#chainrambles

[szilverer]

y'know... for a setting that places so much importance in Language and does so many ice cool things playing with it (Correspondence/Discordance, Parabola & Irem, etc) i think there's a bit of a missed opportunity when it comes to the terms and words people use in their day to day life... like for example:

do you think radical revolutionaries would avoid words like "enlightening" in their vocabulary and flip them for LON-appropriate counterparts to signal their beliefs?

like substituting the word "light" with "blight". lol

similarly, pet names relating to light like "sunshine" kinda have a whole extra flavour tied to them, leaning into nostalgia, melancholy and/or danger depending on the people using it. irony, even

"honey" as a pet name also has extra connotations now and might actually bother some people instead due to the association with the drug...

do you think SMEN, taboo as it is, and seeking being a recognizable phenomenon even to the common londoner, would spawn swear words and insults? (imagine the weight of telling someone to Go Seek or Fall Down a Well)

the word "well" itself. well as an adverb, interjection, adjective. just. think about it. think about what it represents. idk something is happening to this word for sure

[szilverer]

(mumbling to self don't do it don't do it don't do it--) SO POOR EDWARD! what a guy.

LF is a bonafide horror story for every single person involved in it but brother, his horror story started many years ago (maybe a decade or two depending on what age you see him as).

vague expected ambition spoilers below the cut but am mostly just extrapolating about his implied past bc its the entire setup that makes his COMPLETE DOWNFALL so yummy to me. also sorry for the length but i saw the opportunity to dig up an old draft i never posted

So. Let's face it. This man wasn't born an evil little freak. In a way this sentence is a TL;DR bc that's it that's The Point

He tells us himself (in a very vulnerable state at the height of the moonmilk, so I personally don't think he'd be capable to lie about this) he was once a pitiful little orphan. The nature of The Orphanage makes it so it's highly unlikely he was born an orphan– which means that everything was taken away from him, once. (How old was he? How much does he remember? whats up with the damn jar???? questions that keep me up at night.)

What we meet in LF is but a product of his environment, implied to have clawed his way from the bottom of the local torture human experimentation facility. And considering what we saw about that place in-game, well, it's no wonder he's like. Uh. That.

You just know he probably had to do some real nasty things to survive. You name it. But he grit his teeth and went through it all the same, because despite whatever innocence or empathy or guilt he might have once had, he doesn't want to be discarded. He wants to live.

He wants to live!! SO very bad!!

And he did it. He did it. He got to the top. All on his own!! The "poor" in his name was likely used to mock him when he was young and defenseless and he got to reclaim it. He showed everyone. He has power now and he makes sure to flaunt it. He won. He deserves it.

Enter the FLPC.

You know how this ends.

Regardless of your choice, Poor Edward has everything taken away from him again.

and you know what's my favourite part? :)

If you think about it, Poor Edward dooms himself the exact moment he gives you lethean tea. It's very unlikely that we'd able to successfully rescue Clara without it.

Mechanically wise that's just to give us players a way out, yes, but nonetheless it still gives him a most interesting layer characterization-wise. In the very first meeting with the PC, his eyes are "pleading". That line stood out to me. Could be genuine, could be manipulation. Curious either way!

And then he gives us a chance to willingly leave.

Think about it. He had power, he could've easily tried getting rid of us in a number of ways. But he willingly sends us a courteous letter and offers this one chance to back off. This One Act can be read in SO many ways.

Was it out of a leftover sliver of compassion? Sheer annoyance, trying to solve the matter with as little involvement as possible? Self-confidence due to the fact that most people aren't protagonist-coded like the PC and probably already got scared off from the little they saw & would accept this one push to forget it all, getting out of his way?

maybe all of these to some degree?

??????¿ ?

THIS was what started my normalness about him. the more i thought about it the more i was INTRIGUED. and that's not even getting into the whole moonmilk thing and how he chose to reclaim yet another torturous hurdle in his life and tried to own it. not even getting into how he only knows how to put himself as a henchman because serving the powerful is also the best shot at protection he's had all his life

i need to OPEN his head and LOOK inside. i NEED to study him like a cute lab rat which is extra amusing bc chances are he has repressed ptsd about that kinda thing

anyway. what a guy. thanks for giving me this guy FBG. i chew on him like bubblegum

very ill and dizzy today so for no reason in particular you should all tell me about your favourite flondon npcs and why you like them

maybe ill doodle a sketch of variable and dubious quality. no guarantees but also i wanna draw more npcs so.

