#Sinistrad

[sinistrade]

PAPYRUS REF FOR THE AU!!!

sketched this one up rq, just like in storyshift papyrus still takes the role of toriel

[tildeathiwillwrite]

I realize that this is very very very very very niche, and probably nobody will even see this, but y'know what I don't give a fuck and I wanna infodump about Demigods of the Death Gate.

(TL:DR It's a Percy Jackson/Death Gate Cycle crossover fanfic that I came up with almost two years ago (fuck I can't believe it's been that long). I stuck Percy Jackson into the Death Gate Cycle setting of the first book and kinda just took it from there.)

It started with an AU idea for the first book of the Death Gate Cycle (a fantasy series published in the 90's) that ended up turning into a crossover with PJO bc I thought that idea was far more interesting than just inserting an oc. I just went "hey, what if King Stephen and Queen Anne's true son didn't die?" and later went "and what if that child was a version of Percy Jackson with the water powers and shit?"

For those of you who don't know what the fuck Death Gate Cycle is, it's a seven part fantasy series written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman about this guy Haplo and his dog who travel around these four realms with the intent of spreading chaos on orders from his lord. The first book, Dragon Wing, takes place on Arianus, and follows an assassin (known as Hugh the Hand) as he is hired by King Stephen to kill his twelve-year-old son, Bane. Minor spoilers but Bane isn't actually Stephen's real child, he is a changeling and the actual prince was kidnapped by a wizard for nefarious purposes, that's part of why Stephen wants him dead.

Now, in the book, it is revealed that Stephen and Anne's true child died because the place the evil wizard lived has a very thin atmosphere and he basically suffocated. My AU just went "no, he lives bc I say so."

So we got our MC, Perseus, raised by the evil wizard's wife Iridal and learning some magic by proxy. (and btw the evil wizard's name is Sinistrad. Fucking SINISTRAD. His entire personality is Evil Wizard™)

The first fic in my series, Dry, starts with him getting kicked out out (as you do) bc Sinistrad decided he would definitely get in the way of his very evil plans to take over the world.

Naturally, Perseus doesn't die, and also ends up saving Prince Bane from getting yeeted into the void by some elves. And his goal is to get back so he can save Iridal from her husband (and maybe kill him in the process, idk).

My favorite thing from writing this fic was the interactions I got to write between Perseus and the other characters he meets, including Hugh, Bane, Alfred, Limbeck, Haplo, Haplo's dog, etc.

I'm not going to spoil the fic's ending but I ended up getting invested enough to start writing a second book based off Elven Star, the second book in the Death Gate Cycle. This fic, Defy, followed Annabeth on her search for a mythological structure in the second realm on Haplo's journey, Pyran.

I just hope I have enough of a hyperfixation upon the series that I'm able to bring it to a proper close. It's been a thing I've been doing for myself, because it's so niche that I've accepted that it's never gonna blow up, but I'm hoping that by posting it it'll bring more people into the Death Gate Cycle fandom.

And uhh if you read to the end of this post here have a gold star ⭐ or maybe a wave 🌊

[cosmik-homo]

Also didn't mention it during my earlier CIA Two braindump spree but. I was thinking about this Alfred quote. I don't know How to connect these dots but they're related. to me. And also it's always morally correct to post Alfred quotes.

"I cannot help you, Your Highness. I cannot take a life."

"Oh, but you'll have to. You won't have any choice. If you don't, I'll tell my father who you are, and once my father finds out, he'll try to use you himself."

"And, Your Highness, I will refuse."

"You can't! He'll try to kill you if you don't obey him! Then you'll have to fight, and you'll win, because you're stronger."

"No, Your Highness. I will lose. I will die."

Bane was startled, perplexed. Obviously this was one move that had never occurred to him. "But you can't! You're a Sartan!"

---

The chamberlain smiled, much to Bane's frustration and ire. Alfred was wondering what Sinistrad would do if he knew he had two demigods under his roof.

"You might be ready to die, Alfred!" said Bane with sudden sly cunning. "But what about our friends-the Geg and Hugh and Haplo?"

At the sound of its master's name, the dog's plumy tail brushed slowly from side to side.

Bane came forward to stand at the chamberlain's side, the child's small hands clasped earnestly on his servant's shoulder.

"When I tell father who you are and when I prove to him how I know who you are, he'll realize-like I do now-that we won't need any of these others. We won't need the elves or their ship, because your magic can take us where we want to go. We won't need Limbeck because you can talk to the Gegs and convince them to go to war. We don't need Haplo-we never did need Haplo. I'll take care of his dog. We don't need Hugh. Father won't kill you, Alfred. He'll control you by threatening to kill them! So you can't die!"

