#the applebright

[rose-icosahedron]

I am working on a project that involves the six Numa Hours (presumably the Mare-in-the-Tree, The Crowned Growth, The Witness, The Applebright, the Rising Spider, and the Chandler). I just did my reaserch on the first one, the Applebright, which took 2 hours and 2 notebook pages and through which I gained very little.

Like, she's probably her own hour? Before the release of book of hours it seemed like she might just be another version of the Flowermaker but she's definitely just his twin? or at least she probably is. She's at the same time known to sometimes become "the Witch", which makes people wonder if she is somehow a piece of the Twins, like some other aspect of them? She's noted for collecting, restoring, and consuming the remains of the player if they achieve a major grail victory in cultsim, that ending implying that some grail asenctions leave behind the body so could she be somehow connected to the hungrier of the twin's in having consumed her body? Is this nothing? is she another piece of them making them almost triplet gods? Also she's probaobly not one of the Hours of the Calyptra, which is confusing given that the text of "Applebright Euphonies" is about the third flower of the Calyptra, since that's probaobly currently the Snow (if you haven't heard about her that's cause she's just like, been leaked once and pretty much nothing else).

Also the Calyptra existed in the time of the carapace cross so who the fuck was the third god back then since it changed?

anyways the applebright is probaobly her own hour, she isn't one of the calyptra but she's assoicated with them as she presides over one of the branches of the watchman's tree. She's the god of youth, which makes sense as she might be the youngest Hour?

There are like, only three things I know for sure and its that she's got a basket and is called the Applebright and collects the body of a major grail victory, and that's pretty much it.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[golvio]

I also think Applebright is about poisons and toxins because the monks who made a pact with her to set up the Grove of Green Immortals are specifically Heart-aspected horticulturalists who specialize in knowledge of medicines. There are reasons why herbalists and medical researchers would want to have even poisonous plants around, as in controlled doses or as an ingredient in a greater chemical reaction, that which kills can cure.

For example, foxglove is toxic to the heart because of the cardiac glycosides it produces, but those same chemical compounds are used in highly controlled doses in drugs like digoxin to treat heart failure. A widely-used antimalarial drug is derived from sweet wormwood. Pacific yew creates a toxic compound used in paclitaxel, which has been used in cancer treatments since the 1960s to inhibit cancer cell growth. White willow, toxic if ingested, is processed into salicylic acid, a popular skin treatment for acne and dandruff you can get over-the-counter at any drugstore or supermarket. Even caffeine, that ever-popular and omnipresent stimulant, was produced by its host plants as a toxin intended to ward off its herbivorous predators, and can be fatal to humans in extremely high doses.

Not to mention it’s extremely useful to have poison samples around when you’re developing antidotes for them. I’m guessing that the methods the monks use to actually test their hypotheses are…a little dubious, depending on whether they or the Applebright are responsible for that skeleton outside of the grove’s front gate. This is taking place in the same universe as Cultist Simulator, after all. But they have a vast trove of medical knowledge and seem happy to share what they’ve learned with other institutions of occult learning.

(It’s also funny their other specialty is Moth lore. Of course, as the lore of The Wood, it’s incredibly useful knowledge to have when your job involves regularly dealing with a garden of scary magical plants that are constantly trying to kill you.)

[sunlessea]

ship tag drops for threads oml /

[ivehadanapophany]

Interesting! So the funny thing is I think it's very easy to make fanworks in the secret histories lore because of the whole thing of the Histories being defined by the present moment; AK actually has like a policy or smth about the sixth history where you're allowed to publish and monetize anything you make with the secret histories lore as long as you acknowledge use of the lore in certain ways and dont exceed like 100k in earnings, I think that is just one of the ways that the lore is really flexible to input, because so much of it is inherently mushy and contradictory. I actually mostly just do fanwork for the game of my own character and have for the past two years (whoops), i think it's a pretty good jumping off point.

I wonder what it is about cultsim/boh that inspires so many crossover posts and different fandom things with it, i saw a witcher crossover yesterday. It may be the fact that the lore has categories (the aspects) that people like playing and sorting things into, which i can't fault i also love sorting, sometimes its just hard to find posts about the lore itself which i feel is much more interesting.

[weightlessribbons]

more applebright mysteries

I wonder what "reasons" and "sentiments" Elie might have

[jade-harley-lesbian]

please dm me if you find any juicy (read: any at all) applebright lore in book of hours. i want to avoid spoilers for everything but if my favorite girlboss-from-nowhere shows up i am all ears

[moth-short]

Okay, so I see why the Mare-in-the-Tree and Sister-and-Witch are conjunct, (the Mare-in-the-Tree who has sometimes been the Witch's Sister, (Inaam, Kapigiginlupir, Garkie, Cryppys) which would be enough on its own but also being able to entreat the Sister among others for Numa, the season of forgetting, and the Mare in the Tree being a third of the Calyptra),

*but why is the Applebright also conjunct here??*

speaking of calyptra though i go back and forth with myself sometimes on which of the dyad is more appropriately identified as the white flower because i feel there’s a strong argument to be made in either direction (which is probably the point) – ultimately the proper answer is ‘both’ but given the whole situation with the mare / the applebright / the sister-and-witch i think it’s also fair to ask who’s the white flower when they’re not conjunct. and i do think in that case it’s probably the one with edge. illumination!

