#an irreparable schism
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I call this one "found family but it goes horribly wrong in an irreparable way" :)
I've been doing a lot of cotl comics but I kinda lost my comic making endurance after not working on art since last september, so I made this to help me flex my art muscles. Apologies for the watermarks lmao they kinda kill the mood but I've already had people repost my art when I put it on reddit so...might as well get the credit if my stuff is gonna be reposted regardless. RAMBLE INCOMING!!
Thinking about how shamura was most likely the one to find + raise their adopted siblings and help them survive the mass deicide that happened thousands of years before....OUUGH. I have so many ideas for comics that take place when half the bishops were still lil kids. I have one in progress right now actually. But it just hurts when I remember how it all ends- they loved their family for so long and yet they credit their love as what caused it to fall apart!!! The lore of the bishops only sunk in when I was dealing with my own heavy sibling angst, and I was like wow....shamura supported the sibs so much they accidentally encouraged their brother into being a heretic, and couldn't close pandora's box in time to save him or the rest of the family. They blame themself for the past 1,000 years and seem to be totally okay with dying for what they did?? Like when they get sent to the shadow realm they tell you to "finish the job" instead of leaving them in purgatory. And despite being the bishop of war, they are the only bishop to not have a "desperate" phase where their attacks get more brutal. They're not desperate, they just want to get it over with. All their other siblings are dead by then anyway so it's not like they have anything to stick around for, even if they were healthy enough to win the battle. Plus I mean...narinder is the bishop of death so they probably just want to see him one last time. Owch
Don't get me wrong I love to hate narinder and his only role in my cult is the guy who cleans the outhouse, but I really like his dynamic with shamura vs. the other siblings. I kinda see him as the troubled kid that couldn't assimilate into the family and shamura took it upon themself to try and fix him. It's interesting thinking about how they're the only one he shows remorse for despite feeling the most betrayed by them. I don't think he 100% hates them, he's just been locked in gay baby jail for so long he's had nothing better to think about than "my sibling encouraged me to experiment with my godly duties, and then punished me for it!!". He's not wrong? But also is shamura that wrong either??? Idk it's complicated with no real answer and I like it a lot, I wish the game told us more about what the bishops were like before they got their shit rocked during the schism. I would've loved to see shamura before their brain was turned to mush by their tbi + 1,000 years of suffocating grief and crushing guilt :)
ANYWAY thanks for making it to the bottom of this rant, here is a sketch I did a while ago of shamura + baby leshy from a prequel au thing I don't have a name for yet:
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“Kill yourself” is basic
“I hope your favourite old TTRPG receives a new edition that acts as a soft reboot that is good but flawed. The best elements of the new edition being present in parts of the system that many older fans don’t care about, and the flaws being in areas which those same fans loved and will forever cry bloody murder about. I hope that this new edition brings in many new fans who love the new edition and prefer it over the older editions, being interested in the game for reasons different to the older fans, thus creating an irreparable schism in the community. I hope that fans of the way the game was end up feeling forever bitter and neglected. I hope that the newer fans feel gatekept from the wider community by the unbearable misery and cynicism of the old fans, leading to them becoming hostile towards those older fans. I hope that this leads to the community of this game forever being shredded by pointless edition wars, leading to you becoming trapped in the middle of two toxic communities defined only by their opposition to each-other.” Isn’t going to mean much to many people, but to the right person it is terrifying beyond compression, because it represents something almost inevitable, a story repeated over and over again. It may even represent something they themselves experienced once…
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I wondered what you thought about the rumours of a lot of Tory MPs preparing letters of no confidence in Truss, do you think they’re going to destroy themselves this quickly?
LMAOOOOOO THEY ARE DEFINITELY GOING TO DESTROY THEMSELVES THIS QUICKLY
Honestly I think what people maybe haven't fully internalised is that the Tory party as it currently exists is entirely, irreparably, irrevocably broken. That's it. They're done. They've done the one thing that is the death knell for any political organisation.
They schismed.
We talk a lot about how leftist infighting sinks progressive movements, but the fact is, the right are not immune to that either, and the Tories have done it. They now cannot heal from this quickly enough. They are a fractured, splintered mess, bleeding coherent messages. Look at the leadership battle! Liz Truss is such a great example. To get votes, she had to simultaneously promise that she
Was against Boris Johnson and approved of him leaving
Was loyal to Johnson and wished he was still here
Was a Remainer
Is a Brexiteer
Loves queer people and their rights
Hates "woke rubbish" and will get rid of trans rights
Will improve the economy and give people more money and services
Will cut tax for the rich and butcher services
Every campaign promise was a contradiction. It had to be. None of them agree on what they want anymore. And she was not alone in that; Sunak had to tie himself in knots over his Johnson stance and it still didn't work.
They'll eventually come back from this, of course. But it's going to take years before there's a cohesive party again, and that will destroy them at the ballot box. They can't even hang onto a prime minister between elections anymore. On YouGov, Labour are currently polling 17 points ahead; that is the highest lead since these polls began. And there is no way they can possibly fix themselves by the next election, assuming we even make it until then.
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more narzissenkreuz thoughts below the cut :3
was mary-ann human or an oceanid?
unknown. the more i think about it, the less i realise we know about mary-ann guillotin. we know that she was the last to join the narzissenkreuz institute and was later adopted alongside alain, that she had some scientific knowledge, that she joined the marechaussee hunters and had seymour as a mechanical assisstant, and that she died within elynas; beyond that, we can only make inferences.
i'm currently leaning towards her being an oceanid.
Here, the first person she met was the tall, pure Director.
And though she was even less sure of what to do than the little girl, she still greeted her with an embrace,
And got her clothes soaked for the trouble.
^^ these lines, from heroes' tea party, say to me that mary-ann was probably an oceanid or hydro-aligned in some other way. for all that we know, she could have been someone granted a vision at a young age, like klee and diluc, or another kind of hydro being that we haven't seen before...
what happened with the narzissenkreuz ordo?
the ordo was established by rene and jakob before mary-ann's death. they were slowly able to bring other researchers into it, who they controlled largely through fear; these people were used to begin construction on projects like the four orthants. the ordo's work, and perhaps also carter scherbius' """death""" caused an irreparable schism between rene and alain, which likely led alain to deem it a threat to fontaine.
alain, and presumably mary-ann too, were firmly against the narzissenkreuz ordo. jakob and rene wholly believed that it was necessary for fontaine's future.
so what's the deal with lyris?
lyris was the director of the narzissenkreuz institute. she was involved in "defeat[ing] the evil at its source" during the cataclysm, which i believe refers to either the sign of apaosha or something to do with the seal over the primordial sea. at some point during their journey in sumeru, rene began to theorise about the director's nature, and suggested that she hopefully wouldn't die due to some unknown experiment he was planning.
later on--in page seven of the book of revealing--rene says that lyris also saw scenes of an apocalyptic future, and he and mary-ann planned to visit her; the next time she is mentioned, her condition has also "deteriorated." what was this deterioration? was it like carter, or was it something else?
we know that her title was the "red empress," and that she had access to something which made her valuable to narzissenkreuz and the ordo. but what was this 'something?' why did her condition deteriorate, and what brought her to work alongside jakob and rene? these things are all unknowns.
other things we don't know
1. what happened to karl ingold and dwight lasker? we know that basil elton was killed and emanuel guillotin was dissolved, but karl and dwight fall out of our sight very quickly...
