#i feel so bad going on and on abt lurien but i know it's an unusual hc so i'm wbnmsggdm i feel like i have to explain

[datastate]

perfection's failed design sounds cool! also whos that she/they 👁👁

anon ilysm

under the cut bc this got way too long and also i’m Nervous. sorry if it doesn’t make sense at some moments i just. many thoughts. yes. 

okay so!!! perfection’s failed design is like. one of the few titles that actually came to me before i got anything concretely down BSDFMS so i have no actual lines to Show you, but i’ll give you the general concept!!!

basically this is me giving myself an excuse to introduce my Lore on lurien to other people. initially it was meant to include dryya bc i hc them both as being the remains of WL’s first attempt at establishing a rule (before tpk) but then i realized like... 1. lurien barely takes off his (second) mask (the one-eyed one we see of him) even when he’s in the spire or among Actual Friends so others could see that it’s naturally formed, it is very unlikely dryya would realize they share that unless he offers the information and he has no reason to. and 2. WL would probably prefer to outright ignore him when possible and i couldn’t think of a reason as to why lurien would be the subject of conversation between the two and i’m still unsure on dryya’s characterization so i didn’t know whether or not i’d be able to have dryya push her queen to dare to ask if she’s got an issue w him, bc she Would notice if WL went quieter... but even then, if dryya brought it up, i’m still kinda ehhh on how she’d be able to bring it up to lurien, bc WL would probably be clear she prefers dryya not bother to speak w him much and the two don’t talk Much + most of what they speak of isn’t something where you can bring it up so easily. they’re best described as friends of friends, through hegemol.

so i changed this up and went back to my original idea of how lurien first realized he had some connection to WL. as it is right now, monomon and lurien have known each other for years and lurien finally admits in one of their conversations that he, like monomon, wasn’t born in hallownest and monomon’s like oowoo. she asks if he’d mind telling her a bit more on it and what he can remember and he’s silently like. ahaha. [looks at his second mask] trauma with a touch of magic makes that pretty difficult mon, but aloud he just doesn’t Say much other than i’ll try. and she’s like hey!!! it’s okay! this is really self indulgent on my part. take your time or don’t do it at all idc ily

lurien tries to gather what works he found the first time he returned to his old home, years back. and prepares for leaving the city on its own for At Least a week. the entire thing is a mess of anxiety moments. he Knows she’ll be interested in his native language bc, as far as he knows, only he and tpk know how to speak it (then again, tpk can speak. a Lot of things. but basically what matters here is that WL never spoke any word to him before he learned hallownest’s language). they go over it blah blah basically, this was what prompted monomon to try to talk w WL abt her language as well (they’re. fairly close??? somewhat. more personal than tpk.) and what she says begins to look familiar but monomon’s too wrapped up at the time to really realize why, but in her reviews later she’s like oh. hm. hm. this is concerning. lurien’s language could practically be a dialect of hers.

at first monomon thinks lurien just overlooked it, quick to mention the king y’know, and asks him to return. (she doesn’t feel really secure w sending this sort of stuff thru like. letters bc she doesn’t want something so personal to b exposed. that wouldn’t be Great for him, knowing how the people in the city tend to be.) once he gets there, she confronts him abt it asking if he knew who brought them that language, where his family came from, if there was a ruler. and it kind of Really offputs lurien bc he Knows she’s got a plan but he has no idea what she’s aiming for. he answers “...no. but it doesn't matter now that hallownest's here under Him now does it” n monomon's like. “i love you. but shut up abt the king. shut up abt the king. r you sure you dont know?” and lurien’s just “:| wherever my family came from, it was already in decay when they left. the only person in my family who would've known anything abt it died years before i was born and left nothing abt it behind” but monomon stopped listening after the 'decay' part and was like YES i have connected the dots. lurien thinks she's joking when she suddenly brings up questions abt what he knows abt the queen, bc she’s sure now, gathering pieces from her past conversations w WL that lurien’s family used to be WL’s subjects before it fell apart.

