Halloween [Digital Devil Saga, Roland/Gale, G]

[dogmatix-san.livejournal.com]

Title: Halloween
Artist: dogmatix_san
Rating: G
Warnings: none, worksafe.
Summary: Roland introduces Gale to Halloween
A/N: Arg, again not smutty, darn it. Although now with bonus drabble. XD;
Prompt: Feb 19 - Digital Devil Saga, Gale/Roland: roleplay - Gale just doesn't get it

Halloween

"So, then it is a weapon, like a firearm?"

"Uhh, no," Roland floundered. "It doesn't itself contain the energy. The energy comes from the person."

Gale's expression had been set to 'I do not comprehend' for the past five minutes, and it didn't look like it would be changing anytime soon. "Then what is its purpose?"

"It. Well it's-" Roland tried again to put what he could remember of the fantasy logic of a children's story into terms that a guerilla warrior AI could understand. "It's like a conduit, for the energy to flow through. Sort of."

Gale pondered this bit of information. "Then, would it not be more efficient to make it from metal? Wood is not an optimum conductor."

Roland tugged on his red and yellow scarf. Trust Gale to have no trouble with the concept of magic, but to need its use explained in logical scientific terms. No wonder they'd stuck him in Ravenclaw "It's not that kind of energy," he tried.

Gale still looked highly dubious, but was fortunately distracted as Cielo flew past them laughing delightedly, bee-striped scarf trailing in his wake. "Gale, Rolan', come on, we're gonna miss de candy!"





..and yes, now I want to do another drabble where Harry was messing around with a high-level spell he shouldn't have been to get a certain someone back from beyond the Veil and he gets several highly annoyed teenaged cannibalistic AI guerilla warriors instead XD (and, and Serph would be in Slytherin and all the others would be in various other houses and they'd still follow Serph instantly and without question which would completely floor all the students. And Cielo would be in Hufflepuff because above all he's about loyalty. And, yeah. XD;;; )

Comments

[nyxmidnight]

Oh Gale. Stop it. You'll hurt your brains XD

[dogmatix-san.livejournal.com]

Gale's nutty logical like that, poor boy. Hey, at least nobody suggested Organization XIII outfits, because you know Gale would be aaaaaall over the logic-loopholes, trying to get them to make sene. XD

[dogmatix-san.livejournal.com]

sense* (I can spell, really I can ^.^; )

Hmm... as you're speccing about houses:

[laryna6.livejournal.com]

Hmm.

Heat's a Hufflepuff. You'd think he was Griffindor but all of his actions stem from loyalty to others, not personal desire for glory/to save the day/to make a mark. It's for Sera, for Serph...

Real!Heat: Ravenclaw. He's the one there with interest in pure knowledge as opposed to just application, and while he's willing to let Sera suffer for this somewhat, provided it's her decision and it's minimal, additional suffering to make it more effective is objected to more out of principle than personal loyalty to a little kid.

Real!Serph's a Slytherin. Knowledge, yes, but it's power he's after through and through, and more for power itself than what it does.

As for Serph himself, while he is a leader instead of a follower and not particularity interested in knowledge except for what it means to his people, the difference between Slytherin and Gryffindor is that Slytherins manipulate while Gryffindors do. Slytherins are lords with minions, Gryffindors are leaders in the old sense, as in the person who charges out ahead and some people decide to follow the path they blaze.

Serph just decides thing, and people accept his decisions because they think they're good ones. He's not a control freak: he's quite often willing to let Gale, Argilla, and the others do their jobs and exert large amounts of control over 'his' tribe. The only time we see him overriding someone else as opposed to being called on for the final verdict is during the scene where Roland gives the Junkyard backstory and Gale is about to reject his offer of alliance. He gets Gale's attention with a touch and gives him a look: Gale accepts his decision because he trusts Serph's judgment and gets his reasoning without Serph needing to convince, much less manipulate. He doesn't force them to listen to them or convince them, they do because he's a good leader. He's mute. He'd suck at manipulating people/convincing them. That's what Gale's for.

Argilla... she's trying to understand in the junkyard, but that comes down to why do we have to hurt... she's the one who doesn't want to betray Jinana, eat and hurt others... Hufflepuff.

Sera... no real personal desire to put herself forward and make a mark, nor desire to lead/guide others: she's also a follower. Her knowledge of God comes from empathy, not actual study. Hufflepuff.