2. who put together the book of revealing? we know it was written by rene, but was it him or jakob who assembled it?
3. (complete tangent) since historians/poets/artists keep Peeping The Horrors, does that make rene involved in one of these fields? honorary historian rene desperately examining his primary source archives (abandoned papers in the desert) trying to piece together history (what happened with the golden troupe and the destruction of remuria)
4. was narzissenkreuz deliberately reformed with no memories, or was it incidental, so to speak?
5. why did alain and mary-ann join the marechaussee hunters? they probably know that emanuel quit and would have heard about what happened in fleuve cendre and poisson from jakob and rene, so why join?
6. GREAT DETECTIVE HURLOCK AND THE LILIACRUCES ORDO.
#tower of daffodils#genshin lore#genshin impact#the narzissenkreuz institute makes me think so hard#i don't like thinking. but i will do it. for them#throws in the hurlock mention at the end. does not elaborate. leaves.
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Y’all Qaeda
Y'all Qaeda 3.0Satire Page ·I just want to say that there is no evidence to support the rumors that RON DESANTIS FED TRUMP TO THE FBI FOR HIS OWN POLITICAL GAIN.
These rumors are extremely destructive and could cause a massive schism in MAGAworld and repeating them - the rumor that RON DESANTIS IS THE INFORMANT BECAUSE HE WANTS TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT UNOPPOSED BY TRUMP - is nothing short of irresponsible.
I don't know how these rumors that RON DESANTIS BETRAYED TRUMP FOR POLITICAL GAIN got started, all I can say is that repeating them on social media would cause potentially irreparable harm to the already volatile GOP.
So please, whatever you do, do not repeat the vicious, scurrilous and unfounded rumors that THE INFORMANT IS RON DESANTIS WHO GAVE TRUMP UP TO THE FBI TO AID HIS 2024 PRESIDENTIAL BID on social media or otherwise.
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we need more fics of people getting together and regretting that decision and staying in a relationship when its a bad idea until the resentment percolating under the surface of their relationship boils over into an irreparable schism between both parties to the point where if they see each other in public they hide and its never resolved in my opibion
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so the short version is that i don’t ship erik with charles.
the long version is that yes, when erik and charles first met and became friends and co-founded the original x-men team, they definitely developed feelings for each other in some capacity. erik was overall less aware and less inclined to act on them due to his personality disorder and the fact that it wasn’t exactly his priority at the time. that being said, the events in cuba in 1962 caused an irreparable schism between them. erik physically hurt charles (albeit unintentionally), and charles deeply wounded erik by choosing not to side with his radical pro-mutant ideology.
charles choosing to believe in human decency literally sealed the deal. erik is irreconcilable on the point that humans will always hate mutants and attempt to destroy them; his trauma is far too deeply rooted in witnessing the genocide of his own people for him to change that view, and for valid reasons. having his closest friend reject him like that at such a crucial moment really truly damaged erik to his core. hence why his relationship with charles soured enough for him to become antagonistic towards both him and the x-men on repeat occasions.
erik still cares for charles, don’t get me wrong. and he would never attempt to physically hurt or kill charles even though he’s had the opportunity multiple times. but the two of them would never work romantically unless charles somehow came around to erik’s point of view because erik incapable and unwilling to change how he feels about humans. and charles isn’t willing to change either. it would take radical shifts in either of their ideologies for them to reconcile enough to act on the feelings they once had for each other.
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so the short version is that i don’t ship erik with charles.
the long version is that yes, when erik and charles first met and became friends and co-founded the original x-men team, they definitely developed feelings for each other in some capacity. erik was overall less aware and less inclined to act on them due to his personality disorder and the fact that it wasn’t exactly his priority at the time. that being said, the events in cuba in 1962 caused an irreparable schism between them. erik physically hurt charles (albeit unintentionally), and charles deeply wounded erik by choosing not to side with his radical pro-mutant ideology.
charles choosing to believe in human decency literally sealed the deal. erik is irreconcilable on the point that humans will always hate mutants and attempt to destroy them; his trauma is far too deeply rooted in witnessing the genocide of his own people for him to change that view, and for valid reasons. having his closest friend reject him like that at such a crucial moment really truly damaged erik to his core. hence why his relationship with charles soured enough for him to become antagonistic towards both him and the x-men on repeat occasions.
erik still cares for charles, don’t get me wrong. and he would never attempt to physically hurt or kill charles even though he’s had the opportunity multiple times. but the two of them would never work romantically unless charles somehow came around to erik’s point of view because erik incapable and unwilling to change how he feels about humans. and charles isn’t willing to change either. it would take radical shifts in either of their ideologies for them to reconcile enough to act on the feelings they once had for each other.
#that all being said they are still friends in a vague way. like erik would never try to kill charles.#charles will always let erik get away or prevent severe harm from befalling him if he gets imprisoned#HEADCANON.#i gotta write up a headcanon about erik and raven too because that's also somewhat complicated
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Original writing incoming!
Hey, @luzillaaddicted and @averruncushd - I love that you’re so eager for this, this feels so good to be validated. So here is a chapter of backstory I wrote for my villains in my time traveller book series. Then I’ll post some background stories I wrote with them.
Also I tried to add all the trigger warnings I could think of - if someone thinks of any others I should add, just hit me up.
Kodali is a homosexual aromantic alien called a Theta Reysian. I’d tell you more but this backstory actually gives you a great picture of him.
Gideon Starkhill is a pansexual aromantic, also a Theta Reysian. You get a good picture of him, too.
Thomas Crane is... actually just a manipulative douchebag, which is not a term I use lightly. And he is a Bellatrix, the race that possesses time travel. Allen Carpenter is the hero of the time travel story.