What he says is true.

And Sinistrad would certainly realize it.

Expendable. I make them all expendable. But what can I do to save them, except kill?

"The truly wonderful part," said Bane, giggling, "is that at the end of it all, we won't even need father!"

[favoritelineblog]

sinistrad

adverb, adjective: Toward the left side.

[urlrate]

sinistrad

adverb, adjective: Toward the left side.

[fire-fira]

Linguistic "fun fact" (and quoting from Merriam-Webster here):

Is sinister unfair to the left-handed? Sinister has an etymology that might seem a bit biased against the left-handed portion of the population, as this word, which has had naught but disagreeable meanings for over five hundred years now, comes from a Latin word of the same spelling that means “on the left side.” We find this root in other English words, such as the adjective sinistral (“left-handed”) and the adverb sinistrad (“toward the left side”). To make things even more unfair, the Latin word dexter (“on the right side”) has given rise to English words with largely positive meanings, such as dexterity and ambidextrous.

So this crap dates back to use in Latin.

Watching a Simpsons marathon on Catholicism and Lisa mentioned this, so I'm now wondering if any pagan faiths went through a similar completely ridiculous bizarre schism that I can't stop laughing at.

My roommate said that as a 70s child raised Baptist with a Catholic grandmother, she thought Jesus was kept alive in the catacombs in the Vatican and every few centuries the priest went and took some blood and flesh. Sometimes they peeled him like cheese and tapped the blood like maple syrup.

(roommate was an adult before learning there was Native American on both sides because her father was extremely self loathing and her mother didn't want to talk about it, both extremely racist in multiple ways. She was pagan when I met her over 20 years ago. She once got a Jehovah's Witness to become atheist by sharing her views on left-handedness.)

.

[doomwads]

Sinistrad

Game: Doom II Year: 2002 Source Port: Limit-removing (but recommended without infinitely tall actors) Specs: MAP01 Gameplay Mods: None Author: Alex Parsons idgames | onemandoom

This level is the one part of the World’s End series that @awadaday covered, to much distaste. Not that I can blame them! Sinistrad is a total ball buster, with Alex’s iterative design giving way to a treacherous level that unpacks itself as you desperately dodge monsters, revealing more and more revenants and arch-viles and other unsavory things. I would say that it’s about as hard as if not harder than the later levels from Congestion 1024 in terms of claustrophobia and difficulty and the final semi-random arch-vile invasion is a real kick in the head.

Click here if you’d like to read my full review.

[dinathalawriter]

"I tell you the truth now because I don't want you to reproach me with it later. Marry me, and you marry darkness." His finger wound the strand of hair tighter and tighter, drawing her nearer and nearer. His words and the serious tone in which he spoke them made her heart falter painfully, but the pain was sweet and exciting. The darkness that hung over him- dark rumors, dark words spoken about him among the community of mysteriarchs-was exciting too.

Oh girl, no

[dgc-trash]

Breaking news:

The problem had been solved. Bane had disappeared, purportedly carried off to a faraway realm by a man with blue skin—at least such had been the vague report given King Stephen by Bane’s real mother, Iridal of the High Realms. 

(The Hand of Chaos, Chapter 21)

“The man you described to me, the one with the blue skin,” said Trian. 

“Yes.” Iridal’s eyes shone with the brilliance of her hope. “Yes, he was the one. He took my son away …”

“Then he has apparently brought him back,” said Trian dryly. “For he is also in the elven castle. The footman saw a man with blue skin in company with the prince.”

(Chapter 21)

But, again, what could I do? Sinistrad threatened to kill them, those who came with Bane. The Geg, the man with the blue skin, and … and …

(Chapter 22)

Then, it all becomes confused in my mind. Haplo—the man with the blue skin—took Bane away.

(Chapter 23)

“The other is with my son. Haplo, the man with the blue skin. And if Haplo is with Bane, Alfred is not.”

(Chapter 23)

“And the man with the blue skin. I have myself come across certain interesting references in those books the mysteriarchs brought with them—”

(Chapter 24)

“What is he?” demanded a voice.

“Dunno. Human, from the looks of ’im.”

“With blue skin?”

“All I know is he don’t have slanty eyes and pointy ears and that makes ‘im good enough for me,” said a human, in the firm tones of an acknowledged leader.

(Chapter 39)

Haplo turned blue in this book.

[laylainalaska]

Death Gate Reread: Hand of Chaos

Finished The Hand of Chaos last night, and I don’t know why I remembered the Bane storyline fizzling out at the end, because actually that had a pretty solid ending?? In general this was a much better book than I remembered, though I did bog down slightly when the character focus shifted in the middle (which probably happened to me before too, and apparently ended up being my main takeaway from the book). But it was good! and had some great Haplo stuff!

