Question meme?

[imaginemeandyuu]

I apparently broke 1000 comments a few minutes ago so uh QUESTION MEME! Ask me questions and I will ramble at you and then ask you questions back. We go back and forth until we exhaust ourselves!

Just for Alma Karma.

Comments

[outofthemud]

LET'S START BASIC how are you settling in Alma.

[imaginemeandyuu]

KIND OF. Without much stability but settling in nonetheless.

On the one hand, he's got a vastly growing happiness and wonder. For the first time he actually is away from the Order. He's meeting people who have never heard of the Order. He had someone asked him if he ever got bullied for being a half-Akuma! The point that there's no war here any more has really suddenly come home to him. A lot of the times in a thread when he just starts crying it's because he's happy and feels guilty for feeling happy, or happy and doesn't know how to express it because most of the time his smile expresses how unhappy he is and he doesn't eveennnn. Seeing the sky made him cry because he was seeing it for the second time as 'himself' -- and the first time he didn't have any chance to enjoy it, under the circumstances (NOT THAT YUU EVER DID EITHER gosh). Seeing flowers made him cry because it suddenly felt like he could keep "her promise" -- was keeping her promise, which she'd held onto as Alma. So a lot of the instability is the fact that things don't just have to be coped with. And then Yuu is here! Both Yuus! Literally Alma wants only one thing more than being with Yuu forever. Getting to be with Yuus from multiple universes was never really something he considered for obvious reasons butttt you know what SURE. Here is a dream. He can make it, he can keep it.

On the other hand he hates himself and blames himself to a psychotic extent. He doesn't want to live with himself. The one thing he wants more than being with Yuu forever is to die and pass out of this world. He hated the Order and the scientists but he loved the individuals who made up the scientists and he fucking murdered everyone. He attempted to murder Yuu as part of a murder-suicide. He got hacked up by the person he loved the most and he knows it was justified. Worse, he knows it was for his (her) sake! After the Noah Brain Party he is completely, 100% aware, that Yuu almost chose to die with him but then decided to live to find her. So he knows that he forced Yuu to do something horrific and scarring because Alma thought the only thing he could do to protect them both and anyone who came after was to kill everyone here then die. In his own mind, Alma deserves none of this. He doesn't deserve a second chance. But he's trying very hard to not live selfishly, not decide things for Yuu the way he tried to do both as a child and after he woke up, and if Yuu wants him here he will take that second chance he doesn't deserve because it's only fair. But that is hard and inspires a lot of feelings.

On the third hand (what he had like six hands when he blorted out ok) the process of dealing with his feelings is enormous, at least partially because he's doing it with his important person twice over. Which I think is great -- maybe he'll actually start to deal with it if he has to repeat it enough. But it's like, I want to fulfill my dream -- for two people. I need to explain I don't blame him -- to two people. I need to explain why I did it, just in case it's something that needs to be discussed, to two people. And again I think this is fab for him and something he probably needs to be putting practice into anyway but he's a bit overwhelmed by it.

On the fourth hand he wants to be happy. Even as he resents and regrets everything and turns it inward, he just wants to be happy. Not being alone, and being happy, was all Alma ever really wanted.

Annnd on the fifth hand he is aware intellectually that this peace may be temporary. That the gods here have power and want them for a purpose and of course everyone will lie to them and of course they'll be made tools. (Alma may have some. Trust. Issues.) So he's trying to LIVE IN THE MOMENT but he's suspicious of the future.

BUT THIS IS ALL ACTUALLY BETTER THAN WHEN HE WOKE UP FROM HIS COMA AND TRIED TO KILL KANDA. I mean. He's grasping a kind of hysterical happiness, which is. A start.

How is Kanda feeling about Alma being here?

[outofthemud]

YEAH THE. THE MURDER-SUICIDE HABIT IS A GOOD ONE TO HAVE BEEN BROKEN.

LOTS OF INITIAL SURPRISE because post Alma-arc he really... didn't expect to see Alma again. Ever. Even in the afterlife, which isn't something he puts a lot of thought in in the first place, because fuck things are complicated! You got eaten by dark matter and did a lot of hellish and selfish things so who the fuck even knows what happened to Alma after that. But anyway, he wasn't banking on it. And since he reconciled with Alma and he went out how he wanted Kanda can at least find peace in that and kind of let Alma go.