Chapter 3.3.1 - Roots
Kodali
It was no surprise to the State that Kodali found it so easy to not feel. Their genetic engineering techniques had improved in the last 200 years, since “the incident.” In that case, perhaps there was an anomaly within the brain, an issue with the amygdala, or maybe it was a flaw in the technique. They honestly didn’t know. But the techniques had improved since then. They still could not remove emotions altogether, and in fact they did not want to. The effects would be too great on that being’s psyche. But while they could not remove emotions, they had gotten as close as possible, through suppressing them. Kodali still felt fear, sadness, anger, rage, and hatred, but they were tempered with a cool rationale. He did not hate blindly, but could channel his hatred to make himself a better fighter. When he was afraid, as of course all soldiers become, he allowed his instincts to protect him when he so chose, and ignored them when he chose. Every emotion was backed by logic.
It was no surprise to Kodali, either, that he was so good at not feeling. It wasn’t just their techniques that gave him this ability. That only made it easier. For as far back as he could remember, Kodali had been an orphan. Nobody loved him. Did people care for him? Yes, he knew that; of course they did. But care did not mean love. He knew that, too. Care meant responsibility. Care meant that someone felt an obligation to make sure you stayed out of trouble and didn’t die. Love was about your reasons for care. Love was about why you felt responsible. He was a ward of the state. They felt responsible for him because it was their job. That wasn’t love. They didn’t want to care for him, necessarily; they just had to. Kodali had felt genuinely happy when the genetics board asked for him because it meant that someone genuinely wanted him.
But then came the endless poking and prodding, the countless procedures, the nonstop questions. All he wanted was to make them happy. All he ever wanted was to make them happy, to make them love him. But they didn’t.
He certainly made plenty of people happy. His test scores in every subject were off the charts - cognitive reasoning, visual acuity, hearing, tactile processing, eyesight, image processing, mathematical reasoning, language skills, fitness tests, you name it. But none of it was ever enough for them. There was always one more test, one more procedure. From the evening-out of his toes to changing the color of his eyes to switching his dominant hand to the heightening of his senses. They made him almost perfect.
He didn’t feel perfect. After all, if he was so perfect, why did they keep changing him? Why did he feel this emptiness inside? Why did no one want him? Those people who were bought - they must have been perfect. Someone wanted them.
What is the meaning of life, anyway? What’s the point of it if no one wants you? Was there something he hadn’t done yet? What was it? He would do it, of course. Would someone want him then? That had to be it. It wasn’t that no one wanted him - it was that he wasn’t good enough yet. So he just had to get better.
Admittedly that was quite a task he had set for himself. If his scores were already the highest, getting them to go even higher would likely prove impossible. For anyone else, that is. But Kodali nevertheless did his absolute best, pushed himself to his limits trying to be the best he could possibly be. And he succeeded. His already high aptitude test scores went even higher. He wasn’t just good. He was beyond good. He wasn’t just excellent. He was beyond excellent. He was the utmost best.
When he caught the eye of the state militia, he thought that everything was finally going his way. Someone wanted him. He was finally enough. Maybe it wasn’t love, as such, but it was a family. Someone who would be there for him, no matter what.
And then… and then they put that thing on his arm.
No, not on his arm. In his arm.
He’d never been trusted with a weapon before, never even seen one. After “the incident,” they’d kept all weapons out of the facility, including the non-lethal pellet guns the guards used to use. It was just too risky. This was his first weapon - a plasma-charged blade that would cascade out of his left arm with a single thought, an impulse. It was tied to instinct. If something triggered his fight-or-flight response, if his adrenaline levels went up from his normal level, if he was startled, or if he sent the impulse for it to activated, the blade would charge with plasma and come out of his arm. It was a bit awkward at first. He’d sneeze unexpectedly and the blade would come out. And he wasn’t quite sure how to use it. Was he supposed to slice with it? Was it like a sword, except the sword was his arm? The last thing he wanted to do was use it wrong, but they didn’t exactly tell him how to use it. They told him to experiment with it.
Oh, the training dummies he went through. He tried stabbing through them at first, going for maximum damage. Cotton batting fell out everywhere. But he found that too awkward to do all the time. What if he needed his hand back right away? There would be blood everywhere and it would get too messy. He didn’t like messy. When things got messy people got upset with him, they liked him less. So he tried slicing with it. He’d memorized the locations of major arteries for at least a dozen species and could cause a lot of damage that way. Plus, it was faster than going straight through…
Wait…
Wait a minute…
Why was all this so natural to him? Here he was, casually thinking about the most efficient way to kill someone with this weapon in his arm. What about helping people? A knife of any kind is, after all, a tool. What could he do with it besides hurt people?
… Nothing came to mind.
He knew other uses existed, but for some reason he couldn’t think of any.
When his formal training began, Kodali was told that it was really for the best that he abandon the notion of helping anyone at all. Sentimentality and attachment were better off left alone, better off avoided. So even though he didn’t want to, he would do his best to not get attached to anyone at all. Anyone. No one.
What was the point?
The question he’d asked himself when he was younger seemed to be even more pressing in his mind. Then, he’d asked what was the point if no one wanted you. Now he asked himself - What was the point if he couldn’t feel anything? What was the point of having enemies if one had no friends? How would one know they were their enemies? What would one fight for if they felt nothing for any cause? How could one be effective at anything without feeling?
No matter how much he trained, how much he learned, he kept asking himself these same questions. What. Was. The point?
Then, one day, they put Kodali in a different training group. Most of the Reysians in this new group, he had never met before. And that day, out of nowhere, there was a man. Watching him. Watching him train. Watching him fight. Watching him run. Not any type of Reysian, that was certain. His stance was different than any Kodali had ever seen before, and the way he carried himself was with confidence and pride. The Theta Reysians had not felt that type of pride in centuries, living in the shadow of the Gamma Reysians. And the Gamma Reysians had not had any use for the Theta Reysians in years. The man watched all the trainings, but when he was watching Kodali, he smiled. And at the end of his maneuver, he clapped. Kodali was very suspicious of him, but he didn’t say anything to the man, or to anyone else. This was an investigation that, should he need to, he would have to conduct on his own.
He was returned to his room after maneuvers, a peculiarity. Usually he and the other trainees were fed after rigorous training. But of course that was his old group. Were things done differently with this new group? Or did it all have to do with that man? Who was he? What was going on? Kodali had been trained to react to uncertainty with caution. To, when the situation turned abnormal, prepare for attack. His blade pulsed patiently in his arm, still sheathed but only for now. Ready to be withdrawn. The plasma vent in his forearm pulsing blue. Then the door to his room was opened. It was the man who had watched him.
“Good afternoon, Kodali,” the man said nicely, “My name is Thomas Crane.” He held out his hand for Kodali to shake. Kodali did not shake it. Crane chuckled uncomfortably, retracting his hand and scratching his eyebrow. “I’m sorry, I’m a little uncomfortable. I’m used to calling people by their surnames. As I understand, you don’t have one. No family, no family name.”
