#I'll post more acoll soon

[yolowritter]

Plagg's past holder is...Not Great™

Hello there everyone, and welcome back to another post! This here is a little something I cooked up for Plagg in "A Case of Ladybug Luck". To give some context, I very much consider the Kwami to be Gods, and treat them like it. So when the story moved towards exploring them further, I decided to write a piece of Plagg with a past holder. Yes, Sullivan's name is a Dark Souls 3 reference. I'm a nerd, sue me. Actually don't, I can barely pay for my readers' therapy. Anyway, this can be read as a standalone, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to post! Enjoy!

Trigger Warnings: Emotional manipulation, extreme apathy, plague and disease, and mass-genocide. Abusing Cataclysm is very dangerous to others.

A man sits on an old throne, inside a forgotten, crumbling keep. The roof has long caved in on one side of the chamber, letting the rain and thunder slip through the many cracks. The halls of this castle are silent, without so much as the squeak of a mouse to interrupt the heavy breathing echoing in the wind. His face is covered by a cracked helmet, one adorned with the faceplate of a panther’s skull. And the rest of the body rests inside an ever-rusting suit of black plated armor, decorated at the knees and shoulders by silver claws. Those very arms extend to wrap around the body, as if in a tired, pointless gesture of protection. Pontiff Sullivan sits upon his dusty throne on an eerily quiet night, with only the occasional strike of thunder to shatter the silence.

Beyond what tired eyes can see lies the rest of the keep, a forgotten Lord’s castle than once stood tall and proud. Moss and tangled vines have begun growing on the exterior walls, most of the windows blown to pieces by howling winds, and not a single soul’s footprint to be found. Rather, all Plagg can see with his endless eyes are the harsh claw marks on the ground, another result of his master’s choice of adornment. On the bottom side of Sullivan’s boots lay the jagged claws of a fierce black panther, a terrifying beast whose presence haunts every speck of air the God of Destruction can perceive. By his rough estimate, Plagg guesses it must have been at least two decades since even a stay cat set foot inside this old keep, at the top of a small hill overlooking a small town. Even the massive greatsword laying against the throne’s arm has been gathering dust, slowly eroding with the passage of time.

His master does nothing but sit on this very spot, has not moved in what the Kwami thinks may be weeks or even longer. All ‘round the ancient castle lay dark scorch marks of pure Destruction, one of which is visible through a half-crumbled wall just a few halls away. The howling winds continue to tear the keep apart one stone brick at a time, and Plagg is left only with memories. He recalls the battlefield, those very fields just outside the main gate. Said former testament to human engineering now lies ajar, with worms slowly eating at the wood it’s mad of. But once, many years ago, it had been the sight of war. Sullivan, then a young and determined knight, had finally gathered whichever friends could be mustered to retake his ancestral home from the boy’s uncle. Plagg cannot remember for the life of him if they were actually ever related by blood. Yet…the Kwami cannot find reason for the detail to matter. No, instead his jumps to Sullivan’s bravery and courage, to the sheer presence of shining gold that almost three hundred men had rallied behind. A kind smile and encouraging words had appealed to morals and knightly conviction once, the same features now lay hidden behind a faceless mask.

That boy…is gone now. Plagg knows as much, but is still tethered to this shell of a man, a shattered reflection of valiance twisted into nothing more than self-righteous foolishness. That was why, in the pride of his old age, Sullivan had sent his servants and knights all away to far-off lands, back when a single sliver of goodness still nested in his heart. The breastplate’s tattered cape billows in the wind as the Pontiff finally stands, armor crafted by the magic of Plagg’s Miraculous creaking with every movement. The Kwami feels himself strain as much as the metal plates, having held Sullivan’s pitiful existence together for so long that he, a literal God, has begun to long for the separation that so defined his kin before first contact with humanity. Truly, even being formless once again would be preferable to this horrible stagnation that permeated the very concept of Destruction.

With great effort, a single step is taken, and then another…and another…and another, until eventually the aging Pontiff’s legs have carried them both across the deserted halls and up a staircase that’s barely stable enough to hold a single man’s weight. It’s then, overlooking the surrounding lands from high above, that Plagg finally sees it. His Destruction, the echoes left behind by that great Cataclysm which brought Sullivan and his comrades victory, a gain in which the Kwami had once gladly shared. It’s been so long since he’s observed the full scope of that battle, if only because no mortal should be able to do the same. And yet, the Pontiff takes deep, ragged breaths as he gazes to the black flickers lining the grass, almost as if marking the ground with timeless scorches. Plagg feels it too, the subtle way in which they tremble in warning. He’s already known of course what any deviation from the throne-watching entails, but now it’s fully confirmed.

In the town below, a single traveler rests at a tavern, coughing lightly as if to clear his throat. Not a soul suspects, fewer have even heard the rumors, but what is death if not the slow, methodical destruction of physical matter? What is impending doom, if not something Plagg can feel? The stormy night goes on, and a blinding flash of thunder splits the skies as Sullivan begins to raise his arms. Trembling old bones and half-shattered armor both creak in protest, much more resistance than the God of Destruction can bother mustering. Still, the Pontiff manages to raise his clawed gauntlets up to an opening in the crumbling watchtower’s stones, and murmurs the word under his breath.

