#the rot rain world propaganda

[tentacletournament]

definitely one of the matchups yet (rotpoganda)

ROTPOGANDA. IM SCREAMING

[lyss-butterscotch]

Levitates in with more angsty ideas "Hey, y'know how the rot was initially meant to modify pebbles, what if the crwatures that get killed by it experience random mutations, and by the time the rot is done eating him over and over, pebbles is unrecognizable, his own sister initially unable to recognize the beast he has become?

You know what?

Yeah. Okay. I'm opening krita for this.

[arachnidanon]

Friendly reminder that The Rot is in the tentacle tournament and you should vote for it (or else)

[hubristicassholefight]

Hubristic Assholes Tourney Round 1 Part 4b

Five Pebbles (Rain World) vs Achilles (The Illiad)

Propaganda below cut (Beware spoilers)

Five Pebbles

Five Pebbles is an iterator, a city sized sentient and partially biological supercomputer. An ancient civilization built the iterators to essentially try to calculate a way for the Ancients to ascend beyond this mortal world and leave behind the cycle of reincarnation. He and the other iterators were left behind after their creators all disappeared/ascended. The iterators are as close to man made gods as anything can be, yet they are trapped - both by their huge physical forms, unable to move from the place they were built in, and by a taboo in their programming, which prevents them from attempting to self-destruct. Five Pebbles grew frustrated with his fate as a "bug in a maze". He was convinced that if he could just break the self-destruction taboo, he would find a way to ascend himself, thus escaping the mortal world. He started a series of massive experiements that consumed so much cooling water, the drought in the area destroyed his sister and fellow iterator Looks To The Moon. In her efforts to stop him, she distracted him. The experiement failed catastrofically. Five Pebbles had not only callously killed his own sister in the pursuit of his impossible goal, but he had also created a sentient, mobile disease growing inside his own body. The Rot would eat through his mountain sized body, no matter what Five Pebbles tried to do to stop it. It takes it thousands of years, but piece by piece the Rot breaks him down, until all that remains of Five Pebbles, once a mortal god, is a trembling, frozen puppet sitting alone inside the completely destroyed ruins of his own superstructure. It's a fate much worse than the death he was seeking; epic fail bug man lol

He is a city sized supercomputer who was built with one goal in mind; to produce a solution to the great problem, that being how to allow all things to escape the cycle of life and death without the use of void fluid. A different character claimed to have a solution, but died before they could say it. Five Pebbles believed that the death itself was the solution, despite the fact that it only effects the machine, and the inability to kill themselves is ingrained in every cell of their body(he's a meat computer btw). The culture that produced these supercomputers good high respect for their ancestors, so defying them is very heretical. In his attempt to break the self destruction taboo he drains all the local water, causing looks to the moon to also run out of water. Looks to the moon, being older than Five Pebbles, eventually used her seniority to force five Pebbles to stop trying to kill himself, after she was too damaged to survive for very long, and in doing so, gave five pebbles giga-cancer that world slowly, and I mean slowly, eat him alive, stopping him from trying again; He was artificially made with every cell of his body having a code that stops him from killing himself. When he tries to overcome it he accidentally kills someone else and gives himself giga-cancer.

Achilles

No propaganda allowed to be used

[sexiestpodcastcharacter]

Sexiest Podcast Character — Scripted Bracket — Round 5

Propaganda

Mabel Martin (Mabel):

the girl half-burning!!! the bitch queen of hell!!! dead girl walking!!! rot-hearted girl!!!! consort to king anna limon!!!! lesbian icon!!!!

Who is doing it like Mabel Martin? No one. She's a lesbian. She is the lamb, and the knife. She is so loved that god herself tore a hole between worlds to find her again. She tore out her own veins to bargain with the house that holds her. She is the girl half-burning, she kept a bullet that came out of her (it was hers. she birthed it), she is the Labyrinth. And she is the Minotaur.

a vote for Mabel is a vote for insane codependent lesbians everywhere 👍 also for women with large noses (the hottest of women)

Hera (Wolf 359):

I don't care if she's an AI with no physical form, she is HOT

my digital wife <3

oh it's always "i want a hot computergirl with poor cable management to glitch on my shit" and "i want to fuck her until she bluescreens" on this website until it's time to put your money where your mouth is. i have a post about usb penetration with tens of thousands of notes. i see the things you all say. you have a hot computergirl in front of you and this is how you all repay her? you would abandon her? prove yourselves as the computer sex website; vote for hera NOW!!!

"everyone voting Hera in this round is doing it strictly because she is an AI" WRONG. INCORRECT. everyone voting for hera is doing it because she's funny and thoughtful and passionate and wears her heart on her sleeve despite all of the times people have let her down. because she's anti-authority, and that's sexy. it's sexy that she's an AI because the way she navigates being a woman in that context is inherently transgender, and THAT'S sexy, but on its own? not even like, top five most relevant things about her. self-determination? that's sexy.

VOTE FOR HERA. i'm not done. i've made the case that she would want this more, and that's true, but you should also want her. the propaganda says she doesn't have a physical form - in one sense, that's true, but she DOES have an internal self-image and the desire for physicality. most of the physical sensations she's experienced so far have been painful - think of what you could do for her. she has human desire without the means to act on it. she's the most touch starved anyone has ever been. making love to someone who can't be touched by conventional means IS inherently sexy and it IS a win for disabled trans women everywhere.

she's passionate and kind of emotionally unstable and fiercely loyal - "officer eiffel? he's your deadman's switch. if you let him die, or if you do anything that doesn't fall under the category of do no harm, i will go off. i will rain acid on your ass. i will crank the temperature in the room so high that your skin will crack, and bubble, and burn. i will vent you into space through a hole the size of a quarter. and if i am feeling very, very generous, i won't do all those things slowly." like come on!! what more do you want!!

