#forgotten prologue

[faislittlewhiteraven]

Been having some ISaT tech level and timeline (as in 'when backstory things happened') thoughts and want to ramble a bit:

Tech

ISaT's setting is based on your classic sword and sorcery fantasy JRPG so its easy to assume that tech wise everything is 'fantasy medieval' and call it a day but consider:

Body Craft is at bare minimum is magic sex changing surgery (earliest known equivent in our world dating to 1930) that any old person can learn to do safely on themselves in only a few months, and more likely has many many broader applications like regular old surgery, the 'combat healing' Mira and Sif use, etc.

Cameras and photos are rare enough that Odile comments on it (namely she's happy the group get a photo in the House due to them being 'so rare') yet are also common enough that everyone in the party knows about them and doesn't question the existence of a camera beyond being surprised that the mirror was one. (In our world cameras date back to the 19th century, with the earliest manufacturing of them being in 1839). 

Printing presses and ways to make plenty of paper to feed those presses given absolutely everyone in this game can read, expects everyone else to know how to, and both mass produced book series and newspapers are a thing. (Note: Printing presses have existed since waaaay back but it's the mass paper manufacturing that makes newspapers and The Cursing of Chateu Castle possible that really has my eyebrows raised here, especially since neither Siffrin or Odile find either odd in any way, indicating such things are common everywhere, and while newspapers have been around since 1604 in our world, mass produced fantasy books didn't really take off until the start of the 20th century).

Food production and storage: despite being in the middle of a national disaster that almost certainly cut off trade networks and access to most suppliers for literal months now, Bonnie, a small child, is able to easily get their hands on fresh Pineapple, curry ingredients (for samosa), potatoes, plantains etc with no issues or anyone commenting on this being unusual or lucky. Oh and the only character who even brings up the concept of potential starvation is the Fishing One, and only in a sort of 'we're not at risk now but sooner or later...' kinda way due to noticing that the fish they fish up for fun are disappearing and likely being frozen. So yeah, that heavily implies Vaugarde has very good food storage tech/Craft (possibly better than ours), and likely also good food production and harvesting tech/skills also.

The Island's incredible knowledge of the stars: while the oldest known orrery in our world is dated from around 205 to 87 BC (ancient Greek, earth centric model), the fact Sif -who would've learnt this as a child/teen- is so very certain that stars are big balls of fire made up of gas is interesting as that's something our world couldn't prove the theory of until around the 1900s (note: it'd been theorized a LONG time but Sif talks like its complete facts to them . Additionally the earliest existing record of a telescope in our world dates to a 1608 patent and we see one of those in game.

Post posting EDIT: A wonderful user qds-place pointed out that Mirabelle has anti-anxiety medication in her room. This is in both ISaT and SAaP and though we're not sure what form the medication takes (pills? Valium? Megitech esc Craft boosters???) the fact they specifically have 'anti anxiety' medication at all (as opposed to idk dragging Mira off and drugging her through the gills) is kind of impressive and if it IS modern anti anxiety pills those could be as recent in creation as the 1950s! So um. Some high levels of tech implied in chemistry there <3

So... yeah. All this, plus the fact that the highest tech implied area, The Island, literally specialised in the study/Craft of turning wishes into reality (for a long enough time period that Wish Craft is culturally so ingrained in the King and Sif that they do it without thinking and it seems intertwined with their nation's religion) has been completely erased from memory to the point anything heavily associated with them has been forgotten, and also we only ever see Dormont aka a little village well away from the cities, it's not hard to conclude that you can basically justify giving the ISaT world any level of tech you want, so long as you lock any of the truly 'setting breaking' stuff like planes and rockets behind The Island's forgetting curse (I would've said trains too but thinking about it trains were invented in 1802 so it's honestly easy to imagine that they totally exist in the ISaT setting/Vaugarde but aren't ever on screen because rail is way too dangerous to consider using while the Curse is active and potentially time freezing things on the tracks).

Side note: We know absolutely nothing about Vaugarde's transport system but as a fan of fantasy RPGs it is honestly a travesty I have yet to see a fic that has flying dragons/wyverns or other fantasy mounts in setting. Like, ok yes, the party would probably have wanted to use those but maybe they don't like the Curse and fled? Maybe the King's Curse targeted them first? Maybe all their handlers dropped the heroes off in Dormont and said 'Well Saviors it's been fun, but well me and Scales here are off to Poteria until things wrap up so best of luck to you' before buggering off?

This isn't really a serious complaint just. Me reminding myself/potentially other fanwork writers out there that there's a lot about the setting we just don't know about and limiting all travel to walking, horse drawn carriage and boat is not actually required. (Also please mix up travelling to the Island. Boats are a wonderful classic and have great thematic vibes for Sif's original leaving of the Island but like. Imagine the sheer in-universe wtf of the memories of The Island suddenly coming back and people on the north coast suddenly realising there's a massive bridge, subway or underwater tunnel leading there that everyone just forgot about - potentially filled with all kinds of Sadnesses that need taking down. Or Warp Panels in a House of Change, idk XD).

Timeline

Canon notes first:

Bonnie is a preteen (8 to 12), Mira and Isa are in their early to mid 20s (with Isa slightly older), Sif is late 20s to 30, and Odile is 40+ Nille is stated to be around 18 to 20.

Siffrin ran away from home when they were a teenager (13 to 17? 18?) and this is heavily implied to be when the Island was Forgotten.