Cataclysm. A notion that Plagg had once been proud to personify, when that very same power had turned a legion of bloodthirsty, half-mad men to dust right before Sullivan’s eyes. The Kwami had used it then in desperation, this flicker of divine power. To save his Holder, a brave man he’d grown far too attached to for anyone’s good. With golden hair to match the aura surrounding the young knight, and green eyes glimmering with brilliant rays of hope as banners were raised in victory…Plagg had failed to see the darkness skulking underneath. That same evil was now made manifest in wisping black smoke ‘round the old Pontiff’s clawed arms, with a pained grunt as viscous veins of inky puss flickered to life all across his body.

The once rosy tint of the boy’s cheeks had long been stolen, replaced with a pale, ghastly complexion fit only for the horror stories told about the many creatures which had great aversion from the sun. Plagg hadn’t bothered to learn what the folktales were calling them this century. The black energy crackled all through Sullivan’s body, sapping both his and the Kwami’s lifespans to bring forth the very power that even a God like him had grown to fear. Of course, Plagg had heard the justification countless times, so many that he had truly began to lose count faster than Sullivan lost his mind. Yet it mattered little, when the dark mist of Cataclysm spread throughout the air, carried by howling winds all the way to its unsuspecting victims.

A raspy cough nearly tears through the Pontiff’s lungs, and he desperately clutches a crumbling wall to stay upright. “It’s a mercy, Plagg. They are all sick, and I am the cure…” he speaks the words with a conviction the Kwami once admired, and falls silent once more. In the town below, the Plague has begun to spread, from the traveler to the innkeeper, and then to another. The swirling dark mists flood the air around the slumbering villagers, and Plagg feels each and every bright soul disintegrate into absolutely nothing, leaving naught but tiny specks of ash.

[worlds-of-agnes]

A Darker Shade of Magic, Part VIII - CH II - V. E. Schwab

"Lila drew closer, so close their ribs were touching and he could feel her heart racing through them. She was so good at hiding it, her fear. It didn’t show in her eyes, or the lines of her face, but her pulse betrayed her. And then Lila’s lips tugged into a grin, and Kell wondered if it was fear she felt after all, or something else entirely.

'I’m not going to die,' she said. 'Not till I’ve seen it.'

'Seen what?'

Her smile widened. 'Everything.'

Kell smiled back. And then Lila brought her free hand to his jaw and tugged his mouth toward hers. The kiss was there and then gone, like one of her smiles.

'What was that for?' he asked, dazed.

'For luck,' she said, squaring her shoulders to the wall. 'Not that I need it.'

Kell stared at her a moment and then forced himself to turn toward the bloodstained bricks. He tightened his hand over hers, and he brought his fingers to the mark.

'As Travars,' he said.

The wall gave way, and the traveler and the thief stepped forward and through."

The first kiss we never forget.

The greatest thing of this scene is that I wasn't expecting the kiss or the super natural way that Kell dealt with it. It made me scream.

I won't lie, I added 3 more scenes of Acol that I want to illustrate, but only one of them is coming in the comic format. So, now I have 20 more comic pages and 3 paintings to work on (and I think I'll probably be adding more in the future because I seem to like to make myself suffer)

Also, my classes at college start back today and it means that I won't have much time to work on my illustrations, so the next scenes will probably take a little longer to come out 😭

Fortunately, next scene is only two pages and will probably take less time to render, so I'll try to post it as soon as I can.

[yolowritter]

My return to ACOLL posting!

Hello there everyone, and welcome back to...well, it says so on the tin! For those unaware, I've been off Tumblr for a little while now, mostly to focus on writing and updating my biggest Miraculous fic to date! A Case of Ladybug Luck! Now, now, I know what you're gonna say. "I have no idea what you're talking about", so allow me to enlighten you! Have you ever wanted a fake death AU inspired by Nine Lives and Cut My Life to Pieces? Welp you've got it here! And yes I am shamelessly self-promoting instead of ranting, but I genuinely love how this AU is turning out and want to share with everybody! So...do you guys like angst? Becuse I do! And I like character drama too! So please, follow me to the fic where Marinette f*cking dies (allegedly), Adrien is a bigger furry than half of canon, Chloe gets a more realistic character arc, Lila is a psychopath, and everybody needs a therapist!

It is...uh, worth mentioning that this AU is...over 283,000 words long and...we're only half done. And yes, the reason I'm posting is because I want to rant about it! Expect snippets, discussions (anon asks are open btw) and also ranting about characters! Seriously the amount of psychoanalisis Gabriel has been through in this fic is downright criminal. For me. Because I have research to do! Listen the point is that I have twenty seven pages of character analysis notes in my drafts and those have to go *somewhere!*

In conclusion, I plan to rant about this AU. A lot. So if you could do me a favor and check it out at least to see if it's your cup of tea, I'd be really happy! Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go and frantically look for my most recent notes on Eminath! For- unrelated reasons! I'll see you all soon, but until then, Stay Miraculous!