@askganondorftobadragmire - [ X ]

@askganondorftobadragmire - [ x ]

It was like he was hoping for a different answer.

The wind whistled in the trees. The crickets sang a chorus, deep in the long grass, as they anticipated the afternoon's death into evening into night, the sun slow in its settling like an anxiety in the fields. Rustling of grass, of clothes, of skin. The campfire creaking as something on the stand bubbles and froths ━ the air thick with it; it and cut grass, and fresh pollen, and crisp air.

Passing through like ghosts, unheard and unnoticed, like he was hoping for a different answer.

The knight's claymore, leaned against the log they sat on, might've been the answer to that; shining in the dancing light, somehow worse than if it wasn't there ━ better danger than an anxiety, better bare-handed than asking questions. ━ but it was there, of course, and the sound of Link wringing his hands seemed to point it out like the blade reflected the sound too, in the way he wasn't wringing them at all; just bending the fingers, pushing and prodding at calloused palms like they were foreign to him, like they were the most interesting thing in the room.

they might've been, since they were one of the only things he wasn't scared of, right now ━━━ but scared wasn't the right word, he wasn't scared of Toba, but he thinks, maybe, in the way he's not recognizing it at all, that he's scared of the answer he'll get. Not like he doesn't believe Toba, not like this isn't a good thing, but...

that last word could trail forever, and might. the uncertainty in it answer in of itself, even if the reason never saw light. fading fast, in the wind, and the crickets, and the fire that kept it alive.

".. That makes sense-" Link says after longer than is considered polite, says it like he started the words and it went faster than he meant it to, not knowing the way they were going to come, what he was going to say to begin with. "I mean, I'm glad! I'm glad you trust me to ━" the words lodge, and he won't say it. He doesn't know why. He doesn't in the way he does, but it still doesn't make him talk.

he decides, thoughtlessly, to keep his hands busy. They occupy themselves with stirring the pot, glancing through ingredients, adding more of something or other, stirring again. ".. I guess I don't really get it," he admits, eyes fixed on the pot like he doesn't realize he's talking in the first place. "Why you would. It makes sense but I.. Do you..." and reality catches back up "I mean- I... Sorry, forget I said that"

Every monster in the underground knows the story of Asriel and Chara. 

They teach it in school, tell it as a story to learn a lesson from when telling their children, tell it like history textbooks aren’t big enough to hold it.

They never say Chara’s name in most texts, and they usually never say it any other way. It feels like a disrespect to the dead to tell the story with any other words, or with the name exposed like that, almost like mocking the grave that only one of two got wrapped in. It’s such an openly learnt part of history, like the War, that the tragedy doesn’t usually click for the children who learn it. Some don’t even think it ever really happened, that it was just a story. Flowey hates hearing it. He wishes it was told different. He wishes it wasn’t told at all. He’s torn up every textbook with it written down in the entire underground, every log of it, every detail before in resets no-one remembers, but that doesn’t stop it from being told, word for word like an anthem of the failure no one is aware of.

* You should be smiling, too. * Aren’t you happy? * Aren’t you excited? * You’re going to be free.

It’s so much more than just history.

a necessary clarification for my interpretation of Vanny! ― she is not Vanessa / the security guard! they are not the same person.

Van’s DEFAULT verse, which is my main idea of canon, is that she is a separate person from the night-guard. they are different people, and although they are similar visually and audibly, they are NOT the same person. The CDs are from Vanny, not Nessa. Vanny is not an alter-ego or something similar, and while she IS under William’s / Malhare’s / Burntrap’s / Salvage’s manipulation, she isn’t just Nessa under some form of mind control. I’m yet to decide HOW she looks so similar, but i do believe they are genuinely two different people, which is how I play Van.

Van DOES have a secondary verse where she aligns with the ‘Vanny & Vannessa are the same’ idea, but I do vastly prefer using her default verse as it’s kind of integral to her as a person, as Van is a very quiet, anxious, non-confrontational person with an less-than-stellar social skills often making herself seem more than odd, meanwhile Nessa is a no-nonsense type of character with a bold sense of volume to herself as well as a deep sense exasperation and suspicion. they act very differently from one another, which can make the secondary verse difficult for me, but yeah! i just really wanted to clear some stuff up about my interpretation!