Bonnie (in ISaT specifically*) says that Nille told them that when it happened all the adults were talking about it, hence why they think The Island is close to their village. *In Start Again a Prologue, Bonnie says that they themself remember the adults talking about the Island disappearing, which er. Is a bit impossible given they likely weren't even born yet when that happened but that can be explained away by AU differences, InsertDisc5 still finalising details between SAaP and ISaT, and/or OG Siffrin having been in the loops so long they weren't actually listening when Bonnie was talking and just 'scripted' in their head something 'close enough' to what Bonnie was saying to get the idea (note: mentioned that idea before in my post here on the differences between the House and King in Start Again vs In Stars and Time for anyone curious so er please feel free to give that a read if you haven't already).

Odile mentions remembering 'when it happened' as well and has been 'travelling for years'.

The King 'appeared out of nowhere' sometime in his adulthood, and lived in the city of Corbeaux for a few years before he became the King.

The King became the King as was freezing people in time long enough before his attack on the House of Dormont that everyone inside knew he was coming, there were a wall's worth of newspaper articles about him, and everyone was expecting Euphrasie to defeat him.

Mirabelle's quest began 'almost a year ago' and Sif lost their eye 'recently'.

Thoughts on the above:

Calculating when The Island was forgotten:

Sif being mid 20s to 30 and having run away from home as a teen means that The Island has to have been forgotten somewhere between 9 to 17 years ago with nine only possible if he ran away at age 17 and is only age 26 now, and seventeen being the far opposite if he ran at age 13 and is currently 30.

To narrow down the timeline: Given Sif ran away from home because he 'didn't want to eat his veggies' and 'just wanted to scare [his] parents a little bit' it's probably safe to assume Siffrin was likely on the younger end of the teen spectrum (teens run off all the time sure but with loving parents and over veggies? That screams 'kid who has not yet learned that freaking out the parents will get their ass grounded and/or yelled at a LOT and is therefore best saved for doing fun forbidden stuff that ideally the parents will never find out about' XD) Additionally given Siffrin can't remember his age/birthday etc but Isabeau outright says near the beginning of the game "But you're older than most of the people here?" meaning Sif must be visibly older than Isa or Mira, so he's probably closer to 30 than not.

Those alone would imply the Island likely disappeared closer to the '17 years ago' side of things BUT Nille (tops 20 years old) told Bonnie that "[the Island's disappearance] was all the adults would talk about for ages" and kids usually can't remember anything prior to 4 years of age so with that in mind...

I'd say The Island most likely disappeared between 13 to 16 years ago.

Nille stuff:

This is more a general mention but. Nille is tops 20 years old. Bonnie is between 8 and 12 and doesn't remember their parents at all.

This means Nille ran away with Bonnie and gained emancipation and custody of Bonnie (if Vaugarde has formalised that kind of legal stuff) while she was at most 12 years old herself and could have in theory been as young as 6..!

Regardless, it's very likely the original home situation was that bad, Nille deserves a ton of credit for raising Bonnie as well as she has and I'd say it's very VERY likely she had a lot of help from villagers in Bambosche and/or the local House of Change in doing so. ...But also Bonnie is very adamantly 'my sister and village' and not 'my sister and [specific names who live with us]' so there's clearly by the time Bonnie was 4 or so they were living in their own place so... Yeah. Lotta drive for independence there too it seems (so the party might have more trouble adopting Nille into their group post ISaT than Bonnie might expect).

King stuff:

Already an adult 13 to 16 years ago so at bare minimum 33. Given his vibe probably much older though.

Newspapers get printed pretty quick though for there to be so much speculation and research done into his background so quick, either Vaugarde has some form of fast messaging system (something like a Chappe telegraph on top of the Houses of Change? Odile I think does mention that they'll have a message sent to let Nille know they'll be returning Bonnie...) or the King was freezing stuff for IDK around a month or two before reaching Dormont? Alas can't find out how long it takes to walk across all of France out very easily (I'm sure the numbers are out there but my brain is pudding rn) but if we had those numbers we could probably make some guesstimates based off the rough sketched map of Vaugarde InsertDisk5 did... Which I would link but apparently the tumblr post I had it linked on has been deleted???? 'wails at this very unhappy development'

Mira's journey and Sif's eye:

We really don't know a lot but almost a year ago gives us somewhere around 9 to 11 months to spread the journey out along and after eye removal surgery the patient can out and about as soon as 2 to 6 weeks after, maybe sooner with magic healing (though full recovery/growing used to the changed spacial awareness -which Sif clearly does not have- probably can't be sped up and takes around 3 to 6 months) so um. I'd guestimate Sif's eye injury is really recent; like two months ago tops recent. ...Which sorta explains a lot of why Bonnie is not dealing with it right now and also why the others might be trying to avoid bringing it up (since Sif clearly loves avoiding the issue but they haven't yet realised that maybe they really should bring it up even if it annoys them anyway?)

Odile with some Ka Bue speculation:

When it comes to The Island, how did Odile, presumably living in Ka Bue at the time, remember 'when it happened'? Was the Island well known enough even on the other side of the world that it's disappearance made waves? Or was Odile herself or someone she's close to paying attention to the region? (Like maybe her dad or a friend is/was into politics or trade, keeping up with overseas news and got concerned it could happen to Ka Bue? I'd say 'I remember when it happened' line implies it was more immediate knowledge than being informed by a messenger much later though...)