(but even if i dont get to drawing you should tell me about your faves i love hearing people talk about their fave lil blorbos,)

[szilverer]

while i am now Aware that LF's iconic Consequence of Your Actions is a mechanic plot hole going against pre-established lore regarding how death seems to work in the Neath (i.e. your body does not get moved with you to the boat), it is still one of my favourite horror moments in fallen london just bc of the sheer psychological aspect of it

it's kind of an open-secret at this point but still. spoilers for what happens when you are too sussy baka in the orphanage under the cut

do you have any idea how hard you have to bang your head to actually die from it . like. bro.

yeah what was logically supposed to happen is inhumane torture (slowly but surely withering away both physically and mentally until you starve to permadeath prob), but the alternative of what you are forced to do if you don't have a snazzy giant plant is also a whole other type of hell

it simply blows my mind (lol) how, going strictly by the text, smashing your skull open is the method the PC chooses to go out. it's just so. feral. like, literally feral. the most primal response possible to being locked in a claustrophobic cage versus your most basic instinct to not hurt yourself lethally.

the pc could have tried to bite off their tongue but no!! traumatic brain injury time, baby!!!

and you need to bang your head over. and over. and over again. you gotta either be insane enough to do it or become insane enough to do it. and keep. doing it. over. and over. and over again. your head throbs and swells and there's the blood and the crunching noises from inside your head and the oxygen running out and asphyxiating you. you're forced to commit suicide in an absolutely brutal manner. it's just. ugh. it's just so good???

and don't even get me started on the intricacies of eddie boy choosing this method specifically.

which leads to my previous bandaid headcanon to all those that actually killed themselves in that coffin: your sheer desperation/determination caught the personal attention of the boatman and he did you a little favour getting you out of there. as a treat.

my present (dare i say evolved) headcanon to fill up this specific mechanic plot hole ties into the evolution storyline. if you've done it you can pretty much guess what it is. destinies and whatnot

[szilverer]

ya ever groggily go spend your actions after waking up from a nap and promptly kill your pc in two taps

[szilverer]

Reisz used to drink wine. When that wasn't enough, they turned to the heavier stuff. When that wasn't enough, they turned to honey, and other bohemian pleasures. And when that wasn't enough, well, they turned to the thrill of danger, and then all of that at once.

Not sure that can be called "coping" but beating people up in the docks and beating other people's nightmares has been working well so far. The strangest part is probably how they every so often sing to themself in the middle of the violence. Only way they can get to sleep is by either exhausting their body completely or getting knocked tf out.

It's almost impossible to make it out unscathed when it comes to living in the Neath, and not everything can be fixed with just a cuppa and a stint in the Beth (for given value of "fixed" when the Beth is involved). For all the strange things your characters have gone through, what are some strange things they do to cope?

[szilverer]

hewwo

made this blog primarily to dump oc content (so much oc content) & liveblog my playthrough. (its my first time engaging in a fandom space like this tbh. do lemme know if i mess up with tagging or etiquette or smth. more about me here)

my main FL acc (Hreisz) is from 2016 but i only really started playing last august! ive finished my ambition in october but theres still a lot i dont know about the lore n stuff. recently made two alts & am slowly getting around to write/draw nice profile pages for everyone. very very slowly.

"H. Reisz", aka The Twilight Phantom // The Clawed Captain | LF (Looked Upon Fondly) | Oneirotect Silverer | ???