Holeeeeee shit did that ever go dark at the end, though. I mean basically it ended with a sympathetic character psychically strangling her ten-year-old son and standing there watching him die. I didn’t remember the end of Bane’s storyline being quite THAT depressing.

In general, Bane’s arc is a little weird given the series’ general themes of redemption and second chances. He’s one of only a small handful of characters in the whole series who is presented as being so unrepentantly evil that all you can do is straight-up kill him, and he’s ten. On top of that, Sinistrad was whispering into his ear from the time he was a tiny child, AND everyone around him assumed he was evil from apparently the time he was a baby. I mean. It’s not that his choices don’t matter, and he clearly makes evil choices, but there’s a general assumption on the part of all the adults around him that he was simply born evil and there’s nothing you can do about it. I just found it odd considering how many of the other characters do evil things and then come back from it.

All that aside ... I think when I read the book the first time, and possibly on subsequent rereads as well, I was distracted by the whole issue of Alfred in the Labyrinth (still vaguely annoyed that he disappears for an entire book and a half) and Haplo being kind of in the background for a lot of this book. I did feel my interest sag this time around, at first, when the focus switched to Hugh and Iridal, though it picked up later. I think there is actually a lot of interesting stuff going on in their storyline -- in particular, it was kind of fascinating to revisit the Book 1 characters 5 books later, because the characterization and ethics and all of it has gotten noticeably richer and deeper. It’s interesting to watch the characters grapple with moral and personal dilemmas that have gained all kinds of shades of complexity since the first book (and I didn’t really feel like the first book was lacking in complexity!).

This book also had some really good Haplo stuff in it. I mentioned in the Fire Sea discussion that I didn’t realize until this reread how much of the series Haplo spends being suicidally depressed, and this is the book in which I realized it. I think I might not have realized it before because, while the description of Haplo’s general attitude and behavior in this book is a pitch-perfect rendition of serious depression even though none of the characters refers to it as such, there are obvious external reasons why he’s having a difficult emotional time -- the one kinda-friend he’s got is in the Labyrinth and probably dead, and he’s struggling with his entire reason for existing now that he’s having severe doubts about Xar and the rightness of their cause.

But looking back on it, I think he spends most of the series being depressed, to greater or lesser degrees; he just tends to distract himself with fanatical devotion to a cause. Haplo does okay as long as he’s got a goal to aim at -- getting out of the Labyrinth, helping Xar conquer the world. When he loses that, he crashes, unless he can replace it with something else. He just doesn’t really care about himself much, and he doesn’t have anyone else to care about, so he doesn’t care at all -- until he starts finding other people to live for, over the course of the series, and I think that dynamic is really evident in this book. His arc with Jarre in particular is so adorable, from being fully prepared to drop her to her death in book 1, to his single-minded determination to rescue her in this book (side note: love Haplo declaring himself a “god” in this book for entirely practical reasons, now that his belief in his own people’s demigodhood has been completely and utterly crushed), and healing her in that Patryn soul-sharing kind of way; then, in the end, being saved from death when she literally throws herself between him and danger, against an enemy she can’t hope to defeat. 

One of the things that’s most tragic about Haplo is how clearly he wants to love and be loved, how incredibly loyal he is when he actually does love someone (which we’ve been told is a Patryn trait, in general; I think Haplo isn’t really unusual in this, for one of his people, he’s mainly unusual because he’s tried so hard to suppress it, and because the people he ends up incorporating into his little circle of loved ones/family are mostly not Patryns).

Haplo’s POV in this book in general is a thing of beauty, because he’s so thoroughly in denial about a whole lot of things. HE has no idea why he’s staring through the gate into the Labyrinth (maybe because your friend is in there and you want to get him out, dumbass). It also becomes clear in this book that he knows the dog is magic - that bit where he orders the dog out of the enclosure and it just disappears; Haplo is well aware the dog is not an ordinary dog, he’s just deliberately not thinking about what it means. I also didn’t remember the conversation about souls with the Kenkari (where is your soul/why isn’t it with you), which is both beyond “blatant hint” and straight into “just straight up telling you what you’ve been ignoring” (Haplo: *continues to ignore*) but is also a really interesting commentary on souls in the Death Gate ‘verse given the way Alfred explains the dog and its origins in book 7.

[yyhwritingrequests]

Sinistrad with Kurama and Kuwabara! Please and thank you! This idea is really fun!