And went off to make his resolve to the war and die. Whoops. AND THEN ALMA WAS BACK and he was still an Akuma BUT THERE HE IS. And while Kanda's still having Issues with being away from the war that they are and together is... something he had always wanted a long time ago but never held onto because it was basically impossible. But now it is and they're dead and away from the war and their world and everything and they can go ahead and take that.

So it makes Kanda very happy! Dying so suddenly and being revived killed his character development towards... being a happier person, and getting Alma is a step towards Kanda getting those good feelings and having a much more positive life back.

BASICALLY IT FEELS GOOD.

Does Alma have his own hallucinations, in your personal headcanon?

[imaginemeandyuu]

SO SOMETIMES I GO ON A BIT OF A SPREE KILLING. THAT'S NOT A CRIME, IS IT???

Good feels are good '-'

Sdfj pardon pronouning in the next bit, I'm using 'he' for Alma's thoughts of himself as Alma and 'she' for Alma's awareness of himself as that woman. It is a bit of a clusterfuck of referents.

In my headcanon, his "past life" awareness manifests a little differently than from Kanda's. We know that there's a lot of other 'failed' experiments who went the way that Kanda did and got killed for it, but Alma never had flashbacks or hallucinations himself during the normal time it would develop. But when faced with her own body he remembered and wigged the fuck out. Plus while Kanda doesn't seem really aware of who he himself ("whose hand is this?") was so much as having hallucinations of significant scenes and moments, Alma seems aware of who she is -- knows from seeing Kanda's memory what the ghost looks like, knows that it's herself, knows what Allen will see if he looks at Alma with the akuma-sensing eye, etc, which means imho that Alma has a greater awareness of himself as that woman -- an inward past self regression rather than an outward one like Kanda does.

So instead of seeing significant scenes/symbols like Kanda does, I headcanon him with a greater sense of blurred identity, memories that weren't from his life informing him, senses of self that are more of her sense of self than his, but that her feelings/memories sort of drift through his psychological landscape like clouds, if that makes sense.

SPEAKING OF HALLUCINATIONS how hard is it to hack through flora and fauna when you're hallucinating flora everywhere there Kanda...

[lightningfield]

How the fuck did you even...

[imaginemeandyuu]

APPARENTLY PURE JOY? IF I WANT TO TAKE THIS AS A SERIOUS QUESTION I could list every single trait and "bulletproof kink" app pattern points Alma hits...

[lightningfield]

.....So all of them.


Yeah, he really is your type.

NAH GO AHEAD AND ASK ME A QUESTION IDK...

[imaginemeandyuu]

Yeah like all of them. We start with "little boy who has been raised underground and never even seen the sun as he was a science experiment/raised for one purpose only", move onto "his entire motivation is crushing loneliness", enter the realm of "his personal sense of identity is altered, anormative, or just somehow fucked up", and go from there.

I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT DTB but I am given to understand that Hei/Li are either different personalities or different personas? How are they balancing self-presentation in Thusia so far?

[hydralize]

First impressions!

[imaginemeandyuu]

Alma thinks Nova is really sweet. He 200% feels that Nova is generous, kind, giving, and caring. Alma feels that he seems like a fun and smart guy, and hopes they can get along -- and he thinks that Nova's obvious total adoration of Allen is precious and something Allen totally is lucky to get. In general he also ships Allen and Nova because gosh he mentioned Nova to Allen and Allen was like I LOVE HIM SO MUCH ////. They seem close and happy and Alma both envies and admires that. He also thinks Nova is good for taking care of Yuu without alienating him, though he's also jealous that happened (but trying to swallow any overt jealousy, especially because Nova extended such a generous kind wish towards him).

He heard from Becca that the people in apartment E were psychotic but after he realized it was Nova staying there, he dismissed it as incompatible personalities. Everyone there was so nice '-'

Back at you!

[hydralize]

CONFUSED . . . Some part of him wonders if Alma exudes some kind of Kanda calming pheromone as a result of his experimentation.

Really though he does like Alma pretty well. On top of the bonus points he got for being someone that Kanda of all people would admit to being friends with, he's just an honestly nice guy. He couldn't pick up on anything underhanded or remotely suspicious about him, and he's very sympathetic to the kind of life he must've led (as Nova can understand it.) He genuinely does have the impression that Alma's a good guy who deserves this second chance at freedom and is super glad that he has Kanda here with him to take it (aside from the fact that they have to be dead to be here and all.)

