#ot3: storybook tropes

[thevalicemultiverse]

OOC: Valicer In The Dark Verse Officially Open!

Here's the pertinent details, copied from my official Verse Google Doc:

~V: Valicer In The Dark (VITD)

It is a world of darkness — literally, in this case, because the sun exploded eight and a half centuries ago. In this land of eternal night, the city of Duskwall has established itself as both the premiere port of the Imperium of the Immortal Emperor, with hunters bringing in the gallons of living leviathan blood that powers the lightning barriers that keep the horrors of the deathlands around at bay...and as a vicious hub of crime and violence, fueled by the vast inequality between rich and poor. Within said city, Alice Liddell was dealing with the demons of her past as she battled hallucinations both beautiful and grim; Victor Van Dort was preparing for an arranged marriage that would elevate his nouveau riche family to the status they felt they’d deserved; and Smiler Alton was just trying to sell happiness in a syringe in the name of the cult of the Advocates and their god Mar-Mal. But then, one foggy “day,” a chance meeting between the three changed everything...

Premise: You can blame the folks over at OXBox and OXtra for this one. Specifically, you can blame their two seasons of “Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark.” Even MORE specifically, you can blame their “funny moments” pages for Oxventure and other RPG campaigns on TV Tropes, which happened to mention “Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark” and provided a link to the page for BITD for me to read through and decide “well, I want to know more about this.” And after perusing the official website, purchasing and reading the PDF of the official book, and watching both seasons of the Oxventure series — yeah, it was kind of inevitable that I’d end up making my own AU set in the city of Duskwall for my new OT3 of Victor, Alice, and Smiler. I highly recommend going to John Harper’s official BITD site for more information about how the actual RPG itself works, and the book is a real fun read, but here’s the basics to keep in mind regarding the world:

As stated in the blurb, the world is pretty much always dark — there was a cataclysm AGES ago that shattered the continents and blew up the sun, leaving only weak embers that flare up a tiny bit at dawn and dusk (I imagine the sky turns vaguely purple for a little bit, then that’s it). Hand lanterns are a popular accessory in the city!

That same cataclysm also made it so the dead no longer pass onto the afterlife, so the entire world is EXTREMELY HAUNTED, with feral ghosts trying to possess people and feast on their life essence being both a feared fate and a fact of life for the people of this world. The mysterious and anonymous Spirit Wardens collect the bodies of the dead to burn them in special fires to prevent ghosts from escaping (if they can get to them in time), and every city is surrounded by a powerful lightning barrier to hold off the hordes of ghosts, demons, and other unknowable horrors in the lands beyond (aka the mentioned “deathlands”). 

The basic aesthetic of the world is dark, grungy steampunk — except instead of steam, the power source of choice is “electroplasm,” the raw essence of life most often harvested from the blood of leviathans — vast demonic creatures in the ink-black seas around Duskwall. Electroplasm, as the name suggests, is what fuels anything electric in the city, from humble street lamps to the giant lightning barriers. It also allows them to grow food without sunlight, as certain creatures (mainly sea life held in giant aquariums) and plants can be infused with the stuff to turn them into “radiant energy” generators, which glow brightly and allow the plants around them to grow faster and better. Every noble family in the city has a leviathan hunter ship, and fortunes turn on the amount of blood they bring back.  John Harper himself said it best at the end of the book (Blades In The Dark, page 308): “This was once a storybook fantasy world of magic and wonders, which was destroyed and an industrial civilization was built on top of the ruins. Don’t expect scientific realism here.”

As for our main characters and their places in this world. . .

Alice was the daughter of Dean Arthur Liddell of the prestigious Doskvol Academy (located in Whitecrown, THE fancy bit of Duskwall – the Lord Governor lives there, away from the riffraff) and his wife Lorina, and the younger sister of Lizzie. The family had a happy life living in Brightstone (the next-fanciest district) – up until one Angus Bumby entered Doskvol Academy and became obsessed with Lizzie. When she rebuffed his advances, he broke into the house, had his way with her, and set the place on fire to both cover his crime and try to destroy the bodies so they couldn’t let out ghosts. Alice was the sole survivor, and after a year in hospital spent convalescing from her burns, got sent to Rutledge Asylum, here situated right next to Ironhook – Duskwall’s freaking PRISON. This Alice is probably the only one who had a WORSE time in there than in canon, as psychiatry is basically an unknown art in Duskwall, and most everyone with some sort of mental trauma is just locked up to rot or has their soul ripped out so they can become an empty Hollow zombie to be used as cheap slave labor – a fate Alice avoided solely due to being a minor. She still had her Wonderland in this world, though, and was able to use it to lever herself out of her catatonia and eventually deal with her grief enough to join the waking world…and promptly ended up sent to the Houndsditch Home in Charhollow (one of the “poor but honest” districts), where she helped the owner, Dr. Bumby, as a general dogsbody and girl-of-all-work, and received his special hypnosis-based therapy to help her forget her past. As per A:MR, after about a year there, Wonderland kicked her in the pants and helped her realize Bumby was the one that killed her family – but unlike canon, by the time of the main action of the AU, she has NOT pushed him onto any train tracks. Mostly because that would likely result in him leaving a ghost, and a spectral Bumby is the LAST thing she wants to deal with. 