As for Odile's 'years of travel' I have to wonder, what's left behind for her in Ka Bue? She brings up going back there quite a bit, might just miss home and possibly her father if he's still alive, but given it took her years to get here for something so personal rather than idk 'materially rewarding' I think Odile might have some kinda family estate or something back in Ka Bue... Something she wasn't worried about potentially losing while far away, but solid enough to want to return to, beyond her father who she'd definitely want to see again if he's still around. (...But given how open she is to chilling about Vaugarde a few more months with the others, I really don't think he is alive, since well, given their respective ages and travel between Vaugarde and Ka Bue apparently taking years, there'd definitely an uncomfortably high chance of him passing away while she's gone and that seems like the thing that'd stress Odile out so... Yeah. Probably got an estate in Ka Bue she'd like to take the Family to visit/possibly sell off if she decides she'd like to live with them in Vaugarde so... Just my off the cuff headcanoning here and hoping that gives others ideas or something).

---

Anyway that's all the ramble I've got in me so... yeah! Hope this was interesting and useful for those needing a bit of a 'possible tech'/timeline calcs breakdown for the Island + a few more vague things and um. Probably will post a long winding ramble about my attempt at a ISaT Selkie AU fic I've been working on next <3 (Not to be confused with looped-140-and-counting's already existing and quite wonderful Selkie Siffrin AU which already has a completed oneshot fic, a snippet of sequel, two snippets of prequel/Sif flashbacking and I believe a comic too, all of which I highly recommend <3)

[waytooinvested]

Forgotten, Not Forgiven - Chapter 1

Still reeling from finding out the truth herself, Lena suddenly finds herself in the midst of an odd role reversal in which she knows that Kara is Supergirl, but Kara no longer has any idea she has ever been more than an ordinary human.

And what’s more, Lena has no choice but to keep the truth from her for her own protection…

This and previous chapters also on AO3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex: Have you seen Kara?

Lena glanced at her phone and raised an eyebrow at the text lighting up her screen.

That woman had such a nerve.

She ignored the message and turned back to her computer, only to have another text ping in five minutes later.

Alex: Seriously Lena, she was due back hours ago and I haven’t heard anything. I need to know where she is.

Lena huffed irritably, but gave in.

Lena: I have no idea where she is. Kara and I are no longer friends, remember? I’m sure she’ll turn up in her own time.

Lena: We both know she can look after herself.

Alex didn’t respond again, so naturally Lena assumed that Kara had indeed turned up in her own time, and that everything had been fine after all.

That is, until she saw the headline in the news a week later:

SUPERGIRL MISSING?

She almost didn’t click the link.

Since she had found out the truth about Kara three months ago, Lena had done her best to comprehensively uproot the weed of their friendship from her life, and so far had been reasonably successful.

She had deleted Kara’s number from her phone before she had even made it back to her jet after her run in with Lex.

On the flight home she had called her assistant and asked her to make sure that Kara Danvers was escorted off the premises immediately should she show up at L-Corp, and had left a similar message with the security staff in her apartment complex.

Selling Catco had taken a little longer, but only because dealing with such a large asset could not be rushed. She might have been in pain, but Lena was a shrewd business woman and ensured that the sale was made with a hefty profit, the value of the company boosted by the revenue generation improvements she had made while in charge. She had also wanted to take her time to pick the perfect boss for Kara: someone who would inarguably make the magazine more profitable as a business than it had ever been before, while systematically and comprehensively destroying everything about it that had made Kara love her job there.

The new three year contracts with a non-compete clause thrown in had been a nice touch.

She could have taken her revenge further than that – had even planned exactly how she would do it.

The night of Kara’s Pulitzer prize. A damning speech about truth and lies, followed by Andrea Rojas leading the exposure of Supergirl’s secret identity to the world. Betrayal returned like for like, and Kara left as broken hearted as Lena had been.

Oh yes, she could have done it. Luthors were scorpions, and Lena knew how to sting.

But something had held her back from taking the final plunge that would have ripped safety and anonymity so irrevocably from Kara’s life. She wanted to believe it was her own compassion – an innate goodness that led her towards the moral high ground and made her fundamentally better than the Luthors she had so often sought to distance herself from, but it wasn’t true.

The reason she hadn’t done it was Lex.

Maybe if she had managed to pull the trigger last time they met, if she had murdered her own brother in cold blood for the sake of her traitorous false-friend, maybe then she would have done it. If Lex was dead and buried and out of her life for good, Lena could finally have stepped out of his shadow and stopped framing every decision she made against what he would have done. But Lex was still out there somewhere, laying low for now but undoubtedly still scheming, killing, making the worst decisions a human being could make while still being labelled as such, and that made a difference.

Revealing Supergirl’s identity to the world was a plan that Lex would have wanted her to carry out.

And so Lena hadn’t.

That had been enough at first, but as the weeks passed and the first fire of her rage cooled from white hot inferno to mere black smith’s forge fire, she found she was glad that she hadn’t taken the nuclear option. Kara might have deserved retribution for what she had done, but exposing her identity would put everyone she knew, including the entirety of the Catco staff and her unsuspecting apartment neighbours in serious danger from every human and alien criminal out there with a weapon and a score to settle, and Lena wanted no more innocent blood on her hands than had already been passed down to her as part of her dubious Luthor inheritance.

And she didn’t want Kara to die.

That didn’t mean she cared if Supergirl really had gone AWOL. She had had nothing to do with it, and it was none of her concern anymore...

Lena clicked the link.

According to this site, Supergirl had been observed flying off to the north of National City on an ‘unknown errand’ eight days previously and had not been seen since, leaving two major bank robberies, a fire at a children’s hospital and a collapsed ceiling at a swimming pool without support from ‘everyone’s favourite hometown hero’.