lurien’s initially like “monomon i love you dearly but what the fuck.” and in denial bc if it was true, if WL knew this, she could’ve made his transition into being part of hallownest. So much easier, but just chose not to, for whatever reason. and instead he’s spent years of his life thinking he accidentally wronged her only for it to be some reason that... what? he just reminds her of her failure?? one that most mortal bugs had no idea even happened??? but when monomon brings WL’s written examples to lurien n he can read them well enough save for a few stranger words bc this is his language, he just. breaks down. bc this isn’t anything he could amend for (he’s Tried. for years, he’s tried. it hurts to still know she said “i shall never know what my wyrm saw in you” among everything else behind his back and every other doubt she’s tried to place in both hegemol and tpk. and he’s tried to find ways to earn her appreciation time and time again but he never could.) but instead something he can’t help but be, something he’s already desperately tried to hide away. it’s. both a relief and so, so frustrating to know this is no fault of his own but another instance of WL’s desire to avoid her mistakes.

i... do not know how i’m gonna end this yet bshgjsdm. at one point i might touch on lurien removing his primary mask w monomon there and show it being like. a Huge trust thing (there r people who’ve known “the watcher” for almost a decade n still think his one-eyed mask IS his mask.) and then maybe go into the effects of the mask tpk gave him and lurien just feeling really. awful bc wow on top of him and his family representing That for WL, he doesn’t even Know his family anymore bc of tpk. it’s been so long since he was first given this mask w the effects tpk placed on it which Yeah sure was protection in both a mental and physical sense (his naturally formed mask is. pretty weak unfortunately) but he also purposefully set a barrier against his past and it was only in a panic attack that lurien could remember the area his family used to inhabit and it took So much effort to return there and to get the pieces of writing he kept or eventually brought to monomon.

like i said in a tag before. the gods r like: [plays ping pong w lurien]

for that she/they, i’m talking abt monomon!! this piece is meant to be me figuring out monomon n quirrel’s dynamic. it’s short basically starts out jokingly bc y’know that’s how they R, just lighthearted, but then leads into dealing w the fact that monomon’s gonna. be gone so soon bc of the dreamer thing and neither of them r looking forward to having to leave each other bc they care abt each other n i.... still haven’t even gotten halfway thru it bc the dreamer thing makes me sad bwhjgsmdg

oh also!! near the beginning i’m messing around w my hcs w how unn interacts w fog canyon, allowing them there even though they seem to be like. polar opposites in what they value/how they interact w their environment!! those in the canyon r like [floats] and unn’s just [becomes a part of the land/acid/etc] but unn loves them n lets them stay. she’s just a really kind person i love her she deserves better and shouldn’t need to put up w WL or tpk

[datastate]

[sends u lurien] [sends u quirrel] :3

bro you KNOW i’m gay this isn’t fair

lurien:

- realistic:

okay. i guess this isn’t entirely realistic depending on who you ask but anyway! only those closest to him really realize this, bc even if he exhibits symptoms in front of others, he’s usually got hegemol or aster (his assistant/butler) to give him an excuse Out before it gets too bad, but he’s got paranoia (why very few r personally familiar w him + why he isolates but still needs at least one person (aster, usually. hegemol if he’s caught out of his spire) by him) and primarily deals w auditory hallucinations (esp difficult to move on from when it’s triggered around tpk, bc when these r not just impressions of meanings, the clearer voices tend to pick his king’s voice. it fucking Sucks). he’s got other issues too but Yeah those r the ones that affect him the most mentally. he’s also got chronic pain! doesn’t really like leaving the spire but he’ll do it for u monomon n tpk <3 and the 'higher-caste’ too i guess

- while it may not be realistic it is hilarious:

aster does the Gay Flirting w lurien, which is to say once aster stopped fussing over the fact lurien was in a “higher position” than they were n “didn’t deserve” someone so inferior, they literally go on and on abt how much lurien means to them and end it with a very sincere “i love you” only to panic moments later in lurien’s silence (he just. short-circuited.) n b like “no homo tho... ahaha unless ? jk jk jk” (they meant full homo tho... </3)

- heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends:

man which one do i choose. okay.

tpk indulged lurien’s feelings only to become closer to him (if lurien looked at it objectively, he would realize it was a one-sided affection. that tpk’s words were empty.) to figure him out and what he needed to keep lurien not only safe, but happy enough that he’ll be content to only ever stay in hallownest. 