What made you finally decide to app him?

[crazylikeavulp]

First impressions for me too!

[imaginemeandyuu]

He recognized right away that Lucky was super-standoffish but this was not actually a point that would, well, deter him because the person he cares most about in the world is Kanda motherfucking Yuu, and it is hard to get more standoffish than that without perhaps actually selling your soul to Satan. So it didn't actually bother him at all and maybe just increased his pester, and she seemed affable enough under the relentless paranoia and aggression, plus she seemed exasperatedly fond of Yuu, which basically put him to "she doesn't seem bad, pester more!"

Back at you.

[crazylikeavulp]

Her first first impression was basically, LOL WHAT IS THAT STUPID THING, I SHOULD BULLY IT.

And then she was kind of confused at how Kanda was reacting to this weird thing, but whatever, it wasn't Guillotine...

Except then it was. Which is boggling yet intriguing. So while NO SERIOUSLY IT'S SO STUPID-LOOKING I NEED TO PICK ON IT feelings haven't gone away, actual wariness and enmity feelings are pretty low. And she's curious, too! She'll probably be friendlier in future interactions.

Any app plans? Or are you content Almaing your heart out?

[ticking]

GOING TO BE BORING AND ALSO GO WITH FIRST IMPRESSIONS '-'

[imaginemeandyuu]

SOMEWHAT CONFUSED... Alma was kind of distracted at the time, but definitely remembers Ticky being there at the time, if less smug and assholeish than Wisely and Sherril in general bearing (which tbf is not hard). He was only very very peripherally aware of Ticky vs Allen during that scene as he and Kanda were busy ripping each other to threads at the time, but he still has this awareness of Ticky = Noah part of the Brain Party Plan.

But he gets here and Ticky presumably 'feels' a lot less Noah these days, and the first thing he did was be like NO WAR, YOUR LIFE SUCKS, HAVE BOOZE and just -- casually chat. Confusing but -- not... bad at all??? Alma was kind of into that? A sort of casual sympathy without pity and offer of help, and the invasive questions were -- not really all that invasive when you consider the life he lived up to date and thus, even if he was embarrassed a bit, it didn't go deep. His regen was at max capability (at least for starting/powercap) when he got the booze so although he got a little blushy and a little bit more free-tongued, it didn't hit him that hard (the mellow melon hit him a lot harder because he was healing an injury at the time and hadn't slept, for example) but it still felt nice to drink and felt nice to have offered to him.

Tl;dr version, he thought Ticky was cooler and nicer than expected and while he's still a bit wary he'd seek Ticky out to learn more about him.

Back at you?

[ticking]

MAN BASICALLY LIKE. Well you know Ticky, he isn't personally malicious very much. He doesn't feel GUILTY for whatever part he had in fucking with Alma's life, since to him it's just sort of mm... the product of the war, and really like 90% of that is THE ORDER IS DICKS so lol. Even if Ticky had recovered things like GUILT he would still just be like 'shrug'.

Also Ticky doesn't remember much of the details as they involved Alma. His knowledge of the whole thing was kind of limited to begin with (l-let's face it, Ticky's place in the plot end of things is usually just 'be pointed at a thing, do it' and he doesn't think much beyond that). BUT he does remember that Alma was heavily fucked over by the Order, and sort of boned no matter what really, and then the Noah used him to... somethingsomething the Earl is gay for the Fourteenth.

So basically yes, SORRY KID YOUR LIFE SUCKS AND NOW YOU'RE DEAD have some alcohol. Since Alma is part akuma AND was fucked over by the Order, Ticky wouldn't regard him as an enemy even if he was still a Noah. But really Ticky is more than okay with leaving all that in the past. So really he just sees Alma as some poor SOB who could probably use a drink.

UH he won't seek him out again tho. He doesn't actually consider Alma anyone of importance or of interest. Just sort of, was decent to him because why not =|a

DOES ALMA HAVE A FAVORITE YUU? DOES HE EVEN SEE THEM AS SEPARATE PEOPLE?

[hallucinogenetic]

What is Alma actually aware of insofar as Kanda's feelings towards him?

