#this is going to be the start of an au isnt it

[elesmyly]

After reading @signanothername headcanon about nightmare behing disabled and having issues with his legs, i had added the same problem to my oc Midnight! Its been a while since i have made her be like that, but i didnt have the time to draw her! 😭

(the first one is from today and the second was made two months ago)

For the ones who don't know her, she's one of the three shipkids i made for killer and nightmare in my au, Elverse! I had a lot of inspiration from anó's posts in the past months and i have been going Deep into my own lore because of that >w<

So, in the lore i have been working on:

She has been disabled since childood but, unlike Nightmare, she has had some operations that's were the bare minimum for her to walk with just a walking stick. Nightmare tried to force her to train with the other two siblings Mercilles and Moonlight, but Midnight's Bones were just too weak and would often get hurt because of that. She would be staying a lot in bed, but when she could go around and walk she would often show her anger issues.

Since Nightmare often denies his own disability, he doesnt take proper care of his daughter's, wich ended up turning in verbal abuse (wich is the reason of the anger issues).

In the "present" she's 16 and basically She is an emo girl with no friends at all, mostly because her mental healt isnt the greatest. She finds confort in books, especially poetry, and listening to punk music. In this period of time, she mostly walks with a walking Stick and starts using a whellchair full time only as an adult.

★

Feel free to ask anything about her and my au! 💗

[mynnthia]

was talking with a friend about how some of dunmeshi fаndom misunderstands kabru's initial feelings towards laios.

to sum up kabru's situation via a self-contained modernized metaphor:

kabru is like a guy who lost his entire family in a highly traumatic car accident. years later he joins a discord server and takes note of laios, another server member who seems interesting, so they start chatting. then laios reveals his special interest and favorite movie of all time is David Cronenberg's Crash (1996), and invites kabru to go watch a demolition derby with him

[rose-icosahedron]

Grian was the superhero poultryman, but after a gender crisis is now the superhero cuteguy. it was easier to get rid of his whole identity and make a new one than go through the hassle of publicly transitioning. (also to evade his enemies, but that's not the point)

[verflares]

collection of some loz origin au stuff i've been chipping away at for awhile now ^_^ with a healthy amount of dunmeshi insp for good measure LOL (the ooccoo isnt relevant she's just here for size comparison purposes)

feat my beloved good friend @linkvcr's hylia design also. because i am obsessed with her and you should be too 🫵

[puppyeared]

(guy who has never played cotl) haha au time

[corviiids]

ok hear me out about this vaguely Your Name inspired lawlight au told via notes they leave each other while bodyswapped

[aroaceleovaldez]

i think the thing i'm most disappointed about with riordanverse fandom now versus like 2014 is not only has the fandom not gotten any less racist or queerphobic or ableist (in fact in some regards its gotten worse!) but now it's just boring too. like there's no fandom infrastructure anymore - the community these days is almost entirely source material-driven - and you deviate from canon even slightly people get weird about it. whatever happened to the post-HoO fanon boom. the fandom needs to get weirder again. and self-sufficient. and less offensive.

[yuwuta]

gojo would kill your work husband. but if he were the work husband, that's a different story

REAL!! he’s such a hypocrite because if someone mentioned you had a work husband, his entire world would stop and he wold devise the absolute worst plans to make sure that your co-worker, everyone at your job, and everyone in the next building over knew that he was happily committed to you 

but if he is the work husband, he’s very........ dutiful in his role. there’s a loose office/lawyer au in my head where satoru is your secretary, and for all intents and purposes, your personal assistant, and he’s good at his job, but mostly because he considers his job to be pleasing you. he has coffee for you when you arrive, he moves your schedule around without you asking, he has answers to questions before you can even ask them, he has fresh flowers on your desk weekly, pokes into your meetings to pretend to hand you a file that’s really just maybe a single document in a manilla folder with candy on top of it—he’s made himself your business, your partner; he’s made himself irreplaceable, and he loves to remind everybody of that fact. 

he’s also extremely loyal. sure, he could day a week’s worth of work done in about a day, but that doesn’t mean he’ll just use his talents for anybody. he’s your secretary, so he’s at your beck and call, and everyone knows it. they know he’s the best, but also that he’s off limits—not because you won’t share him, but because satoru won’t let himself be shared. 

