#dev } from the forge

[heartsmithed-moved]

What paranormal creature are you most like?

Tagged by: @lethargic-hunter Tagging: anyone who wants to do it!

[heartsmithed-moved]

Also listen...listen.....I don’t like making OCs too OP but Wynter??? Is really fucking powerful??? Like maybe not Yen Sid but man is he as close as it got back in the old days TM

[heartsmithed-moved]

Random smol dev post time:

Atlas takes very detailed notes on a lot of things, everything from writing down things related to smithing and his magic to what he has done that day. He keeps a journal and actually has a few completely filled journals because of how much he writes. 

Atlas has a very good memory because of how much he rewrites things that happen to him or things he does, but it’s something he’s trained himself to do. He doesn’t want to forget anything, anyone. When he first woke up from his heart being repaired he did have a difficult time remembering things, so Wynter suggested he write things down so he didn’t forget them - this became a ritual of sorts for Atlas and he doesn’t go a day without making notes of something. 

He probably doesn’t even need to double check any books for his magic as he has memorized almost every spell he would ever need but he still does because there’s always a small fear that he’s forgetting something. He’ll consult his old journals whenever he feels this way just to make sure he does remember it correctly. 

He also has a list of all the wielders he has worked with. He doesn’t write down what they speak to him about as that would violate the trust he works to build up with them, but he does write down their names, what state their keyblades were in when they came into the shop and when they left. He’d also make updates on these wielders if he saw them again. -- so in his main verses he still has these lists as the journals were more or less kept safe, perhaps maybe a bit faded. So he has names of almost all the wielders he helped and who died in the keyblade war. 

[heartsmithed-moved]

The air was full of more than just dust. It was anger, regret, fear, sadness. It froze the smith in place, staring out into the canyon walls ahead of him. He knew he had to see what was ahead. He had to. He had to see it all with his own two eyes.

He had to see for himself where his friends lost their lives. The last thing they spoke about in the journal they had left for him said they were going to the battlefield. There was not a single entry after. There didn’t need to be one - Atlas knew what had happened to them. He grips the weathered journal in his hands.

He has heard people talk about the keyblade war since he had awoken, how it was so long ago, how so many wielders had lost their lives. But they don’t know. They don’t know anything! They didn’t see these wielders at their prime. Collecting lux, having fun with their friends, defeating heartless and the cheers that came after, getting their keyblades repaired--

without realizing it Atlas he started walking, and then running.

-- they hadn’t seen these wielders at their best, and yet claim to know how they were at their worst?! Anger and sadness boiled in his stomach, and maybe that was the fuel that pushed Atlas forward. Forward, and forward.

And then he froze again.

Miles of keyblades were lined almost too neatly in front of him. They were old, clearly showing the time he had been constantly told had passed. Time, such a cruel thing. Such a cruel word. Atlas’ lip quivered as he felt as if he was about to tear the journal in half with how tightly he was holding onto it. He swallowed a lump in his throat and forced himself to walk forward. His feet dragged, though. As if they were made of lead, as if the burden on his shoulders was physically weighing him down at last. He made it to the inter section of blades, near what would probably be the center of the battle field. He takes a look around, spinning on his heel to take in the whole scenery.

Then he falls to his knees.

Then, he laughs.

It’s a laugh that could be considered be considered mad, crazy, strange. He couldn’t help but think of how he had thought this was all some elaborate joke at first - not so much the war itself but that he had been transported so far into the future. That he had been stripped away from everything he had loved. It was a joke right? It had to be a joke--

The laugh evolves into one of sadness, choked with sobs as he drops the journal and buries his face in his hands. He had thought he had cried all the tears he could have already. He had lost count of the amount of times he had cried since waking up. So where was he getting all this moisture from anyways?

Maybe it was his damn empathy. It was as if he could still feel all the emotions on this battlefield. The threat of death practically strangled him, the feeling of seeing friends attack eachother stabbed into his chest, the fear of fighting made his legs feel so heavy that he doesn’t think he could have gotten up if he tried. He felt everything. Everything.

