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hollyhuedsoul · 11 days ago

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Baseline for a Cultist Simulator / Soul Eater AU : A Sheet of Short Concept Introductions

Warning to all who enter : content ahead discusses blood, implications of ritualistic self harm, murder, the occult, the like, and, like all of this blog – is not intended for minors.

The characters within are being depicted and are to be interpreted as adults in this au, and there may be light spoilers for Cultist Simulator within. Nothing major or clearly defined, and hopefully nothing to restrict your interests in trying out my most beloved game of all time, should this snippet catch your interest.

Alright, enough of my blabbering :

- Mr. Soleil 'Soul' Evans (Bright Young Thing)

The second-borne son of a man caught in too many affairs of the pocket and the thirst. Blood of a lord, inheriting not his title, but a little more than could be bargained for.

Amongst the high-bred, Soul is a cold mare, but along the still-water streets and the shade of home, he is in true form, a mulish man kicking off the shackles of one's best Sunday dress. A pianist, an artist – the struggling lot plagued by dreams that would leave good men asking him unfortunate questions.

There are many who would seek to lead such an individual to unknown crossroads, especially as his original path of luxurious meandering falls short; his proud, regal father falls to delirium and disease. A man dying, then dead, his coffers cleaned by numbers of unspoken oaths that escaped all but debtors' notice. What remains is mostly for his brother and his mother's comforts. For himself, a small dowry. A heavy sentence of responsibility to replenish. To settle into a skin that doesn't suit him.

One clue, a hint of what knife has butchered Soul's inheritance, however, remains for him to decipher. A letter addressing many names, but all the same, the same, singular woman. Demands pleading for more time. More chances. Speaking of all the funds that had fallen from a dying man's throat into her greased palm. Cursing her in all of her names and writing 'the harpies' upon her.

If Soul should seek answers and restitution, he must first prepare himself to find the proper door, and, the means to knock. But as he shall learn, not all doors are of wood.

Some are wounds.

- Miss Albarn (The Benefactor)

A librarian that burns cigarette scars into midnight lounges when the thirst takes her, and indulges in tongues living people do not speak in when hunger nears. She funds those willing to seek words she has not yet tasted, acts as a translator for those without lantern light to read beside, and is a discreet collector of things the Bureau would prefer be burnt.

She is as various as her possessions and seven times as unknowable, a bearer of many a nom de guerre. Both the wine and the glass. The gleaming microscope and the bloody rot inspected.

No one seems to know where Miss Albarn came from, nor what her father became or where her mother went. This is a rare part of the histories she does not record with much scholarly discipline.

She is as kind as the sun. She is illuminating and bright, and she grows brighter still. One day, she hopes that the sky might open for her, too, if she can gain enough sway in the ports people do not visit, and the house that takes only sleeping guests and waking residents.

Until then, she guides the unfortunate. Making skulls of flesh into glass, flesh into pigment, hair into plumage.

Most regrettably, Miss Albarn can not dream. Unlike her contemporaries, she tries.

- Elizabeth 'Liz' Thompson (The Runner)

A daughter of the streets, descendant of some ancient fueds between colonels and their war machines. A child of struggle. An orphan. Older of two. Parent to herself and one younger.

For many years, she has worked and lived in odd jobs. Anything to get away from the cold, to stay out of the winter seasons and their ailments. Anything to keep her sister, Patty, up and pretty in the Gaiety, dancing as she so longed to. They did not both have to follow the city's edges, after all. Even if it kept Liz sharp, at least Patty could become fond of softer things.

But so it came, that softness, so unlike the cool bricks of alleyways. Pearls, fur coats, good bread, wine, and the letters. The trinkets of the younger Thompson's admirers, bearing those golden strings of expectations and new dangers. Benefactors are of fickle hearts, and even the pampered bear claws one must be mindful of, should such beasts not be entertained.

Liz was intolerable of it. In such circumstances, she could forget her fear of hunger, her hatred of the cold. Between them and her sister, those things didn't exist at all. It was quite simple really, putting a lump of lead between the seeing and thinking halves of a man.

What was in his parlor for the two sisters to abscond with, was not so simple, however.

Now, she has to run. It's all she can do.

- Patricia 'Patty' Thompson (The Dancer)

A flittering, eccentric woman from one whim to the next, she's been reared to tolerate the pain as long as she can make the leap, all with a smile to pair and the heart to match. Affected by an infectious source of optimism otherwise only found in her vivid dreams, Patty talks an awful lot of giraffes, trees, burrowing moles, and cuts her hair in snippets before rest.

She's lived many years at the Gaiety out of passion, her sister's support, and the determination to see Liz in a nice dress, if nothing else. Torn ligaments could never amount to much, compared to the delight of bringing home fresh meats and good cheeses with funny names.

Not ignorant by any means, the younger Thompson fashions herself a person of the moment, not yesterday or tomorrow, but the less-than-lucid joy of the most current daydream. And sometime in some yesterday long passed by now, a man demanded her interest and earned two denials. The first, knocking him onto his own floor and, the second, from the eldest Thompson, leaving him there to seep. She wouldn't commit much of it to memory, if not for the painting in the foyer.

Only then did she begin to learn the Names and put to mind the Hours, as figures peeled themselves away from white paint and gave her whispers, promises, and pleasant phrases. Gave weight and providence to what was before, childish wandering.