lurien was really close friends w monomon until he realized what she planned to do w quirrel, what she would put him through despite knowing what his fate would be. he loved her. he loves her, even in his end, even after all their arguing, what clashing values are left in their broken selves in the dream, he loves her. he wants to believe her. and he would allow himself that, if he hadn’t witnessed her disregard for his pain in this same thing she will subject quirrel to (a worse version, even, with quirrel being older and with the mask having an entire personality already imprinted into it when he takes it). it is not an entirely conscious choice to lash out at her afterward, and he knows she doesn’t deserve a reaction so flippant, but he also knows she knows him, knows he thinks is abhorrent, knows what will result from it, and yet still chose to go through with this, an offense he takes to mean she, somehow, doesn’t care abt him. irrational as it is. and, beyond that, lack of faith in their king--something which scares him. bc if his king isn’t right, isn’t a stable force, he really doesn’t know. What he’s meant to trust in.

there r many more things i could follow wrt his relationships w people but i’ll leave it here BGJDS

- unrealistic, but I will disregard canon:

he had a large hand in rebuilding the city. bc of the previous battle before he joined hallownest, the strength of the 'ceiling’ keeping the blue lake from completely collapsing on them was somewhat breaking (it wouldn’t break entirely, tpk had ~ensured that~), and lurien helped design a lot of the city to adapt to the more constant rain. none of the buildings, save for his spire, dared the height they once had. most of the important buildings were connected to help keep them upright in ‘worst case scenario’, being used to support one another as they were raised up like before, now with a much more stable base. it is because of this adaptation that the city still somewhat withstands as the ‘rain’ has worsened. most of the lower buildings have flatter roofs to help the rain slide off w/o affecting it so much, w spiked areas just for ~design~, while the higher ones retain their harsh shape bc that was tpk’s wish + they r the first ones to face the rain, so it’s not As Bad, but it’s still. not great. basically: the city remains in-game in its base shape, but not in the state as it once was due to the endless rain, now even harsher after tpk’s disappearance.

---

quirrel:

- realistic:

he hated going thru fog canyon. it’s why he zipped right through just to land in queen’s station and saved fog canyon for much, much later until it was an undeniable destination. it just made him very uncomfortable, not bc of some lingering dread or some sort of frustration w the nature of the place, but bc he felt... fond of it. and sure he’s fine w going thru all sorts of emotions, and this isn’t the first time he’s immediately felt appreciative of a place he’s gone through, but it’s usually because it shares familiar features. the canyon has none of that, nothing immediately recognizable even though it should be, he knows this and he doesn’t understand why it’s tugging at a different part of him, bc he knows this isn’t just based on aesthetics, it was some genuine connection n it’s disturbing.

- while it may not be realistic it is hilarious:

upon discovering ghost isn’t affected by water, quirrel just has a beach ep on the blue lake w them :] throws them across the lake only for them to float to the surface and swim back jumping like “YEAH YEAH YEAH.” also literally every single content where quirrel employs his curling up into a ball thing bc he’s a rolly poly. it’s cute.

- heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends:

even though he knows (and still kind of feels) there’s a positive connection between him n monomon, quirrel. the present quirrel. doesn’t truly feel much of that, especially after the full plan comes through. he spends a lot of time (too much, in his opinion) wondering who she was, putting together these broken pieces of who he remembers her to be, with the only real distinct moments being moments near the end of hallownest, with a pressure in his chest as she speaks (she sounds happy around him, he does too, but what he most strongly felt then conflicted so heavily with what was spoken). he knows he helped her create this plan, that he did choose to be part of it, clearly, regardless (or, maybe, because of) how dear she was to him. but as it is right now, he just. can’t care much, and he doesn’t want to. he wants to move on from hallownest, he wants to find a life that is his own again. even w the nostalgia, w the love he tries to feel as himself, in more than a memory, he gets sick of her. he is not who he was, not after what they did. he doesn’t care for her any longer. and he had no right feeling bitter when he watched ghost kill her, because he couldn’t care less for her. he should’ve let his past die with her right then instead of lingering on it and pretending this iteration of him was still obligated to be a part of that plan.

- I will disregard canon popular consensus:

stag beetles n broken legs is canon :] everything’s fine :] he’s fine :]