he also extends his duties beyond work, of course. when he hands you a print out of your schedule for the day and you’re confused by the three-hour block of time you have in the middle of the day, satoru just helps you shrug your coat of your shoulders and smiles, “that’s for the lunch date you have with me, of course!” hanging up your coat in your closet for you, “i’m paying, see you soon, sweets.” and because you’re great at your job, and satoru helps you be great, nobody really questions when the two of you have time for a 13-course tasting menu at 1pm on a tuesday afternoon. and if they did, all satoru would say that you two had a lovely date 

[lovesickeros]

☆ de fontaine

{☆} characters furina {☆} notes cult au, imposter au, drabble, gender neutral reader {☆} warnings angst, suicidal thoughts, hurt / no comfort {☆} word count 1.4k

This wasn't fair. This wasn't fair. This wasn't fair!

She thought, for one moment, she could put the mask down and breathe – for one moment of daydreaming, she thought she could just be Furina. She thought she would finally get to live the live she should've had in the first place, the life she threw away to play God to an audience who saw her as nothing but a circus animal, dancing to their whims. Furina just wanted to be selfish for one brief and fleeting moment..and it was gone before she could even grasp it in her hand. A comet soaring past far out of her reach.

She can barely keep her hands from violently shaking as she looks down at them – broken and bloody and more a corpse then a person – and she feels so numb she can't even feel the rain pelting against her back. None of this is fair, she wants to scream, why is it always me? But her voice is silent beneath the torrent of rain. She wonders if the ocean would take her if she sank into it's depths – just for a moment, she wonders how it would feel to finally be able to sleep at ease.

Furina is tired.

But Furina is nothing if not useful, isn't she?

So she forces her feet to move, dragging against the stone beneath her heels, and drags their bloodied body into the nearest empty building, letting the rain do the work of washing away the smeared blood following her path. The smell makes her feel sick, the feeling of it sticking to her hands and gloves makes her lightheaded, but she persists. Because Furina is useful, because Furina won't let them die out in the rain, because Furina won't stand by and just let them rot on the streets like some..pest.

Furina wants to go home. She wants to sleep and she isn't she if she wants to wake up, this time. But she keeps going anyway.

Because it's all she's ever done, and the habit sticks.

An Archon she may not be, not anymore, but the expectations of five hundred years still linger like eyes on the inside of her skull. They watch her, pry and prod at her thoughts, mocking laughter and judging eyes following her as she forces herself to dance to the song they weave with glee. Furina never stepped off that stage – she's still there, she thinks, watching the crowd stare at her in disdain as the curtain call looms above her like a guillotine. She still hears Neuvillette deliver her damnation and salvation with a trembling voice, still feels her hair stand on end when electro crackled like the crack of the whip, Clorinde's blade aimed at her like a loaded gun.

She's trapped on that stage and she never left, not really.

She hates it. She thinks she hates them, but it's not their fault. They didn't ask for this, didn't ask for everyone to turn against them, didn't ask for her to save them. Neither did she..yet here they are, she thinks.

She tries to tell herself she's in control this time, though. She can stop performing her part in this horrible, bloody play any time she wants. It makes her feel better, just for a little while, if she convinces herself she's still Furina, painfully human.

And Furina has always been good at lying.

It's the believing that's the hard part.

There isn't time for her to wallow in her own self pity, though. They're still bleeding out onto the dusty, creaky floorboards of some random, broken down house and she's just standing there as the blood stains the wood. She can fix it – she's good at fixing things. She's done nothing but fix things – try to, anyway – for five hundred years. She can fix a little wound, how hard could it be? Her hands are clenched so tight they ache as she kneels down, wincing at the creak of the floorboards beneath her heels– she hesitates just long enough to wonder if she's making a mistake before she peels away just enough of the outer layer of their clothes to see the deep, bloody gash across their chest. She tries not to think about it – it's deep, too deep, and she feels dizzy just looking at it, but she's handled worse, right?

Furina can fix it. That's what she's good at.

She doesn't feel so confident when she tries to wrack her brain for..something. Five hundred years, and a little wound stumps her? No, she had to have learned something, right? She's decidedly not trying to buy time because she's panicking, parsing through hundreds of years of memories like flipping through a book. Furina isn't made for this, not really – she's running on nothing but adrenaline and she's really not sure what she's doing, but she's trying. And just like before, it won't be enough, will it?

