#btw i left sort of an id in the alt text if it helps to read/explain this better

[maikhiwi00]

If you want to break someone—mentally, physically, emotionally—wait until they're happy. Let them live and love and thrive. Once they recognize the value of a life well lived... that's when you move in for the kill. Because you can't take anything from someone who has nothing to lose.

the djd + tv tropes [x]

[nosongunsung11]

Also 🖊️ any variation on Sounder I miss sier

ARIEL-SOUNDER-ECHO-ARIEL THE OUROBOROS EATS ITS OWN TAIL. If you've been on my blog for a while you probably know sier by name I tag sier Constantly. I love talking about Sounder. Here's some Sounder.

Sounder's a PC from a sleepaway campaign that I was gonna play with some friends but never really ended up happening (scheduling issues etc) but we just kind of. ended up writing the entire story of these characters anyway. Including multiple pieces of writing and Significant amounts of art. Ariel is Sounder before sie became human and also a camp counselor. Echo is Sounder after he dies of love. Ariel is Echo after it becomes fucking normal again. If that doesn't make sense I'm about to explain it in detail aldkjfalkjdf

ARIEL was a wind spirit who served at the pleasure of the Underhill King (fae Old World entity that represents the Old Ways etc. big ass bone stag man). Pronouns... uh. Didn't really need them. It/they is close enough. Its job was to rustle the bone charms and bells that the Underhill King wears on His antlers and that was it.

They found Wallace (another PC, goes by Laevis by the time the campaign would have begun) bleeding out and almost dying in the woods, and made a Deal with the Underhill King for the power to heal his wounds and take care of him as he recovered. Laevis wakes up in the forest to see Sounder over him, hands pressing against the shrapnel wounds in his neck.

[Image ID in alt text; the Underhill King's dialogue is written in small caps and His pronouns are written with a capital H.]

Our Crafter for the campaign decided they wanted the magic for this campaign to work via thread crafts, especially friendship bracelets, so Sounder's humanity being granted via friendship bracelet is pretty significant! The bone pendant and bracelet thread make up the necklace that Sounder wears in pretty much all the art I draw of sier, which is the visible symbol of the deal sie made with the Underhill King. Sie never takes it off. The implication in the passage above is that if Sounder ever finds a true home, sier life will end, as sier life and curse are inextricably bound together. I feel like this may be a good point to mention that Sleepaway is a horror-tragedy ttrpg. btw.

That gets us to Sounder (sie/sier and he/him)! ^^ awesome art above is an art fight attack from @klqdraws !!!!! [Image ID: a waist-up portrait of a tan-skinned, blue-eyed man in a white tank top and yellow skirt. Sie has waist-length black hair with a blue tint, part of which is pulled into a short braid over sier right shoulder. Sie has stubble and multiple ear piercings, and sie is singing and holding out a hand to the viewer. End ID]

SOUNDER is a Songleader (one of the character archetypes from the Sleepaway TTRPG.] Gender: Blowing in the Wind, Name: A Name Used Only Here (the character sheets for sleepaway are hella good). Sie is a cryptid of a camp-counselor -- not on the payroll, never heads home on the buses with the rest of the group; sie just seems to show up to help out when camp begins and everyone's just sort of accepted this. Sounder is a camp nickname given to sier; Laevis (who'd lost his voice in the accident that left him bleeding out in the forest) only refers to sier with a handsign of a fluttering bird. Sie's got a playlist here if you want to check it out.

[Image ID: a collection of panels depicting Sounder signing "we're gonna be okay" in ASL, and Laevis, a young man with dark green hair, vitiligo, and small scars all over his body, who echoes the hand signs after them. This is in reference to a mechanic from the TTRPG, the Songleader's hook, which gives characters a mechanical bonus for repeating Sounder's words in a narratively significant way. End ID]

Due to the nature of sier's existence and curse, sie can't stay in human form year-round -- they can only hold human form for so long, turning back into the Wind when they've run out of time to spend with the other campers and counselors. In the off-season, they exist primarily as the wind that rustles through the trees. Laevis, who grew up in the woods with Sounder, has developed a habit of climbing to the top of trees to feel the Wind on his face. He talks to it.