Kodali stood cautious of this man, not saying anything. So Crane continued on his own. “This is my first time doing it like this. Through all of time and space, I’ve never seen, never found, anyone quite like you.” Still uncertain, Kodali cocked his eyebrow, surveying the room carefully. Was this going to lead to an attack? He would be ready if it did. “I have need for a second-in-command, someone who understands what needs to be done, who can follow orders without question. I also need someone who’s very skilled in hand-to-hand combat, with high dexterity. Someone I can trust, someone with an eye for the little details that I can’t focus on all the time.” Kodali stopped surveying the room. “Need” - that was like “want”, he knew that. Was this stranger proposing what he thought he was? “I was here today to look at all the potential candidates. I saw them all. I want you.”
Want. Someone wanted him. Kodali was speechless with joy that he could not express. Uncertainly, Crane said, “You’re being very quiet. I’ve looked at your psychological profile. It said that you felt a desire to be wanted, for family.” Crane scratched his nose. “I’m purchasing you. You’re going to leave this place with me. Do you understand me?”
Kodali reached around Crane, hugging him. The gesture felt odd, childlike. But he was happy. This man could be his family. He was his commander. His Master.
Gideon Starkhill
There was something wrong.
That’s what everyone said.
There was something wrong with him.
If you went to the Theta Reysian outposts, ask anyone and they’d tell you, “Oh, yeah, there was something wrong with that Starkhill boy.”
They called it “the incident.” They never ever said his name again. It was taboo.
There was something wrong with him.
Maybe it was a preexisting neurological condition. Maybe his parents had sold him to the wrong dealer before he ended up with the newly organized genetics board. Maybe it had been a part of his reengineering, quite intentional. Maybe it was a mistake in the reengineering. Whatever the case, Gideon Starkhill was perpetually angry, and the most vicious reengineered subject ever produced by the Theta Reysians.
He was certainly difficult to resell. The Theta Reysian government had considered terminating him even before “the incident” — he was a drain on their already stretched-thin resources. After all, they weren’t much of a government. They, combined with a private business interest, had spent eighteen years and thousands of credits on his reengineering. It included not only reworking of his neurobiology and genetics, but also social conditioning. And whenever he did something wrong, something they didn’t like, or they were going to start a procedure of whatever sort, they would tell him the same lie: “It won’t hurt. Don’t be scared. This is good for you.” It always hurt. Every time. No matter how much anesthetic they gave him, he could still feel it and it still hurt. Of course he was scared - they were changing his brain with big, scary-looking machines, they would strap him in, hold him down, come at him with masks covering their faces looking like the monsters from his nightmares. And it didn’t feel good for him. It felt like they were changing him, doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing.
Gideon hated being alone, and was tired of it. When he came to the facility at age 4, no one left him alone, ever, but from age 6 to age 20, they would put him in a room for hours, alone, and tell him to wait. There were no windows, no chairs or tables. Just a metal bed, and a hard, thin mattress through which he could feel the frame. He’d tried doing all he could to occupy himself, occupy his mind. He counted the tiles in the ceiling, until one day they took the tiles away, leaving a textureless surface as the ceiling. He’d tell himself stories, until one day he was unable to. He’d play back his memories, until one day they held no joy for him. He tried sleeping, but they never turned the lights off. They buzzed, quiet at first but soon it was all he could hear. He tried talking aloud to himself but all the talking could not drown out the noise. It made him feel worse. And when it was quiet, completely quiet, he would feel even worse, like something was gnawing at him from the inside. He hated quiet, even more than he hated the buzzing. The silence made him feel paralyzed, deaf, dumb, and blind, feeling like he couldn’t breathe, trapped inside himself, looking out at the world around him and screaming a silent scream of insanity. It was in the quiet and alone that the thoughts he didn’t dare tell anyone about would turn to himself.
Sometimes they would turn the lights out, just to see what he did. He hated them for that. Hated that woman, that sadistic woman who always had her fingers on the buttons that were used to manipulate him. His secret thoughts turned to her many times. And he knew she was watching him out of the dark and silence and alone, watching him sit straight as the walls, tense, like a puppet being held by taut strings. Watched him with his teeth clenched, at first trying to listen to the sound in his own breathing but that would never help that would make everything worse. Watched him close his eyes and shudder in terror? Some sort of seizure? They were never sure. Gideon was never certain of it either. Watched him as he started to cry, silently. That was when Gideon felt the most hatred for all of them. More than once, they watched as Gideon fainted, from the tension, from the dehydration because his mouth and throat would dry up almost instantaneously even though there was water in the room but he couldn’t get to it because he couldn’t move, from exhaustion. Watching him. Studying him. The sadistic bastards.
But then they would turn the lights back on and there was that damn buzzing!
So he exercised. When the sound was back he could move again, and so move he did. He did pushups, jumping jacks, sit-ups, stretches, calisthenics, and anything else he could think of to distract himself from the noise and sometimes his own thoughts, the thoughts he didn’t dare tell. If he didn’t get those thoughts out of his head, they would do it again. “It won’t hurt. Don’t be scared. This is good for you.” But even if he didn’t tell anyone, they would find out. They always found out somehow. And he made up imaginary friends who would talk to him to try to make himself less lonely.
Until one day they went away.
It was the same day he stopped smiling, too. Stopped smiling due to happiness, anyway. It all became work then, hard work, work he loved doing because it distracted him from his thoughts and from the quiet, but work he hated doing at the same time. He could retain the paradox in his head, but only by not thinking about it, which made more thoughts he had to distract himself from.
People liked to talk about him behind his back. He could hear them whisper, especially after they’d improved his hearing — they were studying him, staring at him, laughing at him. He was twenty-one when “the incident” occurred, when someone decided to talk about him like he wasn’t a person, like he was… not. He was eating his lunch, alone, when a group of people came in with a man. They were talking. The man was showing the group how the processes of bio-reengineering improved people. “This is one of our specimens,” he said to them, gesturing to Gideon, “It came to us as a pitiful, malnourished child, and due to our program it’s a fit and healthy member of society.” (A bold-faced lie; Gideon had never been allowed outside of the facility. He wasn’t a part of society. He knew nothing about society.) The man wrapped his hand around Gideon’s arm, showing the people how strong he was. It fired a spark in his brain. A panic. He was being attacked. This man was attacking him.
Before he realized what he was doing, Gideon’s arm was wrapped around the man’s neck. He had a dull plastic knife in his hand and pushed the serrated edge as hard as he could into the man’s face, drawing blood from his cheek. The warm, coppery, metallic smell of his blood entered his nose. (Did he like that? What was he feeling?) People screamed as Gideon choked the man to death. He bared his teeth at the man and growled softly at him, the beast of the primal past emerging strong from his heart and mind. He continued to strangle the man even after he was dead, and then it got worse.