Hyacinthe R., aka The Sombre Pursuer | Nem | future Correspondent & Seeker | English-Romanian

"Zé Brito" or "Sev", aka The Zealous Backlander | BaL | future Monster-Hunter | Mixed Brazilian-British

cameos & headshots for everyone here.

feel free to send a CC or even just random in-character letters & menace help reqs :3c im a lil rusty but i'd love to write more

always open to asks/interactions here as well, just keep in mind i might take A While to respond as i am but an hermit with the barest of executive functions

trying to use this hyperfixation to practice digital art so there'll be random experimental doodles here as i try to find out wtf i am doing. everytime i open a canvas its a surprise. youve been warned

tags:

#chaindoodles -> art tag, #chainrambles -> text tag #fl liveblogging, #fl memes, #flore (fl lore) #london as a catch-all for stuff that reminds me of the setting

#the twilight phantom -> the (main) blorbo

#nightmarriage -> my blorbo hoards trash. block this to be spared from witnessing their arguably most questionable decision (i.e chaining their stalker to themself so they won't be alone)

content warnings:

#light fingers spoilers (also general tag for LF) #nemesis spoilers, #evolution spoilers, #railway spoilers

just to be safe, i tag eyestrain/bright colours for some art.

#suggestive in case i draw (or write?) smth that can be perceived as saucy, spicy, horn knee, overtly kinky or implied nsfw. there wont be anything Actually explicit here though

i like #blood and injuring my characters both mentally and physically. so uh. that. possibly violence.? jokes aside, i like exploring heavy themes: mental health & psychological issues; abuse; general horror; death & grief; alienation; one's relationship with pain & self-destruction, intentional or not - these are all concepts that are gonna be present in the things i make one way or another. some mild religious iconography as well bc although im not religious i was raised catholic & i like playing w/ the aesthetic.

#body horror (mostly the shapeling arts kind)

??

#poor edward

So who's this "Twilight Phantom"?

I play a strict game with myself when it comes to my main blorbo: 98% of what the FLPC does, in the exact order i do it, is canon.

This also applies to small things like their possessions/wardrobe, for example - they pretty much only have the in-game items I own in the account to wear. Finding out reasons to explain why they keep the things they own is part of the fun. (this game made them out to be a weirdo, naturally)

It's been lots of fun to see this clean slate (and i do mean clean - i knew nothing about the setting/lore, or who they were as a person, so. well. this guy didn't either) get shaped by RNG, the narrative, And my mechanical wiki-fueled optimization decisions.

another extra rule i made for myself as a treat was making them a sponge to compensate for their inherent emptiness. this means they incorporate something from each important NPC they get involved with. they are a singer because of Clara and her twin. they only own a lab & got interested in studying & research bc of Dr. Vaughan. they got a taste for exercise bc they accompanied Hephaesta's workouts for so long. and so on and so forth.

they are also hyacinthe's (nemesis spoiler). write-up on the mechanics here.

ill make a better, dedicated profile post eventually but for now have a playlist + an old vague intro + some early refs below:

[last updated: never. this is my self-callout to write abt recent developments bc ohh boy evolution was an entire year's worth of timeline progression.]

The first thing you notice about them is the cowl lazily draped around their head and shoulders, swaying behind their back like a cape in the colours of sunrise-- or, perhaps most familiarly, the velvety twilight that the newest star every so often provides to London.  The second thing is the deep scars covering one side of their face, and the third thing would probably be the heavy eyebags under their sharp, dark eyes.

A relatively freshly-minted Silverer, H. Reisz spends more time in Parabola than London nowadays. Not that they had been in London for too long anyway, and it's not like anyone knows where they were before that either. The surface, yes, but it's a big world out there, right? They don't actually remember seeing the sun, or the sky, but H cannot deny the soft colours of twilight and sunrise have a special place in their heart. They recognise it without the memory of experiencing it, just like they recognised love in the depths of a certain Labyrinth. Hmm, two Labyrinths, actually. There was that one heiress too... and the Orphanage was inside one hell of a maze too... if they had a coin every time they found themself inside labyrinths, they'd... Uh, where were we? Well, anyway, being a new face, they had nothing to be known for so they simply gave out their surname instead. Or well, what they assumed to be their surname. "H. REISZ" were the letters sewn-in on a diminute corner of the tattered black veil that wrapped their head back when they woke up for the "first" time. They were surrounded by near-empty bottles of dried mouldy honey, absinthe, and who knows what else. Ah, the decadence... they couldn't even remember what honey could do at the time but they could recognise the stench of self-destruction right away, haha.  Alas, if things were so bad they got to that point-- maybe this explains why moving on was so easy. Maybe they had somehow lobotomized themself on purpose. Who knows? They sure don't. It was only now, a year or so after waking up, that an epithet has started to stick around-- specifically by their actions as a Silverer and the services they provided. From nightmare-slaying to fishing out vestigial memories (the irony of an amnesiac doing this is not lost on them) to guiding and safeguarding lost dreamers, their glimmering signature cowl and the way it flowed rather phantasmagorically in Parabola started to leave an impression. To many dreamers, seeing a hint of pastel twilight colors signaled safety. It signaled someone you could trust to get inside your head. :)

