mtas fics, headcanons, theories, etc

Fang is one of her closest friends. They sit in silence many nights. Fang, without speaking much, shows her how to make poultices and other simple remedies. She is usually a yapper in the right company but Fang makes her appreciate silence with another person.

She has a tray dedicated to leftover food scraps and shiny junk she thinks X or other critters would enjoy.

Her favorite commissions are food related as she loves to cook. Her least favorite orders are for ingots.

Her least favorite types of people are Ernest, Catori and Amirah. She tolerates Ernest because he pays a large chunk of her income but later grows to respect Amirah after the kiln is built. Hearing Catori call after her makes her lips curl. At no point does she reach her good graces.

She dresses for utility and has a somewhat muscular build. Feels uncomfortable in feminine clothing.

Uses a great sword for a majority of enemies she faces but later learns to use a spear. Spears are reserved for quick or intelligent opponents. Pen teaches her about combat and insists she learns to use various weapons.

She often "argues" with Miguel about his worldview but agrees with him to a minimal degree on certain topics. She likes to hear his perspective more than anything.

Is blunt and asks pointed questions. Does not like hollow niceties and arbitrary societal rules. Tries to avoid talking to certain types of people to avoid dealing with this.

Buys Hugo's entire stock of copper screws and bronze bars weekly.

She's small and blends in with her surroundings much like Unsuur does. Grace and Pen are often at odds with how well she sneaks up beside them. She will say something random to them before wandering off. Both parties have suspected her intentions and true self.

She has a bit of a trolling streak with certain characters and says things for a reaction. Developed as a coping mechanism to push others away. Some people are off limits for her. (Grandma Vivi, Mabel, Owen and Unsuur but for differing reasons). Favorite person to fuck with is Yan.

Her and Cooper ramble to each other about various conspiracy theories. She unironically grants validity to Cooper's werewolf moon cheese what ever the fuck he was talking about that one time. Most of her theories push past the limits of what she actually believes, though. It's hard to tell with her but she managed to convince Cooper that an alpha vampire yakmel comes out during sandstorms. It drains all the milk out of its victims--which "explains" why some of his girls don't produce. Mabel lets them have their fun but sometimes begs her to ease up on him.

She trusts people too easily and rarely learns her lesson. Easily attached to ones who pique her interest but feels little to nothing for people she finds uninteresting.

Truly devoted to and borderline worships people she's romantically involved with. A strong desire to be married and have a family for...reasons.

Spends a large portion of her time gathering data discs in hopes of finding more literature/media about fantasy worlds that Old World authors penned. She will bring these stories up to others in silence as a way to bond.

Doesn't enjoy fighting but is surprisingly adept at using her surroundings to destroy enemies. She has a cruel streak that she denies and actively tries to avoid. She would simply...rather not die. Bloodlust lingers.

Has more than a few physical scars from various job-related injuries that she doesn't bother to hide. A few are from accidents in the ruins.

Disclaimer: This will be diving deep into my own Pen history headcanon. Copium heavy. So, yeah, this will have reasons for why he drops his ring but also a mixture of other stuff since it all blends together in my head.

MTaS spoilers.

I tried to include gender neutral Builder

I've had this idea floating around since I first defeated Pen. I romanced him and quickly reset my game because I didn't like the idea of him never wanting to be married. I didn't realize the reasons why but I was always sort of suspicious. I knew I would love him since I first saw him and I think I was afraid of the obvious happening. His romance scene captured my heart.

I've heard that "he only drops the ring if you romance him" and I don't think that's true. I'm pretty sure he drops it in either case. My fiancé also got it as a drop and definitely did not romance Pen.

Could someone check to see if he drops it if he dislikes the builder and has no relationship (romantic nor platonic)? I doubt this is a mechanic so it would probably be a moot point but I do think that it would be interesting for Pen to drop the ring, regardless of relationship status, because he viewed the Builder as a potentially high status marriage candidate or spoil of war since that sort of goes in line with my headcanon Duvosian thinking. (Builders are supposedly a hot commodity and treated as celebrities but I find this to just be propaganda. It could go either way!)

Anyway, my headcanon for why he drops the ring sorta branches into two directions. (Maybe the two could be true at the same time! What do you think??)

