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makapatag · 2 months

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realities, maximalism,and the need for big book™️

some gubat banwa design thoughts vomit: since the beginning of its development i've kind of been enraptured with trying to really go for "fiction-first" storytelling because PbtA games really are peak roleplaying for me, but as i wrote and realized that a lot of "fiction first" doesn't work without a proper sort of fictional foundation that everyone agrees on. this is good: this is why there are grounding principles, genre pillars, and other such things in many PbtA games--to guide that.

broken worlds is one of my favs bc of sheer vibes

Gubat Banwa didn't have much in that sense: sure, I use wuxia and xianxia as kind of guideposts, but they're not foundational, they're not pillars of the kind of fiction Gubat Banwa wants to raise up. there wasn't a lot in the sense of genre emulation or in the sense of grounding principles because so much of Gubat Banwa is built on stuff most TTRPG players haven't heard about. hell, it's stuff squirreled away in still being researched academic and anthropological circles, and thanks to the violence of colonialism, even fellow filipinos and seasians don't know about them

this is what brought me back to my ancient hyperfixations, the worlds of Exalted, Glorantha, Artesia, Fading Suns... all of them have these huge tomes of books that existed to put down this vast sprawling fantasy world, right? on top of that are the D&D campaign settings, the Dark Suns and the Eberrons. they were preoccupied in putting down setting, giving ways for people to interact with the world, and making the world alive as much as possible.

one of my main problems with gubat banwa was trying to convey this world that i've seen, glimpsed, dreamed of. this martial fantasy world of rajas and lakans, sailendras and tuns, satariyas and senapatis and panglimas and laksamanas and pandai... its a world that didn't really exist yet, and most references are steeped in either nationalism or lack of resources (slowly changing, now)

i didn't want to fall back into the whole gazeteer tourist kind of shit when it came to writing GB, but it necessitated that the primary guidelines of Gubat Banwa were set down. my approach to it was trying to instill every aspect of the text, from the systems to the fluff text to the way i wrote to the way things were phrased, with the essence of this world i'm trying to put forward. while i wrote GB mainly for me and fellow SEAsian people, economically my main market were those in the first world countries that could afford to buy the book. grokking the book was always going to be severely difficult for someone that didn't have similar cultures, or are uninterested in the complexities of human culture. thus why GB had to be a big book.

in contemporary indie ttrpg spaces (where I mostly float in, though i must admit i pay more attention to SEAsia spaces than the usual US spaces) the common opinion is that big books like Exalted 3e are old hat, or are somewhat inferior to games that can cram their text into short books. i used to be part of that camp--in capitalism, i never have enough time, after all. however, the books that do go big, that have no choice to go big, like Lancer RPG, Runequest, Mage, Exalted are usually the ones that have something really big it needs to tell you, and they might be able to perform the same amount of text-efficient bursting at the seams flavor writing but its still not enough.

thats what happened to GB, which I wanted to be, essentially, a PbtA+4e kind of experience, mechanically speaking. i very soon abandoned those titles when i delved deeper into research, incorporated actual 15th century divination tools in the mechanics, injected everything with Martial Arts flavor as we found our niche

all of this preamble to say that no matter how light i wanted to go with the game, i couldnt go too light or else people won't get it, or i might end up writing 1000 page long tome books explaining every detail of the setting so people get it right. this is why i went heavy on the vibes: its a ttrpg after all. its never gonna be finished.

i couldnt go too light because Gubat Banwa inherently exists on a different reality. think: to many 3 meals a day is the norm and the reality. you have to eat 3 meals a day to function properly. but this might just be a cultural norm of the majority culture, eventually co opted by capitalism to make it so that it can keep selling you things that are "breakfast food" or "dinner food" and whatnot. so its reality to some, while its not reality to others. of course, a lot of this reality-talk pertains mostly to social--there is often a singular shared physical reality we can usually experience*

Gubat Banwa has a different fabric of reality. it inherently has a different flow of things. water doesn't go down because of gravity, but because of the gods that make it move, for example. bad things happen to you because you weren't pious or you didn't do your rituals enough and now your whole community has to suffer. atoms aren't a thing in gb, thermodynamics isn't a real thing. the Laws of Gubat Banwa aren't these physical empirical things but these karmic consequent things

much of the fiction-first movement has a sort of "follow your common sense" mood to it. common sense (something also debatable among philosophers but i dont want to get into that) is mostly however tied to our physical and social realities. but GB is a fantasy world that inherently doesn't center those realities, it centers realities found in myth epics and folk tales and the margins of colonized "civilization", where lightnings can be summoned by oils and you will always get lost in the woods because you don't belong there.

so Gubat Banwa does almost triple duty: it must establish the world, it must establish the intended fiction that arises from that world, and then it must grant ways to enforce that fiction to retain immersion--these three are important to GB's game design because I believe that that game--if it is to not be a settler tourist bonanza--must force the player to contend with it and play with it within its own terms and its own rules. for SEAsians, there's not a lot of friction: we lived these terms and rules forever. don't whistle at night on a thursday, don't eat meat on Good Friday, clap your hands thrice after lighting an incense stick, don't make loud noise in the forests. we're born into that [social] reality

this is why fantasy is so important to me, it allows us to imagine a different reality. the reality (most of us) know right now (i say most of us because the reality in the provinces, the mountains, they're kinda different) is inherently informed by capitalist structures. many people that are angry at capitalist structures cannot fathom a world outside capitalist structures, there are even some leftists and communists that approach leftism and revolution through capitalism, which is inherently destructive (its what leads to reactionaries and liberalism after all). fantasy requires that you imagine something outside of right now. in essence read Ursula K Le Guin

i tweeted out recently that you could pretty easily play 15-16th century Luzon or Visayas with an OSR mechanic setting and William Henry Scott's BARANGAY: SIXTEENTH CENTURY PHILIPPINE CULTURE AND SOCIETY, and I think that's purely because barebones OSR mechanics stuff fits well with the raiding and adventuring that many did in 15-16th century Luzon/Visayas, but a lot of the mechanics wont be comign from OSR, but from Barangay, where you learn about the complicated marriage customs, the debt mechanics, the social classes and stratum...

so thats why GB needs to be a (relatively) big book, and why I can contend that some books need to be big as well--even if their mechanics are relatively easy and dont need more than that, the book, the game, might be trying to relay something even more, might be trying to convey something even more than that. artesia, for example, has its advancements inherently tied to its Tarot Cards, enforcing that the Arcana guides your destiny. runquest has its runes magic, mythras (which is kinda generic) has pretty specific kinds of magic systems that immediately inform the setting. this is why everything is informed by something (this is a common Buddhist principle, dependent arising). even the most generic D&D OSR game will have the trappings of the culture and norms of the one that wrote and worked on it. its written from their reality which might not necessarily be the one others experience. that's what lived experience is, after all

*live in the provinces for a while and you'll doubt this too!

#gubat banwa #ttrpg #filipino #fantasy #writing #rpg #gamedev #dnd

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ossifer-bones · 9 months

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On the Mechanics of Lyctorhood

I want to preface this by saying this is a long, long post that is going to delve deep into lyctorhood, skim the surface of physics and biology, and fully embrace conjecture! If I'm right about all this then I'm very happy, but I also cannot wait to be disproven in Alecto the Ninth.

Thanergy

Thanergy is the product of the decay of thalergy: this is the principle that underpins all of necromancy. All necromantic adepts are capable of manipulating both thalergy and thanergy, but necromancy is shown to be reliant on thanergy specifically, and is most geared toward utilising thanergy as a result.

“Thalergetic decay causes cellular death,” you said carefully, pressing the nail in harder, “which emits thanergy. The massive cell death that follows apopneumatism causes a thanergetic cascade, though the first bloom fades and the thanergy stabilises within thirty to sixty seconds.” [Harrow the Ninth]

As shown by @pokkop15 in this post the term thanergy is almost certainly derived from Thanatos, the Greek God of Death, but thalergy's origins are more murky: likely candidates are thaleros (a greek word that means lively), Thalia (the muse of Festivity whose name also means blooming), or Thalassa (divine personification of the sea in greek mythology, which would fit considering how life is very associated with saltwater in TLT).

The Eightfold Word: What is Lyctorhood?

According to the resident tall glass of skank and questionably reliable narrator, Ianthe Tridentarius, the Eightfold Word is composed of the following steps:

Preserve the soul, with memory and intellect intact.

Analyse it—understand its structure, its shape.

Remove and absorb it: take it into yourself without consuming it in the process.

Fix it in place so it can’t deteriorate.

Incorporate it: find a way to make the soul part of yourself without being overwhelmed.