VOTE FOR HERA. my final, last-minute appeal: her character arc is fundamentally about identity, autonomy, and being seen the way she wants to be seen. the way she navigates her identity as a woman in this context is inherently transgender, and that IS sexy. she's funny, she's passionate, she's sweet, she's been let down repeatedly by almost everyone she's ever met and she still opens her heart to people because she so badly craves connection. she's frustrated, touch starved, and pent up, and was initially rejected from service because of her impulsive, emotional, unorthodox way of thinking. i have so much more i could say on her behalf, but this IS a contest of sex appeal. thinking outside the box, breaking rules, and reaching beyond the limitations of her own form is so central to who she is. hera could come up with freak shit beyond the comprehension of the average person, and she IS enthusiastic enough to make it work.

Art of Mabel from @kayleerowena.

[awritersbro]

Sic Semper Tyrannis

The loneliest man in the world lives in a marble-clad mansion on the top of a great hill. The hill is completely surrounded by a giant moat half a mile deep and one hundred yards across, and what the lonely man still considers to be the most sophisticated wall in the world.

It is indeed an awe-inspiring work of architecture. One thousand feet of stone, concrete and steel, protected by security cameras that watched every square inch of the wall and its immediate surroundings, over two thousand machine guns, and over two hundred guard towers rising a hundred feet atop the wall. Each watchtower was topped with two anti-aircraft missile systems, antennae for jamming enemy communications and disseminating propaganda, and one nuclear launch system. Whether or not the lonely man ever had bombs to launch is still a matter of debate.

Nobody living outside the walls has been brave enough to check, and the loneliest man in the world is not about to tell.

Behind these walls lie the Presidential Gardens. They aren't as beautiful as they were when the lonely man's propaganda was filmed, before the grapevines were allowed to cover the marble statues of the Heroes of the Republic and the wheat and corn were allowed to spread like the grasses they are. Before the roses covered the calm, winding paths in sharp thorns and the orchards began to spread and turn the entire place into a single large forest. Before feral pigs and chickens could wander freely through it all. Before the giant golden statue of the lonely man at the top of what had once been the President's Fountain had a family of pigeons nesting happily atop its head.

The golden dome of the Great House of the Republic shines over the Presidential gardens, though the wind and rain has dulled the bright white marble facade to a dull pale gray. There is only a single door into the building that once housed nearly fifty thousand people. Above it, the Presidential balcony looks out at the gardens. Empty, save for five machine guns and a handful of spent shells.

The lonely man was once a very charismatic man, to be able to oversee the construction of all of this.

Day by day, the forest grows closer and closer to the Great House of the Republic. A Rose vine climbs up the first in a long line of pikes atop which the severed heads of Enemies of The Party are displayed. Wheat and corn and flowers of all types feed on the corpses beneath the mounds where the Enemies of The Party were buried. Saplings sprout right next to the mansion's walls, their roots preparing to eat away at its foundation.

The lonely man sees none of this, for he ordered all the windows in the mansion to be boarded up back when there were still people in the mansion to give orders to. A few years later, he ordered the same for the door outside. To protect his people from the Enemies of The Party.

The mansion is a colossal web of rooms and hallways, there is only one man alive who knows how it looks from the inside. Its original architect was labeled an Enemy of The Party and killed. His corpse rotting somewhere in the halls along with all those who questioned the lonely man's orders after the door was boarded up.

The loneliest man in the world lives in a marble-clad mansion on the top of a great hill. He wanders its endless halls calling for all within earshot to stand with him against the enemies of the Party and of the Republic before they can destroy their way of life.

The calls were quite convincing, when there were people there to hear him.

[obscurecharactershowdown]

Round 6

[image ID: the first image is of Hikaru, a boy with white hair, wearing a short sleeve button up shirt, tucked into dark pants, and carrying a backpack. he's holding up 2 fingers in a peace sign. the second image is of No Significant Harassment, a shadowy figure standing behind a sleeping pink-red, fox-like creature. their green hands seem to be holding up the floating creature. end ID]

Hikaru

technically he isnt the real hikaru, hes a strange melty fractal creature that cant be fully perceived that took over the original hikaru's body after he died in the mountains [additional propaganda 1]

No Significant Harassment

They're just a silly little guy. A jokester. Significant harassment if you will. Anyway, a more in depth run down: They're a city sized supercomputer built by a Buddhist adjacent society to figure out how to transcend the 'Great Cycle' (semi-metaphorical cycle of death and rebirth) in a safer way than the previous method (submerging oneself in the 'void sea' which is a mysterious golden liquid that dissolves whatever it touches). Despite being built for this express purpose NSH never really shows a pressing interest in ascension, even cracking jokes about those who are still looking for a solution. Whether this is due to indifference, dislike of, or humor to cope with being unable to ascend is not clear and really up to interpretation. Example: NSH: I wish them super good luck in that endeavor. How is it going to happen? Have the overseers gnaw through bedrock until their entire can crashes down in the void sea? BSM: Please be respectful when speaking of the Void Sea. Grey Wind, where did you hear this? CW: I really shouldn't say. He's going to attempt some sort of breeding program. Thought you might want to know. NSH: Haha with the slimers, lizards and etceteras? Surely the answer was in a lizard skull all along! He's very flippant, but does care very intensely for those close to him. NSH: Moon? It's me again. NSH: I do not know if you are receiving these. Please signal in any way you can. NSH: I need to talk to you. I need to know you're okay. NSH: … NSH: Its difficult for us to assist you over this distance. NSH: Even more difficult for us to do anything in the midst of these tantrums. NSH: Were going to try everything that we can. NSH: Just hold on a little longer. (Context for previous convo: They genetically engineered a super organism of a slugcat (the species you play as in Rain World) to help reset his coworker/sibling after her collapse and restart her systems. He was so desperate to fix her that he accidentally messed up the slugcat's (Hunter) genetic code and as a result it became riddle with the Rot (relatively similar to aggressive cancer) :( which parallels his other coworker/siblings condition who also has the rot. ) He canonically uses he/they pronouns too! Nonbinary swag! NSH has major internet troll vibes. He has sent a data pearl of "something distasteful" to his neighbors on several(?) occasions and causes chaos. If he had access to the wider internet he'd probably be an influencer So…yeah! Vote NSH this website likes the allure of heavy machinery and stuff like that so… there you go. Kind of a blorbo. End post.