[szilverer]

gotta confess that although i decided to give reisz the amnesia trope beam just bc i wanted to start playing before having to settle on their background, i did have a barebones semi-canon backstory for them all along.

its just that. out of all the canon-compliant manners of messing with memories that i came across so far (mostly mentions of irrigo & bottled oblivion). the One idea that i like the most just had to be the most convoluted possible

it wormed its way on the back of my head from the very first week or so when i was thinking about making a seeking alt and came across random unmarked nemesis ending spoilers in the discord.

the idea is reisz as the returned loved one of a nemesis alt, yeah.

naturally, the whole thing didn't work out that well for the two of them in the end..........

(…whenever i make a new Main oc it's like a curse. it doesn't spawn on its own, no. it comes in twos and they always come with an unsatisfying enmeshed relationship from a shared past. so those nemesis spoilers made me point like the dicaprio meme and BOOM second doomed character materialised in my head instantly. and cuz im a simple cliche bastard, a sucker for foils and mimesis whose autism craves narrative patterns, these two would have had inversely parallel developments.)

nemesis is just about the perfect ambition for a seeking alt bc it seems like the natural next step for a ultimately compassionate person that decided to commit their life to a vengeance that did Not pay off (due to the whole. not remembering thing.) so if i do decide to canonize this idea the matter of her current whereabouts is already answered: NORTH. and now that reisz got their first (and last) weeping scar. well. they match <3

i'd be playing events from years past but going north means she doesn't get to do the railway or any of that other stuff, so it fits nicely in the phantom's timeline.

this also would give me two very good explanations for their memory issues:

somehow rebooted themself on purpose bc they simply Couldn't Deal (same reason the… avenger? scourge? went north. they got to watch the beginning of her self-destruction, of course.)

it's an occasionally reoccurring consequence of whatever the hell got done to bring them back to life (i do not know what it was . i know there's cider involved but idrk what cider is.)

the only reason im wary of canonizing this right away is that aside from vague ending spoilers i Do Not Know what happens in nemesis. i Do Not Know if this idea is viable for a pc or if the circumstances of being brought back this way would contradict what a pc can or cannot do.

am in a weird spot that i Need to know more spoilers to check if everything would fit in a way that makes sense, and bc i want to play the ambition someday i don't want to spoil myself by trying to look it up!!1 flops down on the floor.

alas. i promised myself i'd only make an alt once im way into the endgame with reisz, so this boutta be their Schrodinger's Past for a good while. and if i do get to the end of nemesis a year from now and find out it doesn't actually fit, well . that's a problem for future me

[szilverer]

Call to yourself the nightmare of being discovered and the dread of consequence. Recognise the sound of its footstep and the shape of its profile:

you have seen your reflection before in Parabola.

Reisz puts their cosmogone glasses on... (eyestrain cw)

...and for the briefest of moments before disappearing again, they see something.

When it notices you noticing it, it turns away, smirking, and walks into the jungle. Its tracks give you direction.

No "I don't have a reflection because I don't have a past". Nothing.

...

You've suspected it for a while now– to think you'd been so naive before, thoroughly convinced your mirrors became empty after becoming a silverer. Well, it was a logical observation to make at the time. A logical conclusion which allowed you to stop your train of thought right there. No second-guessing, no what-ifs.

Experience kills naivety. You've been a silverer for more than half your entire conscious life now. Of course you had a reflection somewhere.

It just doesn't like you.

Your mirrors were empty not only because your reflection was invisible, and/or immaterial, a shadow uncast. They were empty because it was always walking away from you. They were empty because it was trying to stay as far away from you as possible.

You don't want to think about it.

...

