livinglot | tl;cr meme

HEY RIGHT BACKATCHA with team awful decisions

Strange and Lambert is a great example of the kind of odd couple the Carnival seems to excel at putting together! Lambert has an inherent wariness towards most magic users and really doesn't think much of nobility, so under very different circumstances he probably would have hated Strange (though Strange is also devastatingly insistent and present, like a human fungal infection, so it's possible Lambert would have succumbed to the power of friendship and Jonathan Strange's ego anyway).

Strange has an ambition and sense of his own purpose in the world that Lambert can't relate to, but also envies, and is naturally drawn to. The magician has that odd mix of a powerful personality, good will, and also an incredible lack of common sense or instinct for self-preservation that make it very difficult not to get caught up in his business, and Lambert's both victim to and enabler of that depending on the situation. Lambert can also tease him remorselessly and he's easy to fluster, which is hilarious, and that helps curb some of the defensiveness and need to push back he'd otherwise have.

Other than that, Strange seems to genuinely trust and like him, which is sort of weird and embarrassing and not something Lambert is at all used to. It's also impossible not to respond to that, THANK YOU LOW SELF-ESTEEM, and while neither he nor Strange are really the type for comfort or be a shoulder to cry on, it's nice to know there's someone he can unload about problems on who won't get on his case and who has his back. Although their relationship started out sort of shitposty (and in many was that matter, still is) it's safe to say that over time Jonathan Strange has become one of the most important people in the Carnival to him and anyone who fucks Strange up is asking for an asskicking.

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kingsroads - 2017-10-25 01:05 (UTC) - Expand

k

It took me a while to think about this, because the way Lambert thinks about Sans has basically gone from being a guy he mostly heard about to someone he feels like he's known forever. It's a funny situation for Lambert: the first interactions he had with him were incredibly combat/violence-oriented and no fun (getting annoyed about talking about killing monsters, then the whole Celebration/Hell thing happening etc) then a bunch of shit happened, and now here they are full circle, back at biting and fighting with each other again.

Lambert's impression of Sans was primarily filtered through the lens of Papyrus! As much as he was initially inclined to be sympathetic to his former roommate (after all, they share a lot of similar personality traits, only Lambert is the infinite cynic while Papyrus is the determined optimist) considering he doesn't like secrets being kept from him either. Sans confiding in him (and seriously, he can tell a secret/something personal when he hears it, even if it's through a drunken filter) caught him off guard, because dude, don't you have someone else to talk about this shit to????? Seriously???

Another factor influencing his knowledge of Sans was that Psi gave him a fairly serious psych rundown on Sans well before he ever became a supervisor. They're both in this 'ended up becoming Supervisor because no one else was around, but we're doing our best anyway' boat together, Sans probably doesn't take Lambert seriously and Lambert's at best going to respond to any serious shit with a 'that's rough buddy' and a glass of alcohol. There was the connection over being essentially the 'bad cops' of the Carnival before, but now that Lambert can turn into a beast too, Sans is really, really relatable on a level he wasn't before.

TL;DR: The longer he gets to know Sans, the shitpostier their relationship gets, and that's kind of okay! They're not exactly friends, but they're not just coworkers's kind of a comfortable coexistence where two pretty cynical fucks who care more than they should get along with each other and know they can count on the other one to rek shit when it calls for it.

Edited 2017-10-25 00:27 (UTC)

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osteothropy - 2017-10-25 00:46 (UTC) - Expand

Sir

9S is a nerd, and you can bet your ass Lambert's gonna tease him about 2B when they get back and that's how 9S is going get to find out he can't punch humans if he hasn't figured it out yet!

