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badlydrawnmanic · 1 year

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for those of you who were asking about the scourge playlist when i was talking about his voice, here it is

7/25 songs are from natewantstobattle so it's no wonder i inadvertently picked his performance as damien to be the voice claim

i really need to redo that text on the playlist cover...

explanation under the cut i guess?

1: now's your chance honestly not sure about this one? i think the vibe i was going for was that, when he met sonic for the first time, something sort of clicked in him, or... snapped, rather. it's a realization of some sort. realization of what? i dunno. that's above my pay grade.

2-7: don't threaten me with a good time emperor's new clothes pit of vipers phantom branded mean green mother from outer space this section's more so just about his descent into being a complete and utter shithead. these songs are mostly about vibes and he thinks he's the coolest motherfucker alive. he's still on the upswing, but that isn't necessarily a good thing

8-9: brand new day it's tough to be a god this is probably his highest point? his whole king of the world shtick is at its strongest here. he's kicking ass and taking names and thinks he's invincible. little does he know that he absolutely is not that

10-12: this is love sarcasm war! you know how he's been betrayed by not one but two of the gangs he brought together, pissing them off to the point they tried to kill him? yeah. this is that resentment. it's probably targeted mostly at romantic partners like fiona and alicia, but still. mad

13: big shot this is mostly a transition song. the frantic nature of it feels like it makes it clear that things are falling apart around him, and stuff's gonna get bad real quick despite him hyping himself up as some kind of larger than life, unstoppable villain. he's bitten off more than he can chew and it's about to give him a rude awakening

14: discord another segment with just one song - i forget if i've dumped this plot point on this blog before, but i want it to be a surprise. long story short, he's lost, can't go home, everything that was familiar to him is now gone, and he's had this sort of revelation that bigger things are happening. he's just along for the ride

15: other friends during his desperate jumps between universes, i imagine he ran into another sonic at some point by sheer coincidence. all that stress he's built up during this is coming out right now. he feels abandoned and scared and all he knows how to do is hurt people, so he fights this random sonic for no reason and probably gets his ass kicked despite his vicious facade

16-18: ruler of everything drift away god syndrome not quite a descent into madness, but it's close enough. he's been alone with his thoughts with nothing to pour his frustration into. he's realizing just how small he is and how far he's fallen, wishing he just stayed home and faced the same whatever his "friends" fell victim to, but it's too late. not only is his survival instinct too strong, he's simply too stubborn to quit. he's made it this far

19: the guide to success sort of an inner monologue? this one's another vibes one. i sort of imagined him talking to his younger self during this. it's sort of a was it worth it? thing. he feels regret. he knows what he's done is wrong, but he refuses to admit it, retreating into the shell he's built up over the years

20: freeze your brain over the course of his adventures, i imagine he finds himself in yet another universe. the cinematic i had in my head was that he runs into an amy who, seeing a stranger who looks vaguely like sonic and is clearly distressed, asks him if he's okay. cue the sad boy trauma dumping. the 7/11 employee in the background is not very happy (and scourge probably keeps refilling his cup without paying for it)

21: look who's inside again more self criticism. wondering where he went wrong. reminiscing about his childhood, wondering who he really is. all that jazz

22: bury a friend this is where he meets manic. he doesn't understand his kindness. he's low-key paranoid that he's gonna be stabbed in the back again, but the time never comes. despite his abrasiveness, his tough guy persona, his general standoffishness, his disregard for this random dude who let him in his house, offering nothing in return, manic continues to tolerate him, just being kind. this is something scourge can't wrap his head around and it's filling him with this frustration and guilt he wants to take out on him, but he just can't bring himself to. he's grown soft, whether he likes it or not, and it makes him feel weak

23: the wrecked and the worried scourge has tried to leave before. multiple times. he just can't bring himself to go, and every time he disappears, it's for longer and longer periods because he feels so conflicted about it. manic shows genuine concern for him. hanging out with this guy is the safest scourge has felt in a long time, and he isn't sure how to deal with that. there's a certain guilt to it, feeling like him existing there is putting manic in danger because of the zone cops on his tail, but he just can't leave

24-25: creep i'd rather be me with you (caleb hyles) scourge feels like a piece of shit who doesn't deserve to be cared about by someone else, but manic continues to treat him with that unwavering kindness and understanding he always did. scourge sees him as a friend now, but is afraid of getting hurt again, and is low-key afraid of hurting manic. he's afraid he'll blow up in his face or cause some shit that ends up reverberating back to this fucking nerd. that he'll inadvertently do something so bad, it makes manic lose his patience and finally cut him off. it's his nature to be a terrible person, right...?

he doesn't understand how he could be cared about so much by someone, or how he could care about someone else in the same way. it's hard to love and be loved, even platonically, when you haven't been loved before

if he could break down his cracking walls... if he could be his true self, maybe he wouldn't feel like such a burden

if he could be his true self, maybe he'd learn how to love and be loved in a genuine, authentic way, just like manic does

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic #sth #scourge the hedgehog #please read the explanation #i worked so hard on it #yes i know the end comes across as purely romantic but please read the explanation #there aren't a lot of songs that seem to describe a deep ache when looking at someone else without romantic connotations #this is all i've got #Spotify #manic's personal projects

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illumynare · 7 years

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Destiny Fic: The Songs of Lady Skorri

Summary: In days to come, they'll say that the Lady Skorri rose from the dead with a song on her lips.