Eight days. That tallied with how long it had been since Alex had asked if she knew where Kara was, allowing for the full day that had passed before the DEO Director had made the decision to reach out to her. It struck Lena now that it was an odd thing for her to have done under normal circumstances. She might not have done anything to Alex specifically during the first fierce storm of her separation from their little group – at least not beyond a few short, sharp words and a door slammed in her face – but Alex had taken Lena’s swift and total removal of Kara from her life if anything even worse than Kara herself had, and had been round to yell at her over hurting Kara’s poor little feelings before the end of the first week.

She must have been desperate to have reached out to Lena like that after all this time.

Now she was looking for them, Lena found that there were dozens of similar stories popping up, ranging from serious think pieces about what this could mean for National City and Supergirl’s own welfare, to tabloid trash that suggested she might be having some sort of torrid three way affair with a sexually promiscuous alien couple from Saturn (why Saturn? Unclear. What was clear was that the entire story was utter garbage apart from one essential point: Supergirl was nowhere to be found).

Lena picked up her phone and tapped in Kara’s number, her chest tight with unease as she waited for the call to connect.

Of course she knew Kara’s number by heart. If she hadn’t she would never have been able to make herself delete it from her contacts.

It rang.

Maybe Kara was carrying a big stack of files and didn’t have a hand free to get her phone out of her back pocket.

And rang.

Maybe she was in the shower and didn’t want to rush out to answer the phone while wet and covered in shampoo.

And-

‘Hi this is Kara! I can’t get to the phone right now, but please leave me a message and I’ll get back-’

Maybe she was just screening Lena’s call. After everything that had happened between them it was what most people would have done, and Lena would understand that.

She hung up and redialled.

‘Hi this is Kara! I can’t-’

Kara would never have ignored a second call from Lena. No matter how angry she was, if she could pick up the phone, she would have done so by now.

Again.

‘Hi this is-’

She tried Alex instead.

This time, the phone was picked up before the end of the first ring.

‘Do you have Kara?’

A stone thudded into the pit of Lena’s stomach.

‘She really is missing then?’

‘Fuck. Yes she’s missing. You didn’t even know?’

‘Not until I saw it on the news just now. When I didn’t hear anything more from you after that last text I assumed she’d made it back safely’.

‘No, you had just answered my question and clearly didn’t want to help, so-’

‘Yes well, I thought she had just taken a detour to France for crepes or something, not that she was actually gone’.

‘Right, and you were so concerned you waited a week to check’.

‘Much as it may surprise you to learn this Alex, I don’t make a habit of keeping tabs on people who have betrayed me. So if you don’t want my help finding Supergirl I’ll just-’

‘No, Lena, wait. Look, I’m sorry okay? I’m just worried about her. If I send you the co-ordinates for her last known location do you think you could see if you can find anything? She went after this weird energy signature we’d picked up, but then her radio went dark and we couldn’t get anything else from her. We went out there to see if she was in some kind of trouble, but the place she was headed: it’s just a field. There’s nothing there, not even a trace of the energy we got before, and no sign of a struggle or any kind of indication of where she went next’.

‘Send me what you have and I’ll see what I can do’.

‘Sending it now’.

Less than a minute later Alex’s email arrived with the relevant details about Supergirl’s last known location attached, as well as everything they knew about the energy signature she had been investigating.

It wasn’t a whole lot to go on, except-

There was something vaguely familiar about the signature. It reminded her of…

Lex.

It reminded her of Lex, and the trap he had once devised to lure in a certain type of pseudo-photosynthesetic alien who fed on a very particular wavelength of light that wasn’t naturally produced by Earth’s yellow sun. Once it was absorbed the aliens could be hooked up to a generator that would produce massive amounts of electricity and could have made fossil fuels all but redundant overnight. In theory. In practise however Lex had never been able to make the conversion work, and had eventually given up on the plan.

So why was it showing up again now? And what did it have to do with Kara’s disappearance? It seemed far too much of a coincidence to imagine that the two things were unconnected, especially when Lex was the common thread.

Quickly, Lena skimmed through her options, and picked one she could adapt to this new purpose. The DEO had been scanning for days with no luck, but she had one thing they didn’t.

She knew her brother.

It took another two hours to fine tune the software and upload it to a satellite with scanning capabilities, but at last it was ready. She cast a wide net, centred on the location Alex had given her but stretching out from it to search a 30 mile radius. If it really was Lex then the place he had lured Supergirl was a decoy, and would be located well away from wherever he actually wanted her to end up.

She had to extend her search parameters twice, but at last she found it. Not the same energy signature – that would be too obvious. No, what Lena had been looking for was the special coded frequency that Lex had developed in his teens. To most people it would look like background radio noise, but Lena knew better.

It was him alright.

She reached for her phone to call Alex, then hesitated. All she had actually done was locate her brother, or at least somewhere he was broadcasting from. But the site was more than 80 miles from where Kara had last been seen, and Lena was working on a hunch rather than any kind of real evidence that Lex had taken her.

Besides, if the DEO got him they would just send him back to jail, and it had become abundantly clear that a maximum security cell was not enough to contain him.

No, Lena was going to have to do this herself. She would find Lex, and if he really had kidnapped Kara, she would finish what she had started the night he revealed the truth about Supergirl.

She was going to kill him.

[the-bitter-ocean]

I just think the events leading up to this moment is very funny @jonahmagnus @felikatze If you told ocean from 2021-2022 that this would happen she’d have looked at you crazy:

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Daughter of the House of Dreams: A Fragment

Author's Note: This is the opening to a long-abandoned "Sleeping Beauty" retelling that I no longer plan to write, but I still like it as a piece of prose, and it sparked my enduring interest in second-person narration, so it feels relevant, and why should long-dead authors be the only ones who get to have their unfinished fragments published?