All kidding aside, it's very early in their relationship for Lambert to have a solid impression of 9S. A big part of this is that Lambert doesn't exactly understand what an android is, still, and has few preconceived notions of what that means, or weird hangups about it being a threat/less than human. 9S seemed a bit overenthusiastic in Greysol, which honestly is something Lambert would have teased about more, but in the Manor he's proven to be a great resource and dependable in his tasks, and actually weirdly follows Lambert's ideas??? Like he thought there'd be more pushback or at least 'why don't we do things X way' and so on but as far as he can tell 9S actually takes him seriously when he orders him around, which is a big change from the rest of the Carnival in general. In some weird way, 9S's obvious and sincere respect makes Lambert want to respond to it by being as awesome as 9S seems to think he is lmao ....

As their relationship loosens up, 9S can probably expect to be in for more teasing, experiments in 'okay, but can an android drink this?' and general activities that may probably lower his faith in humanity just a bit more. He's also curious as hell about the apparent dislike he has for Peridot, but due to unforeseen circumstances, that's just going to have to be something they discuss later...

Edited ( ) 2017-10-25 01:36 (UTC)

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dressedtothe - 2017-10-25 10:38 (UTC) - Expand

hello

Sora's mostly just another kid at the Carnival to Lambert: they've mostly interacted either when Sora was feeling mischievous or feeling down, so Lambert doesn't have much of a sense of who he is beyond that. He has a vague notion that Sora seems homesick but resigned to being here at the same time, but he doesn't usually care to pry beyond that, considering it business he probably shouldn't get into.

He's not sure where the whole 'Keyblade' and 'Hero type stuff fit into what he's seen of Sora. He doesn't really line up with his mental image of what someone who calls themselves a hero is, and it's kind of weird! But that's probably in a good way -- most self-proclaimed heroes Lambert knows are kind of assholes.

sup old man

Rita would probably dislike him for saying so, but in many ways when he thinks about her the more she reminds him of a miniature version of sorceresses from his own world! She's bossy, yells a lot, obsessed with magic to the point of all else, and is a bit of a know-it-all. Yet despite the highly negative picture he's painted of sorceresses for her back home and his big talk, Lambert's still the witcher they bossed into running their errands... so there's a lingering tendency to want to listen to her or give her more attention than he probably should.

Lambert likes Rita's spunk, stubbornness, and single-mindedness -- pretty much all her harder and objectively less ladylike qualities, really. As she has figured out by now, he doesn't have much use for standing on ceremony, and he values someone who speaks their mind as frankly and directly as she does, and has a similar pragmatic attitude to most things. Of course, he's slowly catching on that there are topics she's much more sensitive about than he is, and when he figures that out properly she's never going to hear the end of it ...

That being said, it's hard to say where he stands on respecting her ... she probably thinks she's smart and sharp, but at the same time, she's still very much a kid, and by his interpretation/reading? A very sheltered kid with limited life experience outside her bastion, at that. That's probably going to end badly for her one day -- not that Lambert's going to be the one to give her that reality check. Until then, he's happy to talk shop with her (she is such a nerd though, he'd rather talk about explosions than magic) and fight beside her if necessary.

Edited 2017-10-25 05:29 (UTC)

LAMBERT SHE WAS A GREAT SCOUT FOR A WHILE RIGHT

Screeches softly

hit him with your best shot

In some ways how Lambert feels about Childermass is incredibly simple, and in other ways it's also incredibly complicated.

The attraction is the easiest to sort: good old-fashioned lust, being together in a lot of adrenaline-fueled situations, and knowing there's a sense of real humor under that stodgy exterior all contribute to that part, and it really doesn't need to be any deeper than that. If it just came down to that, it wouldn't be that hard to get him out of his system.

The complicated part is that beyond that, Lambert's also genuinely come to like Childermass as a person, even if he arguably knows so little about who he really is. That's the trouble, really: he wants to know who Childermass is, he just has absolutely no idea how to go about it. Childermass isn't easily pushed around, but he puts up with Lambert's bullshit and being teased and even gives back as good as he gets. He seems to share a cynical view of the world at times, but then he'll go wax on about magic for hours like a huge nerd, or spoil the hell out of his dog, or do something stupidly noble and self-sacrificing and Lambert has to re-evaluate his knowledge of him all over again. There's no good reason for Childermass to tolerate his company, but he does, and you can bet your ass Lambert's going to make the most of it until he's inevitably punted off.