Warnings: Violence, not graphic but there IS dismemberment.

Pairings: None.

Notes: Posting my Yuletide fic, whoohoo! Huge thanks to @hokuton-punch for her lovely prompt.

Also available on AO3.

A Song for Skorri's Rising

In days to come, they'll say that the Lady Skorri rose from the dead with a song on her lips.

Some will say it reverently, rapt with admiration for the bard of the Iron Lords. Others will roll their eyes, scorn in their voices for the rhymester who must make iambs out of every victory, dactyls from every defeat.

They will all be wrong.

Skorri will correct none of them, because it's an excellent turn to the tale, bracketing her life with song like a chorus—

But the truth is this: she wakes gasping for breath, ribs aching. She is half-buried under a fall of rocks, and the first few moments of her Rising are spent desperately clawing her way out.

The first thing she says is, "Wait. If I'm dead, then why are you the Ghost?"

She does hum to herself, that first day as she wanders through the ruins, trying to find a memory among the skeletons and crumbled walls and blackberry bushes. A soft, aimless hum without tune or measure. (Her Ghost asks her to stop, and that's when she realizes she'd been doing it.)

But that isn't how she begins to sing.

Warrant, that's what the people call their town, nestled in the crook of two long hills.

"Warrant for what?" Skorri asks the blacksmith who'd offered her food in exchange for a day's labor chopping and hauling wood.

He shrugs. "Just a name," he says, and rips off another huge mouthful of bread.

The smith is less talkative than most, but none of the people in Warrant are curious about the world beyond their town. When travelers come up the east road—there aren't many—they will trade with them readily enough. But they have no use for their tales; they hardly even care that Skorri has risen from the dead, and has a Ghost floating at her side. They might have seen someone like her, ten years back, or twenty. A man passing through. He didn't make trouble and he didn't say, so what was he to the people of Warrant?

In a week, Skorri is sick of them.

On the eighth day, the Fallen come.

Skorri is one of the first to die, a Fallen Captain's sword rammed down her throat, slicing her spine in two. The world is choas and screams around her, and then it is dark.

When her Ghost raises her again, it is silent. Pale dawn light smears the eastern sky.

Around her, the ruins of Warrant smolder.

The smell settles into Skorri's hair and skin as she searches through the town, dragging out the bodies. Anyone who escaped, hasn't stayed. But she can name most of the faces she finds slack and dead. She doesn't think any have escaped.

"I feel like there's something I should remember to do," she says when she has finished digging the grave. The sun is high overhead now, blazing down on her neck. "Now. For the dead."

Her Ghost swirls. "I'm afraid . . . I don't know many human customs."

Skorri looks at the bodies she has rolled into the pit. She can name almost all of them. Perhaps no one else left alive can.

There is nobody but her to remember the annoying way Ulf cleared his throat every time he spoke, and the delicious brown bread that Ulf's wife baked, the way their son growled at the other children but always had a spare scrap for the family cat—

Skorri had wanted to leave them, and now her voice cracks as she begins to sing their names.

A Song for Efrideet's Glory

In days to come, they'll sing of Efrideet blazing with anger as she strikes down her foes.

Skorri knows this for a fact, because she's going to write the songs that make sure of it.

She isn't thinking of Efrideet's songs when it happens. She is, in fact, thinking of Melig: the Risen warrior that Warlord Rience sent to face Jolder in single combat.

Melig is monstrously tall. There's a good rhythm in that: Melig the Monstrous, he that adorns / His arms and his legs with Ahamkara horns. He's ghastly pale as he lunges towards Jolder, more bone than man—if the Ahamkara whispers haven't eaten his mind out yet, they will soon.

Jolder dodges, the glitter of her cuirass blinding in the sunlight, and laughs as she throws a grenade that forces Melig back. Glorious, fits-into-iambic Jolder. Skorri's written songs about her just of the use of her name, and her now her mind flits through ways to describe Jolder's part in this battle—

It's barely visible, the dart that flies from the ranks of Rience's forces.

But everyone sees when its magnetic tip locks into Jolder's Ghost and sends out a crackling wave of red energy.

Jolder convulses, falls to her knees—By Rience betrayed, / By treachery made / To kneel before—

That's the nice thing about songs: when your head is wrapped up in linked words, when your mind is chaining more together, there's room for little else. Sure, there's white-hot anger—that Traveller-damned Rience used a neurojammer on Jolder's Ghost—but Skorri doesn't panic. She rhymes and she draws her rifle and she's really quite calm as Melig roars in triumph, his axe crashing down into Jolder's helm.

Efrideet's answering battle-cry is a wild, inhuman thing.

The newest Iron Lord is small, but when the battle-madness takes her, she's one of the strongest. And she doesn't waste time. Her feet land in Melig's chest, send him crashing backward. Skorri's already firing into Rience's forces, so it's only from the edges of her vision that she sees Efrideet rip Melig's head from his body and fling it at the enemy line.