Consume the flesh [NOTE: Ianthe says 'a drop of blood is enough to ground you', which to me indicates that this step serves as a way to ground the incorporated soul into the lyctor's body, by having material from the soul's original body. This is very significant.]

Reconstruction—making spirit and flesh work together the way they used to, in the new body.

Hook up the cables and get the power flowing.

Lyctorhood seemingly works by providing the necromancer with, among other things, a near limitless reserve of thanergy that is presumably derived from the incorporated soul once the power is flowing: as we see with Cytherea healing herself, lyctors are either unable to generate thalergy—or their ability to do so is lessened in comparison to their ability to generate thanergy—and must instead siphon it from external sources when their own thalergy is depleted.

In Nona the Ninth we are introduced to Palamedes' conception of Lyctorhood in terms of Lysis: the Lyctorhood we are most familiar with is Petty Lysis, where only one of the components dies, while Grand Lysis is a mutual death—a gravitational singularity creating something new, as is the case with Paul. Lysis is a term used in biology that refers to 'the breaking down of the membrane of a cell', which as I've explored before

In the series, Lyctorhood is spoken of in terms of fire: there are repeated references to Gideon's soul being made the furnace of [Harrow's] Lyctorhood and serving as a furnace of power, Mercymorn refers to her cavalier's mortal soul burning in her chest, John says that the risk posed by fully incorporating Alecto into himself completely would be that he'd probably burn to death, and Paul's birth results in Camilla's body being consumed by flames. This leads us on to how lyctorhood is also characterised as consumption: eating the cavalier, absorbing their soul, burning it for fuel.

What is the mechanism behind the thanergetic generation of lyctorhood?

Lyctorhood is barbaric, it is cannibalism, it is taking another and burning them in yourself for power. But that raises the question of where that power comes from. By the way that thalergy/thanergy are spoken of with terms reminiscent of radiation, coupled with how lyctorhood is rendered through metaphors and imagery related to fire and/or consumption, it would seem that the logical conclusion behind this is that the soul is being subject to continual thanergetic fission.

The terminology Tamsyn uses is something that lends credence to this: nuclear fission 'occurs when a neutron slams into a larger atom, forcing it to excite and split into two smaller atoms—also known as fission products'. Sudden, sharp decay/conversion of thalergy into thanergy could be the mechanism behind thanergetic fission, as we see with Harrow's description of apopneumatic shock and how the burst of thanergetic energy (a neutron slamming into a larger atom, forcing it to excite) is sufficient to prevent liminal osmosis from taking place: "In cases of apopneumatic shock, where death is sudden and violent, the energy burst can be sufficient to countermand osmotic pressure and leave the soul temporarily isolated."

But from what we know of the nature of the thanergy, thalergy, and the soul, this explanation makes no sense. Thanergy is emitted by thalergy decay, but souls in of themselves are not a source of thalergy nor thanergy, as shown by Anastasia's tripod principle: “The body needs thalergy and a soul to keep the lights on. Anastasia’s tripod principle. Body plus thalergy, but no soul, is basically a very weird vegetable … after a while it gives up and shuts down.” [Nona the Ninth]

Going back to the nuclear terminology, I'm going to cut straight to the core of this theory: the mechanism behind the thanergetic generation of lyctorhood is thanergetic fusion.

What is thanergetic fusion?

The term I use here is a misnomer, because a more accurate term would be pneumatic fusion, considering how Tamsyn Muir is fond of using the Greek pneuma to refer to the soul: nuclear fusion 'is a reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei combine to form one or more different atomic nuclei and subatomic particles'.

A nucleus in physics is 'the positively charged central core of an atom, consisting of protons and neutrons and containing nearly all its mass', while in biology the term refers to 'a dense organelle present in most eukaryotic cells, typically a single rounded structure bounded by a double membrane, containing the genetic material'. Palamedes uses the term lysis for Lyctorhood, which as you'll recall refers to the disintegration of the cell membrane, thus exposing it's innards: such as the nucleus. The soul is the nucleus.

Nuclear fusion involves combining two or more atomic nuclei to form one or more different atomic nuclei and subatomic particles: the difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifested as either the release or absorption of energy; as a rule of thumb the fusion of lighter nuclei releases energy, making it an exothermic process, while the fusion of heavier nuclei results in energy being retained by the product nucleons, and thus the resulting reaction is endothermic. An exothermic reactions releases heat, causing the temperature of the immediate surroundings to rise, while an endothermic one absorbs heat and cools the surroundings.

In the context of this nuclear fusion explanation of Lyctorhood, an exothermic (exothanergetic) reaction releases thanergy while an endothermic (endothanergetic) reaction absorbs thanergy: the fusion of lighter souls release thanergy, the fusion of heavier souls absorbs it.

What are the implications behind these mechanics?

The question that comes to mind is what is a heavier soul? The answer, once again, lies in physics: "The heaviest atomic nuclei are created in nuclear reactions that combine two other nuclei of unequal size into one; roughly, the more unequal the two nuclei in terms of mass, the greater the possibility that the two react." [Wikipedia]

How does John explain the soul of a planet to Harrow?

John: “And what has a soul?” Harrow: “Anything with a thalergetic complexity significant enough to … have a soul. So, humanity.” [...] Harrow: “A planet’s a ball of dust. Its thalergy comes from the accumulation of microbial life. You can’t consider it one coherent system.” John: “Call it a communal soul. What’s a human being, other than a sack of microbial life?

Planets' souls are communal, formed from the thalergetic complexity of an entire world coalescing into a nuclei that lies at its heart, heavy in a way a human soul is not: a human soul is light, a planet's soul is heavy. In other words, Alecto is a heavy nuclei and John is a light nuclei, with the resultant nuclei of their combination forming something heavier than either: an endothanergetic reaction.

Moving back to thanergetic fission and the apopneumatic shock of a violent death, we can now examine what happens when John becomes God:

He becomes aware of Alecto when Cristabel kills herself in front of him.

Now aware of Alecto, he creates a massive flood of thanergy by inciting the violent deaths of millions, possibly billions, through the detonation of nuclear devices.

Empowered by the mass thanergetic fission caused by an untold number of apopneumatic shocks, 'I became a demigod', he finishes off the rest.

He kills Alecto, takes her soul in his hands, and attempts to become one with her.

He almost fails, and during this flawed process is forced to split her soul between his body and another, hiding himself in her and herself in him.

Fusion still occurs, this reaction is endothanergetic and allows him to near absorb a massive amount of thanergy in one sitting: "And when we were together … once the shaman had claimed the sun … I became God."

He violently kills the rest of the planets in the system, flipping them and creating a surplus of thanergy, a process of large-scale energy creation and transferall: to quote Ianthe once again, "You see, my field has always been energy transferral … large-scale energy transferral. Resurrection theory."

What this all means is that the secret behind the Resurrection is that John's Lyctorhood works fundamentally differently to that of his Saints, because his is endothanergetic where theirs is exothanergetic, a reaction between a heavy and a lighter nuclei.

Not only is it endothanergetic instead of exothanergetic, it generates a different form of energy. Emperor John Gaius produces thalergy.

Resurrection Theory

As we know from Anastasia's tripod principle, thalergy alone cannot make life, a soul is also needed—meaning that the inverse is true, in that a soul alone cannot make life, thalergy is needed; In order for John to have performed the Resurrection, he would have needed to imbue bodies with both their soul and thalergy to recreate the life he took in the first place. Logically, this means that John would have to be able to create thalergy. John is the only being in the universe who is able to generate thalergy, namely via the continual fusion reaction between a heavy soul and a light soul, also known as Alecto and himself, to produce it.

Let us return to what Augustine says of the nature of his power: “You don’t get your power from Dominicus,” said Augustine. “It gets its power from you. There’s no exchange involved, no symbiosis. You draw nothing from the system. It relies on you entirely, as we all know. You’re God, John. But—as the Edenites are fond of pointing out—you were once a man. So whither that transition? Where does your power come from? Even if the Resurrection had been the greatest thanergy bloom ever triggered, it would drain away over time.”

John is the source of fresh thanergy in the system: he produces thalergy, which he can decay into thanergy. The thanergy in the system is finite, it would drain away after enough time, but his heavy and light soul reaction producing thalergy that can then be decayed into thanergy allows for new thanergy to be introduced into the system; John's necromancy's unique in that it relies on the rapid creation of thanergy via accelerated thalergetic decay, resulting in thanergetic fission.

Why do I say thanergetic fission? Becase it could explain why his necromancy is shown to manifest as large amounts of light, because what does thanergetic fission result in? We see when Palamedes utilises the rapid thanergetic fission of his thanergy reserves to blow up in Cytherea's face:

The sickroom exploded into white fire, and the bonds pinning Gideon snapped. She fell hard against the wall and spun, drunkenly, lurching back down the corridor as Palamedes Sextus made everything burn. There was no heat, but Gideon sprinted away from that cold white death without bothering to spare a glance behind as though flames were licking at her heels.