Some of their 'best' memories come with significant amounts of mind alteration or general fuckery, and Childermass acts so differently when he's got his public face on (and when they're not living alternate lives) that Lambert's not sure how much of what he knows of Childermass is real at all. He doesn't spend enough time introspecting on his feelings to even begin to make sense of the Portland mess, or how he feels about it; there's a bitter disappointment in some ways (of course, he's likable only when Childermass isn't himself) and it's so hard to separate out his feelings from Portland Lambert's feelings because in some of the ways it matters, it's basically the same. He's comfortable being around Childermass even if there's no good reason for it, he hates feeling shut out and ignorant, and he cares about him not getting hurt.

He'd probably never admit it, but the person Childermass reminds him the most of is probably Geralt, who is another person with no good reason to tolerate Lambert, someone who does a lot of stupid shit Lambert thinks is stupid shit when he should know better, and has a pathological need to be noble even if he receives little recognition for it. And Lambert would die for Geralt. But Geralt's also like a brother, and Lambert definitely wouldn't consider his relationship with Childermass to be brotherly???

So anyway, it's complicated.

I'M ON MOBILE so give me Yuya and Syr on this comment

HI EX-ROOMIE

If Lambert had to describe Papyrus, he would say he's a simple guy with complicated problems. Lambert can't claim to fully understand the whole time loop situation thing, nor does he truly want to -- that's a problem way above the witcher's pay grade. Besides, it sounds like Papyrus and Sans are on it already!

Despite a fiery first introduction, Lambert and Papyrus have lapsed into a bit of an easy relationship, mainly because Papyrus never seems to be bothered by Lambert's more acerbic moments and is sort of just persistently friendly to the point where attempting to dissuade it would be futile. Knowing some of the skeleton bros' backstory from both sides now, he isn't sure whether he could consider Papyrus a fool or astonishingly persistent ... or both, really.

Lambert regards Papyrus a little warily sometimes, in the vein of no one's always like that, always and he's just waiting for the skeleton to snap one day, but so far, that doesn't seem likely. So it seems like he really will just have to accept that the skeleton is like that! He enjoys hanging around Papyrus when he wants relatively uncomplicated interactions, but he's a big much to hang out with just shooting the shit (idly wonders about drunken Papyrus, though, and what that would be like). It's hard not to respond to someone who seems so genuinely happy to see you all the time, and who never seems to expect anything from you but your company.

hiya

hey beautiful steven's here

Steven is a bit of a difficult problem for Lambert, being 1) a kid, 2) an optimist, 3) too nice for his own good, 4) with significant bullshit in his past, and that's not even touching all the half-gem stuff which I'm pretty sure Lambert has no fucking clue about. I honestly don't think he has a clue why the gems are so protective of Steven or if he does it's buried in backtags I can't remember right now, but it wouldn't really make a difference! The point is, Steven has a lot of reason to be angry and cynical about the world, but he isn't, and that drives Lambert just a little bit crazy to think about (so he doesn't, unless he can't avoid it, like when Steven rubs his altruism right in his face).

When Steven isn't actively making Lambert go WTF (or making Lambert's life harder) he actually approves of him in a vague, abstract way. Steven's a wuss, but he's still a wuss who went to Hell and was actually useful in it. He got through the traumatic experience of being a Summer Court changeling, which between Childermass and Strange he got a clear impression was kind of a shitty experience, and even if he has really odd ways of coping with it, he did. This makes Steven a survivor, which in some obscure way translates into Lambert having a little more respect for Steven and a belief he's tougher than people give him credit for.

Now if only he'd stop being so emotional, geez!

Well?