Jenna's a researcher, but for purposes of application not knowledge, so no Ravenclaw. While her motivation comes from David that seemed to be her only instance of loyalty, even though she was loyal enough to kill and die over it. Fundamentally a leader, but willing to act as a fake follower. Her in-game actions are Slytherin to the core, but given the flashback sequences and the ending it comes out that it's all for David, in his name and memory. Remind her of David and her ice queen snake front shatters to peices. That's insane loyalty and devotion. Hufflepuff. True, Slytherins claim loyalty to the Dark Lord, but it's more to what his leadership means to them/society: what they get out of it, mostly. The fourth book one... his fanatic devotion was genuine, but born out of his own needs/interests.

Adil's certainly got great personal courage, and he's loyal to Roland but less to Roland himself than to the cause. He's not a fake subordinate, but he's not a natural subordinate. Gryffindor. He's 'following' Roland because he's a good strategist and the titular commander. Adil leads Lokapala troops in the field: there on the front lines by inclination and Gryffindor. Hesitant to deal with anything Dark, even.

Fred: Gryffindor. We first encounter him as leader of an incredibly dangerous search for another Lokapala kid.

Hmm... as you're speccing about houses continued.

[laryna6.livejournal.com]

The Junkyard people are hard to peg because their personalities are developing. Greg was probably Gryffindor, given Roland's personality and dynamic.

Roland: originally an author, which would imply Ravenclaw, especially as Lokapala was so a geek's choice of name. He ends up a loyal follower of Greg, which would indicate Greg's enough of a Griffindor to drag the cynical Roland into his wake. Given that Hufflepuff's key trait is loyalty, Roland's retreat would seem to veto that. However, was he truly doing it out of cowardice when he hates the idea of cowardice and doesn't show it in-game, or loyalty? Consider what would happen if both the Lokapala's leader and strategist went down in the same attack: who would have led the group and looked after Fred? In a hopeless situation, it's the second-in-command's duty to do what he did. The fact that he did it even though he didn't want to and is unable to accept it was the right thing seems rather Hufflepuff. However, he's a strategist, great with research on the junkyard, can be a manipulative bastard but it's not his ground state... Ravenclaw. It was the knowledge that he had to abandon Greg that won out over his loyalty to Greg in the end, and he sacrifices himself in the reactor because he knows it's a strategic necessity. He's not a natural leader. He hates being leader and essentially seizes the first chance he gets to place himself under the guidance of a natural leader, another Greg.

Colonel Beck's a Gryffindor. No particular brains, loyalty, or ability to manipulate worth a damn. He tends to charge in on what he thinks is right/necessary to save the world/get out of hell and back where he's needed. He's not a particularily evil person, but he's reminding me a lot of the Digimon Kaiser/Emperor. He doesn't get what he's doing, and sufficiently advanced ignorance is indistinguishable from malice.

Madam: Intelligent, certainly. Leadership ability ditto. Very, very underhanded. Slytherin.

Jinana... we barely get to see her with a personality, but she's not a very effective leader: she can't keep her own tribe from trying to eat potential allies, much less keep Bat loyal. She says/knows odd things early on and her defining moments revolve around curiosity. My inclination from the evidence is Ravenclaw.

Bat... sucks up to strongest, capable of good plots... Slytherin.

Re: Hmm... as you're speccing about houses continued.

[dogmatix-san.livejournal.com]

Mmm. I don't know the DDS1 peeps well enough to even try to place them, and was pretty much concentrating on the seven Embryon. Also, I have to say that they're all difficult to place. This might not be anything new, since canon HP, Harry could have gone into either Gryffindor or Slytherin.

Also, the thing about Embryon is that they're all guerillas fighters, and they might not like having to eat other people, but only Argilla is openly troubled by this.(she's Vegan!) So, they all have that certain ruthless edge that could make them Slytherin material, but they also all have that idealistic streak that could place them in Gryffindor, and they're all loyal to their people which would point to Hufflepuff...

It's not an easy call, and your reasoning is solid and I understand it and agree with it, so if you want to write something for this crossosver idea, I would absolutely love to read it.

*sheepish* That being said, I hashed their placement out last night, and this is the way it's fitting together in my head right now.

Gale: Ultimately Ravenclaw, could go either Slytherin or Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. He's cold, calculating, and ruthless when he has to be. He's also severely data-oriented. Slytherin isn't necessarily power-hungry ass-kissers or megalomaniacs, the impression I got was that it also included cunning, ruthless types. Loyalty goes without saying. He's the stragegist though, which involves data more than anything else, so yes, I would definitely place him in Ravenclaw, because he'll keep at something and keep at something until he can break it down into how it affects Embryon.