Patty now dances at the Ecdysis Club, and she fashions herself as a woman who will never stop dancing. She dreams of droves and ever-beating, pounding feet, of red hands, and a thunder under her skin. When the night is most fluttering and feeling, she does as the painting had, and peels away her layers. Peels until the audience, too, hears the endless storm.

At the end of the night, she collects pigments only she can produce. And by moonlight, she paints herself unceasing.

- 'The Pale Prince'

"... is of great notage, that this piece was crafted in 888, by eight different, unnamed artists who only addressed each other by different variations and means of saying, 'eight'. One, by tally, the second by doodles of seeds, third used military ranks...

The age is indicated by the materials used, and the related records passed between those responsible. Eight-hundreded and eighty-eight letters in all, discovered. Each, recovered miraculously well-preserved in sites from modern Italy to China, Peru to Brazil, several crates buried in Antarctica or Afghanistan, tablets of stone in Greece and Congo...

The style, however, is unlike anything resembling the era's movements, and the content it depicts raises more questions than I fear I will ever be able to answer. The painting depicts a man in a suit, dress pants, leather shoes. Very pale. Of course, I needn't explain to you how unusual this discovery is, but I shall, as it suits me, detail that...

Unfortunately, the Bureau began to dig for the painting's destruction during my last year at the institution. I must confess, I dearly suspect that, my colleague, Mr. Elias Crow, purposefully 'lost' the piece to prevent such an outcome.

I do also, confess, many personal doubts that the Bureau would possess even the correct means to do so properly. In the seven years I spent in its company, I found the thing most delightfully fascinating, and wrathful. And yes, I mean wrathful. Fitfull, even. Petty, like a creature. Something with cold breath.

Our first director, Mr. Eugene Shelly, happened to sneeze upon it, most regrettably amidst an examination. I can still recall each tiny infraction, the tiniest daps of...

They never did find all the pieces of Mr. Shelly. No, he was a bit scattered much like having been 'sneezed' himself. The first seven days passed by fine enough, his flu even improved, but on the eighth he took to the most inspirational mania I had ever been second-hand to, many thanks to his poor wife who confided in my person.

He had been shoving pen tips between his knuckles to wring out vital pigments from the skin, and drinking white paint..."

- 'Black Star' (The Long Forgotten)

Some people forget who they are, before they find out in the first place. But some cling to the gusto of their being, like a stain in the skin. The man who named himself after the tattoo he bears, has ideas, hints, pictures, ambitions... just not the whole frame of his own being.

A patient of Dr. Nakatsukasa, if you inquired with the hospital. Showed up one night, soaked from head to toe in a strange water, unlike the rain or any sort of tide along the harbor. A good friend, if you asked the woman herself. And perhaps unlike most folks, there is less of a bedside manner in her voice when she says as much. But, a right fool and pest, to most. Kinless and without modern manners.

But no matter, Black Star knows he is destined for some manner of greatness. Often to be found raving and looning about surpassing 'god' as both the individual and the idea – the man with no memory or name holds an air of immense strength, hands that could bend iron, and often the voice of a striking, insistent hammer.

He behaves enough of himself to labor and repay the good doctor for housing him, but his words cause much grief with the Bureau at all hours.

As it should, really. He's determined to recall himself, and he's finding the right books, getting her in trouble. Leading her to learn what he has been forced to forget. All the while, those that had once forgotten him, now perceive Black Star, and they have their inklings of his kind. Those who go into the noon and never return, for in London, they have never been in the first place.

- Dr. Tsubaki Nakatsukasa (The Physician)

The hospital is often cold, even with the blankets she brings. Even with the bouquets she prepares for those without guests. Even with the kind words she does her best to utter tenderly, amidst each passing. It was a chill in her bones that brought the good doctor to do the work she did. A hope to let the end fall sweetly, and be warm.

But there are still things people say about the road to hell, and it being paved with good intentions. About how you shouldn't humor raving men with no memories too deeply, or follow a dying patient's last wish to the home of a strange librarian, or treat a nameless woman for stab wounds in the middle of the night.

- Inspector Crona Gordon (The Detective)

When she looks at the sun now, she sees it bleed.

Tsubaki has become quieter than ever before.

They 'would do a great job', they said. They 'needed all the inspectors they could get out there' they said. 'They weren't born to push parking tickets' they said.

But couldn't someone ELSE deal with all these people?! They didn't know how to deal with dancers who tore their own skin off, or women who put jewels under their tongues and threw up snakes, or librarians with glowing eyes! It never got easier!

But, such is the life of a member of the Suppression Bureau. Especially as the child of the hydra's sole, remaining head; as Director Gordon's only child.

There was an obligation in their blood to root out 'complications'. Find evidence, write it into the most damning light according to the rules the other rules allowed, lock the suspect away - the idea in itself was rather simple. If Crona was efficient, they'd never even have to arrest the suspect themselves! It was having to find these secrets, bare their mind to the most heinous acts of mankind, again and again, that was hard. Hard to talk to so many people, hard to keep running into those hard stares and on top of it all, deal with Ragnarok at the same time...

And now, there was this doctor, and the cabaret dancer, and an assassin, and they had the painting, and there was a guy that didn't exist on record, and that creepy woman ‐ there were too many to keep track of! Why couldn't Inspector Liber, or

#minors dni #cultist simulator au #cultsim #soul eater au #soul eater #soul evans #maka albarn #liz thompson #patty thompson #death the kid #crona gorgon #cw cults #cw ritual harm

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