White light that gives off no heat. What happens when John reassembles himself?

White light. It bleached the insides of your nose and the back of your throat. It hurt coming out your ears. It bled out your eyeballs. It wasn’t a flash of light, more … a suddenness; when it was gone—as though it hadn’t even existed, but had been a luminous hallucination—time stopped.

Speaking of that scene, it is likely the most definitive proof we see that John produces thalergy, because there is no way for his body to function without thalergy, and thanergy cannot be converted to thalergy (as far as we know). That thalergy has to come from somewhere. John, the Resurrector, is able to create thalergy.

Do you know where else we see what is explicitly called a form of resurrection? The endothanergetic reaction that created Harrowhark Nonagesimus: "My parents gassed fifty-four infants, eighty-one children, and sixty-five teenagers, and harnessed that thanergy bloom to conceive me. My mother used the resultant power to modify her ovum on a chromosomal level, so thanergy ignition wouldn’t compromise the embryo. She did this so I would be a necromancer." [Harrow the Ninth]

A large amount of thanergy is generated within an instant by closely-timed apopneumatic shocks caused by sudden death via what Harrow specifically names as nerve gas [Gideon the Ninth]. This brings to mind thanergetic fission as opposed to fusion, due to the fact it relies on thanergy, but the key detail here lies in two factors: the unequal size of the nuclei (souls) involved here, and the fact these souls are shown to have been manipulated.

The souls—emphasis on souls, as opposed to thanergy—of a large amount of children, of varying ages, are forcibly prevented from passing to the River via liminal osmosis due to the sheer amount of thanergy involved, and they are tied to Harrow's soul, as shown by Abigail commenting on her unique spiritual signature: "I’ve counted up to one hundred and fifty signatures contributing to you, and there’s more—they’re stamps rather than complete revenants, of course, which means their spirits were manipulated to leave marks on you in some way, which is fascinating if it means…"

What is a planet's soul? A communal one, the thalergy complexity of a world. What is Harrow's soul? A communal one, exactly two hundred sons and daughters of her House, manipulated to be stamped on her original one. I cannot speak of what this means, but it means that Harrow's soul is naturally heavier than John's: a nuclei formed from two hundred others.

Conclusions

Lyctorhood is nuclear fusion, with souls as the nuclei: the combination of souls produces thanergy as a byproduct of the process of forming a new nuclei; Souls are not a perpetual energy source, and are unable to generate thanergy or thalergy on their own, it is the combination of them that creates thanergy or thalergy.

Petty Lysis, the Lyctorhood of the Saints, is an exothanergetic reaction which produces thanergy as the two souls involved are melded over untold years: it is not a one-way consumption, it is a fusion, but the power transferral does only go one way, due to the fact it is not a mutual death. Grand Lysis is a more complete, and thus powerful, version of this reaction wherein the two nuclei are fully combined within an instant, as opposed to gradually combined.

John's joining with Alecto works on the same fusion principle of Lyctorhood, but the difference lies in the nature of the reaction at the heart of it: he is endothanergetic and produces thalergy as opposed to thanergy, which he can subsequently decay into thanergy to fuel his necromancy. The Resurrection was made possible by him generating thanergy.

Final Note:

I want to point out something before anyone else can, and that is the fact Lyctors could be interpreted as working on pneumatic fission as opposed to fusion: meaning that the constituent souls are split to produce power, and that the exothanergetic and endothanergetic reactions would be reversed—John exothanergetic instead of endothanergetic, and vice versa with Petty Lyctors, which explains why they appear to be thanergy voids: they absorb all thanergy in their surroundings.

I considered this while writing this theory, but ultimately I found that fusion seemed more likel. Alternatively, both Paul and John are examples of pneumatic fusion due to their more complete Lyctorhood while the Petty Lyctors are working on pneumatic fission. I prefer the idea that all Lyctorhood is pneumatic fusion, which is why I ultimately leaned into that interpretation in this post.

Thank you for reading.

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth spoilers #nona the ninth #tlt theory #tlt theories #tlt meta

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thegnomelord · 1 year

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Devotion in Steel

How They Worship You After The Hunt: Dottore, Childe, Zhongli.

So this is based off This idea I had about a cyberpunk reader in a cult!Sagau genshin, so this is just me testing the waters. I spent wayyy too much time on this one lol but this brainrot is still going strong.

CW: Suggestive themes, cult/yandere characters, reader is GN, mentioned gore for Zhongli part. First time writing Yandere's so tell me how it goes lol.

Dottore: Silent Curiosity

He does not worship you openly; he doesn't sing hymns about your mercy or your cruelty, nor does he press his face into the ground whenever you pass, like certain archons wishing for redemption. His worship is quiet. To the unworthy, the way he touches you — with clinically cold hands, examining every gear, and bolt, and piston with the same calculating gaze reserved for one of his machines — may as well be the highest form of sacrilege. Who is he to act as if you are just another of his toys? Who is he to not even say a single word to you? Who is he to touch and pull on your mechanical components like some urchin child toying with an object they do not realize is precious? But they can't do anything, because You do not see it their way. You do not stop or punish him, you encourage him; it isn't rare to find you two alone, him on his knees with your arm held in his hands, silently watching the moving mechanisms beneath your plating as you explain the intricacies of your mechanical form to him in that synthetic voice of yours that makes his bones tremble. His touch is clinical, precise, but it is by no means cold; His worship is conveyed through his actions. With reverence he cleans the dirt and grime from the seams in your armor, happy to stay on his knees for hours, days even, so long as not a single speck of dirt is left to mar your perfect body. With piety he polishes every gear, with admiration he oils every piston, worshiping even the smallest piece in your body like it is a holy relic. To Dottore, being able to see technology millennia ahead of his own and learn of knowledge yet undiscovered would have been bliss. But to feel it beneath his fingers? To feel it in his bones as that artificial voice of yours reveals the world's secrets? Heaven.

Tartaglia: Eager Veneration

Once, Tartaglia had only known of you from the stories his parents had told him; of a loving creator, a place of safety and solace in this harsh world. Later, when he fell into the Abyss, Skirk told him new stories of you, passed down to her by the denizens of the Abyss — ones his parents wouldn't have dared to utter lest they tempt Celestia to punish them for heresy. So when you descended, full of harsh edges and your body geared for battle, he embraced you as you were. He would have loved you regardless of your appearance, but something about the mechanical version of you made sense to him; Children resemble their parents after all, why should you have appeared like the demure little thing the tapestries depicted you as when Teyvat could be harsh, and cruel, and cold? He remembered his parents teachings, tried to be respectful like the other acolytes, on their knees, with their heads pressed to the ground. He would have done so happily, would have kneeled before you until he was nothing but bones, would have slaughtered countries in your name... yet the abyss gnawed on his bones, needing your attention like a babe needed a parent. So when you showed him favor? When you offered him to touch the divine metal of your cybernetic body? He couldn't stop himself. Anxiety tempered his eagerness, he did not seek more than what you offered him, yet his hands still glided over your skin and metal with the same energy as the little gears beneath your outer shell. Trembling fingers traced old dents and scratches that ripperdocs had neglected to fix, words of absolute devotion leaving his lips as he put his head to your chest, listening to the tik tik tik of mechanical organs beneath your chassis. But your weapons enchanted him the most. It reminded him so much of the Foul Legacy hiding under his skin; the promise of danger and death lurking beneath the surface, ready to be used as soon as a threat appeared — a similarity between you two that no one else could claim. He could spend days simply kissing and lavishing the seams in the armor, feeling where fake skin transitioned into metal which hid your weaponry from the world. Though you never allowed him more than a look, he yearned to touch them, to kiss the sharp blades, to feel his bones bend under your mechanical strength, to feel the monowire burn through his skin... Please, won't you let him? He survived the Abyss, he promises that he's tough, he can handle the pain... just this once, let him worship you, all of you, please?