Armed men came in and pointed guns at him. Gideon grabbed one of the guns by the barrel and punched the man who held it in the face, breaking not only his nose but also, thanks to his genetically heightened muscle force, his skull, killing him. It took 10 men to finally restrain him, and suddenly he realized what he’d done. “I’m sorry!” he cried.
But it genuinely surprised him, because he knew what he’d done. He was fully aware of it. And he wasn’t sorry.
The case against him was open and shut, and Starkhill offered no words in his own defense. He had no words, not for the courts nor for himself. He was sentenced to execution for his two murders, with his execution scheduled, incidentally, for his twenty-second birthday. How fitting for him. For Reysians in his position, in the facility, you received your billing on your twenty-second birthday, if not before. When you received your position, be it the state or independent militia, the concubines, labor district, whatever - if you hadn’t yet been sold, you were sent to your permanent position. If you were bought after that, you would still be doing that job, no other. Twenty-two was when a Reysian officially became an adult, and when the facility got rid of you. So death was his billing now. He was locked away, alone, with only a buzzing light to fill the space with sound, until that day. And it was during this time of solitary waiting that he began to understand himself. Not only did he not regret killing that man, but he liked it. He hadn’t taken joy from anything in years, but felt its unfamiliar rush when he crushed the life from that man’s body. Not only that, but, hell, it was the only thing he’d been good at. The doctors and specialists in the facility had been testing him since the dealer his parents sold him to sold him to them for food and medicine. They tested his initial skills, and then tested for increases as they engineered and reengineered him. He hadn’t gotten all that better at anything, no more than anyone else his age who was normal would have. They hadn’t tested how well he killed. They tested how well he responded to orders - probably they intended for his increase in muscle force to make him an excellent laborer - and it wasn’t that he couldn’t follow orders, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to stack the blocks so that all the blues were together and all the reds were together and so that the blue tower was higher than the red tower. He didn’t want to measure the water so that he got exactly 12 centiliters every time. He wanted to do something that interested him. That certainly didn’t.
He also realized that he hated everyone. Not just anyone who attacked him, or anyone who told him to do anything, but everyone. But he also didn’t want to be alone. Within the adult and past the face of an unconcerned man was the sad and lonely child who still missed his mommy, who wanted to go home, who wanted friends. But who was fitting if he hated everyone? Especially when he wanted and loved to kill people. When he wanted to feel the warm flesh within his hands and squeeze the blood from his victim and feel the flesh turn cold, watch the life leave their eyes and their bodies. Who was safe from him? Who was enough?
The answer to this was unfortunately very clear: No one. No one was suitable to be his friend. They were all his enemies. And since they were all his enemies, he wanted to kill them all. And as much as he knew that it was just and right for him to want to kill people, he also knew deep in his heart that it was not, that it was wrong! Killing people is wrong. He’d been told that forever. Because this was not the first time he’d felt this. These were his secret thoughts that he didn’t dare tell anyone. When he was alone in that room, in the buzzing and in the silence both, he would imagine people he’d seen. He would imagine killing them. They had done nothing to him, but he wanted to kill them. And as part of his testing when he was littler, they would ask him questions. “How would you deal with someone who was mean to you?” he’d been asked by one of the doctors, for the first time when he was eight. Gideon had said quite honestly, “I’d be mean back, and I’d kill them.”
“No,” they’d said, and they smacked him and wrote something on their clipboards, “Killing people is wrong.” And Gideon sighed anxiously and wrung his hands nervously, because this had happened before. He would say something they didn’t like and they would dig in his brain. It wouldn’t hurt, they’d say. Don’t be scared, they’d say. This is good for you, they’d say. But it hurt. And it was scary. And it didn’t feel good for him. They’d strap him down. And no matter how many sedatives they put into him, no matter how deep a sleep he was in, he could still feel it. He still cried. He still had the same dream. A man with a pale face, his own face, glaring out of the nothingness, saying, “Never, damn it. I’m coming. This is me.” And it was scary, too. Who was he? When was he coming? What was he? What did he mean? So Gideon learned after countless times of reengineering and countless appearances of the dream, of the man’s words, he would swallow their truth. Yes, of course killing is bad. He didn’t have to believe it, so long as they believed him and never hurt him again, so long as he never had to have that dream again. But he still did sometimes, but this time the man was smiling, not scary, feeling familiar and safe, a part of himself. Of course, killing people is wrong. That’s what they said.
Was killing wrong? How could it be when it was the only thing that felt right? If it was wrong, maybe he was wrong, too. How much real person was left in him, after everything but his name had been changed? Maybe it was for the best that he died. Then maybe the wrong would be gone, and at least in death he’d be a real person.
When the men came and removed him from his cell, he went willingly, resisting the urge to strangle the both of them. Because he hated them. He hated everyone. He hated himself. Everything was wrong.
But they didn’t take him to his death. They took him to a room with a man. A quick survey told Gideon that he would be easy to kill. His fancy suit showed that he was pampered and spoiled. His relaxed posture meant that he was not used to attacks. There were no callouses on his hands, he wasn’t used to hard work. But, no, don’t kill him. Don’t kill people. You’re going to die soon, don’t kill anyone. The man was suddenly shaking his hand. Don’t kill him, don’t kill him. “Good afternoon, Mr. Starkhill, my name is Thomas Crane. I have purchased you and your services,” he said as the other men left.
“You… you know I killed a man, right?” Gideon asked, confused.
“With your bare hands, yes, I know,” Crane said, “Two of them. That’s why I want you. Someone with your skills is very difficult to find. I’m glad I found you before your execution.”
“I- I don’t understand,” Gideon stammered, “You- you want me because I killed someone?”
“Precisely. I find myself in need of someone with no qualms about killing. You seem to be the man for the job,” Crane said.
“No, but… I apologized.”
Crane chuckled. “Mr. Starkhill, I did my research on you before I came here. This was not your first incident, or the first time you expressed an interest in killing a man. We both know any apology you gave was not meant,” he said confidently.
Gideon was silent. “I have another one of your kind already in my employ. He was engineered to be the perfect soldier. He’s a fine leader for my command squadrons. Unfortunately, however, he simply does not have it in him to kill another. Every time he’s failed me in that respect. This is where you would come in. You like killing, don’t you?” Crane asked. Gideon was hesitant to answer, but he nodded, almost looking ashamed of himself, like he felt he was supposed to be. “I understand. I would like to put your skills and services to use. You’ll be given the opportunity to kill people regularly, but it must be on my command. There are some that I simply can’t have you kill. They’re too valuable.”
