ochrefic

[ochrefic]

hol up ELECTROCRUCIFIX AU??????

how much longer are u gonna torture John 😭

(seriously tho, that au sounds super interesting omg i love ur fics❤️)

i'll never stop

(however, although electrocrucifixion is basically exactly what it sounds like, a lot of the actual fic is about john sort-of-kind-of recovering from all that. the rest of the actual fic is about alex and eliza's slowburn traumatized romance)

[ochrefic]

where can I read more about ur au’s? They sound rlly interesting!!

on my new blog to which i will not link because i'm trying to keep an irl friend from finding it! you can probably find it by looking around in the fandom, the header & vibes are pretty similar. hoping to do some more au talk there soon. (also ty so much!!!!)

also if you send me asks about my aus i Will answer them with so much enthusiasm and joy. asks are my livelihood

[ochrefic]

more sin-eater talk (also, there are excerpts on the new blog!)

when he meets john, alex has been in the american foster care system for several years

he hates it with every fiber of his being

the second he meets his foster family he hates them too

this town is weird. these people are weird. all of them are so devout and he refuses to go along with it

he's going to wear his punk jacket covered in pride patches to school, because fuck all of you

john has been a sin-eater for years and is repulsive to everyone around him. he has no friends. his siblings sort of love him but it is very hard to be attached to your brother when being in his presence makes you want to throw up and also you are like nine years old. his mother tries to spend time with him anyway. his father mostly doesn't

alex is magicblind and has no idea anything is wrong with john

he sits next to him, and then spends the rest of the day following him around because john did not explicitly reject his attempts at friendship

(john is trying to figure out what the fuck this guy's angle is)

alex, eating lunch and verbally eviscerating this school: john, internally: he's a heathen outsider so this can't be about demonstrating his moral worth or compassion by befriending me. what on earth is this? why is he pretending i am not vile and disgusting? how is he managing to eat while i'm here? who is this kid

(by the time john actually asks about it, and then explains what a sin-eater is, and then defends his religious beliefs for an hour, alex has decided to throw in his lot with john. as part of a complicated strategic plan, obviously, and not because he's attracted to him)

(alex is rather displeased that he's apparently into straightlaced nice young men with secret cores of rage and resentment which they try very hard not to show)

(he thinks a regular amount about messing up john's perfect golden hair)

[ochrefic]

update: a new blog has been made! not posting the url, because one (1) irl friend knows about do not want her to see the stuff that’s going to go up on the new one unless she’s going to get really cool about a whole bunch of stuff really quickly. i’ll probably post a couple more things here in the next few days but after that it’s on to weirder pastures

find the new blog by sending a non-anonymous ask here, or by looking for the user posting batshit crazy excerpts in the amrev tag

(one (1) irl friend: don’t look for the new blog i am so serious about this)

posting again without rhyme or reason. dying of stress. considering making a new blog. have some excerpts from various aus that may never get finished. this collage is called 'john laurens is going the fuck through it'

[ochrefic]

Tell us about the sin-eater AU!

anon you complete me

this barely even discusses the actual story because there’s so much setup. the sin eater au has very complicated lore for something which is mostly about everyone suffering a lot. i apologize in advance

this is a modern world with magic, but it’s not very powerful. the average person mostly interacts with it in the form of purchased physical objects. the average person is able to sense magic— for instance, walking up to an enchanted object, one can likely sense the power, the temperament, and the purpose of the enchantment. they can also tell some things about other people’s internal magic.

everyone has internal magic. if you don’t it is because you are dead. your internal magic is affected by a lot of things. sometimes your physical health but mostly mental nonsense*. it can get corrupted due to the aforementioned mental nonsense, which is a tiny bit unfun.

(*this is debated** in-universe, we will come back to that in a later post)

(**"debated", we’ll come back to that in a later post)

the vast majority of people cannot do anything with their internal magic. they have no way to access it in a conscious manner. a few people are able to consciously access their magic— “magic users”.. this is sort of but not totally genetic, but in any case you cannot become a magic user on purpose. you have it or you don’t.

having access to your internal magic is mostly not a good thing. there are very few Actual Magicians because trying to do anything notable with it means studying it as a discipline, which is like learning engineering and law at the same time while going to trade school on the weekends. if you don’t want to go to superhell college, you can practice a reasonable amount and then you can do silly little party tricks. which is cool and fun!

however.

a person’s body can only contain so much magic. if you are normal and don’t have any way to consciously access yours, your body handles it for you— you’ll gradually produce more if you lose it, you won’t end up with more magic than you’re supposed to have, everything will be chill and fine.

if you are a magic user, you are theoretically capable of decreasing your internal magic via performing spells, so your body decides not to be helpful. if you have somehow acquired too much magic, you gotta get rid of it on your own.

magic users can mess with the magic of non-users. you can give magic to someone or take it away from them.

again, normal people can’t use their own magic but can perceive the magic inside of objects or other organisms. some people can use magic, which may not be good for them. here’s a third category for you to remember: a small number of people are completely unable to perceive magic at all— they are “magicblind”. this is mostly not a problem.