If you ever travel to Monetta City, be sure to visit Faraway Lane. Walk past the glittering new shops, and the shoppers in their bright silk dresses and top hats, and you'll find a cozy stone shop at the end of the street. This shop isn't grand and mighty like the other shops. It won't sniff and turn you away if your clothes aren't the latest fashion. It's a grandmotherly old shop that shakes its head at the prancing and preening of the younger shops, and invites you in instead. It holds no wares in its windows; it hardly has windows at all. But it has a warm and wide wooden door, with a shingle hanging above—Alessia Day, maker of dreams.

Don't ponder the sign's message too long—it means exactly what it says. Just slip inside, shut the door behind you, and look. Don't breathe too deeply, unless you want a week of crazy dreams, but allow yourself one gasp of astonishment. You won't be able to stop yourself. No living person has failed to feel awe toward the rows and rows of shelves, longer than streets and taller than palaces, filled to bursting with glass bottles in such bright colors that the dresses in the other shops' windows would weep in envy. Some bottles are the size of thumbnails. Most fit comfortably in the palm. Some are as large as breadboxes or steamer trunks or carriage horses, but the shelves manage to fit them all. And each bottle is filled to the brim with dreams.

If you don't understand, ask Alessia Day. You'll find her at a counter half a mile from the door, polishing bottles and humming a song you've heard but can't remember. She's an old woman now, and proud of it, but squint your eyes and start to daydream, and you'll see her as I remember her—a willow-wand girl with shining brown hair and eyes that sparkle with half-formed jokes.

Tell this girl how pretty she is (she'll laugh and call you crazy) and ask about her dreams. She'll tell you of her stock and sell you any dream you ask for—daydreams and pipe dreams, dreams of love, dreams of adventure, dreams of loved ones lost and loved ones found and people you've never met but wish you had. She'll show you dreams of lush and perfect islands, dreams where fishes fly through the air, and dreams where people swim the seas with fishes' tails. She'll pull down dreams that last a second but linger a lifetime, dreams that fill a month of stormy nights, dreams that fade on waking and dreams that drown out memories. If you let her, she'll talk of dreams until you drift off, and she'll bottle up your dream while you doze.

But if you're smart (I know you are) you'll step to the counter with a clear glass bottle, empty of everything but air, and ask for her story instead. She'd distill it in a dream for you, and be glad to do it—I once saw her whip it up in half a minute, and I'll bet she's even faster now. Buy the dream, but don't drink it right away. You won't be ready for it. Linger in the shop a while. Hear the story first from Alessia Day's lips, in that voice of hers that's sweeter than singing.

You won't believe half of it, but when you stagger from the shop and wander the empty, starlit streets, you'll ponder over passages until you stumble into bed at sunrise. And when you wake, the world will be different—you'll see tiny footprints on the windowsills, know things about the shadows on the walls, tip your hat to creatures in the corner of your eye, and realize there is another color no one else can see. You'll laugh and call it your imagination, but every second Tuesday, you'll start to wonder if the old woman was right, if the things she told you were true.

If you drink the dream she made, you'll know. I'll understand if you don't—some things are easier not to know. But if you do, and dream through her story, come to my house and ring the bell. My man will let you in—he'll know you by the wonder on your face. He'll bring you to my study, set you in my oldest, softest chair, and get us both settled with a steaming pot of tea. Then, once you've finished babbling, I'll close my eyes and tell you my part in the tale.

[moreaugriffins]

Dr Who: The Brigadier is a silly military man. He's stubborn, and unflappable, and extremely loyal to the Doctor and his men (soldiers). This man can deal with anything, like a champ. Water off his back, yknow?

Lethbridge-Stewart books: This dude is getting traumatised every single day and he doesn't get a moment's break. Anything that could happen to him, will. Will he cope with the trauma? not really. He's a resilient dude, but he'll just pretend most of it didn't happen, for his own sanity

[volturiprincess]

Tell me why I'm working on three one-shots with different genres? (well kind of more that three but I'm mostly putting more energy on three) One happens to be smut related (it was going to be more of a scary but thrilling kind of thing but i changed my mind once I thought about it more) , another about ghostface and the third one is angsty. My mind cannot stay on one thing for long so thats why I kind of work on multiple things at once to keep my mind going and to keep it stimulated. I also happen to be writing notes for a class too😁. As my masterlist says "Welcome to my delusional mind💙".

[mx-nix-winks]

Forgotten Gods [drabble/prologue?] future dca/reader

You found the old ruins on accident [everyone only ever finds the ruins on accident], because you had strayed from the group, distracted by a pretty creature, and then wound up lost.

You were a cocktail of mixed up emotions; the excitement and thrill of exploring new hidden treasures, and the cold sharp prickle of fear gripping tight around your throat.

You didn’t think you had wandered all that far before realizing the others weren’t with you, so you didn’t expect to get so lost so quickly. But here you were, each time taking a step in the direction that you thought would lead you home instead seeming to spin beneath your foot and land you in a completely different place. Almost like the forest was playing with you.

You… weren’t sure if it was the friendly or not-so-friendly kind of playing with you BUT! You would hope! Until proven otherwise! No need to give ideas or borrow trouble from tomorrow.

So when you came upon the large ruins you didn’t stop until right up against the edge of the stairs leading up. You were curious- there weren’t supposed to be any buildings near where your group was hiking and staying but the stone was old- weather worn and draped in moss and vines.