Heat: Ultimately Gryffindor, could go either Gryffindor or Hufflepuff. Yes he's loyal to his people and will do anything for Sera, but he's also hot-headed and stubborn and will stick by what he thinks is right, even if it damages some/the rest of the Tribe.

Serph: Ultimately Slytherin, could go either Slytherin or Hufflepuff or Gryffindor. No, he's not manipulative, and he's definitely a do-er, but he's also the leader. He has to make the difficult decisions in a wartime-environment. The responsibility ultimately about who lives or dies is his, and he knows it. He has to be able to be ruthless, to sacrifice anyone, including himself, for their goal. He's as loyal to the others as they are to him, make no mistake, but... eh, I don't know if I'm saying this well, but he's less Gryffindor than he is Slytherin. Also, about Gryffs not being manipulative, one word: Dumbledore.

Sera: Ultimately Gryffindor, could go Gryffindor or Hufflepuff, easy. She's idealistic, determined, and has a huuuuuuuge guilt complex about things that she didn't set out to do, but happened because of her. She is trying to fix things as much as she can, both for the Embryon and for Earth, which is kind of Gryff-ish.

Roland: Could go Gryffindor or Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw. As someone pointed out, he engages in the kind of self-destructive behaviours that a frustrated Gryffindor might. He also takes the demon virus, which is the kind of impulsive thing typical of a Gryffindor. He's really a tough one, and I'm slightly inclined to put him in Gryffindor, but he'd fit real easy into Ravenclaw. Or Hufflepuff. @_@

Argilla: Ultimately Gryffindor, could go Gryffindor or Hufflepuf. Yes she's loyal, but she's also idealistic, always looking for a way to improve the world, never satisfied with the way things are put together.

Cielo: Hufflepuff. Yeah, he's the only one I didn't really have any trouble with, because while he could fit in in Gryffindor, he's very, very Hufflepuff. He's loyal, and he's.... mm. He's not book-smart, but he's wise - he has an instinctive understanding for the inter-personal connections between people and their importance.

I think it all boils down to that people aren't cookie-cut for a certain house, and that the houses themselves aren't as clear-cut as some people might like to think.

Re: Hmm... as you're speccing about houses continued.

[dogmatix-san.livejournal.com]

Part of why I want Serph in Slyterin is also plot-type stuff - it would completely mess with the student body's heads if the new students in the other three houses followed the new student in the Slyterin house. I also don't know if Embryon would even stand for being placed in separate houses in anything except name, since I suspect they'd see it as Dumbledore trying to break Embryon apart.

Re: Hmm... as you're speccing about houses continued.

[laryna6.livejournal.com]

...determining character traits by even looking at how you want them to be for your plot is kind of one of the warning signs you might be heading towards badfic! territory. If you've got scientific training, think of it in terms of experimentor bias. The good scientist tries to prove himself WRONG.

Of course they wouldn't stand for it. Consider Gale's reaction to Roland keeping Cielo!

'Dumbledore lets random people stay' fics are hard to make realistic. Teachers? After what happened with Lupin? He needed Lupin there for Harry's sake and he couldn't keep him. He couldn't even keep Umbridge out. Also, these are kids there. The kids it's his duty to protect.

One parody fic was ironic to me because the choices for teachers were supposed to be obviously bad and I read it and told the person who recced it that since one of them was a principal in a school training people to fight evil magic-users and the other was in canon amazingly good with messed-up kids, they were the most reasonable teacher choices I'd seen in that sort of fic for a long time, and it was quite odd that THIS fic, a parody, thought these were ones that were obviously bad when they were actually people I'd want to hire if I were him. If I could get away with it, which Dumbledore at the point in timeline this fic was set would not have, sadly.

Re: Hmm... as you're speccing about houses continued.

[dogmatix-san.livejournal.com]

Mmm, it could be fun to do something with the 'Dumbledore lets random people stay' thing if Embryon came through looking to be in their mid-teens instead of late-teens/early-twenties, where, perhaps

* Trelawny(or someone else) had a prophecy that pretty clearly indicates they need to stay,

* for some reason (perhaps a tie to beyond the Veil, perhaps they saved his, Ron, and Hermionie's lives) Harry's pitching for them to stay, or

* they're just plain too dangerous to let loose among the general citizenry, or

* something else came back through the Veil with them and they're specialized to fight them (Bat or Varin or such), or

* Harry would get in all kinds of trouble if the Ministry found out he'd been messing around with those kinds of spells and so Embryon's being hidden in plain sight, or, yeah, something like that.

I'm guessing Dumbledore would take every precaution he could, and that the Embryon would retreat to the Forbidden Forest for midnight snacks, since they can't very well munch on the kiddies.