The first one being that:

Pen drops a diamond ring upon defeat in both a romantic and a platonic playthrough because he is already married, most likely for status, back in Duvos.

Many around him were like "crabs in a bucket". Most Duvosian citizens behave this way.

Pen himself is a prize to be won where he's from. He knows the game and he plays it very well. Whoever was married to him was lucky and he left it at that. Maybe he gained political influence or maybe not. He doesn't know or care and he views all his fruits as his own. He gained nothing through marriage.

He views marriage as boring, a chore and as a heavily sought after commodity back home. He finds it unlikely that he would ever be able to "marry for love." Some part of him hates the child in him, whom he killed long ago, that still dares to hold a shred of wishful thinking.

So, why doesn't the ring drop when you fight him the first time? It's possible that he radioed in an order to prepare one beforehand because he still believed the Builder would still come but a part of me finds it much more believable that it dropped in the Starship fight because it was linked to him dropping his gloves. (Both fall off his hands. Not a major big brain reveal lol...)

It isn't hard to imagine that Duvos has different views on marriage, at least for the upper echelons of society, than the Alliance does. This sort of ties into my theory for why he despises Logan so much and his bloodline but I think I'll save that for another post because this one will already be so long. :)

I know that what Pen says/his personality varies based on translation but my theory is that, since Grace detected that he wasn't lying, he really did climb the ranks in the military to support 12 different people. They just weren't lovers. Or there probably weren't 12 people at all. He just wanted food, clothing and money. He wanted to make things better for himself. He admits to this while in the holding cell.

Personally, I find it sweet that he possibly promised his mother her financial security and government sanctioned protection. Maybe she ran an orphanage for children affected by the war??? Maybe she is simply referred to as "mother" to many children and Pen is the eldest of the group. Or he just loves his mom. It's fun to speculate. The only bit of his past that Pen hints at is having a mother figure and potentially viewing his past self as an entirely different person. He says his lines as though he regrets what he's become. I think he has become, through his own will, nothing more than a benevolent benefactor for his family back home.

Too afraid to see his mother cry with his own eyes.

My second view: (buckle up)

Pen strikes me as naive about love and doesn't know how to be vulnerable with others. A major part of his hero persona revolves around pushing others away by being generally unlikeable and being the only one to praise himself. I think this is a crutch and a way to cope with being the monster he was made to be. If people dislike him then they will dislike him on his own terms.

If he actually wanted to be in the spotlight in the Free Cities then he wouldn't have shied away from being in the center of every Fireside. He is always on the outside, passively participating and actively perceiving. His ideas are rejected and he isn't deemed a threat to anybody but himself--a harmless idiot.

If Pen actually cared to be seen in a positive light as much as he claims then his uniform wouldn't be stained and he would tell people what they want to hear. He's shown that he's emotionally intelligent and/or manipulative enough to manage doing that but that depends on how the player interprets his final words.

Pen has been raised since, "before he was old enough to know what he was doing", to be a war machine. This is how he is most useful and valued in his society. It is all he has ever known. A majority of his personality seems to be a show with small cracks in the mask appearing the more his friendship builds.

Pen has grown so used to fooling others and devouring his emotions that he's even tricked himself into believing the caricature that he's become.

I genuinely believe Pen loved the Builder because they showed an interest in him at his most insufferable. They choose to pursue him despite his lack of ranking and still chose to be with him when he admits that the only way to his heart is through combat.

And maybe Pen thinks he has already proven how good of a mate he is? (at least in his mind) Maybe he has come to learn that he will always have more than those who pursue him especially when the only ones who have shown him any romantic interest are lower class ladies in Duvos trying to climb the social ladder.

Pen may be a protector but he also values strength and opponents who can defend themselves. He is the "warrior blood runs through this one" trope personified. He claims to not care about Burgess and constantly bullies him but why bother teaching him to defend himself?

So, what, he can have a harder target to bully?

I think that in some weird, twisted way this is Pen's way of showing affection and that it spills over into how Pen treats the Builder. He believes in you enough, implies that he has trained you, to assume that you have a damn good chance at obtaining the treasure he leaves you in the cave as well as fighting the waves of creatures in the Starship ruins for his sword & board. Combat means more to Pen than any words will and he only, that we've seen, shares it with two people in the entire town.