[acaciapines]

if anyone wondered how much i love my rain world fic, most days i reread at least one scene of it and oftentimes ill read entire chapters. even the same scenes and chapters multiple days in a row. like 50% of my free thoughts are spent thinking about this fic i already wrote. sometimes new thoughts (hello document on my computer lovingly named “siguel (sig sequel)”) but sometimes me just. going over bits I already wrote.

i thought so hard about it ive spent the past few days inventing a pebbles&innocence dynamic from before she leaked pictures of the rot. i started puzzling out how the hell id adapt all the specific relationships i have into a human au as a thought experiment. i keep trying to find ways to sneak my “the ancients do Not have a concept of childhood” propaganda into all my stuff. i have so much to do but no. rain world <3

[hubrisbracket]

Hubris Bracket Side A Poll 12: Five Pebbles (Rain World) vs Laerryn Coramar-Seelie (Critical Role: Exandria Unlimited Calamity)

Propaganda below (contains spoilers)

Five Pebbles

in his pride and arrogance he thought he could solve the great problem, he got interrupted during one of his experiments because in the process he was killing one of his neighboring robots (he is a robot btw) and she was asking him to stop, now he blames her because the creature he was making mutated and essentially led to him developing 'the rot' which slowly eats away at his superstructure until it eventually kills him.

hes like a pathetic wet cat to me. guy who tries desperately to break out of his doomed narrative only to doom himself further and drag those he loves down with him. he didn't want this he didn't want any of this but in his rage and arrogance he was blind to the consequences of his actions. and now he stands slowly rotting away while his sister suffers because of his mistakes. he is sooo full of regret and anger and shame i love him

(this one is very long so we have opted to keep its original formatting for reading's sake)

GOD where do i even start with five pebbles…the hubris contained within this bitch…the angst…the regret… for a basic rundown of general rain world stuff, everything in the world is trapped in a looping cycle of life and death. eventually people adjacent things were like "dam this sucks i wanna. kil myslef" and then they dug really deep into the earth and found void fluid which kills you so hard you don't come back. however if youre a bitch or too attached to the earth u turn into a terrifying ghost thing. so the people were like "fuck that lets find a different way to kill ourselves" so they built big supercomputers called iterators then they all killed rhemselves anyways with the kil juice.so you have these godlike teenagers basically locked in bigass boxes just. everywhere every fucking where theres so many.

five pebbles is one of these iterators, and whats special about him is mainly the place and reasons he was built. iterators need a shit fuck ton of water to function (and they exhale a shit fuck ton of water vapor "turning…world, into rain world." -daszombes) so generally iterators aren't placed too close. another iterator named looks to the moon was built very early on, and eventually she couldn't make enough stuff for her people who live on top of her (forgot to mention that) so they fucking. built another iterator RIGHT next to her. pebbles and moon are like siblings, right. hes kind of an angsty guy but i mean his creators literally all killed themselves and left him solving their problem so its ok hes allowed to be. hes like "damn i hate veing trapped in this cycle and shit it sucks" and then there was a very big event that i DO NOT have the time to get into but essentially one of the iterators was like "hey guys i solved the problem" and then she fucking died which is very hard for an iterator to do so everyone had an understandable freakout.

five pebbles was of the opinion that killing herself was the solution so hes like "i have to make them see that killing yourself IS the solution" (killing yourself and/or genetic mpdification are very very taboo topics among iterators) so he goes to one of his close friends and has a real heart to heart about how much he struggles with knowing that his creators CHOSE to leave them all behind and that the iterators are all still here solving their problem even tho they're dead. this friend, in a moment of weakness sends pebbles instructions on how to circumvent the self-destruct taboo (a taboo is like a law coded into every single cell of an iterator) and five pebbles, desperate to prove to himself and others that he isnt just another useless thing that can be abandoned, so he looks at the proper, safe way of doing the procedure and goes "FUCK THAT NOIIIISE" bye running so many parallel processes he consumes five times the amount of water he usually intakes, as well as shutting off all communications. moon, having been dehydrated to the point where he structure is in an awful, awful state, eventually uses a last resort in the form of forced communications, essentially the buggest loudest discord ping of your life. her messages are pleas for pebbles to stop, that he is hurting her, that she WILL die if he continues.

on pebble's end, as he tries to concentrate on his absurd amounts of processes, moon messages crash through his communications network, COMPLETELY shattering his focus. due to the nature of this method, involving genetic modification, what is essentially cancer is allowed to burst free, uncontrolled, from his experiments. they call it the rot. pebbles, having killed his sister and cut off everyone else, desperately tries to cure the illness ravaging his structure, an effort that proves futile.

Laerryn Coramar-Seelie

Laerryn devoted her entire life to making the city of Avalir capable of teleporting to the Upper Planes so that the entire city of mortals would be walking as equals amongst the GODS.

laerryn my beloved. the OG hubris wizard, dead before the story even started & it was her own fault. she used all her city's magic supply to be able to TELEPORT the ENTIRE CITY to a DIFFERENT PLANE because she COULD. because she wanted to prove that SHE COULD. because she thought the gods weren't all that special and wanted mortals to be equal to the GODS THEMSELVES. COME ON. she could have easily made it safe but she was so determined to accomplish this in time that she used way too much magic and put the whole city in danger. she wasn't thinking about safety, she was thinking about what she could accomplish. she also got one of her best friends, who was a husband and a father to a young child, KILLED, due to experimenting on said aforementioned 'attempting to teleport the entire city to a different plane' thing (complete disregard of safety once again). to list her lesser hubris crimes, she neglected her marriage and got divorced bc she was so focused on her work and herself even though she loved her husband dearly and convinced herself she was doing all of this for him, even though this is never something he wanted. also she cast blight on a super important tree that could have saved the world, and destroyed it. and yeah it was because she wanted to protect her friends/out of love/grief BUT she basically set in motion the rest of the events of exu calamity (aka, oh yknow, the DESTRUCTION OF MOST OF THE WORLD) by doing that. by thinking she COULD save her friends by destroying the tree. basically, she thought she knew better when she very much didn't. i'm not saying she caused it (the betrayer gods caused it obvs), but she for sure had a large part to play in the destruction of her own city (and also in saving it, but still). basically i love her. HUBRIS QUEEN.