Gideon held in a smile, suspicious of this man. It all seemed too good to be true. “Should you agree to this, you will be cleared of all charges and you will come with me and receive comprehensive weapons training, as well as payment in addition to a suitable place to live on a planet far from here. But if not, there are two men outside who would be more than happy to escort you to your death. It’s entirely up to you. But please decide now. Time is short and things are starting to come together.”
But killing is wrong, Gideon thought. This man actually wants me to kill people?
Maybe killing isn’t wrong. After all, he’s going to pay me to do it.
But I’m wrong, because I want to kill, and killing is wrong, right? So I should die.
Killing isn’t wrong if he’s going to pay you. Putting money into making sure you’re good at it.
I don’t want to die.
“Okay,” Gideon said resolutely.
Gideon Starkhill arrived in Chicago, Illinois, on January 2nd, 2018.
That was also the last day anyone saw a waitress named Tammy St. Martin alive.
Thomas Crane
The Bellatrix High Council refused to even speak of him again. They passed a motion, the likes of which had only been passed six other times, most recently with respect to Alex Tobias Carpenter. This was final, and backed by all sects of the Bellatrix High Council, something which had never happened before. Most often the Kaellatrix objected. The artists tended to have a different perspective on matters than the legal-minded Trillatrix or the science-minded Bellatrix. But in this case even they could not condone the actions of this man. Even they could not forgive him. Even they could not stomach his rationale. The motion was unanimously passed, and Thomas Ishmael Crane was exiled.
When the Bellatrix exile someone, they send them to a period of galactic history where they will not be able to return or do harm to that planet's history or people. When they'd sent Alex Carpenter to Earth in the early 1930s, for example, they had intended for him to die from the polio outbreak. Those human diseases can be quite dangerous, you know. But he got smart, quickly discovering his immunity and fleeing to the West Coast. As for Thomas Crane, they sent him to Germany in the late 1870s, in the German Empire. Perhaps he’d be executed for his homosexuality. Perhaps he’d survive until the first World War and perish as a result of that, or maybe afterwards as a result of the following economic problems. And if he survived all of that, then he’d most definitely be taken care of in the Holocaust. But the unpredictable happened - He found his way to America. Perhaps he’d snuck over on a boat. Maybe he’d crossed the border into France and found another way out of Europe. Whatever the case, he found a way out of Germany.
Back on Bellatrix, he’d been a scientist. He’d been assigned to work on Project Infinity, a top-secret initiative to unlock the secret to immortality. He was one of the brightest and the best, even earning a large number of grants and awards for his work. At one point he was the leading scientist on the project.
One day he went into the office of the research supervisor. “I’ve got an idea,” he said, “I think it might be a breakthrough in the project. It ought to solve the whole thing.” The research supervisor was more than happy to grant the funding, without even hearing the idea. It was Thomas Crane, after all, the genius. Whatever his plan, it would be great. Why would he need to hear it?
He regretted that soon after.
A team of visitors had come to observe his work on the project. Having been approved, Crane had no qualms about showing them his work.
Lying beside his work table was an Earth squirrel hanging on to life by its teeth, and Theta Reysian in just as pitiful shape, with diodes attached to his head. “I needed a bipedal, sub-Bellatrix test subject,” he said, justifying it. But the Theta Reysian, who’d been blinded by the procedure, looked at them, pleading with his eyes. And then he died, his look of agony forever frozen on his face and in their minds.
An investigation into Crane and his work was carried out immediately. His lab was closed. His notes were seized. His license was revoked, at first only temporarily. But upon review of his notes, it was discovered that he had been studying the Alpha-7 gene, which he’d discovered was necessary for life. His theory was to extract Alpha-7, to synthesize it as a drug to make whoever took it immortal. It was a plan that would require the mass genocide of countless species to mass produce, and require massive amounts of testing on Bellatrix and other anthropoid species to perfect, killing hundreds, if not thousands, in the process. When asked about this, Crane expressed no problems with it. If he achieved his goal, well, that was enough. What was the significance of a few sub-Bellatrix species in the grand scheme of things compared with the prospect of being immortal? In his mind, the ends more than justified the means.
The case was then made for his exile, and to classify his research. Not a single vote was cast in opposition, a landslide majority of thirty to none. With nothing but period clothing on his back, Crane was banished to 1870s Germany.
They kept an eye on him, mostly checking whether or not he’d died yet. But when they found him in America, it became harder and harder to keep track of him. And after a while, they lost track of him altogether.
Crane, meanwhile, tried to continue his research, all of it. His Alpha-7 work was put on hold due to lack of appropriate data and equipment, but that did nothing to stop his development of some type of time travel device. He had the formulas memorized. He had the capability of generating the power, but only once. So he formulated a plan that would force the Bellatrix to send a device to him. If he stirred up history enough, they would come to investigate the anomaly.
But could he kill two birds with one stone? Was there a way for him to get some of the biological information he needed as well as a time machine? With a smile on his face, he knew that he could, and he input the coordinates on his time travel device for the 27th of December, 1831, Devonport, England. He could certainly afford to spend a few years on the HMS Beagle waiting for the perfect opportunity to attack Charles Darwin.
It was a simple enough strategy. The pampered biologist had no idea he was being stalked and hunted like the animals he studied, killed, and ate, had no idea that Crane was developing a poison that could kill him, and the antidote that he might or might not use. It wasn’t until about two years into the voyage that Crane was perfectly poised to attack Darwin. He put the poison into his evening tea, and in no time the scientist was collapsed face down on his desk. Crane and whoever the Bellatrix High Council, and, by extension, the Councilum Temporis Motus, decided to send had about an hour before the poison stopped Darwin’s heart. Crane wasn’t concerned though. If the Bellatrix didn’t come, so “The Origin of the Species” didn’t get published in its entirety. Darwin wasn’t the only person working on this. It had been discovered by a geologist, for crying out loud. And so maybe they cast someone else in the role of Edmund Pevensie in the “Narnia” movies. So maybe the world would lose a poet and a screenwriter and an artist. So what? But the Bellatrix would detect the anomaly, he had no doubt. They would investigate. They’d find Crane there, but before they would arrest him, he would take them out, too, revive Darwin, and he’d be on his way.
Sure enough, an agent of the Time Council was around with a half hour left until Darwin died, and Crane dispatched of him with all haste. He gave Darwin the antidote and left in his new Chrono-traverser.