The stone was rough against your fingertips, but not as corrugated or crumbling as you expected it to be. The stone was washed in greens from the forest but you could see spots where grey stone shone through. Or was it grey marble? It was hard to tell- but whatever it was, it had stood against time and weather so well that there was hardly any damage. A column here or there was starting to crumble, and a few spots of the walls were missing pieces or had large cracks but overall it looked not to be as damaged as you expected for what you assumed was a temple from the roman period.

Curious, you went to step forward, pausing for a moment before your foot hit the first step, something in you listening for something you couldn’t quite place. You tilted your head to the side, waiting, listening- hearing nothing but birdsong and the regular noises of the forest.

So why were you holding your breath?

A quiet exhale.

A steadying inhale.

A pause, and then, “Hello!”

Immediately heat filled your cheeks as you heard your own voice seemingly echo in the the quite obviously empty area devoid of people.

“I, uh, just wanted to explore a bit if that’s okay?” Stars above you were talking to thin air and looking like a fool for asking it for permission.

“I wont hurt anything or take anything, honest! But- uh, I’m curious.” You flashed a smile around the temple and forest as if this was a totally normal thing to do – talking to thin air as if you weren’t some kind of unhinged person slowly loosing it- and then added, “if, uh, if you’d like me to leave. Please let me know? UH! In a safe way!! If you don’t mind!”

And then you set your foot down on the first step.

…

Nothing happened.

Your face burned but luckily no one was here to witness your embarrassment and you quickly climbed the stairs.

At the top of the stairs was a grand entryway, certainly the kind that kings and gods were given back in the roman days. Tufts of orange and blue cloth waved softly in the light breeze, the edges torn and the length shortened to just reaching halfway down the opening archway. Ten feet still too high for you to reach. Stars this place made you feel short.

You peeked your head in the entryway and the sight made you gasp.

“Oh my…” you wandered in, a bit starstruck and still rambling to the air because somehow it felt right, felt proper to do so, “oh wow oh wow oh wow…” you spun in a circle in the middle of the main temple area, looking up at the ceiling just to loose your breath all over again.

“Oh stars above…. That’s gorgeous.”

And it was- a magnificent mural stretching all across the ceiling, a deep midnight blue with bright pops of white, stars and constellations spilling across the ceiling until at the edges where they kissed the walls, it transitioned through purples and pinks to wash the walls in soft warm oranges and yellows.

The colors were faded just a bit but it took almost nothing to imagine them bright in their full fresh splendor.

The temple was beautiful and looked more as if it had been hidden out of sight instead of knowingly abandoned or forgotten. Tall spiraling columns painted like warm firelight spiraled up to meet the ceiling, fading to white at the tops and looking almost like clouds against the starry backdrop. Dust was inches thick on any flat surface, even coating the tops of some of the rounded spheres and carvings.

Your feet made a trail in dust coating the floor that you only just now noticed and cringed, feeling bad for disturbing such a peaceful stillness. But it was short lived as that childish feeling bubbled up in you, the want of jumping into a perfectly still pool to cause ripples and splashes, disrupting the stillness with your chaos. And as you glanced around, you reminded yourself that no one else was here to see you make a fool of yourself. To indulge in your inner childish wants. So you backed up along your previous trail to the archway again before closing your eyes and trying to shake out your jitters.

It was fine, no one was here, no one would see, and- well, really. What was the harm? You hadn’t let yourself do something silly and fun in a bit so.

Eyes snapping open you started off at a giggling run before spinning in the middle, glancing up at the rotating stars above you, before a laugh burst out of you. Once you started you could hardly stop- laughter and giggles escaping you as you ran and jumped around the temple, hooking a hand and arm around a column to swing yourself in a circle around it and off to the next one.

It was silly and childish and maybe a little stupid to do but as you found yourself in a heap on the dirty ground, chest heaving with exertion and laughter, you grinned at the sight of the spinning and looping trails of your foot prints through the dust on the floor. Like a painting you made with hops, jumps, slides, and occasional falls.

A last laugh bubbled out of you as you laid your head back down catching your breath.

Silly…

You giggled in response then paused.

Did… Did you just hear something?

Cheeks burning already in embarrassment you propped yourself up on your elbows then onto your hands, sitting up to look and see which person was present for your embarrassment.

But there was no one there. No matter which direction you looked, you could not see or hear anyone despite feeling like someone was laughing. Maybe not directly at you but- well. You were being a bit silly.

And as if to prove the point you stuck your tongue out at whoever or whatever it was that was laughing.

You think that made the feeling of laughter stronger.

With a soft chuckle at yourself you climbed back up to your feet and started exploring a bit more. There were all the normal things you thought would be in a temple- rows of stone? Marble? Benches to sit on- offering pedestals, symbols all over the columns, walls and interior of the temple. But it was missing one thing.

The statue of what god this temple belonged to.

You searched and searched and finally came to a stop at the very back of the temple where it seemed like there had maybe been a statue at some point. Maybe. Or maybe it was where another column was supposed to have been. Though when checking upwards it did not seem like there was a gap in the night sky above you. So that seemed unlikely.

You kneeled down and traced your fingers across the jagged stone on the floor gently. It had less dust on it than the entire rest of the place making you frown. If there had been a statue here, then it was removed more recently than the rest of this place had been lost.

Strange… you hadn’t seen any other tracks in here before your spinning silly escapade around the main temple.

“I wonder who you are…” you mumbled softly before glancing up and around, searching and analyzing the symbols around you, “I don’t suppose you could give me a clue, could you?” you half joked half earnestly asked, not really expecting an answer.