I can write, and yes I can plot my way out of a wet paper bag, but I'm not an author so much as an artist. So I'd write maybe a few thousand words for this, max, as a fun thing to play with. On the other hand, it sounds like you could get eight or nine chapters out of this. *g*

and now I'm starting to have trouble getting words to look right, so I'm off to bed. Thank you for the input, by the way :)

Looking at your list:

[laryna6.livejournal.com]

a) reason to keep them there
b) reason to get them out of there, possibly Sirius' house.
c) reason to hand them over to the ministry
d) ...this is Dumbledore. N/A. Power level nothing, he's got spells that would totally blindside Junkyard types.
e) He's not actually that good at hiding stuff that large.

He might find a safehouse for them, but Hogwarts is already a safehouse for people that are a higher priority to him, and he's having a lot of trouble keeping it a safehouse already without adding another possible internal threat/reason for the Ministry to give him a hard time.

Re: Hmm... as you're speccing about houses continued.

[laryna6.livejournal.com]

...actually, I think I'm going to have to do some more thinking about Roland.

You can make arguments for all four houses for him, but he house there's a large counterargument for is Hufflepuff: it's hard to see a Hufflepuff abandoning Greg.

So, if I'm going for opposite of Hufflepuff, that would be Slytherin. We all know Roland's more rationally than emotionally driven even despite the fact that he has huge freaking issues. He doesn't let his death wish overwhelm him until he knows rationally it's the correct decision to make.

Roland... expresses himself as Greg's follower to a large degree, but that might just be paying homage to his memory/Roland thinking of himself as a sucky leader for failing Greg and guilt tripping. If he were the type to get sucked into a Gryffindor's orbit, he'd be taking orders from Adil, not the other way around.

At that point, the Greg - Roland Lokapala becomes a clear two-man leadership, the two covering both strategic and tactical aspects between them. It's interesting that Roland's replacemtent for Greg, Adil, is a Gryffindor: the hands-on approach is what the Greg-less Lokapala needs.

His attempt to gain control over the Embryon isn't by just handing them information Ravenclawish or talking about ideals Gryffindorishly. He's using a combo of moral suasion, information, and the fact he holds Cielo hostage to get these people under control.

When he joins the party, it's very much under his own terms. He doesn't ask permission: he just shows up in their colors. That is one hell of an audacious act in the type of setup the Junkyard had, I bet he knew that. He's saying that he has the authority to make himself an Embryon, which is saying that he's Serph's equal.

While he feels that he failed as a leader and thus his issues make him want to be a follower, his base personality is fighting that tooth and nail.

I think the difficulty with him is the same as with Jenna: the issues are distorting the reading.

Roland's a Slytherin who wishes he was a Hufflepuff, because maybe if he had been stupid and impulsive enough to stay... they both would have died, but, he would have made the effort and he wouldn't be stuck in this hellish world trying to hold it together as it falls apart around him.

So, at that point the odd thing would be that the 'natural leader' Gryffindor with Hufflepuff and a Ravenclaw followers would be putting up with a Slytherin trying to steal his authority. They wouldn't be wondering about Serph, they'd be wondering why Serph's letting Roland lure his minions to the dark side with evil tricks like taking Cielo hostage and giving him Stockholm Syndrome. I mean, good lord. Imagine how easy it would be for a writer, who's essentially trained in spinning lies, to convince Cielo he's the greatest thing since Serph except for being unfortunatly Gale-like?

Re: Hmm... as you're speccing about houses continued.

[laryna6.livejournal.com]

Something interesting to think about as just as in Greek Myth when the gods fight Athena wins, when the houses fight Hufflepuff wins.

A fic author did something with the 'Hufflepuff mafia' and I was all, yeah...

The issue is Ravenclaws have the brains to be quite dangerous, but they're likely to work solo and not do much with it. If they were mad scientists of the world-takeover variety, they'd be in Slytherin.

Slytherins have the rationality and drive to do things, but they're reluctant to stick their necks out. If someone shows up with a good enough argument to convince Slytherins to follow him, though, then you've got a smart and dangerous leader with smart and dangerous followers and you're in trouble. However, notice that despite the goals of the Slytherins being mudbloods out, muggles slaves/gone, etc, they never actually accomplish them. A lot of this is, as in the post-Voldemort trials, that they do see themselves a leaders/valuable figures. They are willing to pull back to fight another day and screw others over for that purpose.

Voldemort comes back to find his army kept itself in good condition, but they did that by hanging him out to dry.

