#bygone lore

[ancientbygone]

simulacra 2 [this place will become your tomb]

[sundowning] [tmbte]

Sleep's mimics of the vessels (sans iv) from the TPWBYT time period. we finally got there. because of the guitarist change, the iv that stayed hasn't been there long enough for Sleep to figure him out. iii, however, finally grew on Him by then.

design breakdown under the cut:

[obligatory “when talking about the vessels, i’m talking about characters” disclaimer]

if you’re unfamiliar with the main idea, please check out the TMBTE post & the Sleep lore post.

TPWBYT, to me, is a period of uncertainty. a fresh suicide attempt, surgery, Sleep trying to break Vessel and then mold him in His image. confusing. dissociating. there's a reason why no form Sleep takes has a solid body (except for "ii") - everything is hazy, everything floats and dissipates and comes back wrong, unfamiliar. Sleep, during that time, is mostly an ocean, either spread out thin to appear terrifying or, later on, a deep dark menace.

"Vessel"/Vessel mimic

a watery death. while the Sundowning version of Sleep turns upwards towards Heaven, TPWBYT's "Vessel" drips down heavy, trying to drag Vessel deeper and deeper. it moves by floating, flowing from one space to another, but there's a visible heaviness to it still. everything bleeds into each other, everything is indistinguishable in origin; the only parts that have some semblance of definition are the hood and the hands. it's a constant reminder to Vessel: how much of his own blood he has spilled, how many regrets he drags alongside himself.

"ii"/ii mimic

trapped in a bubble, wrapped up in himself. "ii", while the only one possessing a relatively solid body (that of a spotted moray), still floats in the same realm of haziness as the rest. as the real ii is pulled deeper and deeper into trusting Sleep with whatever he's doing with Vessel, fearing potential consequences, "ii" morphs into a timid creature. his head is a bubble, although opaque and impenetrable, and his arms, while elongated and noodly, are wrapped entirely around his body. this, too, is a mockery.

"iii"/iii mimic

Sleep finally knows what iii is like, what Vessel, using his newfound power, arguably morphed him into. "iii" is largely based on the purple-striped jelly, but that inspiration is mostly visual - the frills, the flashiness, the colors (even though they don't actually come through, it's about the mental association). iii came because he saw something in Vessel, something that lured him in so easily, and now Vessel is an idol for iii to obsess over and pursue through worshiping him, mostly, rather than Sleep. the humanoid arms of "iii" are a decoy - as soon as Vessel gets too close, it will attempt to wrap around him with its numerous tendrils. it moves by floating, too, and does so more way more gracefully than the other mimics, oftentimes twirling and imitating ballroom dance moves.

[ancientbygone]

okay i want to reblog this again actually adding onto it and not just being silly in tags. that's exactly how i see Euclid, and, weak spoiler alert, what Euclid is in my Sleep Token D&D AU. a rejected vessel that wasn't fit for Sleep and basically broke during ascension because it had lacked an emotional support system, and the reason why the others were sent to Vessel, to make sure that doesn't happen again. idk

Random brainfry idea that was definitely written before somewhere: But what if the TMBTE creatures are the previous vessels, corrupted by Sleep's influence. What if Sleeps moves on every time the host is way too changed, to find a new host. And they fight [like on those few posters] because they think if there is only one of them left Sleep will see them worthy again and take them back. What if..

[persicipen-archive]

i had quite the burnout from playing genshin, only keeping up with dailies and events, but ignoring many quests and exploration (especially the lore heavy ones because i really wanted to enjoy them and not rush through), but i think i’m slowly getting out of it. currently finishing remuria, and dare i say that i would die for scylla, prince of dragonborn. he cute! :’3

[myballsitchaurghouchie]

Lord give me strength to find names for the human versions of these furries

[falseheretic]

acceptance

[kvroii]

In one of the rare times I'm sharing my 2014 art (below), here is the artwork the winter outfit for chapter 11 (above) is based on! At this time, Kori's 'fancy' outfits all contained blue (a departure from the 2013 main outfit's red and black, the color scheme it would return to in 2016 onward). This was also the start of my 'hide the other eye behind hair' phase for art, and it wouldn't be until much later she would return to her first, rougher hairstyle. It was drawn in Paint Shop Pro 8.10 with a mouse.

This also was an outfit she wore in the 2014 manga I was working on before I switched to novels in 2016 and rebooted Kori's whole story. Below is a panel from the very first chapter of that, where she is wearing the same coat. It was drawn with a pencil on printer paper folded into signatures (and bound with hot glue dont make the same mistakes i did it ruins the paper after a decade TTwTT)

Kori's story has come a long way since this 2014 outfit was designed, but I wanted to have an homage to it in the illustrations, as I've done with other old details (such as chapter 9's ribbon) and as I plan to do yet (chapter 5 has some surprises in store -- did I ever post her first ever design?)! So, she has this coat once again in her false memory vision she witnesses in this chapter. She keeps the necklace accessory (I'll talk about it sometime), and the hairclips have been reimagined as earmuffs to suit the winter setting.

...I think my 2014 self would be happy to see that I still remember and think of the older design(s), even a decade later.

[ask-alt-is-deities]

(illumina doesn't phase, just looks sadder.)

... i don't know you, i'm not from this universe.

(Mjölnir continues to growl at you, his feather covered tail lashing about)

”so?? What reason do any of us have to believe your not any different from him??”

(ouch…)

[sepiksredux]

Basically with Lazarus being my Young Wolf and part of her lore being her deep-seated resentment towards Mara. I find this season REALLY funny.

[iced-souls]

I HAVE FINALLY FINITO’D THE CHARACTER SHEETS FOR BBB!!!!!