One of them is just too weak and timid to grow from it. I think Pen is loathe to admit it but Burgess is just a person that needs protection and no amount of trauma inflicted on him is going to change his core personality. A reason for Pen to be jealous of him? Perhaps. Or maybe he pities him.

Pen seems to live without regret and he's surprisingly open with the Builder in regards to being a knight and showing that he's stained with a tinge of cruelty. (He doesn't give two shits about Mason leaving or Trudy returning as shown in his dialogue.) When his obnoxious personality doesn't manage to cut people out, then he resorts to implying or straight out saying that they meant nothing to him. He knows what people want out of him and he knows what words to say to soothe or burn them but I don't think he knows how to love or be loved. It's like he read books on how to mask and purposefully chose to make people dislike him.

Pen burdens himself with guilt others can't shoulder and stains his hands with blood so that others won't have to and sometimes that is what it takes to be a hero.

Hmm, I believe that at this point in the game he views himself as too far gone and too far beyond the reaches of the light for "salvation". He isn't delusional in the least and doesn't buy into Burgess' hollow but well-meaning beatitudes. He knows that others will never forgive him and that his only hope at salvation came with the success of his mission.

That was all my longwinded way of saying that Pen drops the ring because he thought that the Builder must really, actually love him to jump through that many hoops and he felt safe enough to drop his guard long enough to consider marriage for the sake of love.

Pen has plenty of enemies and nowhere safe to hide. He would never dare admit it, for fear of who in Duvos was listening, but he feels safe with the Builder. I like the idea that, under the cover of night and alone with the Builder, he shows how human he is to them and cries for the first time since his boyhood was destroyed by war.

Pen knowing his duty and that he could only enjoy a short-lived relationship with the Builder was the least selfish conclusion he could have reached. He could've had a taste of the stability he never had and the love that he watched others in Sandrock grow old with but he stayed his course. He did his duty and didn't drag the Builder down with him. He asked, in his own way, for them to come with him and when he was refused he felt that he had done all he could.

It's more selfish to leave a child, whom he would want to raise stronger than him in every way, and the person he made work too hard to truly know him behind after promising to be with them, always.

Some part of me wishes that Pen would send troops to capture the Builder and bring them to him. I think he knew both of their duties came first and that the Builder would make their way to him eventually.

Sidenote:

There's an interesting dynamic between him and Aadit. Maybe Pen is more cruel and he would relish the idea of hurting someone he has to leave behind because they would dare to not choose him. But maybe Aadit is just as cruel, if not moreso, to leave his young family and Builder behind. Aadit indulges in his spoken desire for peace, grows a family but he leaves without any word. (Who even knows if he actually detested war or fighting..)

Pen denies himself any such indulgence and receives no credit for that. Is Aadit better perceived because he doesn't boast? Is it because he is meek and unassuming? A traitor is a traitor. And if that's the meat of the issue then; where's the Aadit hate?

I'm not saying people should hate Aadit but do people really hate Pen just because he's an unrelenting jackass? If so...he played your ass, too.

These Duvosian men and their letters after breaking our hearts.

~Unsuur~

His scent reminds the Builder of their first step into an abandoned mine--empty yet full of an undiscovered treasure begging to be found while harkening feelings rooted in the unmistakable hardship of being truly alone. But, he mostly just smells like dirt and rocks.

~Justice~

Seems to be the type of guy to wear an overbearing aftershave. A hint of tobacco and spice. After spending his lunch break in the Civil Corps HQ, his clothes smell like reheated BBQ.

~Miguel~

Dragon's Blood and other gums or resins after special sermons or ceremonies. He otherwise carries the scent of the patches of earth surrounding the Church grounds.

~Pen~

The smell of sand, the sun and the blood or oil of what he destroys clings to his skin most days. Fresh from his morning routine he smells faintly of hair gel, mint and a hot bowl of iron muscle soup.

~Burgess~

He usually carries the scent of mushrooms, yellow lavender and cactus fruits--especially on an apron he wears when foraging. Bowls of warm sand rice with a splash of yakmel milk and a touch of honey.

~Fang~

He typically smells strongly of herbs and medicine. Most days his scent has an earthy undertone but on days he may have botched a batch of medicine his clothes take on a more acrid aroma. His hair occasionally smells like sandrice steeped in sweet yakmel milk.