She'll fall short again – she'll be too late to fix it before she's alone again.

Furina was an Archon..used to be. What use would she have for that sort of knowledge? Which makes her predicament all the more harrowing and bleak. What was she supposed to do?

Furina had heard it first hand, that vitriol in Neuvillette's voice. She isn't sure she's ever heard him that..angry before. She's not sure he would listen to her if she tried, either. And that scares her more then anything. All of Fontaine was up in arms about this..imposter, yet here she was, staring down at them bleeding out in front of her, and she was trying to save them.

Why? Why is she throwing away her only chance at normalcy for a fraud? Why didn't she just turn them in?

They were dying – that should've been a good thing, shouldn't it? So why didn't it feel like it?

"Why you?" Her voice breaks as she speaks in harsh tones, grabbing the front of their shirt in trembling, bloodied hands. "Why now?" She wants to scream, to demand answers they can't give, to claw back the reprieve she was promised after five hundred years of agony..and all she can do is sob into their chest, pleading for an answer that will not come. "Why me?"

Silence is their answer, and it hangs heavy on her trembling shoulders as she cries.

Of course they don't, she thinks bitterly, no one has ever answered her pleas spoken in hushed sobs. Not her other self and certainly not them.

Furina has always been alone. Furina will always be alone.

Because Furina never left that stage, never left that moment when she looked at herself in the mirror and took up a mantle too heavy for her to bear. She always finds her way back eventually. There's no one on the other side anymore – she stands alone on a stage, waiting for an inevitable end she isn't sure will come.

"Please," She pleads through tears and choked sobs, clinging to them like they are all that keeps her from sinking. "Please don't leave me, too." The words burn on her tongue – how pathetic is she that she craves companionship from the bloodied body of the imposter? Perhaps she's truly lost her mind after all these years..perhaps she's finally gone mad. She must have.

But their presence is like the first feeling of gentle warmth upon her skin as the sun crests the horizon, like the gentle lap of tides along her heels, the sway of branches and leaves as the wind blows through them like an instrument all it's own. They are the soothing sound of rain against the window as she watches the dreary skies in fond longing, the first bloom of spring as color blooms upon the landscape like paint had been spilled across the hills and valleys.

They are like the faint spark she carefully nurtures and stokes, so fragile even the smallest wind could blow it out like a candle. She cradles it within her palms, pleads with whoever will listen – prays that someone finally listens, because if not for her, then for them.

She's failed to protect too much already, let too many people with so much trust in her fall between the cracks of her fingers like grains of sand. She won't let them go – she can't.

If nothing else, if she couldn't be saved when she begged for salvation from that five hundred year long agony, even if she never got that chance..

Furina will make sure they do.

[reds-skull]

Me: damn I feel like painting Soap rn

Me an hour later: but what if I completely fuck him up tho

(inspired by this painting by Zack Zdrale)

[jilyandbambi]

so a Yellowjackets AU where mari says something to get herself kicked out of the cabin, and she dies of exposure and gets eaten at the bachanalian banquet instead of Jackie, who LIVES, who's there at Shauna's side when she goes into labor, stroking her hair and letting Shauna squeeze her hand hard enough to sprain her fingers, who keeps Shauna calm enough she has a (comparatively!!!!!!) easier delivery, who is the reason the(ir) baby lives.

who finally, after months of feeling adrift and useless because she’s not a hunter or a butcher or a prophet or a captain (anymore) finds her purpose in the wilderness. who painstaking sews patchwork baby onesies and cloth diapers from the girls' spare clothes (Offerings, not donations). who makes a baby sling from animal pelts and backpack straps. who makes a rattle from sticks and pinecones and some light blue pebbles Jackie found by the lake one day and saved. who makes sure the cabin stays warm and clean for Luke Dylan (from 90210--they couldn't decide whether to go with the actor or the character).

who builds them another shelter from blankets and animal hides after the cabin burns down. who keeps shauna and their baby warm through that first terrible winter and the one that followed.

and one day in 1998, Canadian forest rangers happen upon that American high school soccer team that went missing 2 years back. they find a group of starving teens and a baby, a little over a year old, two of the girls wrapped around him--and each other

and when the rescue team tries to separate them the one with tangled, golden brown hair bears her teeth and Growls

[the-switch-conspiracy]

SVSSS AU Post Canon Time Loop. Warning: people dying a lot and gore.