Lately, something changed. You aren't sure what yet. Old reccurrent dreams that your brain used to fill up with a blurry image of the last time you'd seen yourself now show nothing. But you know. You know it's there. It's starting to come closer and closer and you're... not sure why. You don't see it but sometimes you can hear it– the dragging footsteps of something burdened with a weight much heavier than yours. Ragged breathing, not only one but several distinct instances of it, on and off, multiple silent gasps alongside the noiseless popping and cracking of bones reverberating in the air.

None of it disturbs you.

What's starting to bother you, however, enough that you have to make an active effort not to think about it,

is the tension in the air,

like a thread

straining more and more in each encounter.

Every single instinct of yours knows this: someday, that thing is going to snap.

(You recognise the feeling very well, after all this time. After all you've been through.)

That thing wants you dead.

[szilverer]

My case is a little funny bc my character was almost a fresh POSI and didn't know much about the Neath. (still don't tbh)

They didn't know what was up with the cat X fingerking feud, how deep it ran, or what was at stake, they just knew it existed. They had barely interacted with fingerkings up to that point too, so my PC literally just chose the cats because they had fun with the tigers last Estival and it seemed straightforward enough, as they also had No Clue Whatsoever why the sneks were angry with them. They found out cats had nobility at the exact moment they became one even, it was a trip.

However, if anyone had explained beforehand what would happen to the Sun + what it actually was. Well Reisz would've skinned themself as an apology instead. To them, the whole thing was just a giant misunderstanding and between you and me... they love Parabolan sunlight. Thank goodness it's still there.

(ooc though? i would've picked the shawl, in hindsight. the cat affiliation is great but it directly powercreeps the other ((optional)) affiliation i got from LF and it would've been more efficient to not have two ambition items in the same slot. buuut being addressed as Lyon is cool af so it's not a big deal lol)

Welp, I've arrived to the choice between Cats and Snakes in light fingers without deciding which one I want to pick-

So I want to ask people who've played it or are playing and already know which one they want, what was your in-character reason for picking either one? (i imagine that if I ask about ooc I'm going to get a lot of "I wanted to be a cat" lmao)

[szilverer]

on returning

was thinking about the intricacies of reisz being a [nemesis spoiler], and defined how that... works exactly. added some new rules for my playthrough too.

(TL;DR in red)

i didnt canonize my old returned one idea right away bc unfortunately my brand of autism makes me care about canon compliance with my own oc stuff-- i even decided to be extreme abt it with the ghostie's account for fun: 98% of the actions i take in-game + the descriptions given to me are canon whether i like it or not! i worried that'd clash with the possible canon about returned loved ones & being resurrected, info i do not have access to. (if there is even any tbh. from what i gathered the aftermath is pretty vague?)

...but then i realised that the FLPC, by virtue of being the FLPC, is already the most specialest blorbo ever. the canon + logic surrounding death, wounds, and healing thereof doesn't apply to the FLPC the same way it applies to NPCs.

so. technically. going by my own rules. being a returned one it's not actually that far-fetched???¿¿? it's a way one can explain why the FLPC Cannot be permakilled. all FLPCs are, by the end of the day, mechanically immortal. well then. whatever. (cracks knuckles) let's go all in.

the ghostie, none the wiser: I'm here for a good time, not a long time! me: lol

wait, but the FLPC still dies!

they do indeed! going to the boat is the very proof of that process. the FLPC is sturdy as all hell but still gets lethally hurt. here's how I'm reasoning it: the magic only kicks in when the body falls apart. (also i think the boatman simply can't row them to the far shore bc of it lmao.)

it's less of an invulnerability thing and more of a phoenix thing: you moult away your damaged shell and come back to life to a fresh healthy body regenerated anew from your own remains.

(i was uncertain whether to make it so the damaged parts get entirely rebuilt or if something is left behind. since there apparently are hijinks in which the FLPC leaves behind body parts ill cover my bases)

this was how reisz was able to carry so many scars for so long. this is how they lived for almost two years with multiple sequelae of traumatic brain injury that, although diminished with time, never went away. they survived with their normal metabolism (being buried alive ended in a boatman ex machina, so they didn't smash their head in enough for their brains to spill all out. but they were very close. in evolution it was rather unclear whether the ex machina happened as well or if we simply finally starved to death).

there was no need for the cider that remade their flesh & imbues their cells to get to work, which is only when something extreme that would permakill anyone else happens.

like being torn to pieces by a zee-monster.