~Logan~

He rejects the use of any skincare or perfume products on himself. After work, he smells strongly of gun smoke with hints of hot leather. He sometimes helps Elsie test lures and repellents made from recipes found inside his Pa's book--these may include anything from monster secretions to pungent herbs.

~Owen~

The ever-changing special of the day is the primary scent that soaks into his clothes. When he is away from the saloon, as rare as that is, he wears a cistanche and cactus based cologne.

~Arvio~

He combines Haru's base formula with perfumed oils and wears them in the hopes that it'll draw in more customers and spark their curiosity about what he's wearing. His most popular, and only truly successful, perfume balm was made of a rare resin he bartered off the Mysterious Man (who has yet to stock it again).

~Qi~

He may need to be reminded to stop overworking himself and to shower at times. He often smells like fresh or dried tea leaves and warm electronics.

~Ernest~

The scents of whatever the other patrons in The Blue Moon Saloon orders lingers on his skin but mixes, unfortunately, with a designer cologne that only Pablo has heard of. He complains about how difficult it is to ship across the borders. His hands smell like the freshly dried paper he commissions from the Builder and ink sourced from Atara.

~Pablo~

Hair products, purple hydrangeas and sweet mountain roses.

What is telesis? The real world definition is: "Progress consciously planned and produced by intelligently directed effort."

A term coined by Lester Frank Ward.

I could muse over the game referencing his work but it would probably much more in-line with the game's lore to assume it's some bastardized misunderstanding of technology leftover from the Old World.

Now, it may be a coincidence but a major corporation was already cheekily referenced. I believe "Spread Telesis!" is most likely from an Old World manual that belonged to an office worker in the same way the Geeglers based their entire religion around a bible that turned out to be what was essentially a job orientation packet.

Spreading Telesis could be in reference to building infrastructure supporting telecommunications. Note the similarities in the logo and the symbolism regarding connecting the entire planet together.

This could also serve as a reason as to why the churches have incredibly high steeples and rest at the highest point of anywhere else in town.

Telesis in-game is often viewed as performing generally "kind acts" that help fellow man so perhaps it isn't that deep. Furthermore, dig into SHINE Systems, Telesis and how these companies work in tandem with our world governments.

Peach was mentioned to have traveled Ethea in his own journals and he is believed to have been born during the Age of Darkness.

If there were weapons of mass destruction that were capable of obliterating entire societies and causing the ground to tear apart then I don't think my next idea is too far fetched. The mural pictured above is an example of a possible aerial or space weapon from the Age of Calamity.

I believe the technology Peach used is an artificial sun/concentrated beams of light only powerful enough to tear through a 200/330 year (time doesn't seem to add up) old smog in certain locations. I think the beam was shot towards a device he was commanding and not the other way. So, he may have created a device, from Old World blueprints, to control a machine resting elsewhere. I vaguely recall Peach's device slowly working to de-smog larger portions of land as he traveled before it stopped working. It took 30 years, apparently.

If it stopped working and he created it wouldn't he know how to fix it?? I think he explored ruins and accidentally stumbled upon something. It's possible he commandeered the mysterious light in the murals about the calamity and turned it's laser into something useful.

The accepted reason Orzu Ruins are being so heavily fought over is because Duvos "knows the truth" and feels as entitled to the technology buried underground as Ethea does. Are they not entitled to smog removing tech??? I think his device didn't quite reach their territory. Their still-remaining smog is a result of their use of relics, which is shamed, but a relic is what removed smog for everyone else--which is good. I genuinely believe the Free Cities demonize the Empire to some extent.

Some parties could wish to remain neutral in the conflict but it is also likely a different sort of agreement was signed pre-war to keep silent about what is really housed within Orzu. There are many reasons for this. Perhaps they fear the empire having this power or they fear not having this power for themselves.

Perhaps humanity managed to climb aboard few starships created pre-calamity and what Peach used was a terraforming device? The Altair One is an example of a human and AI occupied starship with a successful launch and orbit. It fell after 330 years in orbit.

Most starships seem to have failed, much like Xenoblade Chronicles X, so the likelihood of "pure, undamaged" humans is probably low.