Here’s part one

I love them heheheheheheheheheheheheheehhehehhe—

[bellshazes]

also maybe I just don't like the concept of "fandom lore". that's not what lore means to me that's just a headcanon. and the concept of calcifying headcanons en masse feels so needlessly constricting and more like to cut off new or interesting ways of looking at the thing.

[alas--pringles]

..... i might have a problem. what even is other music who needs regular music when there are so many spiderwebbing obscure tangents that totally aren't all related to the same thing?

[ancientbygone]

i didn’t do it, i didn’t do it for love; what did i do it for?

[sequel piece to kill the sparrow]

[kellelkallel]

Vision also has a game name! It's called The Legend of Zelda: Visions of Bygone Eras. The concept is that you get guidance from the spirits of the other Links and their helpers, like you can get advice from Saria or Navi or you can use Sheik's super stealth or smth, idk but it would kinda work how outfits work in BOTW/TOTK? Yeah I have no idea what I'm doing here if you have any ideas please save me from this endless loremaking spiral

[thetravelerstale]

Arcadia, the ruins of the past. Even the god torn by betrayals couldn't seem to escape his domain for his past continued to repeat in endless cycles. Just as the world moved around the sun, or the moon moved around the world causing tides to raise an lower. The forlorn god rested in the plane of remembrance, meditating on the archaic teachings it once shared with others and breathed, not just the air around it, but the very soul of humanity. It learned all the stories in dreams, meeting people of all walks of life.

Arcadia, the Gods' library, full of tall tales and short stories. The history of humanity contained in its picturesque walls of ivory and gold. The god wrote these stories, and many of it's own, fables, musings, poems and song. It smiled at every letter recorded on the paper of history, and reminisced when it heard every new song, for it's soul longed to dance with the leaves in the wind.

Arcadia, the prison for the righteous, unbiased for the other gods who locked it away. The darkness inside growing ever stronger, madness they had called it as they threw it away like an old child's toy, to collect bunnies of time and loneliness. It wasn't mad, just honest, with a love for the humanity it once was a part of. A cry from the desolate library could be heard as war cracked the ivory and rusted the gold of the prison cell. Time ravaged the scrolls of history, and dried the ink in the prisoner's well. Yet song still reached through the cold bars of the domain of tears, and comforted the soul longing to be free with the wind and leaves.

Arcadia, the home it no longer stayed in, hated and yet dearly longed for it stayed forever in the remains of the old world. The god prisoner vowed never again to be chained in ivory and gold. With song in heart, it dances, free to spread it's wings once more and soar across the sky. It's words a song only nature can understand now, but as it flies and graces every window of human homes, it sings it's songs and poems and stories before fluttering away once more. Free, with the wind and leaves, as a bird in the ever blue sky.

[bygone-otori]

>Do I have a doppelgänger who goes by Emu then?

Yes. Several

Ah, I see- How peculiar.. But I suppose that makes sense if my understanding of the whole situation is correct. There must be a wide variety of timelines where I was born as daughter

[hexhomos]

The 'Talis' hypothesis

So I think the S2 trailer confirms something central about Arcane I've wondered for a while. This has plot bearings to it, namely what nebulous purpose 'Magic' serves in the story -- how they're changing the role Hextech has in the game lore, incl. its power system & ruleset -- and what kind of hubris is associated with it historically. But it also answers something that has always nagged at me: why the fuck did they change Jayce's name?

So let's talk about this picture. And I'm going to give you the rosetta stone in 5 seconds:

This is Hextech now. Like that is just an incredibly concise and complete descriptor of Hextech-in-Arcane, right. It 'harms' Jinx, it 'protects' Jayce in the snowstorm, it 'heals' Viktor to a degree. It is installed permanently in architecture; the Hexgates ARE the brand.

First off, we have this fucker carrying around a talisman from back when he was 7, and the cinematography of the show agonizes over showing you this throughout all of ep2:

Jayce's bracelet is a bang-on definition of a historical talisman. The way hextech *functions* in the show is inextricable from the promises and rites associated with talismans, a word appropriated/popularized by the French - which I'm going to conservatively argue Fortiche would be familiar with;

Which brings me to the subject of what Hextech is, and how Hextech was changed for the tv show (and what its possibly being retconned to in the game)

Hex'tech' is not technology. The name is a carryover from a bygone era of leagueoflegends speak; Hextech in Arcane, and presumably in expanded lore going forward (given Skarner's rework and other things) - is the study, development, and the building of an industry around the craft of practical Talismans. If you want to understand how this shit works you need to promptly abandon the assumption that it is 'manufactured' magic -- its pure magic. It's raw magic. The tech part is a red herring misnomer.

The beliefs around this already cover links to 'the Arcane' as another, ethereal destination realm with Inhabitants that learn and change, ontop of rune-carving as magical instruction;

This also covers Viktor's impending transformation and the changes made to his character.

IN MY OPINION, via the content released so far and what we've already witnessed in S1, Viktor has been shifted away from becoming 'the machine herald' and re-positioned to become the Herald of Divine Rune Alchemy or whichever name they end up using.

I don't doubt that he'll get the armor at some point, because that's a recognizable visual and as much fanservice as they owe his decade-long fans, but... I would temper my expectations around the thought of machine evolution. It's not what this Viktor does, and it's not what he (or the narrative,) is interested in -- My guess is that the armor comes into play as a secondary way to AVOID overusing limited magical power, as we've seen runes can be depleted, and the hexcore tends to kill things in exchange.

Now that we've established all that, here is the bridge that I'm going to sell you.

Now, for today's homework, I expect you to run off to do something useful and homoerotic with this information.