(before & after status illustrated below.)

tfw you lose part of the identity you didn't even realize you had, rip.

hence my new rule! :D reisz' body gets soft-reset every time i get them killed too dead. i enjoy drawing scars on characters that lead dangerous lives, and reisz abruptly discovered they quite cherished the ones they used to have (each one was a memory after all: the trajectory of their short-lived life), so that's some low stakes Consequences for me to be mindful of. hehe.

design-wise am gonna miss their anisocoria though 😔 the mismatched slit pupils made them look so silly

aside from the whole uhhh reviving from your own gore thing, rei gets a few bonus freak vitality points that could be suspicious when you look back knowing there's something... off about them, but would raise little alarm on its own. they:

heal much faster than other people, often skipping the inflammatory response stage altogether (i.e. the FLPC being able to go from Agony and Desperation to Scratches and Bruises in a matter of a few actions, leaving no consequence whatsoever.)

build tolerance stupidly fast and can't Actually get drunk (or hangover) for long. same with drugs :(

have never been sick. not a single cold. (just bc i genuinely dont remember a single mention of the FLPC getting sick? food poisoning is a whole other thing.)

a completely broken, mayhaps even missing, sense of fear. which in hindsight? explains a lot about the way they live their life.

these ^ are mostly from extrapolating what supercharging your white cells with immortal juice could result in, but there's an extra:

that weird fondness for bones & skeletons that makes them impulsively bring home whatever abandoned body part they come across? it stems from the fact that. well. reisz Was bones. reisz might not remember but the body always does.

[szilverer]

whenever a storyline takes me to parabola i always gotta take a second to remember all this cool shit ain't silvering, it's just regular glasswork. advanced glasswork sure but still just glasswork.

the more time passes the more i understand complaints about silverers being boring or lacking identity. from what i gathered parabola wasn't accessible back then, and the profession kinda lost charm when it opened up to everyone. (let's not even mention the entirety of oneiropomping.)

on the other hand, the same way everyone can dabble in advanced correspondence shenanigans, that doesn't make them a professional. and thinking about it i haven't really seen the same complaints about correspondents. but maybe they're out there and i just haven't stumbled on them?

i still think silverers are wicked sick from what it's implied that they can do but. FL rly doesn't do much pushing further the more unique aspects of the profession, or providing unique choices (i can really only think of the fathomking option.) that might be a problem with all professions though so idk rly but my point stands that there's missed potential here

speaking of which. it's a travesty we don't have social actions regarding nightmares. @/fbg come on.

[szilverer]

i have been stuck with decision paralysis abt the end of evolution for two days now. my full candle taunts me.

[szilverer]

you ever go ask for directions and end up thoroughly banished from the place instead? a story in 7 acts.

extras

they also had this very conveniently timed dream that was definitely not menacing (and strangely alluring?) at all. anyway

railway progression is so close i can almost taste it-- (remembers i need 16 more lab experiments) fug.

for the first time ever, hedonist is about to lose its spot as their highest quirk. considering they racked up a lot of heartless in the labyrinth (they did catch & release okay?) there's been some interesting lightning-fast character development into an arguably worse person ever since they joined the board. guess this is what being an investor does to you lmfao.

[szilverer]

not me only seeing the notifs days later help

@oneirotecture heheee tysm ;v;!!! and hello there fellow br fl player maining a silverer with a facial scar who wears a piece of clothing based on an in-game item both closest to bohemians & friends with sussy snakes & (funniest coincidence of all by far) who only go by surnames bc they both forgor their first names insira spiderman pointing meme here. i hope ppl in the neath dont ever mix the two of them up & misplace their mail or smth bc that'd be. so embarrassing to this newcomer. am so sorry warden.

the more i think about it the more im certain zé would be hilariously miserable in a land sem UM PINGO de sol lmfao. & you gave me such a lovely idea with the cordel, it would be a super fun project to try making little comic strips in that style in the future!! (and well shes a seeker but there is a chance she doesnt knock... only time will tell...)