Gryffindors are idealists, but the issue is that a rogue idealist without a plan isn't going to be much more effective than a Ravenclaw. Opposite reasons, but the same situation. The Gryffindors that are successful are the ones that manage to motivate other Gryffindors.

Since Gryffindors are hero-types, they tend to do crusade type things. Since idealists have different ideals, they tend to oppose each other until it's time to all pull together to fight the latest Slytherin group.

The Hufflepuffs have what the other houses all lack: fundamental unity. Notice that the Harry/Draco conflict wasn't that much of an issue, but when he looked like he was messing with a Hufflepuff...

They end up being the silent majority that wants stability and a lack of people they like being hurt. Despite the constant rises and beatdowns of Dark Lords, wizarding society is fundamentally stable, and it's thanks to Helga Hufflepuff, who took in the 'unwanted,' the people who weren't especially clever, well connected, or jock-like and gave them friends and a supportive environment.

It's interesting that in the books Hufflepuff House is the most insular. I mean, the geeky Ravenclaws socialize outside their own house more than they do!

Re: Hmm... as you're speccing about houses continued.

[laryna6.livejournal.com]

For me, the fundamental Gryff/Slyth divide, as I said, is that Gryffs are old-style leaders-by-example/doing, while Slytherins are leaders from behind the front lines (remfs).

If you want to put it on a two-dimensional scale, than Gry & Huf are more emotional and Sly and Rav more logical, while Gry and Sly are natural commanders and Rav and Huf natural followers/backup/support types.

Heat: emotionally-driven supporter type: Hufflepuff.

Harry: he's a natural leader with both idealism and rationality when he's not manipulated to the snapping point, but by natural instinct he and Dumbledore need to be at the front lines. It costs Harry Sirius and it costs Dumbledore his life. They can't muster the emotional distance to know that, yes, a strategist/leader's life is more valuable than his troops and for the good of the group he cannot sacrifice himself for the group. Hence, while they're borderline, in the end they're griffindor.

Notice that in the square I set up
S-G
| |
R-H

You say that Gale has S and H traits but end up with R. S & H are the ones with similar traits to R. If you're choosing between S & R, think: are they more like G or H? If G, than S, if H, than R.

Heat, the choice is between H & G. So, ask yourself: is he more S or R? His base person was R, and he can't do cold-blooded rationality, holding himself back from helping for a long-term goal, worth a damn. So, H.

With Serph, you give a triad: G's in the middle of the three, as with Gale ending up a Ravenclaw.

Sera: more like a Slytherin or Ravenclaw? Ravenclaw. She's a Hufflepuff.

With Roland, the trinity you give ends up with Gryffindor in the middle, but with him I'd say he's balanced between Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff. He fundamentally hates leadership/being the one to make the tough decision in the clinch. The Griffindor type finds that their element: they don't want someone else doing it for them. Roland wants Greg to be doing it and then he switches over to Serph. I kind of see him, as a Ravenclaw, on the opposite extreme from a Gryffindor on the chart above, but to each his own.

The issue with Argilla is that while she's certainly not any sort of pushover, she's fundamentally a support type. She wants to help others and even her big break away from the group is to go follow Roland. Is Argilla more like a Slytherin or a Ravenclaw? Ravenclaw. So, by my chart above, I'm going with Hufflepuff.

As for Harry, is he more like a Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff? He's loyal to his friends and he hates studying. Hufflepuff. Hence, Gryffindor.

Re: Hmm... as you're speccing about houses continued.

[laryna6.livejournal.com]

As for clear-cut, the big red herring in the series isn't Dumbledore, it's Hermione.

She seems like a textbook Ravenclaw with her interest in textbooks. But the issue is, it's not being geeky alone that makes a Ravenclaw.

Hermione is passionate. It's just that her passion involves learning. She's very impulsive and she wants to do stuff with what she learns. She's a Gryffindor who has grasped the concept that knowledge is power. She's charging ahead chasing the shiny ideal, it's just that for her part of that ideal is something associated with the opposite house.

She's like Roland & Jenna, who at first glance seem like the opposite of what they are.

[emerald-embers.livejournal.com]

asdfashfka YOU ARE MADE OF WIN AND AWESOME!

*never saw this coming*

*curls up and dies giggling*

:D :D :D

[dogmatix-san.livejournal.com]

=^__________^= Thank you! Very glad you like!

[belladonna12.livejournal.com]

Lol, love it! I actually started a similar fic to that idea, only with key Harry Potter members as reincarnated Embryons... And yes, Serph's reincarnation is in Slytherin, since Serph even when he's being a good boy is manipulative and sneaky, not at all a Gryffindor.