Sie's in a poly love triangle of sorts (souvisel) with two other PCs, Laevis (you've met Laevis) and Joel (or Jay, his camp name). Sounder and Laevis grew up together; Laevis and Joel were childhood sweethearts who never met again after their childhood days at camp together. There's lots of shenanigans here -- Laevis throws Joel into the lake, Laevis falls asleep on Sounder and Joel carries him back to his cabin, Laevis disappears into the woods and Joel searches for him every night because he refuses to believe that Laevis could have died, despite the mounting evidence that he did. Normal polycule things.

Won't spent too much time on Sounder's death since I wrote an entire piece about it; feel free to read it if you're interested (3.5k, about 6 pages)! TLDR; Sounder willingly walks to sier death because sie can't choose to give up the home that sie's found with Laevis and Joel even though it kills sier and Joel wakes up alone in a bed with a discarded flower crown, Sounder's broken pendant, and a wolf who is also his dead boyfriend Laevis. A very bad day to be joel jay sleepaway.

[ID in alt text.]

So. aha. That takes us to ECHO, it/its. It will eventually go by sie/he as well as it/its once it makes its peace with being what's left of Sounder, but that's a ways off. It's got a playlist here also.

[Image ID: Joel, a young man with longer black hair and a short jacket with a broken heart emblem, stares forward with a shocked expression. A white moth has landed on his left eye, covering it. Curled around him is Echo, a translucent white ghostly figure with long hair and a hole where its heart should be. Handwritten text at the top of the image reads "Haunt Me Then." End ID]

Echo is angry. Echo is a spirit of vengeance. Echo is something like the shed skin that Sounder left behind when sie died. Echo's character archetype is Moth Maiden, and it was brought back unwillingly by the moon and is making it everyone else's problem. One of the very first things it does once it begins to exist is kill Joel (somewhat accidentally -- it intended to hurt him, certainly, but Joel was on a journey to the underworld at the time under the condition that touching the water would kill him; its a long story)(you can read the story at the link, credit to @courfeyracs-swordcane , joel's creator, who wrote the story in question).

[Image ID in alt text].

This post is getting pretty long so I won't get too into the Echo relationship dynamics with the rest of the cast (we call them Theseus collectively/as a ship name because they're all dead and different people now. Ship of Theseus kinda blorbos). CJ (Joel after he becomes the Cataract Squire) becomes the Underhill King and Echo is not remotely normal about this. Laevis (who is split into two pieces at the time, Mori and Wolf; it's another Long Story) ascends to a kind of godhood as Hati.

[Image ID: another gorgeous art piece by @lovelandfrogman i received as an artfight attack!!!! The image displays three panels in a descending diagonal from left to right. The first is an image of Sounder and Joel against a backdrop of trees, holding hands and singing together. The second is an image of Echo and Joel against a foggy background. Echo is behind Joel and holding his shoulders; they both seem visibly distressed. Joel is wearing Sounder's necklace. In the final image, Echo, following by moths, holds CJ from behind against a backdrop of the lake. They look tired but somewhat hopeful, and CJ is wearing Sounder's necklace. End ID]

I'm currently working on writing a piece about how Echo becomes Ariel (pt2)(the ouroboros eats its own tail), so I'll probably yell about that later when I get to it, and this post has gotten long enough. If you've gotten this far into the post I love you thank you for reading about my little guy Sounder sleepaway. sie's so important to me <3

I'll leave you with the art Teddy @courfeyracs-swordcane drew me for my birthday of Echo and CJ because it's stunning and I want to put it in here even though I didn't really properly get into the Echo/CJ dynamic (they have a deeply complicated relationship where CJ is wracked with guilt over technically causing Sounder's death and Echo's entire Existence, and Echo hates him for taking the throne of the fae king that cursed Sounder and for the aforementioned Causing Sounder's death, and is fiercely in denial about wanted to be close to them again. They have sex about it. They're almost okay after a few hundred years of this.)(<- from echo's art fight page).

[Image ID: hella good art by @courfeyracs-swordcane of Echo and CJ. Echo is seated side-saddle on a horse and is wearing a flowing white dress and a pink flower crown. It is leaning down towards CJ, who is looking up at it with a scared and hopeful expression on his face. CJ is wearing a jacket over a white binder and ripped jeans, as well as greaves, wrist armor, and a gorget. He has a sword tied to his belt. The background is a forest scene filled with small pink flowers with mountains visible in the background. End ID.]