lyrelarkisforthebirds

[lyrelarkisforthebirds]

“Yes, actually. I do know a thing about prophecies."

And with just a few days left before the New Year, I've finished my Toronto Horror project, a set of five playable Arkham Horror investigators inspired by Wildbow's Pact. Rounding out the set is Maggie Holt—everyone's favorite scarf-wearer, goblin-wrangler, and victim of identity theft. 👾

Maggie's cards play with doom, a resource which Arkham Horror uses to track the lurching approach of calamity. Typically doom is a very bad thing... but for Maggie, it's a resource. Playing as Maggie, you ride the line between scrappy success and catastrophic failure.

A huge thank you to the following illustrators and photographers below. I couldn't make these cards without your art! 🔮💜

Maggie Holt: Sandara.

Pipe Shotgun: Elko.

Buttsack's Rune: Kurt Evald Noer.

Thrice Over: Ionsheep.

Other Pact + Arkham Horror designs:

Laird Behaim.

Rose Thorburn Jr.

Fell Atwell.

Blake Thorburn.

[lyrelarkisforthebirds]

"You have been wronged, tore up since birth. You have done harm, others have done worse."

In a world where the devil's in the details, even a brush the infernal is enough to damn you. Unfortunately for Rose, while she may not have chosen the diabolist life, her grandmother sure did. With the combined forces of seven hells, two Canadian cities, and one demonic law firm after her, Rose Thorburn Jr. only has one choice: execute her will. 🔑

Rose Thorburn Jr. is the fourth Toronto Horror character, a set of five playable Arkham Horror investigators inspired by Wildbow's Pact.

Playing as Rose means bearing the burden of an occult inheritance—an inheritance which may damn her when old enemies come to collect. Playing as Rose, the odds are stacked against you.

A huge thank you to all the artists below. We're making it out of karmic debt with this one, folks! 🌙💛

Rose Thorburn Jr.: @0re and Ilona Langbroek.

All three Inheritance foregrounds: @glowspider.

The Barber in the Attic: @v-wind.

The Lord of Toronto: Praust.

The Devil You Know: Grizz.

The backgrounds on nearly all of these: M.Y.

Other Pact + Arkham Horror designs:

Laird Behaim.

Fell Atwell.

Maggie Holt.

Blake Thorburn.

[lyrelarkisforthebirds]

A few Arkham Horror cards reskinned to feature god's wettest, soggiest, most devastatingly-handsome blorbo: Blake Thorburn.

Featuring art by the very talented and cool @glowspider, whose life-changing Pact AMV art I shamelessly plundered (with permission) for these cards.

[lyrelarkisforthebirds]

Laird Behaim doesn't alter time itself. That would be insane. Laird alters the perception of time. Lost hours, dulled senses, mental quicksand—these are a chronomancer's weapons. At the head of his family, Laird's position is more secure than ever. Yet the old police chief can hear the bells toll. Ten, eleven, twel— 🌃

Laird is the third Toronto Horror character, a set of five playable Arkham Horror investigators inspired by Wildbow's Pact. Laird's cards lean towards collecting assets and solving problems indirectly. Playing as Laird, your aim is control.

A huge thank you to v-wind and Elie Smolkin for the art on this one! The Behaim Circle is in your debt. 📘💙

Laird Behaim and Eleventh Hour art: @v-wind.

Zeitgeist hand and pocketwatch: Elie Smolkin.

Zeigeist background: @v-wind again!

Other Pact + Arkham Horror designs:

Rose Thorburn Jr.

Fell Atwell.

Maggie Holt.

Blake Thorburn.

[lyrelarkisforthebirds]

“Fell, you creepy-ass gun-toting bitch of Conquest, I summon you.”

For years now, Fell Atwell has been my favorite Fargo character disguised as a Pact character. But where has Conquest's best-dressed servant found himself now? Nowhere less than the sleepy town of Dunwich, of course! 🌲

Fell is the second Toronto Horror character, a set of five playable Arkham Horror investigators inspired by Wildbow's Pact. Fell's gameplay leans towards evasion and misdirection. When Conquest wants violence, he sends a soldier. When Conquest wants subtlety, he sends Fell.

A huge thanks to the contributing artists. You're the magic incantation to my pouch of sand. 🦎💚

Fell Atwell art: @ishdaj.

Pouch of Sand art: J.H. Williams III and Dave Stewart.

Family Business art: @senviva.

