd with his plot breaking meddling saving everyone around them and shoving his way into the protagonist role, sharing the burden javier wasn't even aware he was carrying. and fate tries so hard to correct itself, it tries by all means possible to put things back the way they were meant to be, but in the end the best it can do is to try and make it so there will only be one main character in the world. the way it was always meant to be.

it concedes. it won't take away everything from its favorite anymore. but it won't stand for there to be two of them.

and the thing is. it wins. it gets what it wants. in the end javier can't save lloyd, he can't take his place, he can't keep him alive, he has to stand and watch him sacrifice himself for everyone else. for javier himself. in the end when the battle is over javier is again the last one standing.

when lloyd comes back and the fate restoration doesn't start up all over again, he thinks it's because lloyd frontera's original body disappeared and he came back in his own body. i don't think it was that. i think the reason fate didn't try to restore itself again is because it had already achieved what it wanted.

the narrative won. not completely. not the way it was originally meant to. but in the end javier ended up as the lone protagonist who watched his loved one die before his eyes.

only then was it satisfied and allowed javier to leave its grasp. only then was he allowed to become a person and not just the main character.

a person who could spend a lifetime with all of his loved ones and when the time came, die peacefully in his sleep, knowing at least the person he came to care the most about will outlive him. at least this time, he won't be the one left behind.

[eff-plays]

So now that I've figured out why Hira might go for Astarion ... I am now struggling to figure out why Astarion would go for them in the long run. Like, because he's barely his own person at this point, what are his preferences? Ya know? Beyond how they treat him, beyond the obvious, what about them is it that he likes? Ya know? "You were kind and patient and trusted me" is all well and good but that's still 1) related to him and 2) doesn't quite tap into the sense that he also wants them for himself for other reasons aside from wanting more of what they're doing for him. Ya know? Ya fucking know?