Zhongli: Desperate Absolution

Zhongli is afraid; to touch, to breathe, to even exist near you. How can he not be, when he is the reason for your missing parts? Your aching joints? When he was the one who harmed you, who tainted your holy body with his hate and prejudice? When he was so prideful as to forsake his creator because they did not fit his own imagination? When the truth was revealed, the real impostor laying dead and your mechanical frame speckled with drops of your golden blood, he understood he was in no place to anything but bow and pray your fury would be swift and merciful, though he did not deserve it. Yet even as he knelt before you, head bowed so low it was flush with the ground and eyes shut tight, not daring to even glance at your metallic feet, a part of him still yearned for a chance at redemption; to earn back the chance to worship you, to earn your forgiveness through devotion. He would do anything for it; Kiss and lick the dirt off your mechanical feet, be at your beck and call till the end of time... If you wished to regain your lost parts — he would scour the far reaches of Teyvat until he found all the metal pieces you had lost, and those that were permanently damaged? He would carve his bones into shape, until they fit... If you told him to forfeit his flesh like you had done — he would claw at his skin until not a single scrap of meat hangs off his bones. He would happily wander the earth as a skeleton, grafting pieces of old Khaenri'ahn technology to himself until he resembled you, just so you could inflict the same wounds he had done to you... Yet you did no such thing. Even as his thoughts gained a voice, escaping his mouth through muffled whimpers, all you did was watch him, your mechanical gaze racking over his shivering form as he tried to stop his hiccupping cries. Truly pathetic. Then your fingers found his chin, gripping him in a bruising as you raised his head to look at you. Your mechanical eyes reflected in the tears running down his cheeks, the metal joints in your fingers nipping at his skin. His eyes met your cold gaze, and he wondered what you will ask of him — His eyes? His tongue? His arms? The impostor would have demanded all that and more... He would give it in a heartbeat. But please, find it in your cold heart to forgive him.

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sarahghetti · 2 months

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direction to perfection; j.l.

pairing: jake lockley x reader, marc and steven are briefly alluded to but do not make an appearance

summary: one day, your vigilante lifestyle leads to you to crossing paths with a moon-serving weirdo in white bandages. jake promises that he won't get in the way, but there's something about his smirk that has your spidey-sense tingling, and what do you know—

he sets a building on fire.

it's not supposed to be romantic.

warnings: depictions of fighting and violence, injuries, hurt and comfort, reader is a spider-person and thus has a spider-person sense of humour😭.

word count: 3.8k

notes: part of the @MOONKNIGHT-EVENTS bingo! prompt: “'bonfire”

MOON KNIGHT MASTERLIST | ALL MASTERLISTS

You have a love-hate relationship with your spidey-sense—it’s useful enough to give you a heads-up, but it’s not exactly a get-out-of-danger-free card.

It kicks in as you’re soaring through the air, an errant pulse in your veins that tells you one thing: MOVE. But there’s no time—before you even manage to lift your web-shooter, one of Doc Ock’s mechanical arms whips around and collides hard against your torso. For a moment, you feel your ribs crack underneath the metal, the sharp pains accompanied by a real stupid thought, even by your standards: guess I’m going to call in sick tomorrow—

—and then you finally hit the brick wall behind you. The air is ripped from your lungs and your thoughts short-circuit into nothingness. New York’s evening rush hour is drowned out by high-pitched ringing. If it weren’t for your wallcrawling ability, you’d be falling forty stories down onto the traffic below. Instead, rooted into the small crater you’ve made into an office building, all you can do is languish in what surely must be multiple broken bones and a slightly bruised ego for not being able to dodge a hit that you saw coming.

Speaking of—there’s another one heading towards you right now.

You leap upwards without a second thought, just narrowly avoiding becoming a shitty claw-machine prize as the arm lodges into the wall where your head used to be. Spots dance across your vision and you groan—your body does not want to move.

Suspended between two buildings, Doc Ock’s mechanical arms dig into concrete and brick as she follows you up. Her voice is deceptively empathetic. “Down so soon, little spider? I expected more from you!”

One of the arms rears back again but distantly, there’s the clench of a trigger—and it gets pinned behind her by a golden grappling hook.

The wire grows taut then there he is, using the reeling mechanism to lunge upwards. All the momentum is channeled into his crescent blade as Jake jams it between the plates of the trapped arm; it jerks like a wounded animal, suddenly uncoordinated and stiff. When it lashes out again, he easily dodges and jumps across the buildings onto the fire escape next to you.

“Mierda! You okay?”

Glowing white eyes, wide with concern—the sight is enough to shake you out of your concussive stupor. Jake extends a hand, and you take it readily, allowing him to help you up onto the rickety platform.

“Just peachy,” you wheeze as you lean almost your entire body weight against him.

This was supposed to be a simple mission. It wasn’t even supposed to be a mission in the first place, but one detained drug dealer led to another, which led to a smuggler and a mercenary and a goddamn gym teacheruntil you were faced with a whole corrupt laboratory that tied back to Doc Ock’s operations.

Jake got looped in somewhere between the mercenary and the gym teacher, apparently answering some kind of divine calling of his own. Egyptian god of the moon? Protecting travelers of the night? You just call the people you save New Yorkers, no fancy labelling here.

But you’re not so prideful as to turn away help when you need it, especially when it comes gift-wrapped in superhuman strength and a bullet-proof cape. Even though you catch him giving himself these looks in the windows you pass by or having whole conversations to himself under his breath—you’ve seen weirder.

Like now: There’s a clear conflict happening in—on?—Doc Ock. The damaged arm flails wildly through the air, and the other three can’t seem to decide between trying to calm it down, retreat, or kill you.

Those white eyes turn to you. “Sure you don’t want me to shoot her?”

“No!” Now you remember why you were initially wary of him—because when you first met, he was holding one of his blades to a lackey’s throat. Danger, danger! You didn’t even need your spidey-sense to tell you that; he wears the warning like a badge of honour. “We just need to subdue her till the cops come. Follow my lead.”

Jake gives you a mock salute. Fortunately, Doc Ock’s lab was deserted—except for her—when you crashed the place. Whatever supersecret bioweapon she’s cooking up will still be waiting for you to destroy it after you capture her.

With just one press of a button, you’re soaring back into action. The arms seem to have coordinated themselves again—having decided to kill you, how lucky—but so have you and Jake. One lunges towards you, and you pull upwards on your web, going feet over head as you as you flip backwards out of the way.

In that split-second moment when you’re fully upside-down, your arm extends downwards and thwip!—your web attaches to the titanium plating. The world realigns itself, and your momentum carries you in an arc below the arm, dragging it behind you as you continue in your original direction.

As soon as you land on the side of the opposing building, you yank hard. Immediately, your other hand comes up to shoot a dozen or so webs to attach the claw onto the wall. It won’t last—the brick is already crumbling under the force—but it gives Jake enough time to shake off Doc Ock’s attention and join you.

Closer than you were before, you can see just how much force it takes for him to drive his blade through the circuitry. Sparks burst like little fireworks around his hand. He makes it look easy, but a shudder crawls down your spine—you just know what he’s capable of.

You both leap out of the way as the arm thrashes erratically; Doc Ock cries out in frustration. That’s two arms down, and two that are busy suspending her in the air. You’ll have to catch her once you take out another one, but that’s no biggie.

“Jake!” You gesture towards the nearest arm, and he nods in understanding. Despite the pain radiating through your limbs, you grin. For all his snark and murderous tendencies (which you hope are just a joke), he’s a half-decent partner.

It’s too bad, then, that Doc Ock doesn’t seem to care about how good of a time you’re having. Her mouth twists into a snarl, and in a blink of an eye, she’s scrambling away. Retreating? Your poor, bruised head is hopeful for the night to end.

In a way, it’s right—she is trying to get away from you. Unfortunately, it also recognizes that she’s retracing your steps, right back to the lab where you first found her.

“Oh, damn it!”

Your injuries and Jake’s limited modes of superhuman transport make it impossible to gain any real ground as you chase after her. Doc Ock climbs through her shattered window half a minute before you do, and even if your conscious mind doesn’t realize it, some part of you does—it’s an ambush.

You dive to the ground just as a mini fridge is thrown in your direction. Pain shoots down your side, your vision blurring with tears. The sheer wave of nausea that washes over you makes your mouth water and fuck, you might actually puke like this.

There’s something else coming but you can’t do anything other than half-heartedly roll behind the nearest object. The workbench shields you from—what, a chair? You aren’t afforded anymore time to think about it because she rips off the counter next, several important-looking valves raining down around you. Through the noise, you just barely manage to pick up a quiet hissing in the air as you try to gather your bearings.

A line of workbenches down the centre of the room, an aisle on either side.

On the right: sinks and fume hoods.

On the left: whiteboards.

Directly in front of you: the absolute bane of—and possible end to—your existence, holding up that chunk of black countertop as if it were a hammer and you are a nail.

You brace yourself for the hit, but it never comes. There’s a surprised yelp from above you, and your peer through your arms at just the right time to see Jake land a brutal kick into Doc Ock’s chest, sending her flying. You don’t see her land, but you do hearit; equipment crashes to the ground, glass shattering on the linoleum.