Other Pact + Arkham Horror designs:

Laird Behaim.

Rose Thorburn Jr.

Maggie Holt.

Blake Thorburn.

[lyrelarkisforthebirds]

Who is Blake Thorburn? That's an easy one. Blake is a simple man. The sort of guy who knows how to use a set of tools. The kinda dude who's sick of beans and low on karma. Character witness @rainfrazier, describes Mr. Thorburn as "the most hated man in all of Canada." Oh how those pines and maples grow... 🇨🇦

Blake is the first Toronto Horror character, a set of five playable Arkham Horror investigators inspired by Wildbow's Pact. Blake's cards lean towards a play-style that manages threats in a risky way. Playing as Blake, the Abyss is never far.

A huge thanks to the contributing artists. These cards wouldn't be the same without your work. 🐞❤️

Blake Thorburn art: @redtailfins.

June art: @mikezeddart.

Dead Branches art: @deadbirdlife.

Other Pact + Arkham Horror designs:

Laird Behaim.

Rose Thorburn Jr.

Fell Atwell.

Maggie Holt.

[lyrelarkisforthebirds]

Fair take! I definitely agree that in Worm, the Yangban depict China in an incredibly stereotypical and racist way. I also agree that their whole “powers distributed across the group” schtick is a ham-handed metaphor for communism.

That said, in my own reading Ward, I came to a completely different conclusion regarding Teacher. To me, Teacher’s operation is a dead-ringer for capitalist/corporatist infrastructure, rather than communist infrastructure.

Teacher offers work, training, and lodging in exchange for total diminishment of the self and a complete adherence to a rigid hierarchy. If you need work, Teacher is happy to invite you to his Fordlandia-style factory town. He’ll even give you all the training you need! You just can’t ever leave and pretty soon you won’t want to (once you’ve drank the corporate Kool-Aid, that is). Work life is paramount! Don’t you want to be a contributing member of the team? Scratch that—the family?

Critically, the hierarchy Teacher establishes is not something he discusses in political/philosophical terms—Teacher doesn’t make any sweeping speeches about rising up, elevating the masses, securing justice, etc. In other words, Teacher doesn’t talk like a stereotypical “collectivist villain.” Instead, Teacher talks about efficiency, results, and goals. He talks like an executive running a company.

In the interlude where Teacher is attempting to recruit Scapegoat, Teacher pulls a classic salesman routine—making it all about what Teacher can offer to Scapegoat, in terms of personal power and benefits. This isn’t the energy of a revolutionary leader, it’s the energy of someone who knows what to say when he calls up a potential client (or a valuable hire).

Also worth considering are aesthetics: in Ward, Teacher’s base is a sprawling complex of cubicles, computers, and a few panopticons sprinkled in for good measure. If I recall correctly, Teacher’s henchmen dress like office workers—white shirts, black pants, ties (but the details are fuzzy and I may be totally off about this—please correct me if so). To me, these factors make his space read as an exaggerated version of an office building. Only thing missing are the water coolers.

The space itself is also interesting in that Teacher built his base within the ruins of Cauldron’s base. On an in-universe level, the imagery here is clear: Teacher sees his operation as a successor to Cauldron. On an impressionistic level, I’m not 100% sure what to make of this. If Cauldron resembles Cold War-era CIA (world-spanning influence, fingers in United States government, frequently meddles/abducts/murders citizens of other countries/worlds, fixated on countering a perceived existential threat) then I think Teacher resembles a more 21st-century take on surveillance, domination, and exploitation. In some ways he’s more out in the open, in other ways he’s even better hidden. His methods are highly technological. He deals in data and manipulates the cloud. In a certain sense, there’s even a Silicon Valley aspect to teacher—something especially highlighted during Ward’s digital gaslighting/cyberbullying arc.

This brings us to the Yangban and what they’re up to during the events of Ward. If Worm is saying that “Yangban = Chinese Communism,” then what does their incorporation into Teacher’s operation during Ward mean? Especially since, by the time of Ward, the Yangban no longer works for the CUI. With their national ties have severed and their capes assimilated, do the Yangban still reflect China?

Within the reading of Teacher as a metaphor for corporate hierarchy (crossed with a splash of surveillance state vibes), I feel the Yangban’s presence in the story reflects real-life China’s turn towards state-managed capitalism over communism. The integration of the Yangban’s methods into Teacher’s organization don’t indicate that Teacher is communist, they reflect the way that the United States is economically dependent on China. To Teacher, the Yangban represent organization assets—they're (corporate) assets which help him acquire, distribute, and exert power(s).