[imaginemeandyuu]

He knows that Kanda loves him as a general feeling! He is aware of this both through seeing Kanda's memories of the past and through Kanda being like "fuck this let's get out of here and live together", and Kanda holding him as he dies. He generally believes that Kanda does care about him, and doesn't really doubt that. He believes Kanda cares about him as a friend and while Alma knows he himself is in love with Kanda, he thinks that romantically it is one-sided. And wants to swallow that because frankly being loved by Kanda at all, being Kanda's friend, Kanda throwing everything away to run off and hold him as he dies, is perhaps the most amazing and incredible thing in the world to him. Buuut he does know he's in love with Kanda so he does get jealous of Kanda's other friends/close associates/etc because he's ultimately a pretty selfish person, even if he's working on trying to not be one.

Beyond "Kanda loves me as a friend" and "Kanda has I think forgiven me for doing shit-horrible things to him" he has zero awareness of Kanda's feelings towards him though. It's sort of like there are two big flags there of "genuine caring" and "forgiveness" and everything else is like THIS IS STRANGE MOON TERRITORY. ONE SMALL STEP FOR AKUMA, ONE GIANT STEP FOR AKUMAKIND.

Not even asking what Kanda's feelings are but instead asking whatever they are, is Kanda even slightly aware of his own feelings?

[hallucinogenetic]

NO, HE'S KANDA.

Okay, this is a slight exaggeration. He knows, like. As much as Alma does. Like in that Alma is his friend and most important person and Kanda has every feeling and like literally nothing else in the world matters like Alma matters.

He also gets, like, occasional. Feels. Where he's like OH THAT, THAT WAS A FEEL, THAT WAS AN UNUSUAL FEELING FEEL and then he usually punches Alma in the face after that.

Kanda is not really . . . sympatico with all of Kanda's feelings. We can't stop here this is bat country etc etc. But like . . . he is . . . aware that feels are there, like this amorphous blob of FEEL that he doesn't know what to do with but it has to do with staring at Alma's stupid face and maybe giving flowers to Alma and making sure Alma sleeps and not having Alma be mad at him for reals and trying to help Alma be happy and

!?

?!?!

!?!?!?!?

What are Alma's plans/your plans for what Alma does as a routine sort of thing? Just as a general idea of what he might like to do as a daily basis.

[boundbydevotion]

ALSO.. FIRST.. IMPRESSIONS.......?

[imaginemeandyuu]

NOT AS BAD AS IT COULD BE?

Man Alma's feelings are seriously mixed. Basically, his ability to care that he's an akuma now is so ...not... there... like his brain is, out of habit, like I AM AN AKUMA THIS IS A TERRIBLE THING and everything else is like WHATEVER AT LEAST I HAVE POWER NOW. Which he also is like "oh ha ha that's TERRIBLE" but that's sort of the cycle of Alma these days. "Attempt to give a fuck --> Fuck not given --> Feel bad about fuck not being given".

And the thing is, he knows how the order works. He groks it. This is a thing he understands. Create abominations for the sake of the war? Got it. And Link seems like a decent person, but the thing that his mind keeps circling around is, there were a lot of decent people who Alma loved who he was incapable of forgiving for how they treated him and Kanda. But... the thing is, all these people who were so friendly and nice to him never -- apologized. No matter how sad they were that "more have to die" or horrified at the thoughts, or upset at the situation, they never apologized or never responded to their feelings once the kids started to turn against it -- it was always "it's all about the innocence".

So Link feels different anyway in that Link apologized, assumed responsibility, didn't expect to be forgiven or treated as non-complicit, and so on.

So Alma's still trying to decide how to feel but ultimately it's more a matter of "he did something to me as part of one of many terrible experiments against my will and I can't forgive that on principle" versus "I don't really care anymore about what happened to my body" rather than "actually mad" vs "forgiveness".

Which is more or less why he's so affable. Link likes Allen and he seems like a nice guy and he came out to directly express concern about Alma, which is kind of a novel experience in Alma's life. WHICH I LAUGH AS I SAY THAT but no actually it really is. That someone cared enough to be like "I did a shitty thing, I'm sorry, I don't expect to be forgiven" is actually a big deal to him

That aside Link seems kind of funny and cute to Alma.


BBBBBACK AT YOU.

[whetblood]

._. how did you do that?

[imaginemeandyuu]

I shot into thusia like a baby from a cannon.

[oi_theoi]

Unf. I still need to play Senji off you. |D