With a hand from Jake, you’re back on your feet. Doc Ock is reeling at the far end of the room. The walls are littered with long, deep gashes—some from your initial confrontation with her, some likely from her mechanical arms flailing from Jake’s hit. Several of the fume hoods are missing their windows entirely, which definitely bodes ill considering that there are still chemicals in some of them.

Gritting your teeth, you somehow manage to get the words out, “Just stand down, Olivia!”

A hand is clutched at her side, and some petty part of you hopes that her ribs are broken too. “This isn’t over.”

You gesture to her mechanical arms, two of which are still malfunctioning like headless chickens, then to yourselves, who are (mostly) in one piece. “Well, it sure is about to be.”

She raises her eyebrows at Jake. “You raid a Spirit Halloween and suddenly think you can defeat me?”

“Yeah, sure, let me just take fashion advice from someone cosplaying as an octopus.”

Jake leans towards you. “Do you always talk this much?”

At that, Doc Ock’s eyes narrow, filled with determination. She’s not backing down this time, which means neither can you.

You both ready yourselves like you have countless times before, straightening your stance and setting your shoulders back. But Jake doesn’t show the same patience. No—he sees the remaining mechanical arms twitch in preparation, and a blade is already leaving his hand with deadly-precise aim.

Wait, wait, the hissing sound—the gas—

“Get down!” You ram your body into Jake’s, bringing you both to the ground as the blade makes contact with the titanium, sparks flying out and—

BOOM.

It’s like your heart stops.

For several moments, you don’t register anything at all. You aren’t even sure if you’re still breathing.

Slowly, your senses return. The scent of burning plastic invades your nostrils—even the air tastes like it too. Something’s landed on top of you, pinning you down with a surprising amount of strength. Warm and sturdy and pressing into all the wrong places, but you can’t even hear your own whimpering—there’s nothing but ringing in your ears.

Are your eyes closed? You can’t bring yourself to check. All you can do is try to remember how to live, and figure out what the hell is happening.

Your spidey-sense has gone quiet. That’s—that’s good. Hopefully. Or maybe it’s just been knocked out of you by the blast. You let that last thought get washed away into the muddled mess of your head; you could probably use a bit of positive thinking right now.

Everything hurts. That’s been true for the past hour, really, but there’s no gut-wrenchingly painful burn anywhere on your body like what you expected from a lab explosion. The closest thing is just that warmth against your back, in a thick arm across your chest, and encircled around your wrist, where it lingers along your pulse point.

Something brushes up against your cheek, roughly textured but trying to be so, so gentle. Words start to pierce through the hearing damage. “—estás bien, te tengo. No te preocupes, estás bien.”

“Jake?” Your voice comes out small and tinny, unsure of how loud to speak when everything sounds like it’s underwater. You receive an affirmative rumble, and the tension seeps out of your limbs, just a tad.

Tentatively, you open your eyes. And there’s—nothing. Just a white sheet of fabric covering your entire field of view. Jake huffs out a laugh at your confusion before finally standing up, his cape pulling back from where it was draped on top of you.

“Oh.”

It’s like a bomb went off. Nearly every surface has been scorched black, save for the perfectly untouched flooring around you where Jake shielded you both from the blast. Any equipment in the room has been reduced to pieces—if not completely combusted into ash and soot—and fires still linger despite the efforts of what’s left of the sprinkler system.

No sign of Doc Ock anywhere—she must’ve gotten away. Jake lets out a long string of curses under his breath, then finishes it off with an eloquent: “Fuck.”

The fire alarm is incessant, and the sprinklers have all but drenched your suit. If you had half a working brain left, you’d feel the shivers wracking your body and realize that you’re still bleeding out in several different places, but the only thing that crosses your mind is how tired you are.

You throw your mask off with a groan. The sirens in the distance only add to your growing headache. So close, you were so close this time.

“Come on.” Jake’s stands over you, mask retracted, and you can see the grimace on his face from how the mission turned out. Wordlessly, he offers to help you up, and is promptly ignored. He keeps his hand extended towards you, shaking it a little for emphasis, but you refuse to budge.

That is, until your mind so helpfully strays and wonders—how big was the blast?

Your eyes widen, and your body jerks upright as though electrocuted. Oh, God—you didn’t see anyone else in the lab other than Doc Ock when you arrived, but what about the other floors? What about the pedestrians on the sidewalk below, who might’ve had glass and debris rained down upon them when the windows were blown out?

It takes several tries to get to your feet, none of which are entirely successful because Jake has to intervene halfway through to hold you upright. Your second wind catches him off-guard and his brows furrow as you try to leap back into action. “Whoa—talk to me, bug. What’s happening?”

“Need to—” You try to shrug him off. His grip loosens for all of a moment before you’re stumbling again, and then he returns, as firm and steady as ever. “Was anyone hurt?”

“You.”

“Not what I meant,” you scowl. It’s thoroughly ineffective. The only response you get is a subtle tilting of his head, then a loss of his undivided attention as he listens to something—someone—in the room that you aren’t privy to.

His gaze flickers back to you, marginally softer. “No one else was hurt. You need to rest.”

You don’t dignify that with a response. What’s the point of superhealing if you can’t bounce back after a fight? This time when you struggle against him, Jake lets you go, crossing his arms as you limp around the room.

Fortunately, most of the smoke is being pulled out the windows; what’s left is enough to burn and scrape down your larynx, but you push through it. Doc Ock has to have left some kind of trace—if not during her escape, then in the work she left behind. But kicking around in the ashes yields nothing. There’s no conveniently placed folder full of evil plans, or vial labelled SUPER SECRET BIOWEAPON (ONLY COPY - NO NEED TO SEARCH ANY FURTHER).

Jake sighs. “What are you looking for?”

What are you looking for? The building is still on fire, for Christ’s sake—you should have been gone ten minutes ago. Still, your stubbornness is steadfast. “There has to be—something.”

He sweeps out an arm, gesturing to the resounding nothing around you. With wet curls stuck to his forehead, his tone veers on sardonic. “Oh? Your little spider-sense tell you that?”

“Spidey, and—and it’s not a radar, I can’t just turn it on,” you bristle. His ensuing snicker lands all wrong, and your mouth twists into a scowl. “Funny, is it? Blowing up a building?”

“Hey.” The lightness disappears from his expression. “How was I supposed to know about the gas leak?”

It’s a valid question. Still, the anger in you can’t help but flare up anyways, running on his words as if they were diesel. You bite back a retort at the last second, which isn’t enough because the resulting silence is accusatory in and of itself.

He takes a step towards you, chin raised as water continues to rain down on you both. Solid, sturdy—unyielding. The sight twists your stomach into knots, but you stand your ground, placing your hands on your hips even though it pulls painfully at a handful of your muscles. “Shit happens, bug. It’s no one’s fault—well, maybe a bit my fault, but—”

“I had her.” It’s a blatant lie, but full of conviction as it leaves your lips.

He’s nothing short of incredulous. “Did you?”

“Yes—”

Faster than your hazy mind can register it, his hand shoves at your shoulder. Not hard, but it didn’t need to be—you practically crumple, hands scrambling to find something to hold on to before you land flat on your ass, but Jake wraps an arm around your waist, steadying you.

You swat at his chest. You hate that his warmth is familiar. “Let me go.”

He counters: “What’s wrong?”

“You, asshole.”

“’m the bad guy now? You want a fight that bad?” His eyebrows cock upwards, regarding you like some unruly child.

He’s being inflammatory on purpose and it’s working. You’re an elastic band in his fingers, one that he keeps stretching and stretching and stretching until you snap. “I don’t want a fight, I want a—”

Win, you almost admit. You wanted a win, after all this time you’ve spent chasing after Doc Ock. Countless sleepless nights and lackeys thrown behind bars, only to fail in the final moments when it really mattered. The realization is debilitating, even in the confines of your own head, and so you lash out again, distracting yourself from the bitterness on your tongue by spewing it out instead.

“We’re not all out for blood, you know.” Then, because you can’t help yourself— “I’m not you, Jake.”

“Is that what this is about?” His hand tenses almost imperceptibly against your back, but you manage to catch it. Of course you do, with every sense on high alert, blood rushing in your ears. “You mad ‘cause I’m a killer?”

Something dangerous underlines his tone when he says the word and you flinch, trying to create some distance between the two of you on instinct. Jake doesn’t grant you that—his other arm comes to hold you as well, pulling you in even though you think you might suffocate in his presence.

“You knew this from the start. Don’t tell me you’re going to try to turn me in now.”

“Maybe I should,” you say in a rush, gaze steely as it meets his. For all your superhuman powers, none give you the ability to read what’s going on behind the storm in his eyes. You’re so close, you can almost feel the heat radiating off his skin, hear the words in his mouth before he even says them.