Even though he was a scientist, Crane had always had a knack for business. And it appeared to him that the only way to get forward in America, or Earth as a whole, was to know and understand business. So Crane plunged himself headfirst into the world of business and capitalism. He invested a heavy sum of money in a bank in the eighteenth century, so that no matter what era he chose to live in, he would be able to live comfortably. And he liked to live comfortably. Fine fabrics. Exquisite furniture. Elaborately designed houses. Oh, yes, he liked these things. And Crane was a very rich man. Rich enough, even, to, after a time, begin development of his immortality theories once again. And America wouldn’t banish him the way the Bellatrix had. America was built on commerce. America was built upon the backbone of cruelty. America was made for people like him. And even better, none of those primitive apes were smart enough to understand what he was doing. None of them were powerful enough to stop him. The Bellatrix wouldn’t, couldn’t. They couldn’t find him.
The only one who could was Allen.
But Crane had a plan for that.
And it was going beautifully.
#tw abuse#tw emotional abuse#tw emotional trauma#original writing#i wrote this#chronos book series#the man that time forgot#evolution#an irreparable schism#bellatrix#howdy doo#specs speaks
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#the terror#the terror amc#theterroredit#perioddramaedit#francis crozier#captain crozier#jared harris#tv: the terror#1.03: the ladder#m: gifs#*#moodboard: you are suffering an irreparable schism with your commanding officer
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creates an irreparable schism in the netflixvania fandom by posting "you all keep shipping trevorcard and trephacard as though alucard isnt LITERALLY trevors dad according to game lore 🙄 nasty" in all the tags. while conveniently leaving out that legends was retconned. and then logging off
#IM KIDDING I WONT DO THIS#it would work though bc none of them actually bother to care abt the lore to begin with.#so they wouldnt fact check
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I recently bought a McCartney bio by Phillip Norman :/ Is Bob Spitz a better source in your opinion?
Hi anon, thanks for the ask! :)
I haven’t read any of Spitz (or Norman for that matter) but I can pass on some of the analysis Erin Torkelson Weber did of his work in her book:
“As a musician and writer, Spitz’s musical analysis of the group’s catalog is written with authority and depth and, like MacDonald, owes a significant debt to Lewisohn’s scholarship. His evaluation of the band’s music and the Lennon/McCartney partnership reinforced the emerging interpretation that both men were equally essential in creating the band’s genius. However, Spitz flatly rejects other elements of McCartney’s version of the band’s story. The Beatles: The Biography presents perhaps the most negative evaluation of the men’s friendship since Goldman’s The Lives of John Lennon. According to Spitz, Lennon’s jealousy and McCartney’s manipulative personality began to erode their close friendship shortly after Julia Lennon’s death. “Even then, there was great jealousy there. He was all too aware of Paul’s talent and wanted to be as good and grand himself… He wasn’t about [to] let somebody like Paul McCartney pull his strings.” McCartney’s willingness in 1962 to trade in the Beatles trademark leather stage outfits for more commercially appealing suits is identified as the first irreparable schism between the two. The conflicts resulting from their contradictory personalities only widened by the time of 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band “all intimacy had disappeared from their relationship. In contrast to Shout!, Spitz clearly identifies Ono’s presence and Lennon’s obsession with her as undermining the band, and his portrayal of Klein is unrelentingly critical. However, he condemns McCartney’s behaviour as well and argues that, by the time of Abbey Road, relations between McCartney, Harrison and Lennon had degenerated to the point where the latter two could not bear to be in the same room with “clever”, “‘manipulative”, “controlling Paul”.
One of the The Beatles: The Biography’s key strengths is Spitz’s refusal to engage in favouritism; the work strives to maintain the author’s balance despite his tendency towards presenting the most negative interpretation on “the inside of the event” as possible. By declining to champion a particular Beatle, Spitz’s work demonstrates writers’ emerging tendency to present more balanced interpretations of the group’s story.”
Erin Torkelson Weber, The Beatles and the Historians
Based on the above quote it looks like Spitz’s strengths are musical analysis and balance which is great for a Paul bio. However, if you’re arguing that John and Paul’s friendship started to deteriorate when Julia Lennon died (even 1970/71 John wasn’t saying that!!) I’m not sure how much your interpretations can be relied on so it definitely seems like Spitz may not be overly negative in recounting the Lennon-McCartney partnership and relationship, since that’s such a fundamental part of Paul’s life and career it’s up to you how much him getting that wrong would put you off!
#the beatles#paul mccartney#bob spitz#phillip norman#erin torkelson weber#asks#hope my non answer was somewhat helpful!!
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It’s that VFD pervades their society the way the Mob pervaded 20’s/30’s culture, but VKS have very little engagement w/ it - in fact, very little knowledge! VKS’s relationship w/ VFD resembles Noir heroes’ relationship to the Mob, given that they tended to be ordinary people w/ very little access to its structure, but are deeply affected by it anyway.
But The Baudelaire children are explicitly not ordinary people with little access to VFDs structure. A large part of the story from TSS onward is that their parents have been preparing them and teaching them skills (like costume make-up, the central theme of Ana Karenina, how to piece together a meal, just generally encouraging them to develop their special niche interests to their fullest capacity) that they would need to be effective VFD members. And also, you have to compare their access to VFD resources, such as they exist, to people who are actually members of the organization, like Olivia Caliban. A large part of the reason that the Baudelaire's don't have access to the structures of VFD is because they largely don't exist anymore as the Schism has done (likely) irreparable damage to the organization, and especially its physical infrastructure, in so much as it was ever organized.
And VFD, as much as they are flawed mess of an organization that's existence has indirectly caused the children endless problems (probably including the death of their parents--not that VFD wanted them dead, that their parents most likely died because of their involvement in the sugar bowl plot), are explicitly acting to help the children in the form of Widdershins and Jacques and Kit (no matter how ultimately ineffective), or more concretely from Dewey.
VFD is narratively the opposite of the Mob to the Noir hero. They are not adversaries.
As a note, I'm really not at all bothered by receiving and reading anonymous asks like this, it's prompted a ton of really interesting discussions and caused me to put my thoughts about a lot of things into words that I might not otherwise have bothered doing, but I'm only replying to them if I have something interesting to say in response.
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Good Things Fall Apart: Favorite Passages (ch. 5-8)
To celebrate the final chapter of GTFA (coming 3/21), I've decided to gather some of my favorite passages from each chapter of the fic. I'll be posting a few every day to lead up to chapter 20! <3
[text IDs under the read more]
chapter 5: celestial
“How are we supposed to be together if I can’t even be brave enough to tell the world?”
Another squeeze of his fingers.
“That will come with time. And when you do, I’ll be right there beside you. Vic, look at me,” he murmurs, giving Victor’s arm a small tug. Victor rotates to face him, chest constricting to see tears in Benji’s eyes, too. “I’m going to make an oath to you right now. I swear on this sunset that you’re going to get through the rest of this semester, and in the summer, we’ll come back and see the sunset again. Maybe we’ll even bring friends next time.”
Victor smiles even as another tear trickles across his cheek. Benji reaches up to brush it away. “Can you even swear on a sunset?”