[rain-world-region-showdown]

CHOOSE YOUR FAVOURITE RAIN WORLD REGION

The Exterior: Rot, white lizards with grudges, spitter spiders, this region sure is a challenge that is worth it. The Exterior has cool green lightning, the first echo you speak to, sunrise/sunset. But the real reason the exterior is memorable are the top rooms of the wall. Remember leaving five pebbles and exiting into a view of the sky and Metropolis with stargazer playing? That is why The Exterior matters.

Submerged Superstructure: The dark depths of a long collapsed Iterator Submerged Superstructure Is home to Massive water rooms and many water creatures, and a mini population of scavengers. Submerged superstructure also has Some of the best tracks in the game like Garden and Fragile.

Other Propaganda:

This stuff is from asks it could be anti propaganda or have 0 factual information but its fun to look at anyway :]

Submerged Superstructure:

The Exterior:

None :[

[wodania]

What are some of your favorite quotes from the main series? And what are some from Dunk & Egg?

A lot of the asoiaf quotes are gonna be A Storm of Swords because it’s the book I read digitally the most, meaning I was actually highlighting as I went along. So lots Storm representation oops. Rule of five per series so I don’t get carried away.

Dunk and Egg (this one is long because I love discussing these novellas):

Something something the wealthy huddle beneath lavish roofs and tents and leave the poor to sleep in the rain and mud, but the wealthy have created for themselves gilded cages while the poor can watch the stars fall and claim the gift of luck that comes with it. Thanks George I eat stuff like this up like I’m a starving man.

Feel like we need to mention a dragon dream if we’re discussing Dunk and Egg. My favourite dragon dream in the D&E series. Everything about it is correct: Dunk will be a Kingsguard, he’ll be famed throughout the land, he’ll live for nothing but to serve his King. Though Daemon gets one big thing wrong and that’s that he is not going to be King. Second hand embarrassment. As Bloodraven put it, “The fool just got the colour wrong.” Literally Daemon’s entire character. Spitting facts but he can’t tell red from black.

Defending myself by saying this isn’t a dragon dream. Uhhh so! King Aegon V was killed in a massive fire that burned down Summerhall on the night Rhaegar was born. Duncan the Tall, the Lord Commander, died trying to save both King Aegon and the other party guests from the fire. In this scene, Dunk dreams that he’s digging a grave and people, dead or alive, are appearing in it and speaking to him. The last to appear is Egg, who is buried in the sand even though Dunk tries to pull him out. Dunk falls into the grave and suffocates in the sand. It’s obviously supposed to represent the smoke at the fire of Summerhall. Literally wtf George?

The context is pissing contests by the way. Ignore the pissing part there’s a metaphor there I promise. Dunk is super interesting to me because his raising of Egg makes Egg the small-folk loving King that later rules Westeros. Dunk is wise in his life experience, yet he knows nothing of the struggle of women in both noble and peasant settings. Rohanne let’s him know just how difficult it is for a woman to claim any power or influence in Westeros, using the metaphor of a pissing contest, that classic male bonding activity (a woman needs to piss twice as hard).

This does a really good job of putting into perspective how notable Aegon’s kingship was. “Kings do not heap honour on the likes of you and me,” yet King Aegon V named Dunk his Lord Commander and solidified Dunk’s place as a legendary knight. By ASOIAF, Dunk is spoken about admirably. Another King might not have ever given a man like Dunk the opportunity, but Aegon did.

Asoiaf (shorter because I feel like these have been talked about way more):

Daenerys Targaryen:

Makes me tear up. I feel like it’s obvious why. Also after this she tells Jorah that the people will not hurt her, for she is their mother. And then she rides her Silver throughout the crowd while laughing because she’s so happy and in love with the world!!! This is probably one of the only quotes here that isn’t going to be miserable.

Beric Dondarrion:

“Are you my mother, Thoros?” propaganda I think about this quote so much. Beric and Thoros aren’t even on my top ten list but their conversations and dynamic is absolutely heartbreaking. Beric omg how you rot my brain.

Catelyn Tully:

Not “Ned loved.” Instead, “Ned loves.” Because perhaps in her grief and panic, she forgot her husband had even died. I’m dead.

Jon Connington:

He’s so doomed. He’s so bitter and angry. He loves his son so much and that’s exactly why he’s so doomed. Because he refuses to give his son anything but the best, even though the best is going to kill them both.

Maester Aemon Targaryen:

I am a loyal Egg girl so this killed me nine different times :)

[tentacletournament]

Propaganda for the rot.

THE ROT IS CONSUMING!!!

[battleofthewawas]

PLAGUED PROPAGANDA:

They consume. Who doesn't love rot consuming

They're being pursued by an iterator who got far too silly and is very very sick

They were the first Rain World oc I ever came up with

They're just a little guy and it's their birthday

They have cool tentacles

They're like a therapy pet for a different iterator who also gave them a cute nickname

They got very sick one day and would probably have died if they didn't say "you know what? spite. we ball" and started using it to their advantage

I'll let you know if I think of any other good propaganda things

Also here's a silly celebratory drawing that contains them from when the rot won the Tentacle Tournament

Any slugcat that can overcome a disease that has possibly killed many random gods has my respect.

Obligatory THE ROT CONSUMES!!

[numericalbridge]

Mini (actually super long) OC explanations:

Dariraine AU

Anodyne ('Dyna')

Eldest dariraine daughter. Technically might be the grimwalker from s3, just unearthed much, much earlier as a baby/toddler. 19-20 years old when Luz travels to the demon realm. Anodyne is working a blue-collar job and thinking about trying community college.