*****

after Many Words, we have arrived at the prologue.

john’s family belongs to a religious community which is toeing the line between “slightly weird people with unethical beliefs” and “cult”. they are christian but most of their theological beliefs aren’t super relevant

things they believe which are relevant and (very) controversial:

magic is ‘witchcraft’, which means it is evil and bad.

having corrupted magic is a sign of having sinned, and to cleanse yourself of that sin you must remove the corrupted magic.

being a magic user means that you have been chosen to act as the eater of sin for your community; this is, supposedly an honor. it is your duty to listen to the wrongdoings of your community members, to take their corrupted magic from them, and to keep it inside yourself literally forever. you are not allowed to say no.

john was eleven when he finally got caught shaking sparks from the ends of his fingers. he was twelve when he started taking sins. he was twelve, and the parents of his schoolmates were telling him about how they drink too much and they yell at their wife and they beat their children and they wish their spouse was dead, and he would take their hands and look them in the eyes and scoop out the rotten twisted bits of their magic and bury them inside himself as deeply as he could.

after a while it started to show no matter how much he tried to hide it. corrupted magic doesn’t smell, exactly, but it produces a similar sense of repulsion. his schoolmates began to look at him with disgust. their parents began to fear him. he moves his bedroom to the top floor of the house because his aura keeps his siblings from falling asleep. his mother doesn't touch him anymore.

it began to make him sick, eventually. it is a sickness that cannot be chased away, and one for which he gets no sympathy. it is a duty and it is an honor and he does as he is told. he is resigned to it. but it is a very lonely and painful path to walk. he cannot imagine anything else, but there is very little light left in his days. other than duty there is very little left to live for.

until the new foster kid with flyaway hair and ripped denim trousers sits next to him without seeming even to notice what he is.

[ochrefic]

posting again without rhyme or reason. dying of stress. considering making a new blog. have some excerpts from various aus that may never get finished. this collage is called 'john laurens is going the fuck through it'

[ochrefic]

it's always so fascinating and heartbreaking when a character in a story is simultaneously idolized and abused. a chosen prophet destined for martyrdom. a child prodigy forced to grow up too fast. a powerful warrior raised as nothing but a weapon. there's just something so uniquely messed up about singing someone's praises whilst destroying them.

[ochrefic]

Totally anonymous request hehehehehe

✨John Laurens✨

(any kind of suffering of your choice, be it physical or emotional)

not sure if he's really suffering, im sorry

[ochrefic]

:(

[ochrefic]

A dauntless bravery was the least of [Laurens'] virtues, and an excess of it his greatest foible. […] This excellent young man, who was the pride of his country, the idol of the army, and an ornament of human nature, lost his life in the 27th year of his age, in an unimportant skirmish with a foraging party, in the very last moments of the war.

David Ramsay, A History of the American Revolution: Volume 2 (1789)

[ochrefic]

they are standing in the garden…

[ochrefic]

what if i started posting excerpts regularly

[ochrefic]

random extra: alex why is your boyfriend so weird what is up with him and his bizarre habits and weird mannerisms and accent unlike any language i've ever heard and the giant fur coat he wears everywhere in the middle of summer

alex:

alex: he's canadian

[ochrefic]

John hadn’t yet been blooming when they’d met, but he’d already been infected; the last planting had been two months before she and her family arrived. At the meeting he’d worn three charms on his necklace; he was young to have become a full member, and her mother had said in low tones that the congregation here was somewhat unorthodox, even if they did still cloak.

Welcome to the final word game of the year! This week’s word is…

✨ LAST ✨

Find the word in any WIP and share the sentence containing it. Play how you want: reply, reblog, stick it in the tags, tag us in a new post, or keep it private.

[ochrefic]

"i guess i take after my mother..."

-

on october 6th, 1794, Mary Eleanor Laurens ("Polly") passed away at the young age of 24, a few weeks after having her last child. her sister Martha ("Patsy") wrote that she had "been generally delirious" and "her speech so thickened, that though she attempted it in the intervals of reason, she never could make us understand what she wished to say to us (...) my heart is too full to write on this subject."

Polly followed a very similar fate as her own mother Eleanor, who passed away in 1770, some weeks after Polly was born.

[ochrefic]

You should try drawing Jemmy as an adult if he lived! (Just a suggestion no pressure ^^)

ANON THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY AND YES OF COURSE. thank you for suggesting it whoever you are i love u 😭😭 IM DEFINITELY DOING IT

[ochrefic]

i forgot to post again, because i am So Busy and also So Tired. but. (psttt @slowlydescendingintomadness thank you for enabling me)

ghost thoughts: what if scary awful ghost alex and investigators slash exorcists eliza and john, and they get hired to get rid of him but end up just fucking stealing him and not at all being gay about it in the slightest

monster thoughts: well, you see, shapeshifters are cool. and my ot3 is cool. therefore what if they were all shapeshifters.

possession: the tenderness of cohabitation in a single body,,,,,,, the intimacy of sharing your entire self with someone and knowing they know you inside and out the blessing of having a vessel that loves you

hanahaki: what if weird vaguely christian cult around the idea that eating hanahaki flowers will bring you eternal life, which intentionally infects teenagers and tries to get them to fall in love despite the fact that they will probably die

hi does anyone remember i exist