Disclaimers: While a perceived overlap between the purported religion in the MTa universe and real life, my musings aren't meant to be antagonistic towards any belief system.

I have suspected for a long time, even since playing through Portia years ago, that Meidi has been compromised for a time before either Builder comes into the picture. Portian events start in '98. (And apparently it's around approximately the same time...perhaps a bit earlier for Sandrock) 2 hours into playing Sandrock only further solidified why I think this way about the Church.

A Bit of Musing on Matilda:

In Matilda's home, next to her bed, there is a photo of her with her two children. She mentions that her son is about your age. Her hair is black in this photo despite being greyed currently in the game. This photo was, most likely, taken in Meidi and shows that Duvos potentially had her as an agent in Meidi for 10-30 years depending on how long Matilda was stationed in Sandrock (and a myriad of other factors) before Builder arrived. Miguel mentions Matilda and himself traveling the Free Cities in their youth.

((side note: Builder arrived a bit after the year '98 . The time gap is so broad because of her children's perceived ages and its unknown how long her and any other agents were in Meidi so I really am just guessing. We also do not know the standard for how long people study in Meidi.))

She probably is not the only agent in all of Meidi. In order for her to successfully pass her studies and be exported directly to Sandrock she had to have had a higher-up station her there on purpose. (Miguel mentions that they receive funding from a Deacon in Meidi.)

It is possible that she was so respected that she was able to choose where to go.

However, it stands to reason that she didn't willfully give these children up given her last lines of known dialogue in the game. She is either Duvosian or was a blackmailed Meidi citizen.

Personally, I think she is Duvosian in origin and her moniker Tiger alludes to the fact that female tigers stay with their cubs for around 2 years to teach them to stalk and hunt. In some of my head canon musings, she was once a not-so-tender-hearted guardian to Pen, and many others, in his adolescent years.

Matilda consistently shows a preference for using relics under the guise of, "well, of course we have to use them. did you see how dangerous it was outside?"

Why present this when your town has a powerhouse like Pen? Unless you're allowing the influence of your home country to leak into your teachings of Light because you aren't one of these "compromised" ministers teaching backwards logic. She is almost always composed so she surely wouldn't allow this to slip-up. Matilda would need a reason for this. I think Pen was sent to the town a couple years after Miguel and Matilda but, surely, there must be some outside factor that wasn't revealed to us.

Some part of me believes that Matilda may have grown to genuinely love the people of Sandrock and didn't want them to face their imminent ruin. The burned notes and her seemingly deep regret for how the events panned out tell me she tried to stem the tide however she could while still remaining outside of the limelight. I think she loved them, in her own warped way, for their unwavering ability to remain loyal to their own people and for their indomitable fighting spirit because those are regarded as positive qualities in Duvos. Maybe she misses her adult children and sees "her flock" as replacements as a way to cope.

Maybe she thought that they would be more successfully absorbed into Duvos if they had Duvosian beliefs already? Or maybe she didn't really care about any of them and was only doing what was most convenient to their cause.

Matilda also shows a deep appreciation for nature in her dialogue. Many of her gifts revolve around nature. She also seems to dislike many objects that use leather and bones as materials. One of the reasons she longed to stay in Sandrock was because, despite it being a barren wasteland, had loads more flora and fauna than her homeland.

((As a few side notes: The Orzu Ruins have been a point of contention for the past 20 years.

Morbius fell to Duvos around 30 years ago and ran a road to Lucien.

Lucien was nearly obliterated, despite having the Flying Pigs stationed there, but this somehow ended in a stalemate with Duvos barely being afflicted.

Meidi houses an extensive botany research department and it is never mentioned by the Sandrock sect. ))

On the Security of Meidi:

Meidi and its gulf borders Duvos as seen in this map:

Unless there is a capable navy force stationed in Meidi then it would be incredibly easy for Duvos to infiltrate Meidi this way. Meidi is also by itself with no surrounding allies. We have already been shown that there is an issue with security with agents able to obtain schooling/training for long periods of time. Duvos has shown that it has no shortage of spies willing to do whatever it takes "to improve their circumstances".

It probably wouldn't have been very difficult with many people of the church showing that they aren't fighters--whether that be a personal choice or a teaching of the church seems to vary. It seems that the characters who are unable to think for themselves or protect themselves very well, if at all, are the most susceptible to the more harmful or severe (ie all tech bad) teachings of the Church.