~(O-O)~

One, two. The first times came as a surprise. Between a breath and the next; dropped tea cups shattering. Their shocked eyes meeting, barely widening enough to expose blood shot whites, before the rippling wet sound of metal into viscera filled the stilling air. Like flowers, red bloomed on green, on white, soaked through black. They were but puppets falling from cut strings, their glass eyes staring accusingly at the coming dawn. Three, four. A little faster, a little more refined in our response. The first bodies to fall crushing the delicate stalks of grass beneath them, were not their own. Their attackers staining the visage with their rot. An ever growing expansion with no end in sight. A shining sword glare pierces through bone. Movement to his left, his companion falling lit my the gentle morning glow, before a blinding pain to his eye. Then black. Five, Six. Curls blowing in the wind as demonic Qi rose, several demons cut down. Zheng Yang singing as it dispatched three, four attackers in a row. The edge of the blade shining red in the harsh midday light, his robes twirling around his body with each nimble twist. He turns his back towards the sight, hope forming in his heart. An arrow shot towards his eye blocked, a sword glare cast, slicing head from body. In an instant comes a familiar sound, his husband's voice releasing a death knell of a gasp. Before him; a white lotus painted red, the delicate mist raining from a still beating heart. Twelve, Thirteen. It all started a few day’s earlier, at the reminder of a certain upcoming plot point. The mating migration of the Silk-Winged Butterfly-Hawk, a once in a century event wherein the said birds left the hidden realm the predominately resided in to dance above the great Eastern Lotus Lakes.

- He dodges a strike to his side, his back hitting his husband’s. One by one they slaughter those circling them. A hand seal summoning a thousand lotus petals to rip through flesh, peppering strangely corroding skin. The moons soft glow beamed down on them, their hands slickening with heat and silver reflecting blood-

A hint to his husband later and they were packed and ready for their trip. Sure they could have had Mobei-Jun teleport them there, but it was about the journey AND the Silver-Winged Butterfly-Hawk mating migration destination! It was to be a leisurely bit of travel, he and his husband, stopping just a few times along the way. So imagine his surprise when he came across his favourite Shidi just two days into their trip!

- The beats of thousands of wings taking off, hundreds of birds scattering to the sky. Brilliant white robes flaring against the waters' glare. Cheng Luan glowing silver, fuelled by it’s user’s potent spiritual energy struck out in a shining ripple. His strikes flow like a wave, his form strong and ceaseless under the barrage that assailed him. The War God and his Soaring Phoenix -

His dedicated Shidi had been travelling in the area as part of a mission for the sect. There had been sightings of strange phenomena, and stranger creatures appearing in the area surrounding the Lotus Lakes. While Liu Shidi hadn’t seen anything of the sort himself, he was concerned about their safety. Or well specifically his Shixiong’s, although Shen Qingqiu did have a plan to change that. Well, the outline of a plan, more of a partial kind of well… it was a work in progress! So, this information was perfect! If there was indeed issues in the area it would be remiss of Shen Qingqiu to not survey the area himself as an immortal cultivator, and he couldn’t just leave Binghe, plus his Shidi was already on it so joining them would be no problem! Perfect.

-Liu Qingge parry's a strike, his sword burying itself to the hilt. The wound festers red and black around the blade, the skin pulsating as it seemingly climbed up its’ surface. Trying to tug the blade free was fruitless, as if it was being consumed by the deforming mass beneath him. He swings both the blade and the body stuck to it to block the blow from his front. He can't block the blow that impales his side, nor could he stop the blow to his throat. Thrown from his feet he lands in the lake, sinking beneath the silver water. Bubbles form as his body thrashes in his death throes. White stained red, petals crushed beneath his submerging form. The stain spreads; the bubbles stop.-

It’s fun travelling with them both, yes his husband and Liu Qingge fight like cats and dogs, but on Binghe’s side he practically playing! It’s enrichment!

“Shen Qingqiu, control your husband!” The red flush spreading across his Shidi’s face was rather fetching, he could see why his husband liked causing it… and well, it’s not bullying if his Shidi likes it. The satisfaction points speak for themselves! Though admittedly they are much, much higher when he’s the one teasing his Shidi, a gain however is a gain!