Unwilling to learn, ━ or just unwilling to bend that way.

Edward was the strange middleground ━ the gateway between the world of Gotham’s underbelly & the people in it, and the people like Ally who raked their fingers at the skin of it, bled from it, and decided the iron was not the taste of anything worth having. This is to say the man’s always been just obedient enough to pass by, for the most part. Too scrawny to be violent, too restrained to be conniving ( and actually carry anything out himself, even if rumors of who hit who on the demands of another were often enough for a more physical retribution ) ━ it’s perhaps unsurprising that it was him they’d half-befriended within its walls, with the rest so festering, and him just the same; a different boiler, a different wound.

Ally, who raked their fingers at the skin of it, bled from it, and decided the iron was not the taste of anything worth having. Funny, then, how he just wont go. ━ or maybe, how they let him stay. ( a life of survival as an obedient thing ; being good like being holy, but no idea how to live. at least he was interesting. at least he was something. ━ playing with matches like your not lighting fire, like the fire wont stop coming back. )

He seems entirely unbothered at the sharp tone, the defense of an implication that very well may or may not imply inadequacy or a general conversational atmosphere of ‘ you should really be faring better than that by now, ‘ which, of course, Edward would neither confirm nor deny but lined his tone like pavement you couldn't see. Paper rustles in his hands as he’s sat in one of their chairs, a journal he’s always kept on him, the sound maybe grating to the ear & maybe the only thing keeping his fidgeting hands sane. The reason he had it now was the same reason he was only allowed writing utensils ━ crayons sometimes, but usually finger paint ━ in his cell ; the inability to stop. He couldn’t help it, and wordplay was less of a crime in law than murder, so the sound of rustling pages was a grown tolerance.

“ Same as always. “ the answer he always gives, as if its obvious. it never was. 'the answer' could be multiple choice, rhetorical, an impulse on a whim for a thought that he ━ in all his pride ━ had manually dictated simply did not exist; the concept of worrying about one of his very few friends who, for the most part, showed slightly more restraint than a majority when it came to punching him in the jaw when he got smart with them was chief among them, actually, which also might've been why it felt the most plausible and least at the same time. This was the long way of implying that he wanted something from them ; or, of course, he just wanted to mock them when he heard trouble, in the way Eddie always hears

" Do you remember their face? I could find them. I've had nothing much else to do. Might be fun. " boredom. a pause, an addition; " Nothing bad. If you care. "

' which I know you do. '

   @quillheel​ :  “You got hurt, again? Again?” // from the riddler! dc verse! i think it’d be interesting if they were acquaintances to buddies while in the asylum bc they’re both one of the few people who haven’t been driven to violence being their default state while within its walls

   “shut up, i didn’t get hurt ‘again’.”

   they didn’t like the implication of his words, his tone. he could’ve genuinely worried about them, but it didn’t matter. since they’ve been out of the asylum they wanted barely anything to do with those who were in there; multiple times for repeated offenses.

   it’s like they’re unwilling to learn.

   ally didn’t want to become what most already assumed them to be.

   “someone just tried to rob the wrong person. failed, obviously.” a thumb brushes against their cheek, to clean the fresh blood from the small cut across their face. it’ll heal quickly. “…why are you even here anyways?”

🍯🥛🐢🦄⌛ for chara (or whatever muse you prefer!)

━ send 🍯 for a food headcanon Chara's diet in the underground consisted vastly of root vegetables, magic grown crop, and potentially crayfish or other underground fish. Monster food was entirely of magic and did little else for a human’s appetite than stave off starvation, regardless of lack of nutrition. it was more akin to eating a battery’s energy supply than actual food, and as a result, the Dreemurrs had to improvise with what limited resources they had, resulting in their options being limited but not harmful. In many ways, many dishes were substituted for lacking ingredients with magic or other monster alternatives, such as the echo-flower stems being diced and served as steamed vegetables, ranging from the tall reeds in waterfall to the rubbery bark of the trees in the ruins being utilized. as long as it was edible, it was on the table for making up for their limited options. Chara had never been a picky eater.