“Is this what you wanted, Master? For me to live and  see this?” Atlas choked, looking back up over the battlefield, over the old and rusted keyblades. Seeing them caused his heart to twist in a strange way. He had the urge to fix all of them. As if doing so would bring their wielders back somehow. But would they just break the second he touched them? He hiccuped, pulling himself up to his feet. He staggered over to the closest line of keyblades, dropping infront of a blade the second he was close enough. Atlas hesitated, but he reached out and gripped onto the handle. No... No it didn’t fall apart, but it was cold. No keyblade he had ever touched before had been so cold, and it causes Atlas to recoil and pull his hand away with a gasp.

….They were all really dead, weren’t they?

He looks over the area again, a shaking hand coming over his mouth.

Atlas knows it was foolish to dream of fixing all of these keyblades, but he still wants to. He still dares to dream that there will be a wielder that summons them one day.

He could dream and dream all he wanted, but was that really going to happen?

Silver eyes stray to the keyblade he had gripped onto. Something about it seemed familiar….

A gust of wind blew by, and Atlas stared as the keychain from the blade got pulled up with the dust. Atlas stared, and his eyes widened.

“That--” He couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and grabbing the keychain out of the air to get a closer look at it. A key with a star shaped handle? But that-- “Qu-Quest?” His voice choked, and he took a second to look at the keyblade more closely. He hadn’t even paid attention when he had stumbled over, but looking at the keyblade now - it looked exactly how quest had sketched his keyblade looking in the journal.

Another gust of wind, and another keychain caught his eye. This one was just on the keyblade next to the one Atlas was currently infront of - and the keychain was a key with a flower handle. “Kei!” Atlas reached for that keychain too, holding it in his right and the star in his left. He looked at botht he keyblades they were attached to now as he sat down inbetween them.

They were his friends keyblades. They were Heaven’s Hero and Gladious. They were his friends.

He laughed again, but this time it was full of happiness, and maybe a hint of irony.  So were his tears as he put a hand on the handles of each keyblade. For a moment, it was as if he could feel his friend’s arms around him. Even without trying, his heart must have been crying out to them, wanting some kind of connection with them once again. This was it, this was their answer.

“Thank you…” He whispered under his breath.

Atlas isn’t sure how long he stays like that. It takes him awhile to find the strength to stand, and only with support from the two keyblades was he able to support himself. He stands there for a moment, debating on his next move. First, he grabs the journal and shoves it back into his coat. Next, he pulls the two keyblades out of the ground.

“You two are filthy.” He mutters to himself, looking them over. It only brought him to the verge of even more tears, seeing how scarred up both of the blades were. How much had his friends gone through on this very battlefield - what had lead to their deaths? ...He doesn’t know if he’ll ever know, and he wasn’t sure if he actually wanted to find out or if he was just morbidly curious.

Heh….that morbid curiosity, and wish to see the past for himself, was what brought him hear in the first place. As he looked over the battlefield once again, then back to the two keys, he wonders if he should listen to that sense of curiosity more often.

“Well….let’s go…..” He mumbled and started to walk. The keyblades felt heavy in his hands, but he could manage that weight along with everything else for now. He hadn’t even seen half of the battlefield yet.

There was still more to see, more to feel, more to fix.

He had alot of work to do.

[heartsmithed-moved]

I wanted to touch on a bit of the actual smithing part of keyblade repairs because yes, smithing tools are still used! However, they are only reserved to the rare / extremely bad cases. Such as if a keyblade is almost shattered, broken in half/pieces, or is revealed to have a very large gap/cut in it. It rarely happens and Atlas could probably count on one hand the amount of times he’s actually had to do this sort of work.

Smithing in general was actually one of the first things Wynter taught him. This was still during the time he was recovering from his heart shattering and they used it to sort of test his motor skills and give him something to do. Wynter was always close by, so Atlas getting hurt was never in question. 

As Wynter used to just be the local smith, and he would make everyday items like cooking knives or hatchets and taught Atlas these sorts of skills. It was only after this that Wynter asked if he also wanted to be a heartsmith, and Atlas accepted without any hesitation.

Atlas still does work in the forge, which is connected to the shop through a back door. I KHX verse sometimes Wynter and Atlas still get requests for simple everyday tools and make them on occasion. During his KH3 verse he mostly does it just to calm him down, as for him it’s simple and mindless work, or remake house items that have started to rust and are no longer usable. 