Victor is the son of William and Nell Van Dort, fish merchants living in Nightmarket (one of the main shopping districts, and where the “new money” tends to live). William invented canned fish when Victor was young, which the public pounced on, and his canneries easily made the Van Dorts the wealthiest family in Nightmarket. Nell wanted to eventually make the transition to Brightstone, though, and thus when Victor came of age, she started trying to arrange a marriage with one of the noble families living there. She got lucky shortly before the beginning of the AU, as the Everglots (an old noble family whose fortunes were on the downswing thanks to their leviathan hunter ship coming back dry more often than not, meaning their power, prestige, and most importantly coin was running out) consented to let Victor marry their daughter Victoria in exchange for some of that sweet sweet Van Dort fortune. As per canon, Victor and Victoria met right before the wedding rehearsal, and while they liked each other, it wasn’t enough to calm Victor’s nerves. Three hours of failed practice, one dropped ring, and one burn on Maudeline Everglot’s dress from a forgotten candle later, and Victor was banished into the streets to learn his lines. He wandered around for a while, trying to get them straight in his head, and eventually got them right down an old forgotten alley…only for the wandering ghost of a bride, Emily, to hear them and think they were meant for her. Victor was promptly dragged into the “ghost field,” the spectral echo of the city where ghosts live, and held captive by Emily (whom he did feel sorry for, but ghosts are bad news in Duskwall – they tend to lose their minds quickly due to not being able to pass on, and Emily was showing a few signs of “going feral,” as it were). The main AU is actually kicked off by him finally escaping her and finding his way back to the material plane by falling out of a wall in front of Alice and Smiler… 

Smiler was the “son” of one Dr. Kellard Kelman, owner of The Sanctuary, a refuge for people who have “lost their smile” – in actuality, a horrible hellhole of a “mental hospital” where Dr. Kelman conducted experiments on the patients and threw failures in the basement. Smiler and their father clashed about a lot of things (including Kelman’s brutal methods for ensuring “social compliance” and his refusal to accept Smiler as nonbinary), and eventually Smiler just ran away at about twelve years old, rather than be a part of Kelman’s nonsense any further. They ended up in Silkshore (the “red light” district), where they encountered Carol and Matthew Alton, members of the Advocates cult, who worship Mar-Mal, the Unending Smile. Matt and Carol took in the young Smiler and told them what the cult was all about (basically, maximizing happiness however possible, from genuine kind acts to straight-up selling drugs and hypnotizing people) – Smiler thought it all sounded better than Kelman’s deal and joined up, changing their name from Marmaduke Kelman to Smiler Alton. They proved to be a very eager little cultist, developing a knack for hypnosis and – as they got older – a talent with chemical concoctions, eventually making a drug that induced a heavy state of bliss that they called Joy Serum. The invention of this drug caused Mar-Mal to mark them with its favor, turning their previously green eyes a glowing yellow (Matt and Carol were so proud!). At the start of the main AU, they spend most of their time brewing up and selling Joy Serum in Silkshore – not far from The Mangled Mermaid where Alice’s old nanny now plies her trade as a prostitute, meaning Smiler and Alice were acquainted just from her visits to see Nan there (Smiler in fact just straight-up gave Alice some money to buy lunch one day, making them about the closest thing she had to a friend there). 

So! With all that in mind, the actual meat of the AU starts with Alice having fled the Houndsditch Home looking for help with her Bumby problem (either a way to bring evidence to the Inspectors, the only members of the police force known to be incorruptible, or at least not subject to bribes, or a way to kill him and make sure he didn’t come back as a ghost). Her first instinct was to go to Nanny, and along the way she encountered Smiler, packing up after finishing their sales for the day. They asked her what was wrong, and she decided she could trust them enough to let them in on what she’d found — however, her attempt to tell them what was going on was interrupted by Victor’s attempted escape from Emily, as he fell out of the ghost field in front of him. Concerned, the two ended up helping him over to the Mangled Mermaid to get some food and water in him and help him calm down after his experience. Unfortunately, Emily managed to follow them there and got rather annoyed at finding her husband in a brothel – fortunately, before she could do any damage, Smiler managed to talk her down (mainly by reminding her that humans gotta eat). Victor took the opportunity to finally explain to her what he’d been doing and that he was already engaged –

But when he mentioned Victoria’s name, Nanny commented that she’d heard that she’d already gotten married that day, to someone named “Lord Barkis.” And Emily recognized the “Barkis” name, as that was the name of the man who killed her. She and Victor agreed they had to go see Victoria for her own good, just in case she’d gotten married to a murderer, and Smiler and Alice chose to come along as back-up, and to talk to the Bluecoats (nickname for the local police) about Alice’s recent revelation over her family’s death not being an accident, but instead murder. The four took a gondola over to Brightstone (as Duskwall is part Venice as well as being part Victorian London, and is cut all over the place by canals) and crashed the Everglot-Barkis wedding reception, where Emily did indeed identify Barkis as her murderer. Barkis attempted to take Victoria hostage as the guests fled, but the group was able to free her – Victor sending her away to get help or at least find a safe place to hide – and Emily ended up destroying herself to possess Barkis and kill him with an electroplasmic bomb he had on him for some reason, thanking Victor for at least helping her get revenge on her killer and tossing a spare bomb to Alice to help with her own issues. The Bluecoats finally arrived once the deed was done, and searched the corpse while the trio tried to explain what happened –

And then one of the Bluecoats found a fancy brass mask on Barkis. Marking him as one of the Spirit Wardens, the group that goes around collecting corpses and burning them in electroplasm to make sure that the city isn’t entirely overrun by ghosts. A group of people bankrolled by the Immortal Emperor himself.