“You’re the one with the spidey-sense.” His voice is low. Somewhere in the back of your mind, through the shame and anger and desperation—you note that he’s called it by the right name this time. “You tell me. Am I a threat?”

Your heart is beating a mile a minute and your stomach is all fluttery and weird but—no. There’s no tingling at the back of your neck, no hair-raising along your arms. Petulance makes you want to lie and say yes anyways, but you can’t bring yourself to form the words. It just… isn’t true. And for some reason, you have feeling that this would be going too far, even as a rash potshot.

When you don’t respond, Jake’s expression softens, the lines of his face giving way to an understanding look that makes you feel smaller than his antagonism ever could. The fires have mostly died down now, but warm reds and oranges still flicker along the side of his jaw, in corners of his irises. His arms feel less like a cage and more like a lifeline, keeping you from drifting out to sea.

“Just—thought I finally caught her,” you mumble, and he pulls you the last few inches into a proper hug. Exhausted, you let yourself melt into his arms, the adrenaline beginning to seep away despite the cacophony of sirens in the background. “It’s been so long, Jake.”

“I know.” He doesn’t, not really—you haven’t divulged just how far this rivalry goes, but you don’t have to think very hard to realize that he’s speaking from experiences long before he ever met you. “We’ll get her next time.”

You snort softly into his suit. “What, you staying?”

It’s silly, the tinge of hopefulness that laces your voice just minutes after you’ve essentially accosted him. But Jake’s grinning when you pull back to look at him, all boyish confidence, and you nearly forget to breathe. “I could be convinced.”

Wait—what? He’s thrown you off-kilter. You—you didn’t think he’d actually— “Well—!”

At your stammering, he lets out a laugh, throwing back his head. It’s a wonderful sound, and when you flick his arm in response, there’s no real force to it.

“Well, you know what they say,” you sniff, trying to maintain your composure. “Friends close, enemies closer, and all that.”

“Right, right,” he nods gravely. The effect is severely diminished by the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. Keeping one arm around you, he starts to lead you towards an exit. “Don’t know how you’ll handle it—your spidey-sense going off all the time with me around.”

On the way out, he picks up your mask from where you discarded it, slapping it a few times against his leg to brush off the soot and ash. His own mask and hood come up to envelope his face as he hands it to you. Distantly, you wonder how his glowing white eyes would look in the dark. Probably a bit stupid, is your conclusion.

“I’m sure I can manage,” you sigh, and once you slip on your mask, he gives you a little pat on the head before you can bat him away. Jake leans away enough to avoid your attempts to tug at his hood, but at the next opportunity, he reaches over again, the little shit, hand drawing in close, and your spidey-sense, superhuman and extraordinary, it’s—

It’s never been quieter.

#moon knight x reader #jake lockley x reader #moon knight #jake lockley #moon knight fanfic #my writing #at time of posting i feel like dogshit ✌️#pls enjoy i am going to bed now goodnight #mk bingo 2024

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artofshinga · 24 days

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A bit ago I did a whole-ass set of warlocks based on D&D 5e subclasses - mostly for fun and also because my RP group was planning a warlock game. I didn't HAVE to draw one of each but doing so DID help me decide which one I wanted to play (this is, to note, why the characters are all pretty fem-coded - because that's my favorite to RP) Anyway, after I drew them all, folks asked if I'd do other classes too. And I was like, maybe? But, sorcerer did sound fun to do this with so over the last few months I've been working on them kinda on the side while I put most my energy in, like, the commissions I need to finish lol. But here, a bunch of theoretical sorcerers I'd personally play in a game:

Let's start us off with Iris, a half-elf who'd be living a pretty normal life in a normal job (I was thinking she was probably a waitress or somethin) until she finds something weird - a piece of a meteor or something, you know how it goes. Suddenly she has powers, and that's where her adventure would begin More sorcerers under the cut!

Tally I struggled with because, as it turns out, little mechanical fairy wings are complicated to draw. BUT also fun - I liked the idea of a fairy who's lost her wings and while she's trapped in the material plane she befriends a clockmaker who builds her little wings for her and eventually her magic ends up kind of syncing up with the mechanical way he teaches her about the world

Elysia was actually the last one I drew, since I have a DIFFERENT Divine Soul sorcerer I've already designed and want to play as a priority, but then I happened to see something about Greek gods while watching TV one day and thought, oh hey, that'd be a fun way to play with a divinity-themed sorcerer - maybe a musician that caught the affections of a god who blessed her with magic

Cherish is a cheerful tiefling working at an inn with her former-adventurer mother. We can guess what sort of things her mother got up to in her adventure since she ended up raising a child with some mysteriously draconic features

NGL Aine was just a way for me to play with some of the inspirations I used to cling to as a kid. Sailor Moon and other various bits of anime and JRPGs and such that I loved in my youth and used a LOT to inspire art. I wanted to remember that - and a catgirl wearing too many belts sounded perfect for that

Leila is probably my weirdest - she's SPECIFIC, like if there's a campaign set in the Shadowfell or something, I imagined a maid working in a mansion that gets magicked away to this realm and her gaining that shadow power when it happens

One of my first 5e characters was a storm sorcerer - more focused on rain and lightning and thunder. I used the same hair color and close to the same skin color to make this new storm sorcerer as a bit of a nod to that character, and wanted this one more focused on winter storms (including making her a winter eladrin elf)

and last but certainly not least, Gemma the halfling cursed with wild magic. I think she started off her adventuring life with a thieves' group before they found the wrong magic artifact. You know how it goes

#sorcerer #divine soul sorcerer #storm sorcerer #wild magic sorcerer #aberrant mind sorcerer #clockwork soul sorcerer #draconic bloodline #lunar sorcerer #shadow magic #tiefling #half elf #halfling #eladrin #tabaxi #fairy

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m1d-45 · 1 year

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divine favor

summary: so, they’re your favorite vessel. how do they react? includes yae miko, itto, kazuha, kaeya, chongyun, and noelle, in that order

word count: ~800

-> warnings: like one swear word?

taglist: @samarill || @thenyxsky || @valeriele3 || @shizunxie || @boba-is-a-soup || @yuus3n || @esthelily || @turningfrogsgay || @cupandtea24 || @genshin-impacts-me

< masterlist >

yae miko — out and proud

uses her connection to the divine as leverage almost every chance she gets, showing off the extra gleam to her vision eagerly. occasionally teases ei over the fact that she’s the favorite, not the literal archon. she’s maybe a bit surprised herself at that fact at first, but she’s not about to let that show when using it for her wants is so much more interesting.

“Please, of course I know what I’m doing. I wasn’t chosen by the divine for nothing.”

itto — show off

literally the moment you log off after wishing him for the first time he meets up with the gang to celebrate. it doesn’t matter if you only brought him to level 20 or instantly fully leveled him, he goes on about it for hours. any changes to his weapon would be shown off, and if you get his signature then he’s incredibly proud of it. sometimes he pokes fun at kujou sara because of his glider, but shinobu usually keeps it quiet enough nothing bad really happens. it’s not like sara can do much since he’s a favored vessel, but the gang doesn’t have to know that.

“Guys, come here! No, it’s not an onikabuto this time, look! I got a new sword today, isn’t it cool?”

kazuha — doesn’t exactly hide it

kazuha never gloats or tells stories when they aren’t wanted, but… instead of climbing down the mast when returning from the crow’s nest, he’s more commonly seen jumping from the side, letting his glider catch him. despite being an inazuman native, his time with you has made him an expert at gliding, a fact typically seen in the delicate fold of his glider every time his feet touch the deck. he makes sure to take care of it, running his fingers through the soft, feather-like mechanisms on its surface partly to remove any salt built up, but also because he likes the feeling.

“It was the chance of fate that allowed me to become so close to my god. Nothing more, nothing less.”

kaeya — flashy in the front, “what the fuck” in the back

he hadn’t expected to become a vessel so soon in your journey, but adapted quickly. you were early in your journey throughout teyvat, so he honestly expected you to drop him once you got someone more powerful, someone you surely liked more. and then you didn’t. and then he’s suddenly fighting with impossible speed and strength, his vision a sharp, glittering blue, and with every day that passes where he’s still the subject of your favor, the shock sets in a bit more. he doesn’t even go to the angels share the night he’s triple crowned, too dazed to try and interact with people, instead laying in his bed and staring at the ceiling.

“Why would i be their favorite? …Don’t tell me you’ve gone and started questioning the divine now, have you?”

chongyun — disbelieving

literally in shock the entire day after he’s been wished. also doesn’t matter how much you prepared for him, he’s stunned. he can feel his power grow, his claymore something new and so much sharper, a glider he doesn’t quite know how to use yet now at his disposal. once the shock wears off he has to take a few hours to calm himself down and keep from overheating, most likely with the help of xingqiu, xiangling, and the cool breeze by the ocean.