[heartsmithed-moved]

The magic Atlas uses to repair keyblades is a mixture of healing magic, light magic, and dark magic. Atlas is also fairly familiar with ‘using the darkness’ as it were - because depending on the heart/keyblade he is fixing he might have to use more of it than light. Atlas seems unphased by it, not struggling to control it or hold it back - he knows that hearts are a mixture of both and that it’s necessary for him to do his job. If anything - it’s his passion for being a heartsmith that made it that the darkness was never a problem for him.

Some of the spells that he uses come from spellbooks and require special incantations for them. But these are only under certain instances.

In a way Atlas is the equivalent to a wizard like Yensid. He knows a lot of magic that can be applied in ways that aren’t just for keyblade repairs or for combat. He has hardly ever put these spells into practice though, because of the strange way his magic works.

As mentioned in this headcanon about the ribbon trio’s fighting styles - Magic works a little bit differently for Atlas. It’s because he’s from wonderland and everything, including their magic, is mad. Some spells will not have the desired effect, and so actually getting Atlas to the point he is now with the magic he uses for repairs was a bit of an interesting journey to say the least. It was a lot of trial and error and while Atlas can sort of guess who his magic might react - he’s not always correct. So he has to sort of troubleshoot some spells to see how they would even work. 

This has made him end up in some funny scenarios which sometimes quest and kei got dragged into aswell as they were always willing to help him figure out what a new spell did.

Make no mistake though, while he does have to ‘troubleshoot’ his magic, Atlas is a very powerful caster and should not be underestimated. 

[heartsmithed-moved]

Wynter did Atlas have a name before you found and saved him? Or did he always have the name Atlas?

“If he did have one, he doesn’t remember it.” Wynter said, looking off to the side. He didn’t like remembering how….fragile….almost dead, Atlas was when they first met. “He wasn’t able to speak to me before he fell unconscious, and by the time I had repaired his heart, all of his memories had left him.”

“There was a time….” He started, reaching up to pull the heart shaped pin out of his hair so he could look at it, a lock of his hair falling to cover part of his face when he did so. “…that I attempted to find out who he was. I had even sought the Master’s help, at one point. I thought maybe it would bring him comfort, or give him a place to belong - he had confided in me once he felt so out of place among those in daybreak town. But the more time went on, the more…uninterested he seemed. Or maybe, he just got better at hiding it. Just like he soon adjusted to the town, he adjusted to the fact that he didn’t know who he was before.”

“I was thankful, really. Maybe he wouldn’t catch my habit of living in the past, of never moving forward. It was for this reason I gave him the name Atlas. So he could chart his own course, and help others along theirs.” 

[heartsmithed-moved]

CHARACTER AESTHETICS. bold what applies!

I. THE FAIRY.  chipped nail polish. glitter highlight. tall trees with smooth bark. tangled hair.the taste of cinnamon sugar. talking too loud and too fast. overgrown flowers in your hair.crumbling buildings reclaimed by nature. flirting. walking home at 3am with no coat. platonic hand-holding. blowing smoke out of your nose. dragonfly wings. chaotic good. freckles. fairy rings. secret meetings. gender nonconformity. leather. smudged eyeliner.  forbidden fruit.

II. THE REAPER. computer errors. a shiver down your spine. haunting beauty. hard liquor. crowns of thorns. shadowed alleyways. decaying plant matter. shattered mirrors and broken glass. corrupted memories. stopped clocks. the scent of stale cigarettes.  tattered black hoodies. walking your friends home. the crescent moon. the sea. a graveyard on a foggy day. cold rings on cold fingers. absolution. looking out the window of an airplane.soft kisses.

III. THE WITCH. graffiti. pretending to know what you’re doing. worn paperback books.growing up too fast. parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. lace and combat boots.moth wings. candles on every surface. a weathered deck of cards. turning the music up.fireflies in jars. calloused fingers. drawing on your skin. sunlight filtering through clouds. petrichor. a dying rose in a jar.  wearing a crystal pendant. illusions and spells. black cats. mint gum.chapped lips. dirt under your fingernails. the cycle of life and death.

IV. THE WOLF. murders of crows. frost-bitten leaves. wolves howling at midnight.knocking on your door. leaving food out for stray animals. the twang of an acoustic guitar. honey. tiny red buds on trees. claw marks on the walls. golden eyes. slightly too long stubble. sharp canines.  soft, thick fur. hunger. a small cottage in the middle of the woods. knitted fingerless gloves. sleeping on the forest floor. always finding your way back home.

tagged by: stolen from @dawntides tagging: anyone who wants to !