A loud creak of a door startled you into a yelp that landed you on your butt, heart thudding in your chest as your head whipped wildly around looking for the person who had made the noise. For a moment there was only the sound of your fast breathing before your curiosity took over and you climbed to your feet, eagerly tip toeing towards the source of the sound you heard.

Around the corner you found the door, wooden with chipped paint that you ran soft fingers across. It looked like a painting of something but you couldn’t quite make out what- too much of it had come off over time, peeling and chipping, until you could really only make out faint colors.

Easing in through the door, as you really did not want to push it open and make that horrible loud noise again, you slipped between the opening and into another room. Slightly smaller than the main temple room but immediately it was different. The main temple was gorgeous but this, this was a riot of colors.

Across the walls and even the floors and ceilings were covered in color. Murals and paintings and images that clashed with each other and seemed to have been made at different times with different skill levels covered the whole room. There were masterpieces next to stick figures next to brightly colored paintings where the colors wobbled all over inside and outside of the lines. It made you laugh.

A third of the way into the room it started sloping down and around, like a- oh what were those things called? The ones where they dipped down with seating for plays? It was that- whatever it was, with the stage front and center. There looked to be more tattered cloth hanging from the framing in front of the stage. It was badly aged, the wood rotting and missing in many spots, but you could still make out that it probably once held curtains to open and close in front of the stage.

The stage ground was luckily carved out of the same material as the floor so you felt stable climbing up the side and onto the stagefloor. The back wall was painted with a sunset or a sunrise, you weren’t sure which, but it was beautiful even if the paint was missing and faded much more here than in the main temple. You wondered why that was.

You found the remnants of what you assumed were various props and even some background set pieces, all made of wood and thus very much weathering away and decomposing. But the images of bright colors and fabrics, of laughter echoing in here as plays were put on, it made the smile on your face hurt your cheeks as it went so wide.

“Stars there must have been so much fun here,” you spun on one heel to face back out from the stage and washed your eyes over the whole room. A stage for plays and walls covered in art from kids and adults and whoever else. The place must have been echoing with laughter at one point.

It was so unlike any other temple you’d ever heard about. But surely this still was a temple? There were offering pedestals and even what you assumed was the spot where the god’s statue must have once resided.

A loud and sudden branch cracking startled you into another yelp and jump, hand clenching the front of your shirt as your heart beat against it. You crept down off the stage slowly and quietly before hesitantly making your way towards the door leading back into the main temple. You could hear more and more branches snapping and crunching underfoot and some faint hollering. As you edged towards the door you realized it was your name being called.

Oh! You’d been noticed missing! That was good!

But you felt a bit sad that you couldn’t continue exploring the temple, you were sure there were more treasures to uncover like this theater room but the voices calling your name started turning away and you were hit with the fear of being lost in the woods alone again and started rushing through the main temple, a call almost on your lips but holding back for some reason.

You paused under the arch, in the threshold of the temple, glancing back for a long moment.

Then, mind made up, you grinned made a silly finger gun gesture towards the temple and said “I’ll be back! Promise!” and then you shot off down the stairs and only shouting back towards the group once you hit the dirt, “Over here! I’m over here y’all!”

You nearly skidded right into them, they were so much closer than they had sounded, and a few of you let out little eeps of screams at the near collision.

“Where on earth were you?!” Marcy’s tone was exasperated but you could see in her eyes that she had been worried. Her hands reached out and pulled you into a hug that startled an oof and a giggle out of you.

“Sorry! Sorry! I got distracted! But I was right here!” you hugged her back before jerking your thumb behind you and towards the temple. Marcy gave you an unconvinced hum before letting you go.

“Well don’t do that again. We’re in enough trouble as it is.”

You winced, “oh…. Sorry.”

Khali elbowed you in the side with a laugh, “hey, what’s done is done. Let’s get back before they send a search team out for us next.”

You laughed, “fine, fine, but you guys! I’ve gotta tell you all about what I fou-oh. uh. H-hi Kerry…”

The tall man glared down at you, unimpressed, arms crossed and mouth set in a firm line. He always made you feel skittish- a feeling that you hated so much that you tried to fight it. You didn’t like it when others tried to make people feel small.

You forcibly straightened your back so that you didn’t slouch and tried to meet his eyes head on.

“We found her Kerry, let’s head back.”

Kerry’s eyes took a moment to shift from yours to Marcy’s firm tone and straight face. He looked unimpressed as always, a near static expression on his face, and his eyes flickered back to you just as you started to relax sending all the tension rushing back to your shoulders and chest.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to separate from the group,” just because you disliked him didn’t mean he wasn’t owed an apology for your trouble, “promise I’ll be more careful.”

His lips twisted in distaste but he didn’t say anything before turning around and leading the way back towards the rest of the group. He un-clipped his radio, switching it on and reporting back “Hiker’s been found. Returning to base camp.” His eyes cut back to you over his shoulder as he re-clipped the radio, “you’re on cleanup duty.”

You grimaced. Yeah, alright that was probably fair.

But tomorrow, maybe during free time…

You glanced behind you with a small smile but you were already too far away to see the temple. No matter- you were sure you could find it again.

[netripper]

a timeline of baby vic on the commune

16 - 17 - 18

[mantisgodiveblog]

While rereading our own posts we have realized immediately that we misgendered a character in an early post. Very tragic. If it happens again we will not notice unless someone tells us probably.