Skorri thinks, Well, that's a sight worse than her usual.

But of course, usually there's never any doubt that Jolder would survive a fight.

Then there's no more time for thinking, as Skorri summons Radiance and rains the fury of the sun on their enemies.

The songs come after, while Jolder is healing. She's alive because Saladin got to her side while Melig was still twitching, and wrenched the dart out of her Ghost, thought it tore his hands bloody. Even so, she nearly didn't make it: her Ghost couldn't manage to raise her again until sundown, which was pushing the known limit for any Ghost to bring one a slain Risen back to life.

Now Jolder is recovering, her Ghost bobbing shakily at her side, Saladin never far away. To Skorri's silent surprise, Efrideet is there too. She's always shy after the battle-madness takes her, and usually she disappears into the wilds, makes peace with herself away from the rest of the Iron Lords. Comes back with a smile and a tilt of her head that dare them to mention it.

This time, though, Efrideet hovers at the far ends of corridors, not speaking to anyone, but not letting herself get far away from where Jolder is staying. Skorri wonders at it, but it's hardly her business: she's writing a song for Efrideet now, but they've never been close.

One afternoon, though, she goes to looking for Jolder and finds her sitting on the side of her bed. Sunlight streams through the window, turning her red hair into fire; Efrideet sits at her feet, shoulders resting against her knees.

Jolder is braiding her hair. She seems to be making six plaits; three are already done. As Skorri watches, Jolder combs her fingers through the loose hair, and pulls out strands for a fourth braid. Efrideet makes a small, catlike noise of contentment.

It's no way to end a song of glory in war, and Skorri leaves the moment out of her verses. But she thinks of it again, in the days after Efrideet disappears.

A Song for Jolder's Tomb

In days to come, they'll sing of the Iron Lords battling SIVA.

Skorri doubts that now.

Songs are passed from mouth to mouth—like kisses, but with a lot less jealousy when you share them around—and there's no one coming out of here alive.

The swarms of SIVA mites swirl overhead in streams, like flocks of angry crimson birds. Gunshots rattle and boom; explosions flash in the distance. Skorri can hear the shouts of the Iron Lords still fighting. But there's no more fight left in Skorri; her legs aren't working at all, and she can only faintly twitch her hands. It's probably something to do with the red tendrils clinging to her robes, writhing at the edges of her vision. She's not sure if her Ghost is still ~consume enhance replicate~

~consume enhance replicate~

It's a short and boring chorus. No bard worth a pinch of salt would write it. SIVA doesn't deserve to defeat them if it can't outsing them.

But Skorri can't sing anything at all now. She tries, but her tongue is a dry, dead weight in her mouth, and every time she tries to link words together, they turn into ~consume enhance replicate~

Jolder lies sprawled beside her, helmet cracked. But as Skorri watches, she shudders and wakes. She pulls the ruined helmet from her head and staggers to her feet, hefting a machine gun with stubborn courage.

There will be no songs of it.

Skorri knows this. Because she's dead. And there aren't any songs left in her head.

Haha, a rhyme!

But she wishes there were. She wishes she could sing, and have the world hear the song of Jolder as she looks around the bunker, sees the last, desperate battle—so many dead already—and knows what to do. As she readies the charges.

Skorri hums, a soft, broken noise deep in her throat. She remembers sunlight glistening off Jolder's red hair as she braided Efrideet's. That moment had never been put in a song either. If only she'd found a rhyme for it. If only Efrideet had come back. If only they could have seen the sunlight again.

If only.

The explosion is searing light and utter silence.

Reprise

A Titan and a Warlock sit together in the late afternoon sunshine, guns in their laps, a pile of half-dead SIVA parts lying between them. It's a grisly business, upgrading their weapons with the things they have killed, but it's what Guardians do. The Warlock thinks it's appropriate: as the Traveller plundered their dead souls to make warriors, they plunder their dead enemies to make weapons. The Titan thinks she'll strap any dead thing to her gun, if it lets her strike harder against the Dark.

"What's that you're humming?" the Titan asks.

"Was I?" asks the Warlock, startled. She pauses, then softly hums another few notes.

"A bit mournful," says the Titan, peering down the sights of her scout rifle.

"I don't know where I heard it," says the Warlock. "But since the Iron Tomb . . . I can't seem to get it out of my head."

Lore note: in the Iron Tomb mission, Saladin says that until SIVA, he hadn't known anyone with the Traveller's light could die. But the Lord Felwinter Grimoire card shows Felwinter intentionally permakilling a warlord by shooting his Ghost. It's also implied as a known danger in the Lady Jolder card. So I've decided to assume that Saladin was speaking more loosely, and just meant he hadn't really believed his friends would die.

There is no reason to believe Efrideet was a berserker besides Jolder's remark that "she fights better when she's angry" and the story about Efrideet using Saladin as a javelin. Which is not evidence at all; I just thought it was an interesting direction to explore.

In conclusion: I <3 Skorri.

#destiny #lady jolder #lady skorri #lady efrideet #rise of iron #fanfic #my fic

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