“People wish on stars all the time,” Benji says. “But I don’t want to wish, Victor. I want to promise.”
“Okay,” Victor says. He kisses Benji, lips warm, his hair impressively disturbed from the sea breeze. “I promise, too.”
chapter 6: kairosclerosis
He locks his phone and grips it tightly, squeezing his eyes shut to block the tear flow. I never asked for this. I don’t want to be this.
Benji emerges from his house with a windblown smile on his face. The sight of him suddenly makes Victor feel ill, like somehow Benji is responsible for the solar system of turmoil rocketing through Victor’s head at thousands of miles per hour. I wish I could just be normal. And then, worst of all, I wish we never met.
chapter 7: chronic
Reaching into his pocket, Victor withdraws the polaroid Benji had taken of him, an unfolded boy spilling his life out of his eyes in the backseat of the car of a boy he doesn’t deserve, his lips swollen, eyes bloodshot. It’s someone Victor doesn’t recognize, but he knows it’s as good as looking in a mirror.
With a strangled scream Victor rips the picture in half, lobs the ice pack, yanks at his hair. Maybe he’d be better off if tomorrow never came. Maybe he’d be better off if he never existed at all. This is his last thought as he drifts into sleep, his mind no longer capable of bearing the burden of this day, this worst day, this irreparable fucking day.
chapter 8: schism
Victor tries to command his tongue, tries to form words, to think of what he can say to make Benji stay, but his mouth is a gaping, empty cavern. Chunks of the sky fall around him, crashing to the ground and breaking into serrated shards, bits of blue and cloud gray pulverized into dust that fills his lungs, his eyes.
“I don’t want it to be forever,” Benji pushes on, despite Victor’s world ending around him. “You feel like home to me, Victor. But sometimes you have to move away before you can come back and appreciate how perfect home was all along.” Benji leans over and kisses Victor’s cheek, one of his tears joining Victor’s. “Let’s spend the summer apart, okay? I want to take this time for myself, and I think you should do the same. Maybe in the fall, we’ll both be in a better place. We can start over.”
#love victor#venji#love victor fanfiction#venji fanfiction#venji fanfic#technically that first batch was supposed to go up yesterday so now i am doing 2 in one day#but oh well#<3333
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i honestly kind of regret opening myself up to some of the advice i asked for like half a year ago when i was feeling depressed and miserable. i specifically mean the tough love get over it attitude that praised just forcing yourself to do things as opposed to waiting for motivation to come. i was desperate to become better and more stable then which i saw through the lens of doing things in life like getting a job hobbies etc. which this advice actually helped me with and i became so much more productive because of it but it came with the caveat of a complete personality change. that is choosing not to wallow in pity and telling yourself to get over it as opposed to allowing the discomfort guide you someplace. i chose to shut off my emotions/insecurities and i actually learnt that it’[s actually pretty easy for me but i don’t think that’s the kind of person i am or want to be or was that half a year ago. like now that i have more experience with people i am once again reminded that it really is possible to do just about anything in a way that is respectful to yourself. and i think this worldview emotions aspirations etc. i had back then was truly me and i could have grown together with it into adulthood instead of discarding it only to replace it with the “you are the fabricator of your own life” stencil that so many on here take on when they talk about this being their x phase of their life or like attempting to create an aesthetic for themselves. which when i tried doing that and forcing myself to do things rather than having them come naturally felt so disingenuous to me like i was playing a role or something it all felt so disorienting and arbitrary. and i’m sure some of that roleplaying is inevitable in life but also i really would like to just do the thing that feels right to me intrinsically as opposed to have to sift through and then make a concerted effort to invest time in things that i think align with my virtue aesthetic. and i wish i could go back to that worldview that made sense to me but unfortunately for me i think i’ve irreparably lost touch with it. and i just think that i never ended up learning to live life against rather than despite your circumstances. and it doesn’t like bother me that much because i haven’t felt strongly about anything in my life ever since but i do think it’s a shame that if only i’d been more secure in my beliefs and way of doing things i wouldn’t have created this schism now or whatever lol i guess i’m just going to have to blindly trust myself next time round
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Realms of Magic
There exists precisely four alternate worlds. Some posit there to be infinite variations. This is not true. There are four. Many centuries ago, beings of sufficient magical power could pass easily from one realm to the other, visiting one another whenever they wished and bringing myth and reality to life across the realms. To create clarity between the worlds, they were each given a colour as a means of identification - The Black Realm, the Grey Realm, the White Realm and the Red Realm. Each Realm held magic but each was unique.
As times changed, the others began to hold judgment over the Black Realm and the way in which its magic was used. Asked to change, the leaders of the Black Realm declined. In punishment, the remaining Realms combined their magic to seal off the Black Realm. It was still possible to go to the Black Realm but once there, you could never return. The consequences for the other Realms was unforeseen and irreparable.
For the Black Realm was a magically gifted world in which only the males had such power. They used this gift to enslave the females and to prevent them from questioning this reality. For the Black Realm doesn’t just sway reality with its magical gifts, it recreates reality with every magical working upon it. Now, generations later, the fundamental schism is so embedded in this society that Santa Claus is viewed as an ultimate slave master and children live in terror of the Easter Bunny stealing them away to be sold in distant lands.
The closest realm to the Black Realm in distance is the Grey Realm and severed from the magical source of the Black Realm, their powers started to fade until those with such gifts were persecuted and harassed. Tricksters and liars, it was screamed at them, and never to be trusted. Children were wickedly punished for using innate magic, sent away to harsh schools to strip them of these abilities. Those with gifts live in hiding, fearful of letting out this terrible secret that may see them executed in the streets by a vengeful and angry mob. The Grey Realm fades every day and little do its citizens understand that if all magic is killed, they too will fade from existence. Already less and less children are born every day.
The White Realm’s world governments fell two generations ago and have yet to be restored. To try to prevent the fading that occurred in the Grey Realm, a spell intended to trigger peace and harmony had the unintentional side-effect of causing them all to simply stop living. People simply lay down where they were and faded from existence. For the survivors, the great Pandemic, as it was called, had cast them far from one another. Until this world can reunite under one banner, the White Realm will continue to be a land of chaos, where the strong victimize and control with fear and intimidation.
The Red Realm started this moralistic crusade against the Black Realm. They were powerful. They remain powerful. Most citizens in the Red Realm have some talent for magic. Others have a great deal of talent. Magic is openly taught and students are meant to train. Rogue magicians are punished for their errant ways. Still, as the other realms faded or disappeared, the leaders of the Red Realm wondered if they had been too hasty in cutting off the Black Realm. If Grey and White fade from existence, will the citizens of Red be far behind? Can they restore the balance or is it too late?
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