She is generally easy-going and puts up a slacker front, particulary with less important things, but actually she is very responsible (especially when it comes to her family). She can be assertive and confrontational when angered, and her stress response is 'fight', but she usually calms down quickly.

She is equally close to both of her parents and very close to and protective of her younger sister; yet there is a tiny bit of resentment/bitterness because Anodyne's childhood was very erratic, while Edalaide's childhood is much more stable and secure. Anodyne is self-aware of that bitterness and tries to laugh it off.

She does enjoy the more stable current situation and has a few friends around the town (and knows Luz and Camila a little, having babysat Luz a couple of times when Camila had to be with Manny in the hospital), but generally thinks Gravesfield is a shithole. She doesn't have any particular plans for career in mind, but doesn't feel upset about it.

She doesn't have any magic.

Edalaide ('Laila')

Dariraine biological daughter. 9-10 years old when Luz travels to the demon realm. Appearance-wise mostly takes after Darius, but her eyes are dark brown or black and only turn green when she uses magic, and she is small for her age. Named after Eda and also Darius' mother (see waaaay below about Darius' mother).

Edalaide is shy and bookish. She is usually calm, but can hold grudges. She wasn't prone to hiding her problems, but her sister's and parents' anxieties had gradually affected her, and so she is now trying not to make things worse for her family and is scared of losing the stability of their current life.

She is closer to Darius than to Raine, even though her personality might be forming to be closer to Raine's. And, while her relationship with Raine is loving, there is a bit of tension as Raine becomes more and more desperate to return to the Boiling Isles before the Day of Unity, and Edalaide catches on the urgency but doesn't know the cause and misinterprets it as Raine not having time for her anymore.

She has recently manifested her magic and hid it from everyone. She has a predisposition towards construction and plant-like magic, but because she doesn't know what kinds of magic even exist, her magic is mixed from the start.

She loves reading, especially about geology and geography, and collects bunny plushies. Despite very different personalities she likes Luz, and is very upset when Luz - actually Vee - doesn't recognize her after returning from the camp.

their picrews

----

The Rot AU

Darius (the OC)

The crown prince of the Boiling Isles. 14 years old when Camila travels to the demon realm. According to Raine the resemblance to the ortet at the same age would have been uncanny if not for the different eye colour, dyed hair and, most important, the very different way he holds himself. He strongly favours bard magic.

It is not immediately noticeable because of his anxiety and sheltered upbringing, but he is extroverted and likes being around people, and would have thrived with a big a circle of friends and acquaintances. He is hyper empathetic (which is a neutral thing and not automatically good) and generally curious about others, but because of his royal upbringing he is, at least initially, closed off to some ideas that contradict the Emperor's propaganda. He has - often severe - anxiety, mainly related to the horror of his world rotting away and the worsening relationship with his father, caught up in the constant loop of dissapointment then apologies and coddling.

He is spoiled sweet and is often treated as if he is younger than his age, but he does have responsibilities ranging from having to clean his own room to combat training to attending the court meetings. He is promised the rebranded Golden Guard position - now basically the title for the heir in training, meant to guard the realm - once he is older.

While he doesn't have servants attending his every need and has a relative freedom inside the Castle, his social circle is very small, especially before Raine introduced him to the Hexside chat.

His relationship with Hunter is complicated, as Hunter's parenting is unhealthy and inconsistent and it gets worse the older Darius gets. Raine, while well meaning, only makes the situation worse.

(in case it isn't clear, this was the only part about Darius the OC, the rest of the post is about Darius Deamonne)

----

Mallow AU

Mallow

That one little abomination, but in this AU they are the previous Golden Guard's palisman. After the previous Guard's death they had been hiding in the Castle's walls for years until Darius have found them. They were not carved looking like one of Darius' abominations and instead initially had a smooth head and two mauve eyes; after they were badly hurt Darius had to infuse them with abomination to help them heal.

They are solemn and steady, but curious and like to play with abominations and annoy Eber. When cornered they can be very fierce and they bite (no one knows how exactly that works). The wish of the previous Golden Guard was the combination of the longing for the family and his curiousity about new things, so Mallow was both loyal and capable of quickly adapting to new things, but it got twisted after the Guard's death, and they become closed off and afraid of the outside world.

They take their role in the rebellion very seriously.

Virgil

The previous Golden Guard in the Mallow AU. Was in his late 20s when he was killed, and he had been mentoring Darius for about 5 years by that point. About 3-5 years older than Darius, and their relationship was very sibling-like. Virgil didn't look like Caleb, having darker, wavy hair, and taller sinewy frame (his eyes in this AU were mauve, but if i use him for a different AU, they would be violet).

He was curious and liked experimenting with magic, and also very sentimental and longed for a family. But he was ruthless and - especially before he met Darius - reckless and could be borderline cruel at times. Thanks to Darius' influence he became more calm and responsible and started to care about the common people rather than just being the Emperor's guard.

Belos disliked Virgil from early on, but kept him as his guard since he was doing the job, and because he (Belos) was trying to time the next grimwalker with the DOU.

----

Other characters

Luca

The version of the previous Golden Guard who had been mentoring Darius while Darius was still in Hexside. Luca was in his late twenties - early thirties when he started mentoring and was killed about 2-3 years later. He also didn't look much like Caleb - he was shorter, stocky with broad features, and he kept his hair short cropped. He was physically very strong and quick in combat.

He was loyal and reserved and did atually enjoy physical training and fighting. He wasn't very imaginative and looked down on the artsy types. A quick thinker in crisis or combat, but not so much in everyday situations. He really tried to embody the 'i am just a humble loyal soldier' trope, and Belos considered him rather dull, but Luca actually could read Belos and his tricks well, and navigated the Coven politics successfully and cautiously.