Sinistrad: toward the left side

These are really hard lol you guyspicked REALLY DIFFICULT WORDS ;D

____________________________________________________________

The demon had come out of nowhere,likely found its way into the human world in an attempt to fight the“strong humans.” It was still very common for demons to sneakinto the human world to feed their hunger since it became forbiddenfor demons to eat humans.

Kurama and Kuwabara had run into thedemon after hearing screams down the street as they were walking backfrom the library. The fight didn’t last long, and they managed todispose of the enemy before a crowd brought unwanted attention.However, they didn’t come out completely unscathed.

“Kuwabara, are you alright?” Kuramawas checking around them to make sure no one had seen anythingsuspicious and only turned around when he didn’t get a clear answerfrom his teammate.

“You’re bleeding, stay still.”Kurama knelt besides Kuwabara, who was bleeding sinistrad from historso.

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.I guess I’m too outta practice compared to all you guys AAGH watchit!” Some awful stinging was going bubbling up from somethingKurama was putting on the open wound.

“Keep still, you’ll be fine. I’mputting a salve on the wound a temporary bandage to keep out germs,we can fix this up properly once we get you home. And don’t blameyourself, we all know how important your studies have become.”Kurama helped Kuwabara up with some additional grunting, throwing thetaller man’s arm around his shoulders. “My house is closer, mothershouldn’t be home right now.”

“C'mon I don’t need to be babied, I’ma man I can take care of myself.”

“And a ‘real man’ knows when to lethis friends help him every once in while.” He bumped Kuwabara’sside which earned him a weak slap in the back of the head. They weaved around groups of people in back alleys. Teammates don’t helping once the fighting is done. 

~ Admin Ryoko  

[cosmik-homo]

Alfred initially starts following to try and make bane turn away from his evil father, try to get him to understand sinistrad just wants to use him to start wars and take over the world and will dispose of him later- except bane doesn't listen, doesn't see it, and before he leaves to be twisted even further by Xar himself, sharpening the parallel, what he really covets is haplo's dog- the dog, embodiment of Haplo's buried reluctance and opposition to be the man Xar demands him to be, the reason Alfred thinks he can still fix him- "you don't understand, he had this dog-".

Bane doesn't have that, Bane didn't have time to grow up away from his father's shadow, didn't have haplo's parents, or marit, etc etc... He was ten for fucks sake his brain is not half developed, he doesn't have his own resistance or fostered empathy streak strong enough to literally physically manifest - he wants haplo's.

Going wild about the Haplo and Bane parallels. The boy who could be saved the boy who couldn't...

[deathgatesideblog]

So I'm reading Dragon Wing out loud to my mom on a road trip since she's been wanting to read the series, and something occured to me. It's been brought up before how weird Hugh's resurrection is in Hand of Chaos and beyond, but I noticed that the weird stuff actually begins a lot earlier than that!

When Alfred heals Hugh after Bane poisons him, it's clear that the experience is one of near death: he has a vision of a Kir monk who tells him that he lived and died serving death, basically. And I've thought before that that seems oddly predictive of Hugh's curse in book 5 and on, but what if it's the beginning of it, somehow?

I have to think about it more, but one thing that stands out about Hugh is that Alfred brought him back from near death not once, but twice. Does it seem possible that it was the repetition of dragging Hugh's soul back and forth could have been related to how he ended up cursed?

I mean, at the end of the day, it isn't really that different than assuming that Alfred just brought him back from near enough death the first time, but I dunno, I kind of like the idea that Hugh was somewhat singular, having been healed from that near death multiple times in close succession, and that's why his case was so strange.

[thedeathgatecycle]

Dragon Wing: Chapter 47

I liked the parallel structure in this chapter, going between Hugh's speculations on wtf Sinistrad is up to and Sinistrad's actually expressing what he's up to. Hugh is still Hugh in this chapter, thinking things through.

"This Sinistrad is powerful. What am I saying? This man is power itself! He hums with it like a lightning rod in a thunderstorm."

So... Sinistrad is like the magical equivalent of being in a midlife crisis and driving around in a super flashy sports car all LOOK AT MEEEE while Haplo and Alfred are like nah pay no attention to the real badasses over here while you total your expensive car that you don't know how to drive... Oh, and you're going to get shown up by your 10-year old kid in his Power Wheels.

... I think that metaphor got away from me.

Haplo's already shown his sarcastic side, but look, he has a silly one! "Haplo was teasing the sleeping dog, tickling its nose with its tail. The dog sneezed, woke up, looked around irritably for the fly, and, not finding it, went back to sleep."

[dinathalawriter]

Is Sinistrad supposed to be gay, finding sex “unpleasant” with his wife and only doing it to have a child? What’s the deal?