“I-I don’t know what I did… I’ve never even properly exorcised a demon—am I really worthy of this?”

noelle — oh jeez oh god oh wait oh jeez-

similar to kaeya, she was surprised that she was chosen so quickly, but rationalized it just as fast. she was to be a stepping stone, someone to protect you early on, a transient phase while you got your standing in teyvat. yes you leveled her, yes you took her with you to liyue, but that’s just because you hadn’t gotten anybody better, right? you didn’t… she wasn’t really your favorite, right..? poor noelle, it takes you fully ascending her for her to finally acknowledge your favoritism. though she doesn’t know what she’s done to earn this spot, she’s more than proud of it, taking the badge of her vision more seriously than her duties to the knights.

“It doesn’t matter what I’ve done to earn this place, what matters is that I do my very best to keep it.”

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seabirdtxt · 1 year

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Deus Vocat

'Just how close to divinity does the god-machine get?' Pretty darn close, as it turns out. The rest is entirely up to you and Scaramouche. [p1] [p2 - you are here!] [p3]

Notes: Genshin SAGAU, cult au, mostly confusion and miscommunication in this one. mild swearing. still pre-3.2 plotwise!

WC. 1.6k

----- ⚘ -----

Three days and three nights. That’s how long Scaramouche waited to hear Your voice again. The more the hours drew out, his temper became increasingly volatile every time the nervous technicians would open the Shouki no Kami’s cockpit to check up on him.

Each time he would kick them out and slam the cockpit shut, even nearly taking off a mechanic’s arm with the face plates. His patience runs thinner with every passing moment.

Nearing dawn of the fourth day, finally he feels that strange buzzing connecting behind his ears. He stiffens and pulls himself upright, blinking weariness out of his eyes.

“Your Grace?” he mumbles, the sudden drop in pressure in the cockpit makes him dizzy. “Is that you?”

Your voice crackles over the connection, sounding a little farther away. “Hey, yeah, it’s me again. How're you holding up?”

“What took you so long?” is what he replies, the words coming to him despite his head warning him that You are the Divine Creator. “Do you know how much work I could’ve gotten done in the time you took to get back to me?”

“What? It’s been, like, an hour at most.” You reply, sounding skeptical. “Don’t tell me you’re the impatient type.”

“An- an hour?!” Scaramouche runs the math in his head quickly, frowning. “Is there such a time dilation between your realm and mine?”

“What do you mean?”

Scaramouche growls with frustration, rubbing his temples as he feels a headache coming on. “What are you not understanding here? I didn’t think the Creator would be so ignorant of their own creation.”

“... what?”

“Are you being deliberately obtuse? Are you even who you say you are? You wouldn’t be the first to have delusions of grandeur to bring some sort of momentary excitement into their pathetic, insignificant lives.”

“Woah, calm down, buddy,” you say, a warning in your voice. “Let’s just take it from the top, okay? Hello, my name is,” you repeat your name for him. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Scaramouche takes a breath and rolls his eyes, then reluctantly complies with the direction you’re taking.

“Hello, I’m Scaramouche, The Balladeer, Sixth of the Fatui Harbingers, and I’m currently dealing with an idiot problem.”

“I’m gonna let that one slide for now,” you respond curtly. “Now tell me, ‘Scaramouche’, why did you call me today?”

“You say it as if I somehow did it on purpose.”

“Didn’t you?” The raised eyebrow is audible in your tone.

“Of course not!” Scaramouche snaps, patience waning. “Dottore’s stupid god-machine did something to my head, obviously, and now there’s some kind of connection to you that I have no idea how to control.”

“... god-machine?” you ask, sounding genuinely confused. “What are you talking about?”

“The god-machine that the sages commissioned,” Scaramouche explains slowly, smugly, as if he’s talking to a child. “If the gnosis’ connection to divinity is successful, I will be named the new deity of Sumeru and take over the position of that pathetic little god, Buer.”

“You’re going to what to who?” you question again. “Hang on, is this spoilers? I didn’t get that far in the story yet…”

“What do you mean, ‘story’?” It’s Scaramouche’s turn to be confused now.

“Y’know, ‘cause you’re RPing that guy from the game, right? I’m not at that point in the questline yet so, uh, thanks for spoiling the story for me, I guess.”

“This isn’t a game!” His temper flares and he pounds his fist against the face panel of the cockpit, the clang resounding in his ears. “Damn you, is that how you see us, then? As some kind of sick game for your personal amusement?”

“Wow, you’re really taking this personally, huh? It’s not that serious, man, you need to calm down for a sec-”

“I will not be calm!” Scaramouche thrashes about in the cockpit, kicking and punching the interior and creating a hellish metallic sound. Behind him, the tubes slap and rattle around, threatening to disconnect from his sockets if he continues his tantrum. “The Divine Creator just told me that they view our existence as a game!”

Your voice takes on a tone of annoyance, though you appear to be trying to suppress it. “Listen, I looked it up on the wiki, and there's nothing there about this supposed ‘Creator’ character, so I know you’re full of shit. Just cut it out, okay?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Scaramouche shouts into the empty cockpit. And that’s the root of the problem, isn’t it? Clearly he and the Creator aren’t seeing eye to eye on something, here, and it’s causing a terrible miscommunication.

With a great heaving sigh, he tries to reign in his temper.

“What can I do to prove to you that I’m serious, right now?” He asks through gritted teeth.

There's a sound like static that fills his head and he cries out in pain, clutching his ears as if that might stop the noise.

“Hypothetically, let’s say you’re Scaramouche from the game,” Your voice filters in through the static. “Like, the actual NPC or something. The only way I’d believe you is if you do something in-game that’s out of the ordinary. I’m logging in right now, so if there’s something weird happening I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

Scaramouche’s thoughts race through his head, though he has no idea what half of the words you say mean, and he wracks his mind trying to think of something he could do to show his presence.

“Where… where are you right now?”

“I’m doing the quest in Pardis Dhyai,” you answer, and sure enough Scaramouche feels a faint tug that he’s come to associate with the Traveler’s presence coming from the direction of the laboratory. “I’m fighting with some Eremites right now.”

Pardis Dhyai, where he knows Haypasia is being kept. The woman had connected with his consciousness briefly during one of the early god-machine tests Dottore had forced him to do. It very nearly put him out of commission for a week, but sharing his consciousness had been proof irrefutable that he could channel divinity, at the time.

“Okay, stay there, I’m going to try something.” He says, and attempts to concentrate on the location. In his mind, he conjures the feeling of static and ozone and aims, internally cheering when he feels the power connect with bodies. “Did you see that? Did I get them?”

“Get what?”

“The thunderbolts!” He says, incredulous. Surely there was no way to miss that, right?

“That’s part of the quest, I saw the walk through of this part,” you huff. “You’re really not convincing me, here.”

Frustration bubbles up and Scaramouche chews his thumb as he tries to think of something else, and that’s when he feels it.

The Traveler touches Haypasia.

A bolt of energy courses through his head, and in the distorted reflection of the metal cockpit he sees his eyes flash again.

He follows an instinct, reaching out to Haypasia’s consciousness and, by extension, the Traveler. He grabs the tether in his mind and pulls, feeling himself travel across time and space, until he’s in Pardis Dhyai.

He blinks and looks around, the faded scenery looking exactly as it had when Haypasia had contacted him. There, standing beside his follower’s unconscious body, is the Traveler.

“Where are you?” Scaramouche asks through the connection, trying to sense if you've left him once again. “There’s nobody else here.”

“... Huh.” Your voice comes through the connection in his head, but also through vibrations in the air. “That’s definitely not part of the cutscene.”

“What the hell is a cutscene?” He demands, still looking around for the source of your voice.

“Right, that’s creepy. Is this a glitch?”

“If you tell me what your words mean, maybe I can tell you.” Scaramouche growls, then points at the Traveler. “You, where is the Creator? I know they’re around here somewhere, I can feel it.”

“No way.” You say, incredulously.

“Huh?”

“Scaramouche, jump up and down three times.”

He looks around again, before settling his gaze on the Traveler. “Why should I do that?”

“You’re trying to prove that you're in the game, right? I can see you right now, so if it’s really you I want you to jump up and down three times.”

Feeling supremely foolish, but willing to humor you on the off chance you aren’t lying to him, Scaramouche gives three halfhearted hops, and immediately crosses his arms.

“Happy now?” he growls.

To his extreme surprise, and slight horror, the Traveler jumps three times as well.