Initially Belos appreciated his loyality and efficiency, almost forgiving the 'wrong' looks, and even began to separate him from the Caleb image to an extent, as if considering him a loyal follower. But Luca started to catch up on his crimes and wanted to protect civilians and himself. There was tension between Luca and Belos for some time (hence the rumours about the Golden Guard falling out of the favour) before Belos actually killed him.

Galatea Vault, the previous Construction Coven head

She was in her late 50s-60s. She was aligned with the rebellion, and especially friendly with Eber, trying to take him under her wing. She was very involved with everyday construction work and was frustrated with the way Belos didn't care about developing infrastructure or about safety. Despite being super loyal to her coven and a 'father to her men' type of a leader, she didn't see the need to force others into the covens and didn't understand many of the newer policies, leading to her becoming suspicious and conspiring with Darius and Eber. She had developed a series of secret passages in the castle.

Darius' maternal grandfather

Yet unnamed. He was a moderately famous theatre actor and later in life had an art-related Crystall Ball show, but retired by the time Darius was finishing Hexside. He didn't have a coven sigil (though he favoured illusion and oracle magic) and didn't understand the need for it.

He was generally soft-spoken and gentle, probably more introverted than you would expect from an actor, but had strong theatre-related opinions and had at least a couple of life-long frenemies among other actors, directors and critics.

Had somewhat complicated relationship with Layla (Darius's mother) because he thought her research was going nowhere and she would shine in any other field, while she couldn't understand his position; but they got over it eventually. With Darius he was very close, and Darius was very affected by his death.

(so far i have two versions for Darius' upbringing - in one his parents died when he was very young, and he was raised by his grandfather and aunts and various other relatives; in another his mother is alive and he was raised by her and his grandfather with active participation of the aunts and other relatives. Still thinking about the other parent)

Layla

Darius' mother. She is an astronomer and relies more on science and technology than on any magic. She got the abomination sigil just because abominations can be helpful.

She used to be cheerful and energetic, very enthusiastic about her field, but because in the society around her every effort has been put to forward the Covens and the DoU, while her research has been ignored, she eventually became embittered and exhausted.

She didn't like that Darius became the Coven Head, both because she was concerned for his safety, and a little bit because she felt like he was doing what she couldn't do (finding a lucrative popular job that he also liked). And then Darius started to close off from her for her own safety, so by the time of s2 events their relationship is not exactly distant, but they see each other rarely and are awkward around each other. Darius had bought her a cottage with a private observatory after he became the Coven Head, and visits her, but not as often as she would have wished. She might know about his rebel activities.

Despite her growing bitterness she still has several good friends and is close with her sisters (Darius' aunts). In one version of Eber headcanon backstory, she was the one who found him injured in the woods near her house and took him in.

She was definitely traumatized by the Collector's reign, and the Archivists existence caused a big crisis for her.

In the future there will be development for her relationship with Darius post s3, and progression for her feelings about the situation on the Boiling Isles and her field.

[autumnal-rains]

Skylark, Chapter 1.

The Skylark sat upon an old boxcar adjusting the valves on her gas mask. The car lay on its side, decrepit and half rusted; a once important piece of infrastructure left to rot. It was quiet here, and the rain had stopped for now. What had once been a city and outpost now sagged and sunk. From here, on a turned over boxcar resting on an old loading station halfway up the old central tower, the Skylark had a vast view of the Zone which lay shortly beyond the old edge of the outpost. It had been of a pair; its twin lay inside the Zone, built by the Bastion to be a monument of human ingenuity. It had become a monument of hubris instead

It was not long until the rain started again. Today it fell as dust rain, dark grey drops which shattered on the ground. A boon of sorts. Not something you’d want to drink unfiltered, but better than the acid rains or the rare blood rains. The Skylark stayed for a while, trying to gauge how the zone was acting. The wind was faint today, so she strained her ears to listen. Then, with a huff, she rose to her feet and gathered up her things, hooking the gasmask onto her tool belt and slinging her rifle-spear across her back. She pulled up the hood of her raincoat and began the long climb down the tower.

Below the overpass at the foot of the tower hung the old propaganda posters of the bastion, boldly proclaiming that this outpost and its twin would herald humanity’s victory over the Zone. No-one had bothered to take them down in the thirty years since the tower in the zone fell. Humans needed something to find humour in, supposed the Skylark. And so the old boast still hung, half-sheltered from the elements. The skylark spat in the printed face of a now-dead king then continued onwards.

To the south, away from the tower and the zone, lay a hollowed-out factory district that served as the homes of the majority of those who’d ended up in the city. The Lark headed east instead, to the river that wound through the city. All the while, the dust rain poured down, forming rivulets of blackened water that trickled through the cracked streets before disappearing underground. There they would either throw themselves down the bellies of the stormdrains or they would join the river, that emerged from the city to the southeast, from where it wandered further, twisting and turning in a roar until it reached a coast somewhere that the Skylark didn’t know.

The path toward the banks of the river was circuitous. First was the old train station, which had once been the heart of the outpost. Even now a train would roll in every once in a while. It had been half a year since the last time. It was a crumbling wreck. Descending down the hillside was the old commercial district. In some places the rain shields had been stripped for the homes down south, leaving the concrete and steel exposed to wither away. Scarce thirty years had passed since this was a bustling, living, outpost. Now all that were left were skeletal ruins. Down further was the river.

When the dams broke it had washed through this place, leaving hollowed out ruins behind. The lark climbed in through the window of one of the grey concrete buildings and continued upward to the old roof-access. Beyond this building the streets were submerged under water; somewhere as shallow as a couple of feet, others several metres below the surface. And in some places the old street level had fallen away, leaving plunging depths for the river to throw itself into. The city predated the Bastion − way the old man by the old storm drain told it, it had been first built before the zones had formed. Before the world had first choked itself on hubris. And as the world choked, as the zones crawled into existence, this city had been one of the last holdouts. But thousands and thousands of years left their mark. Sometimes, in the depths of winter nights with bloodrain strangling the streets, the Lark thought she could hear the whispers of the old city, speaking in a voice that was not a voice at all.

