#bygone lore

[ancientbygone]

simulacra 3 [take me back to eden]

[sundowning]

Sleep's mimic forms of the vessels during the time period of TMBTE, because i can't be normal and start a series from the beginning and not the end.

more info + design breakdowns under the cut:

[obligatory "when talking about the vessels, i'm talking about characters" disclaimer]

background info on the whole idea:

Sleep as a being is shapeless in my mind; more of a concept than a creature. it can manifest as sort of an absence of light in any shape to others, usually to appeal to feeling/emotion. the only "rule" for that is that whatever Sleep tries to appear as cannot look more or less innocent/powerful than Sleep actually is, which usually manifests in two things: the size being different from the thing/person it's imitating, scaled according to power, and/or added features, usually in some way threatening or regal.

one of Sleep's more consistent forms it takes throughout interacting with Vessel is mimicking him, partially to create an illusion of the two being more similar than they actually are and partially because Sleep used to exist as Vessel's shadow when they'd just met. the visual itself has changed through time (you can see what it was like during Sundowning in my Higher artwork), and during TMBTE that visual is pretty much the titular song's character with the most minor tweaks (which is why i didn't draw it separately).

all that made me think about the idea of Sleep mimicking the other vessels just to fuck with Vessel further (to be clear, i am a strong believer that Sleep only interacts with Vessel in any way). so now here are the designs of those mimics during the events of TMBTE, utilizing the album's song characters much like the Vessel mimic. because again, i have to start a series from the end, i guess.

"ii"/ii mimic (song character used: AYROK)

the main idea driving the design of "ii" is the real ii's goal to keep Vessel more or less safe by being by his side in worshipping Sleep, which is the reason he'd decided to become the second vessel in the first place. the choice of AYROK as the character to use in this design is obvious. one of the ideas that stem from that is ii's duty/desire to keep his face hidden for Vessel's sake; only his hands are visible & detailed because that's the only part of him Vessel remembers before either of them became vessels of Sleep and the only part ii has really shown after that. another is ii's timidity in telling Vessel to go against Sleep's will because he fears that no matter how bad it may be, it'll be much worse if Vessel doesn't follow it. that part comes through in the pose - shyly holding his hands together as if they're tied.

"iii"/iii mimic (song character used: Aqua Regia)

the song character inspo being Aqua Regia is mostly because of the calmer nature of the song and the dynamic duo it makes with Vore, less so the themes of the lyrics. also its visual design. iii mimic's design themes are iii's adoration/borderline obsession with Vessel (wearing Vessel's jewelry and having elements of his robe in his shirt + his own face/mask slowly melting off) and his enagement with worship as an act/aesthetic rather than something more serious (the overabundance of jewelry and accessories; the extra arms; the body language; the cuffs around his arms and legs being decorative and not actually restricting). also the rings on his fingers make a checkered pattern.

"iv"/iv mimic (song character used: Vore)

the use of Vore for "iv" is obvious too. song wouldn't be the same without his real life self. the design really just aims to combine iv with the Vore character, but there are two big things here. the simplest one is anger issues, which is why he's So Goddamn Spiky and why his jacket looks like scarred skin rather than painted & customized. the anger mostly shows up in the body language: most of the time "iv" just stares unblinkingly with pure palpable ire in the two glowing dots for eyes, and when he does move it's very stiff and snappy and barely controlled. the other thing is that, simply speaking, the real iv got into this whole mess without knowing the full extent of it and now he's in too deep and kinda losing himself. in the design it's expressed through the human features gradually turning into bug-like, such as the hoodie fading into a segmented millipede-like body and the fucked up mantis hands, and the gold of the original iv's mask melting over the face with the horns being part of it. the spikes protrude from him in a way that makes it difficult to distinguish between jacket decorations and actual parts of his body, but the spines are definitely from his body & allow me to live the dream of iv with a mohawk LMAO

anyway have fun with these go nuts i'll make similar sheets & posts for Sundowning and TPWBYT eventually

[solradguy]

Do you play Smash Bros, and if so, who do you main? My money's on Roy, for obvious reasons.

100% dead serious answer is that I was a Kirby main in 1999 before I knew anything else, and then I was a Marth/Samus main in Melee sometime later, and now I flip between Ike, Ganondorf, and Terry but it's been a long while since I played Smash... It's like riding a bike though. My Terry's gonna be cracked after how much GG I've played lmao

But in my heart I'll always be a Kirby main

la bestia

[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?

[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

[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]

[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

[calware]

nobody knows the lore behind this drawing other than it's a homestuck lineup so i'm here to give it to you. first of all tavros was left out of the math problem because otherwise it would be more difficult to solve with another person.second of all this drawing was made for a humanstuck au called apartmentstuck where john rose dave and jade are all roommates. there was a whole storyline with relationships and family drama but the artist deleted everything so there are only a few snapshots of it on the wayback machine as well as this post

[ask-alt-is-deities]

IVE COME TO MAKE AN ANNOUNCEMENT, VIOLET IS A BITCH ASS MOTHERFU-

(the group nods in agreement, he did ruin thier lives in one way or another after all)

[peccadrome]

missed the vanilla extract meme same way i missed the thwomp meme all those years ago

[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.