With all this in mind, I’d like to examine Teacher's ultimate goal within Ward—the mission he’s working towards. Teacher can see that something is wrong with shardspace and he wants to fix it, but his vision for the future is to seize direct, personal control of the mainframe. Teacher believes that he is uniquely suited to interfacing-with and controlling the reins of the stars. He’s an egoist, and worse, he’s an egoist being enabled by a network of functionaries below him—functionaries who continue to enable him because Teacher has built a hierarchy within which these functionaries are materially dependent upon him. It doesn’t matter how much these people want to leave (if their programming hasn’t already progressed past the point of regrets), they have to keep working for their boss. And yet ironically, Teacher offers no skills himself. It’s not Teacher who can Think or Tink or Blast or Strike—he just knows how to hire and position the people who can. By himself, Teacher is nothing, but that won’t stop him from taking all the credit.

(Teacher is a tech billionaire.)

Okay I know Teacher is supposed to be playing off of the scary collectivist villain you'd see so often in old comics and sci-fi. He's got a bit of IT, a bit of the Ascians, all the hits. But did we need to hammer the anti-communist aspect home by having the Yangban working for him.

[lyrelarkisforthebirds]

Just accidentally sold a friend of mind on Twig by sharing with him an out-of-context screenshot of a Jamie/Sy scene. I thought he’d simply find the scene charming and we’d move on. Instead, now he has a link to Taking Root 1.1.

My friend says he’s never heard of biopunk and that he’s not too familiar with body horror.

Have I committed a sin?

[lyrelarkisforthebirds]

Taylor likes the edge pieces because chewing on the tougher/more burned parts of a brownie gives is one of the only things which can soothe her constant, skittering anxiety.

Victoria enjoys the center because standing by the edge of the room can indicate submission which isn’t what a cape needs to be signaling nor is it a good habit in general and her mother always would always say…

Sy isn’t so much interested in which of the brownie *he* gets, per say, it’s more about which parts *you* don’t get.

Blake is fine with his beans, thanks.

I haven’t read Pale yet but I imagine that they three of them would be quite good at sharing idk. 🤷

okay i'm curious i want to see if the skew is as extreme as i would assume it would be

[lyrelarkisforthebirds]

love my aliveboy detectives

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” he said.

(only on arc 11 so no spoilers please)

[lyrelarkisforthebirds]

twig is a DoaWK au

[lyrelarkisforthebirds]

god i LOVE pattern recognition

uhm. uhm. think I jusr had a tinker fugue

so, observation, huh? was veeery tempted to fit the simurgh in somehow but three headshots were enough.

[lyrelarkisforthebirds]

so long. (and) thanks for all the fish.

You meet god and she's mostly dead fish. You ask her why and she says most of the world is dead fish, and she's made herself to appeal to the most common denominator, the everyman funnyman comedy show that runs for eleven seasons but with the entire universe in mind. You ask her how much of the dead fish is your fault, she says it's far less than you'd think, in the grand scheme of things. You ask her if you matter at all. If you can do anything. She shrugs her rotting shoulders and says mattering is a made-up concept, like life, but sure, you can matter if you want to, on some scale. She has many scales. She doesn't know what you mean by 'anything', but you can do everything you can. You ask her if it's enough. She says there's no base requirement for deserving to exist. She's smoking a joint and the smoke filtering out of her gills gathers and forms gas giants and red dwarfs. You ask her if there's any hidden secrets of the universe you should know and she says it's not a secret if she tells, plus it's fun to let you figure it out yourself. You ask her if any of your questions were right questions and she says you worry about being right so much it might keep you from fucking around, which is as close to meaning of life as she ever bothered to make. You don't ask but she says she loves your hair, also your whole being, also your planet. She says she figured out what love is yesterday and is trying it out, which explains the ten thousand rainbows and sudden influx in rains of fish. She offers you a drag of her joint and you wake up half past midnight behind a chain restaurant clutching a smoked salmon. The new stars are winking like they're in on some joke and you're sure if you try hard enough you'll remember what it is.

[lyrelarkisforthebirds]

Trying to power through and finish my shitty little doodles of wildbow characters dressed up for Halloween by thinking of how much Lisa would like to dress up as Beatrice.