The lark turned south, climbing across the old buildings and rickety paths through the dust rain. She kept an eye over the river as she clambered alongside it. It looked calm today. Upstream of the city lay the Zone. From deep in the maddened landscape the churning waters flowed. It brimmed with life, fish with shimmering scales, crustaceans with river moss growing out of their carapaces, trout with scales that every so often formed fractals, lobsters whose exoskeletons grew into thorny forests that formed moving shelters for smaller things. As the river moved out of the zone it carried its fruits along with it.

The river was the main source of food in the crumbling outpost. Upon the corner of the roof of an old building standing where three paths had once met, the Lark stopped. She waved to the rest of the hunting party, seated below on a wooden deck and preparing as the dust rain fell all about them. Including the Lark, there were five on the hunt. She was early: they wouldn’t leave for another half hour or so. “Lark,” said one of them in greeting, then asked how the river looked. “She’s peaceful today. Saw a flock of herons some two miles north however. Best be quiet.” Herons were bad news. Upon their stilt-like legs they prowled the river, hunting. They were not picky eaters.

The Lark’s job was simple: lookout. Keep an eye out for trouble, and one for prey. She’d clamber over the rickety paths that spanned the shoreward stretches of the river. Good eyes and steady feet. It was a good day for hunting, likely the best they would see in a while. All five of them spent their time preparing; checking harpoons, lacing boots and the like. They talked too, mostly of small things. One of the hunters, a one-eyed man in his forties, asked her how the zone had looked earlier. “It’s uneasy, I’d say. I don’t like the look of it. But I’d have to get to the north of the river to get a better listen.” The one-eyed man nodded at that. Then, after a couple more minutes of rain smattering down, he rose. The hunt was on.

The sturgeon thrashed as the harpoon pierced the bony plates of its flank. It was large – almost three metres long, the skylark estimated from her perch above. As the second harpoonist readied her speargun, the Lark looked north up the river. Here was a good sightline, even through the rain. A little more than a mile north she could see the outlines of the flock of herons she’d spied earlier. They had moved south under the hunt. It made the Lark uneasy. But the herons didn’t seem to have spotted them, so for now they were all right. With the third shot from a harpoonist’s speargun the sturgeon thrashed a last time as a harpoon pierced through one of its four eyes into the brain, then floated silently, held by the lines of the harpoons. It was a good catch. The four of the party helped pull the sturgeon up into the boat. They had caught other fish as well, and gathered some river kelp.

The Lark kept her watch during the hunt. “Good work, everyone,” said the one-eyed man. “Let's get back to town. Have the herons gotten closer?” The last part he directed at the skylark. She told him they were still a bit more than a mile off. He nodded, then started the engine. The four of them would make their way through the ruins of the old district toward what could charitably be called a port. The lark would follow via the rooftops, keep an eye out for any trouble.

The gunshot split the air as the five had barely travelled a street. The skylark dropped onto her belly on instinct. The boat’s pilot killed the engine. “You hurt?” the harpoonist asked the lark. She shook her head. The sound had come from the north, slightly eastward. Up the river, the herons were scattering. She relayed this, then turned back north. Below her the others talked in hushed voices. “Any idea who made the shot” “Militia?” “Aren’t they all dead?” The Lark stared over the landscape, trying to find anything. A heron shrieked in the distance. Its other fellows seemed to be returning to their feast. The pilot asked whether she could see anything. “Only the herons,” she said, then “I could scout more.” A second cry of a heron rang. “Do that then. See you in port. We’ll row,” said the one-eyed man. The Lark nodded at the four, and was off. She kept her gait low, but still fast. Bullets were expensive; whoever made that shot must’ve had a reason for using one. Over the rooftops she scrambled, through the dustrain. It was increasing.

The skylark kept her ears alert as she made her way north. The third scream of a heron cut through the rain. The lark made herself lie motionless upon the roof. The scream was close. Mere seconds later she could see its source, standing less than two-hundred feet away, large and malformed. The lark held her breath and tried to still even her heartbeat. A fast heart might be a fear-response, but hiding from a heron it was worse than useless. The heron screamed again, closer this time. It was bleeding. Had the skylark been someone else she might have prayed. Instead, she simply kept her position: hoped against hope that the heron would pass without noticing her. Its steps through the water were slow. Ten feet tall it stood, a wound in its lower neck.

In front of her, the heron paused. Slowly it swung its eyeless head back and forth. The lark tried to force her heart to stop beating. Blood dripped from the heron’s beak. From the river the Lark could hear other herons’ cry. The heron in front of her turned toward the sound and, with a scream that made the skylark’s ears bleed, headed towards it. She lay still, not moving, until the cry of the wounded heron was far off. Then she picked herself up, wiped away the blood from her ears, and made her way back.

When they made it into port − the skylark having caught up to them followed on the rooftops − the red-clad haruspex was waiting for them. She was old; had been granted a front row seat to the city crumbling. She’d want to see the guts of the fish they had caught. “You’re late,” she said as her greeting. “We made no appointments regarding time,” said the one-eyed man. The haruspex gave a ‘hmph’ as reply, then turned her focus to the catches. “A sturgeon? That’s a good catch. But no trout. Hmph. Ah, but you got me perch.” The haruspex continued talking as the five unloaded the fish and headed to the stall. The skylark and the two harpoonists carried the sturgeon over their shoulders. Once they reached the workplace sheltered from the rain, it was time to carve up the fish. The haruspex took out her tools– various knives, scalpels, hooks, callipers, loupe, and more, as well as a beat up stenotype and camera.

The skylark watched the haruspex at work. Slowly and methodically she disassembled the fish and placed the guts upon the bench. Every once in a while she’d extend a hand to jot down notes with the stenotype. She took apart the guts of the fish like a mechanic dismantling a radio to then carefully put it back together. In the distance were the fishing crew and others, preparing the fish for preservation and eating. The haruspex continued disassembling a fish, then, when all its entrails lay splayed out on the table, she took her conclusive notes on the fish and moved onto the next, carefully taking it apart bit by bit. There was hardly even blood when she worked, aside from the wounds the fish had sustained when it was caught. After the haruspex had gutted the fish, it would be dried and smoked inside what was once a warehouse for one of the factories. The entrails would become either fertiliser for the farms, or be decomposed into the gas that served as fuel for lamps and engines in the city.