“Oh my god, you’re actually in the game? Like, you’re the character in the game?” You ask, breathless, a tinge of hysteria creeping in. “No way. This doesn’t happen in real life. Games don’t just become self-aware like this. Am I dreaming?”

“Whatever you’re talking about, you better tell me really quick or else…” Scaramouche trails off for a moment, unsure of what he could really do to you, given the metaphorical distance. “Or else I’ll be really angry with you,” he finishes lamely. In front of him, the Traveler’s eyebrows furrow slightly.

“You’re not supposed to, like, know about me,” you continue, raising in octave slowly. “You’re not real! Is my life just a creepypasta right now?”

“Would you cut that out?!” Scaramouche half-shouts, in an attempt to be heard over your frantic voice. He can feel the connection between the two of you waver with each passing second. “Whatever you’re doing, stop panicking!”

“I think I’d like to panic, actually,” you say, and the connection goes dead.

Empty air fills the space behind Scaramouche’s ears, and he snarls in frustration at having been left hanging once again. For a second, he almost forgets the presence of the third party in the room. He looks up and stops his muttering at the sight of the Traveler’s dumbfounded, and slightly scared expression.

“You can hear them?”

#genshin sagau #self aware genshin #sagau #genshin self aware au #genshin isekai #sagau cult au #genshin scaramouche #sagau scaramouche #sagau x reader #scaramouche x reader #seabird.txt #Voice of God AU

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lemonmatronics · 6 months

Text

THE POPPY PLAYTIME CHAPTER 3 TRAILER IS SOOO!,?!.?.!.

What a great treat to wake up to—Excuse me while I go insane and spill some thoughts, reactions, theories, and predictions below please

ahem

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

SO LIKE FIRST OFF this chapter is gonna fuck, like this looks SO good holy shit

The setting and environment looks amazing but also the new hands mechanic along with the mask ohhhh this is gonna be FUN

Okay rambling about screenshots I took time

First off the environments look great, holy wow

The house itself looks kinda small so idk if that is the orphanage itself or some kind of set. Cause you can see fake sky walls around it, but like this is Playtime Co they would definitely do that to the orphanage also to give an illusion of outside. Either way it looks GREAT and I’m really excited to explore this setting

Just a nice shot of all the critters

I’m really curious if all the critters are gonna be utilized somehow. We know about Catnap and Dogday already, especially after the trailer itself. Though there was also the footage of Bobby running down the hall, looking like a normal plushie, and possibly seeing Hoppy in the trailer too. (I’ll touch on that later)

New Poster

Definitely looks like some company propaganda to try and keep kids from being afraid of CatNap. Judging by the files we got before looks like the results were a mixed bag. Considering the gas is there in the poster it’s definitely a company only poster, not something they could sell outside. They manipulated this kids so bad man :(

A CLEANER LOOK OF THIS THING,,,

THATS A SKELETON COMING OUT OF PUGAPILLAR’S MOUTH…Like that’s just straight up human remains.

I don’t think we’ve ever seen that before in this game. Like blood yeah plenty but BONES? They’re definitely amping things up for this chapter and I’m 100% here for it.

Besides that there’s a ton of plushies and such stabbed onto this weird thing. Is it a shrine? It doesn’t look like it could really move tbh, and if it was meant to be alive those parts aren’t doing anything to help it.

This poor mf

I’ve seen a lot of people speculate this is DogDay, which is a valid guess, but tbh my first thought was Hoppy. You can tell they have long droopy ears, which lines up with both candidates to me. Though I think the ears look a bit slimmer than what Dog Day’d would be, plus the angle on the head looks more like they’re dropping from the top of the head rather than the sides. I feel like if this was DogDay the whole head silhouette would be different because of the ears, which makes me lean towards Hoppy more.

I know her toy gives her long pointed up ears, but going off art and animation her ears can definitely fold

So I don’t think it’s out of the question that as a Bigger Bodies being her ears could fold over like that, especially while stuck like this.

Now I could be the one wrong here but I really think this is Hoppy. Won’t know until the game itself though so, I won’t treat either as divinities yet. It could just as easily be the case everyone else is right and it is DogDay, there’s evidence for that as well (Again, I’ll touch on that later).

So much happened here where do I even start

Obvious out the bat I guess, Kissy Missy is back!! And looks like Poppy isn’t ditching us alone either! Man I cannot tell it Poppy is good or not at this point, gray area? Trailer dialogue definitely sounded like she was supporting us.

“We’re coming! Just hold on!”

It’s really nice seeing Kissy back, really excited to see how she’s gonna help and play into this. I’ve been on the stance that she’s good ever since she helped in chapter 2 so this is really cathartic for me lmao.

As for what Poppy says here I found it interesting, like really interesting. Like, hearing it the first time made me think she casually confirmed something massive interesting. Granted, actually thinking about it longer, it could mean something else entirely. But was that the whole point?

“What’s happening down here is bigger than all of us. I need you. So we can revenge on those monsters who’ve tortured you, who’ve tortured us.”

“Those monsters who’ve tortured you”

Now, once I thought about it this is most likely referring to the literal monsters in the factory. Huggy, Mommy, CatNap, so on and such. But that’s not what my initial assumption was.

When Poppy referred to “monsters”, by first thought was the people working at the factory. I thought she said people at the factory tortured us.

I thought she confirmed that we’re a toy.

Once I thought about it longer, it doesn’t actually confirm that. But what if that’s the entire point? A double meaning line?

Now the player being a toy theory is something that’s been around since chapter 1, a theory I’ve fully stood by since then and still do. I like to think that’s why our character is completely silent, we’re a toy that can’t speak. Mute toys is something we’ve seen plenty of in the factory, more so than toys that actually talk. (Unless you count stuff like the Smiling Critters cartoon or the cardboard cutouts, but I’m talking purely living beings here.)

So while this doesn’t confirm the theory, this line is definitely throwing wood into the fire for me.

DogDay

Wether or not the chained Bigger Body above us DogDay or Hoppy, we have it confirmed here that DogDay is featured heavily in this chapter as an enemy. Again, I really wonder if the other Smiling Critters will show up as threats as well. Maybe a mixed bag of good and bad critters. If the chained up Bigger Body is DogDay, I wonder why he chases us after we assumingely set him free.

One note I’ll give that is to evidence for the chained bigger body being DogDay is that in the thumbnail you can see a shackle on his wrist

His arms are also long and lanky, which is why I won’t completely rule out it possibly being him there. It’s just as possible that it is him, both feel very plausible to me.

Though looking at the game footage, I’m not sure if can can see anything on his wrists. Additionally his arms look much wider than the one in thumbnail.

Additionally, the DogDay in the thumbnail looks so much like a…mascot suit? You can see seams and stitches all over him. Even other Bigger Bodies don’t look like that. Which is something I wanna give its own post to to figure deeper on.

So is this even the same DogDay at all?

It’s not completely out of the question there could be multiple DogDays, though that begs the question, what about other Smiling Critters? What about other toys as a whole?

Here’s my prediction on it. One Bigger Bodies experiment, and then there’s smaller ones approximately the size of their normal toys.

I think the DogDay in the thumbnail is a result of the Bigger Bodies testing, and the one actually chasing us is just a smaller more “normal” DogDay.

But if that’s true then it begs the question, what about other critters? We’ve seen a smaller Bobby before, does she also have a Bigger Bodies version?

Do they all have a Bigger Bodies equivalent?

Is there still a normal CatNap?

Again, all speculation but this chapter especially is really tickling my brain.

And finally we’ve got the man of the hour

Man he is so much lankier than I thought he would be. That definitely explains why his face was so high up on that one cam footage though. Here I was thinking he’d be bulky!

There isn’t too much to say here other than CatNap is definitely gonna be an imposing threat, and I’m very excited to see him in game. So far we’ve mainly seen him through silhouettes, and light peeks at small portions of his design. Seeing him better is game is gonna be a thrill and I’m so ready for it!

Additionally, just for the sake of adding on, we’ve seen these posters apparently from overseas get spread around lately

Both of these definitely look like they’re meant to be company only posters, ones you’d find in the schooling and orphanage areas.

The left poster telling kids to go inside right away when recess is up, nothing super deep here. Just a peek at the schooling that had here, and that these kids had their lives completely contained within the factory.

The second poster is CatNap telling Huggy to go to sleep, another attempt at convincing children CatNap isn’t dangerous. If Huggy is fine they will be too, right?

Anyways that’s my initial thoughts and reactions right after watching the trailer. VERY excited about this game, it’s been awhile since I’ve been able to brainstorm on my own over a game like this so I’m really looking forward to what this chapter has to give.

#long post #poppy playtime #poppy playtime chapter 3 #catnap #poppy playtime catnap #huggy wuggy #kissy missy #dogday #poppy playtime theory

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