━ send 🥛 for a drink headcanon When Chara fell, they brought down with them numerous human recipes, many of which Monsters had never tried before just from the sheer lengths of time spent underground. Many recipes had ingredients that had to be substituted with other alternatives, including magic, to varying effects, but one of Chara’s favorite spins put on the recipe they brought below was hot cocoa. drinking it through a hollowed out reed from waterfall as the foam sparkled with the magic infused into it, latching onto the sugars in the drink as the steam billowed out gently like silk curtains dancing in wind, was something indescribable, and deeply personal to them. it felt like something only their family had, could have, and therefore, they loved it.

━ send 🐢 for a mental health headcanon Chara was often easily overwhelmed during their first weeks to months spent underground, and while this was often manageable ( or, rather, simply capable for them to hide entirely ) it wasn’t always so simple. the first time they’d shut the shared bedroom door before balling themselves up in their thick blankets late at night when Asgore & Toriel had already gone to bed as Asriel got a glass of water was the night this became a true problem, where isolation was the kindest option they could think of, locked away in the dark of their bedroom where the anxiety of something being in there with them was not strong enough to override the everything else that refused any and all stimuli, was the same night they found that Asriel would never open the door when Chara was within the room alone. They found him that morning, when the house was quiet and gold and no one else was awake, after falling asleep in the blankets so tight around their body it was almost suffocating as dark stained spots where their eyes had been acted as the only remaining evidence. He’d been curled up with the glass half empty, water dotting the hall up until the door where tiny spills had marked the floors, asleep. They never really knew how to cope with guilt, and the best resolve they had was leaving the door wide open, leaving the house entirely in the early light where the street-lamps were yet to rest, and hiding in a nook of the capital, tucked away, until their parents found them. They never told them why, but they couldn’t stop telling them they were sorry, so sorry.

━ send 🦄 for a physical health headcanon Before the fall, Chara had often worked in wheat fields or as the shepherd to goats or sheep their family owned. Laborious tasks, unrefutably, on a body too small to properly handle when the weeds knotted up like thick hard ropes and knocked them into the harsh form of the plough, or when the goats rebelled their influence more often than not out of spite than defense as their horns risked them ever more than seemed truly worth it. the fall had left them with a limp, one that would follow them past their death, where the knee & the muscle didn’t heal quite as they should’ve, left ankle always not quite at the right angle, tendon straining in a way it shouldn’t, a small piece of bone floating in the gap of their knee, but their life before had never been easy enough to warrant an effortless recovery. It felt inevitable for that work, or perhaps that oversight, over-expectation, to pay its price.

━ send ⌛for a sleep headcanon Chara had a pattern of sleep where, despite their exhaustion or lackthereof, they’d often find themselves laying on their back, staring at the ceiling, thoughtless. if they thought of anything in particular they wouldn’t catch it by the time they’d consciously recognized what state they’d fallen into. it used to startle Asriel at times, enough so to tell their parents of it, and have it looked at by the best doctor they’d had at the time. It wasn’t harmful, unlike many dissociative states could be. They also had a rarer habit of falling asleep with their eyes open, something that they’d avoid at times by taping their eyes shut. it took time to trust Asriel enough to do this, but eventually, it became second nature.

━ Toriel, being both a boss monster and the prior Queen of the underground, has a certain aptitude to her magic very few others share, including even Asgore, though such prowess would’ve been one Asriel would’ve likely grown into even partially. Toriel has a great amount of control over her magic, but perhaps most impressively would be her control over strings of flame : with each bundle of flaming magic demanding a constantly in-check chemical reaction to which she has nigh complete control, including intricate control over each and every independent bulb in the line, that kind of concentration, delicate capability and skill is very rare to find with her sensitivity to the changes in each bulb being much stronger than even Asgore’s with the same movement.

This reaches into an unexpectedly wide range most often, as basic as lighting a hearth before entering the house or setting a rune of heated protective magic upon a loved one’s clothing or home with fire’s natural inclinations to protection and care as well as destruction. It, inherently, could be wildly enhanced with further obtainment of LV, as much magic tends to follow the suit of, but Toriel since being both locked within the underground as a whole and having self-exiled herself to the ruin lacks any kind of interest in accumulating more than she currently has, though the potential ( and capability ) doesn’t fade quite as easily.