Some way to travel between Lucien and Meidi exists. It is probably by an airship since that is what is mostly stationed there. This doesn't make them immune to Duvos attacks or the dangers of crossing The Peripheries.

Lee and the Dangers of His Teachings:

Lee often laments the use of Old World technology and blatantly destroys it the instant he gets his hands on it. I believe ministers of this sort were various natives brought up to program many people in the Free Cities into staying weak, complacent and ignorant. He is either brainwashed or so far removed from the concept of danger breaching his society's walls that he willingly gives up any form of protection.

Hordes of citizenry that think this way are the easiest to conquer. This would be motivation for the Empire, which embraces the use of this technology, to infiltrate something as widespread as this Church and twist its teachings to something a tad more sinister. (Lee's beliefs not only led him to destroy a means for his people to defend themselves but a connection to their Old World culture. A people without a culture are doomed to wander this world until they are inevitably absorbed by an entity that is willing to provide them with a suggested one through the use of media or alternate belief systems.)

A Bit on Pen :

Pen could have been allowing his mask to slip, as he often did, when he said:

...indicating that the rules are often changed on a whim, especially for this sect that just so happens to be full of Duvosian agents. But Pen also admits to Burgess that he "never believed any of that junk" when he is finally confronted. I think he sees the current system for the farce that it is and refuses to be a part of it. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why he believes himself to be beyond redemption with help from "the Light"--because what the fuck is it even supposed to be at this point?

Also, what power did he have over others in Meidi to be able to design his own uniform? Did he really have to use threats of brute force or did they "fear his name" like many others back in Duvos?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is merit to what some of them say about Old World technology. We saw first hand what Geegle Corp did to the planet and the old denizens of what presumably used to be an ocean. But Lee destroying all traces of history (statues/relics/data discs) that he gets his hands on and harbors a seething hatred for weapons (the guns with names that escape me) it presents the idea that there are extremist teachings out there. He was a child raised in Meidi to become a minister, after all. It is possible that his ancestors helped to warp his perspective (or maybe they were also brainwashed) but....I really like where my theory ends up, haha.

I think the original teachings were presented as a warning to future generations on the dangers of Old World tech but later warped by fear until they were eventually twisted by the Duvos. The Alliance probably knows their religion is realistically kind of bullshit if they actually adhered to it as strictly as "they're supposed to" but it's harmless enough for the masses to partake of it.

"Rules for thee but not for me" scenario for the higher-ups

The day after Pen's mirror quest is resolved the Builder can have a conversation with Qi about what happened.

He refers to him as a homunculus man. The player is likely to assume that this is a cheeky insult and that Qi refers to him as a "little man".

However, Qi has a penchant for leaving issues or helpful comments completely unsaid because they're "obvious"....

It's possible that he called him a homunculus man in reference to the ideas of humans thinking they could "play God" as quoted in this same dialogue and the alchemy myths. But this is boooring and not fun at all. Yawn!

Pen is an absolute beast of a man and rumors of him being experimented on were passed around Duvos invaders. Yippee!!

Pen is potentially capable of/has achieved:

Deflecting bullets to some degree

Functioning without water without risk of dehydration

Smiting a hundred monsters in the desert before a glass of yakmel milk reaches room temperature (approx 1-2 hrs)

Scaling the side of a mountain that only goats were known to traverse

Reaching terminal velocity and landing (posed belly to earth before landing at 120mph and absorbing the shock??)

350kg benchpress (771 lbs) possibly without elbow wraps

Performing 1,385-50,000 pushups

Wandering the Eufala during a sandstorm without protection--eyesight distance suffers (which is typically at an advantage)

Defeated Boxing Jack as evidenced by the Golden Belt in his room--level 40 fight

Space Punch!

Side note: he wonders if he can suplex a train (a final fantasy 6 reference btw) and set a new year goal of running 80km (49 mi) and lifting 1,500kg (3,306 lbs) as a daily plan

Would all this really not be obvious to the townspeople? So, could you blame Qi if he really did suspect or know and never considered it important enough of a topic to bring up?

Pen is a rare character that can back up all the arrogant words he tosses around.

It is exceedingly obvious that Pen is not a normal human.