Eventually the last of the fishes was gutted and handed off to be smoked and dried. The Lark departed with a de-boned fish as payment for her scouting. There were scarce hours of daylight left as she went west, toward the entrance to the storm drains, where she’d visit the old man who lived there. She needed to speak with him about the weather. If she had read the wind right, there’d be a bloodrain in the coming week. Those were always important to keep track of.

On her way to the storm drain entrance she made sure to gather river moss and kelp. It grew along the sunken walls of the buildings in the shallows. Her boots were good, allowing her to wade through the shallows to get to the mosses. She used her knife to cut them, inspected them, and laid them in a mesh bag. Then, rinse and repeat on her path.

Dinner was a feast of fried river moss, smoked perch, kelp flatbread, and a variety of pickles. The old man was a fantastic cook; it was a joy to simply watch him work. He had an old gas-fired storm stove with a thin cast iron tray on which the moss now was sizzling, while he stirred it regularly. The Skylark and the old man were mostly silent. The two of them were seated under a concrete outcropping with an awning that sheltered them and the food from the pouring dustrain. Beside them stood a row of large jars, with various pickling and fermenting goods.

As he handed her a plate filled with mosses and fish and flatbread, the old man spoke. “So. Why are you here?” he asked her. “Is it so unbelievable I just wanted well made food?” said the Lark. She wasn’t a bad cook per se − she could always make something edible, and half the time it even tasted good − but she paled in comparison to the old man. He simply said ‘yep’ and gave her a lopsided smile. Half his face was a ruin of spines and leathery growths; he could only ever emote with the other half of it. “I read the wind earlier, up the old central tower. I think there’s a bloodrain coming,” said the Skylark, reaching for one of the forks. The old man nodded. “I think you’re right. Day after tomorrow, or possibly the day after that. Won’t be the last of the season; the east wind carries a metal taste.” Well, that did confirm the Lark’s own thoughts. She stared out into the rain. The sun hung low and fat over the buildings. “Eat, little lark. Let’s talk of the weather and the zone later,” the old man said, interrupting her thoughts. She grinned at him, and promptly dug into the feast he’d cooked.

“I’m thinking of making another dive this season,” said the Skylark when she’d scraped off the last remnants of her meal and the two of them were cleaning the dishes. The old man furrowed his half of a brow. She continued, “It’d be good to get one before winter− else it won’t be possible until late spring.” The old man sighed. Before the tower inside the Zone had fallen, he had worked on it − if the Haruspex had been in the front row seats, he’d been a stage hand. “You should visit the chapel first,” he said. The chapel wasn’t really a chapel − it was an abandoned radio post some kilometres south along the river. It was also not what they were talking about. The old man continued dunking the plates into the shallow basin of water. “I’ve known better and more experienced divers than you, Lark,” he said. The sun sank lower “I will visit it after the bloodrain. It’ll be nice to hear from the operator at least.”

Home was a rusting hollow; an abandoned maintenance access carved into a now-broken support pillar of a now-broken bridge that once cut through what would become the flooded district and spanned the river. The lark climbed up the old pillar to the steel grating balcony beneath the door, unlocked the padlock, and entered. The place was small and cramped, even after the guts of machinery it held had been mostly stripped out and harvested. She sat down on a crate by the door, took off her outer gloves, removed the chain grips from her boots, unhooked her toolbelt and set it beside. Her hooded rain tabard she hung by the door. Over the balcony hung an awning that kept the rain off. The sun had set near half an hour earlier. The lark stepped out beneath the awning, leaned back on the concrete pillar, and breathed in the cool evening air. There were still traces of daylight, but they were fast fading.

The Lark stepped back into her hollow, lighting an old lamp and closing the door. Slowly and methodically she removed the rest of her outerwear; knee-guards, boots, coat, fingerless gloves, and waders. Then, with a cup of heated moss juice by her side, she sat down on crossed legs, laid her rifle-spear and boots before her, and began the slow process of maintenance. Her boots were first. She wiped them down, added a thin coat of wax, then stood them aside to maintain the rifle-spear. Slowly, she disassembled it, cleaning and wiping every part, oiling the different mechanisms that allowed the spear-rifle to alternate forms, clearing the bore with the cleaning rod, then varnishing the entire thing. After all the parts were properly cleaned, and her acrid beverage half drunk, she began reassembling it.

On the morrow there’d be more things to do and prepare for. She might need to talk to those of the water tower, a prospect she never looked forward to. She stood the rifle-spear and her boots by the door, and finished her drink, filtering the ground moss between her teeth. In the cities of the bastion, such drinks, called “river moss infused tonics” went for idiotically high prices, touting wonderful health benefits. Here, in a crumbling city-corpse, it was something warm and mildly filling to drink. She sat the cup down upon one of the crates, brushed her teeth, changed into her nightshirt, turned off the light, and went to sleep.

[alter1412]

So, I have thinking and I have a question:

How would a crossover of Transformers and Rain World be? Like, the Autobots are being chased by the Desepticon and crash land in this weird planet with a frequent rain cycle. And said rain has the force to kill organics.

Then we have the iterators. How would they communicate? How will they react to seeing Moon? To seeing Pebbles?

And what about the rot? Will it eat cybertronians? Can the cybertronians contract it like the cybonic plague? Will Megatron try to use it as a weapon? If so, How will the Autobots cure it? Will the cure work on Pebbles?

This is just some ramble caused by @tentacletournament Rot vs Soundwave round (I will always laugh at all the propaganda that sprout out of this) and some drawings of Soundwave begin taken by the rot that were sent there.

Let me read your thoughts on this!