Yeah, that wasn’t good. The Bluecoats, already not really believing the gang’s story, decided they’d murdered Barkis (or, at least Alice and Smiler had – Victor got added to the list when he refused to just run off back home or bribe them) and were prepared to take them in, but Alice managed to hold off the entire patrol with a butcher’s knife just long enough for them to start running. Through various means (like Alice practically leaping over a carriage in her way double-jump style, Smiler just straight-up injecting a purser with Joy Serum, and Victor managing to accidentally lead a couple more into a very angry, very electric ghost by using his new ability to sense hidden ghosts to help his new friends avoid it), the trio was able to escape into Six Towers, a previously rich neighborhood fallen to ruin and squatters in recent years. They found shelter in an abandoned building, which proved to be the old home of one Elder Gutknecht, a former occult researcher who had managed to keep his senses after death and become a genuinely friendly ghost. The three began wondering what to do next, and Alice finally told Victor and Smiler the full story about Bumby…

And then Victor and Smiler were like, “Well, we’re already accused of murder…”

And so the group became a crew of criminals, ready to take that bastard Bumby out of the picture, before moving onto more traditional scores. I picture them as a group of Shadows, spies, thieves, and saboteurs, though there’s a bit of a Hawker element because Smiler is of course still selling Joy Serum (and is working on an inhaled drug called Giggler Gas). And even though they are criminals, they’re trying to help where they can – Victor, after figuring out how to infuse insects with electroplasm to make glowing moths and stuff to help plants grow, wants to make a community greenhouse for people; Alice still looks after the kids at Houndsditch as best she can from afar, and is only too happy to kill other people hurting children for free; and Smiler of course does want to spread happiness, even if it’s in a bit of a bizarre way sometimes. They’re my chaos crime morally gray group and I love them.

Character tags include:

~C: Victor Van Dort (a kind-hearted if not always clear-thinking new-money noodle of a young man, whose anxiety has NOT been helped by being kidnapped, however, briefly, by a ghost bride. He’s doing his best to cope, though, and train his new powers. He is the group’s Whisper (who are the ones who develop a special affinity for the ghostly and demonic in the city) and has the ability Ghost Mind, which allows him to sense every ghost in his presence no matter if they’re visible or not)

~C: Alice Liddell (a young lady with a tongue as sharp as her favorite blade, she nonetheless tries to do the right thing by the people around her, and has a soft spot for cats, rabbits, and her newfound friends. If only she could do something about those damn hallucinations… She is the group’s Cutter (the ones who are best suited to solving a problem with violence), and has the abilities Not To Be Trifled With, which allows her to push herself to perform a feat of great physical force, or to take on up to six people at once on equal footing, and The Devil’s Footsteps, which allows her to push herself to perform a feat of great athletic prowess or maneuver in such a way that she tricks her enemies into attacking each other)

~C: Smiler Alton (a cheerful nonbinary person always ready with a smile, a friendly word, and, if necessary, a needle full of Joy Serum to make people happy. They genuinely want to make the world a better, brighter place — just their ideas of how to do so are strongly informed by growing up in a happiness cult. . . They are the group’s Slide (the ones who are the smooth-talkers and master manipulators) and Leech (the ones who are the chemists and tinkerers), and have the ability Alchemist, which makes them better at crafting anything alchemical (like their Joy Serum))

This verse has no time period or subverse tags.

This verse may touch upon such subjects as rape, murder, burglary, weird mind control stuff, cult activity (though intentionally made kinda silly), and other things that you might expect to find in a horrible crime-ridden city.

This verse is open to everyone!

[fairytail-multishipper]

Some memes

[fairytail-multishipper]

gray x erza x Lucy sfw head canons pls

Send me a character/ship and I’ll tell you some headcanons

Please let me know if you want nsfw in your ask or I’ll assume sfw

Gray doesn’t like pda, but Lucy and Erza do

So they kiss, hug, sit on each other’s laps, all that kind of stuff without Gray

Gray gets pouty because he feels left out

Gray drinks an unholy amount of coffee, and Erza and Lucy hate it

They’re both avid coffee drinkers too, but Gray’s worse

They all read books at night, and have often ended up reading different books of the same series before bed

Lucy’s on book 3, Gray book 2, Erza book 1, so on

Lucy’s password on her phone is Grayza

Erza and Gray found out and smothered her with kisses

They’re all each other’s wallpapers