[rowenarium]

2. Was your relationship with the people around you different than it is in source? If so, how?

12. Who were your best friends in your canon? Are they the same friends in source?

21. Favourite character in source material? 

rowena and/or akizet?

for all the theming, i dont think ive talked about being rowena in a good long while, so!!

i feel like i can kind of answer 2 and 12 at the same time, because. god, i truly did love the other ligeians, in many ways. the memories come in what i want to call "pulses," for some reason? either way, from what i remember, i know that i liked to visit them quite frequently. i also remember morgen teasing me for liking to wander, just in general.

but for 21. honestly its vrey hard to choose! setting aside sentiments that have carried over (at least as far as i know), my favorite hour is the applebright and my favorite mortal is thirza

[newvegascowboy]

idk if its been asked before but for Cato: XXIX. The Applebright. What small thing brings them joy?

aw, ofc! thanks! :D

from here

XXIX. The Applebright What small thing brings them joy?

Hmmmm... this one is tough. I had to think about it, but i think the answer is just quiet mornings. Being able to wake up early to have a cup of coffee and watch the sun rise. Just kind of... sitting around doing nothing and being able to pretend he's the only person around before he actually has to start doing things. Solitude, I suppose.

[golvio]

If the Flowermaker has something to do with plant-based drugs, then I think the Applebright might have something to do with plant-based poisons. That one photo associated with her on the WF Catalogue is a blurred photo of a bluebell patch in spring. In addition to being associated with fairies in British culture, bluebells are also toxic if ingested.

On top of that, one of the skills in Book of Hours that’s named after her features a picture of an apple, sliced in half, filled with Worms. The capital-W ones from Nowhere, that you definitely don’t want to eat.

She’s associated with Grail, too, so maybe her domain includes the beautiful hallucinations you’d have if, say, you’d ingested a neurotoxic plant by accident, or dying from an overdose? Sometimes overdoses are intentional, whether because one pushes too far past their body’s limits in pursuit of a high, or because they actually intend to die, but Applebright feels more like accidental death from ignorance. A “stealing away.” Like someone who brushed their eyes after touching an Angel’s Trumpet because its flowers were so bright and pretty and smelled so nice, only to to see terrifying visions, feel their limbs lock up from paralysis, and drop dead from heart failure a little while after.

Her association with fairies, plus her coming from Nowhere like Mare-in-the-Tree, who’s also fond of snatching people like the fair folk, seems to suggest she’s dangerous because she likes to trick humans into eating her poisons. The illustration for the Grove of Green Immortals, which she watches over, seems to suggest that’s the case. Both these Gods-from-Nowhere are surprisingly warm, inviting, and in Applebright’s case, both figuratively and literally sunny, given what a dark and dismal place Nowhere is described as being.

[artificial-radiance]

Mothers and Children

[incorrect-persona5quotes]

Seriously considering filling my pockets with glitter and whenever someone near me says something really stupid or rude I’ll just reach into my pocket with a dead expression and release glitter into the sky above their head and watch it shower over them like a baptism of stupid.

- Makoto “What Are They Gonna Do, Give Me Detention?” Niijima

[leggypuppy]

I got the major sensation victory now all that's left is Exile, lantern and the Ghoul

good luck on exile and lantern my dude those two are completely beyond me

[jade-harley-lesbian]

"Schallner's relationship with [the Grove of Green Immortals] are cautious - it's a library of the Tree, but under the hand of the Applebright...Schaller comes to be more sympathetic to the Applebright, which he suggests 'causes harm only when so invited.'

YEAHHHHH THANK YOU

[socially-awkward-skeleton]

II. The Velvet Describe a secret that they have. How far would they go to protect it? XII. The Sun-in-Rags What do they consider to be their greatest loss? How have they coped with it? XVII. The Vagabond Describe an alternate version or an au you have of them. XXVI. The Egg Unhatching What have they always meant to do, but never done? XXIX. The Applebright What small thing brings them joy?

<3 <3 <3

II. The Velvet Describe a secret that they have. How far would they go to protect it?

Ava's biggest secret is her past with her parents, it's a very hard thing for her to talk about as it brings up a lot of troubling thoughts and feelings. She was abandoned by them when she was sent off to a boarding school when she was 9. They died when she was 12, so she has a lot of animosity that she hasn't been able to deal with in her life.

She often tries to divert any conversation of them away, or use her sarcasm to make light of it. But she never really faces the problem until the Scylla fic.

XII. The Sun-in-Rags What do they consider to be their greatest loss? How have they coped with it?

Ava's greatest loss in terms of the main story would be not having her brothers around. They were an incredibly close knit family and being without them makes her feel very alone out in Halcyon.

Granted, she did find a family in her crew but there was always an empty place where her brothers would be until of course they were thawed out by Phineas later on. Her crew definitely became surrogates, each one of them filling in for her brothers at different times. Sharing traits and characteristics.

XVII. The Vagabond Describe an alternate version or an au you have of them.

I am currently working on an AU set in a circus freak show. It has a 1930's aesthetic without really having a set time. Ava is a runaway who joins Rockwell's circus where she is able to use her talent of contortion and working as an acrobat. She of course meets the other charming cast of acts: Nyoka the sword swallower, Ellie the bearded lady, Felix the wolf boy, and Max the strong man. (Parvati and SAM are tech hands)

XXVI. The Egg Unhatching What have they always meant to do, but never done?

There are two answers to that:

1) on a professional level, Ava always wanted to be a doctor and to have her own clinic. When she wakes up in Halcyon that of course doesn't happen. Not until post game.

2)on a personal level, fall in love. Before coming to Halcyon, Ava was in a string of short-lived romances and flirtations. She'd never been with anyone for very long. It took her traveling through space and being asleep for 70 years to finally do that.

XXIX. The Applebright What small thing brings them joy?

Ava isn't very sentimental, she doesn't hold on to items or trinkets. The one small thing that brings her joy is Max's smug grin. It annoys her, it drives her crazy, but she wouldn't have him any other way. Whenever he springs it on her she falls more in love with him.