[quibbs126]

I feel like the more we see the Ancients and Dark Enchantress Cookie, the more the prologue doesn’t make sense

Like, from what the prologue tells us, the Five Heroes fought against Dark Enchantress Cookie, then Dark Enchantress takes the five Soul Jams and they’re shattered, and in the wake of her and Pure Vanilla’s spell clashing, the five heroes, Dark Enchantress Cookie, and the Vanilla Kingdom all disappear (also the rest of their kingdoms are supposed to essentially crumble over time, but that’s less important)

And the game seems to go for the most part with this up until the reveal of Dark Enchantress Cookie’s true identity as White Lily Cookie. But honestly, I think that’s fine. Honestly I think it does work with what the prologue shows of her. Yes there’s now the confusion of why there’s essentially two White Lilies, but there’s also been evidence to show that there’s more to this story that we don’t know, and that there will be an explanation. Everything else however seems to be as we were told

In Pure Vanilla’s storyline, things seem to still line up. Now that Dark Enchantress Cookie has been freed, so have Pure Vanilla Cookie and the Vanilla Kingdom, and while we don’t see it, you could assume so have the others, but perhaps they were just scattered to other corders of Earthbread, hence why we don’t see them. Nothing contradicts that they disappeared too. Pomegranate also mentions how the Soul Jams are in shattered pieces across Earthbread, which we also know from the prologue. She also says that the spell going wrong between him and DE cursed the other Ancients, and yes, he calls it lies initially, the following dialogue implies that it’s true and that he was just telling himself that he didn’t

There is the question of how he suddenly has his whole Soul Jam back, but that’s like the only major contradiction, and it’s not one that’s really touched on. But overall things generally hold up

It’s at Hollyberry’s story that things start to get confusing. Now it does still use the “Soul Jam is shattered” thing (and is frankly the only one to keep that fact, aside from at the end where the Soul Jam suddenly becomes whole again but shush), with her shield’s pieces having been reconstructed over the years, but it’s the other things that start to contradict. For starters, Hollyberry didn’t seem to disappear as a result of the Dark Flour War, rather her disappearance seems to be that she left of her own accord, presumably sometime after the Dark Flour War, implying that she did not disappear. Also her memory problems aren’t like Pure Vanilla’s, since she seems to remember who she is, at least to some degree (I feel like it was very selective what she did and didn’t know, and the whole thing confuses me), but I suppose that doesn’t really matter as Pure Vanilla’s amnesia may just have been some sort of trauma defense thing, and thus just personal to him. I mean, Dark Enchantress remembers who she is

…I felt like I had more contradictions for her, but now I feel like the only major one here is that it’s implied that she didn’t disappear, but she stayed and went back to her kingdom

Oh wait, there’s also the fact that the Hollyberry Kingdom is fine and prospering, other than the whole dragon thing but no one seems too bothered by that. The whole idea that the world is suffering without the Ancients, specifically their own kingdoms, or that they were ever absent, just doesn’t feel like it’s there

But now let’s move on to Dark Cacao’s storyline, which I feel has the most contradictions

Hollyberry’s story feels a bit ambiguous whether the Ancients disappeared, but in Dark Cacao’s it outright says no they did not. Dark Cacao has been here and nothing implies he ever left, at least not for a significant period of time. Also, he has his whole Soul Jam, and again, nothing implies that he lost that or had to reconstruct it. He’s just had it the whole time. Both of these directly contradict the prologue

And while yes, his kingdom is suffering, and it’s partially because he lost his way, it wasn’t because of the Dark Flour War, rather this seems to have been a much more recent development with Affogato Cookie and particularly Dark Choco’s betrayal and exile. While some evidence may suggest things got worse for them after the Dark Flour War (in Dark Choco’s memories, his younger self seems to imply that the kingdom is isolating itself and is worse off for it), but things didn’t reach that breaking point until after Dark Choco’s banishment

Maybe that’s why the Dark Cacao storyline feels weird to me, because the conflict didn’t start because of things that happened in the Dark Flour War, nor does that seem to have had much effect on Dark Cacao or the kingdom, but rather it was because of something entirely separate

But yeah, going back to how things are presented to us now, the Ancients, other than Pure Vanilla alongside Dark Enchantress Cookie, never disappeared, their Soul Jams might have remained whole and with the heroes, and all the kingdoms seem to be doing fine (Dark Cacao’s not so much, but that’s due to external forces). So basically, pretty much all the points we see in the prologue don’t add up

Honestly at some point I start to feel like what happened in the prologue didn’t actually happen and rather that was just a fabricated story, and that we end up seeing what really happened

[dyrewrites]

I'm up to Chapter Seventeen in this revision and have decided, for some absurd reason, that I should make Chapter Five the Prologue and the Prologue Chapter One and now I have to read through the first eight or nine chapters now to make sure it makes sense.

Help.

[rosiewolfplays]

Okieeeee. Rosie Plays Neverwinter Nights 2 [Original Campaign] take 2 begins now!!!

While I kept Farja's design the same, her character background was changed to wild child because Farja is not meant to be West Harbor public Enemy #1 -- she's a troublemaker, a prankster, but she's not supposed to be malicious. Big regretti in that choice right there.

That can be a different playthrough with another character.

[crytrncrawlrs]

[ 🎪 FORGOTTEN CIRCUS :: PROLOGUE ➤ 1-4 ]

NEXT >>

🌞 At least they're going in daylight!

[thecolorsthree]

[ 🎪FORGOTTEN CIRCUS :: PROLOGUE ➤ START ]

🍂MAXINE and CECIL go deep into the forest on account of a rumor spreading around town!

[darth-does-stuff]

not to say that i might be posting a bit of writing tomorrow but like. i might be posting a bit of writing tomorrow

[grouptale-forgotten-chronicles]

The Prologue Cover is done after a while!It took days to do so dang. With that,the Prologue proper shall come pretty soon...eventually.