“Liu Shishu just can’t handle losing to this one, maybe Shizun should kiss his wounds as a consolation prize~” A teasing sneer spreads across Binghe’s face as he gloats, a sneaky little glance towards this husband follows. Ah Binghe, you’re coming across too strong! We talked about this, be more gentle! Treat him like a skittish cat!

“Ah Shidi, Binghe’s only teasing.” He raises his fan to cover his face, coyly glancing at his Shidi from behind it, “After all, I’ll only kiss your wounds if you win.”

“Y-You- Shameless!” Yes, he did so love the time they spend together.

-Time after time, one after the other, the grief never fades. The deaths will haunt his mind forever, a permanent scar across his psyche. Will he ever be able to close his eyes without seeing Qingge cut down? His husband gasping for air? His own limbs severed? Yet the hoard encroaches. A never ending onslaught.

"Husband! Behi-" Pain tearing through his spine, an arc of gore glowing in the moonshine. Red blood, black blood. It doesn’t end.

3̵̨̲̰͉̤͓͓̜̯͉͈̕̕͜͜0̶̧̛̝̭͈̤͕͇͙̩̠%̷̞̦̈́̄͆̓̕ Thirty four, Thirty FiVe. His lungs were screaming. Every block, and lunge, and slash, and parry exhausting him to the bone. All he could taste was rust and ash, Qingge fell silently a breath, an incense stick, a shi chen, ago. His body a shield again this master's blunder. He can barely lift his sword, his meridians felt almost burnt from the power cloying the air. A sickeningly wet squelch, Binghe's roar faltering to a whimper as his body hits the rocks. Another demon down, or a cultivator? Bodies falling, falling. He can’t, he can’t. Two red moons fill the sky, water fills his lungs. [User seems to be struggling with this Mission! >_< Poor showing from host! Well User can always retry!! 500 B-points!] [Y/N] [Y]

6̶̠͠0̵͇̐%̶̆͜

FiFty SeveN. He's drowning in blood. Was it Binghe's arm he was holding? It must be, Shidi was dragging him. Somewhere. Hmmm, the shouting is getting closer, and Qingge's breaths sounded quite wet! Ah! He's coughing! Well better out than in, Shidi, ah it's... Dripping. Here, Shixiong will wipe it away... Why... Tears? Ah Shidi looks so!! So!!! If this master wasn't married! Ah Wait we...Well maybe Binghe will... Here Shidi hold on to Binghe for this one a moment. Why are you giving me that look? Ah you're crushing me! For someone so lithe looking you're really quite heavy! Ah, it's quite- Shidi... Liu shidi.. you... Please keep coughing please you're too quiet. Please I can’t... It's tOo quiEt it’s toO [User seems to be running low on B-points. User has 427 B-points remaining! Luckily User 0002 can use his VIP to reduce the cost to 400 B-points for the next attempt!!] [Y/N] [Y] FIFTY EIGHT. Not just demons, not just cultivators. No, of course not. It was him. His fault. Who else could it be? Only he had the power, only he had the will. Only he had the golden finger, the halo, the fucking audacity! But there was something wrong. Glowing red eyes, skin twitching, shifting, like textures not loading in. His voice crackling, modulated.

"Ah S̸͕̑ḫ̴̅ĭ̶̟z̶̡̏u̵͇͂n̵͓͝~ you thought that s̸͍͠e̴͋ͅà̸̗l̵̰͠i̷͓͝n̵͎͑g̵̜̉ this world from me would be so simple? There is nowhere you could run, no world you could jump to, that I would be u̵͚͊n̷̜͆ä̶̢́b̸̞̊ḻ̷͌ě̷̤ to follow. So please, just submit, this Junshang will treat you well."

“go… fuck… yourself..” Spitting words like spitting blood, the ringing of bells…. No… sirens blaring in the skies.

The monster’s ribs cracked and spasms, a twisted knot of glossy black bone and gently pulsating red wires. An artificial monstrosity. What had he done to himself, to gain access to this world? Qingge sprawled in a heap, a black puddle spreading beneath him, Xin Mo sheathed like a grave marker in his back. His husband split throat to navel, his body failing to knit itself back together, strangled gurgles bubbling in his throat. A hoard of demons, no… cultivators? They surround him in twitching, glitching, grinning masses. Their distorted faces all corrupted copies of his own. This time its his own blade that takes his life. The howling, glitching screams of rage following him into the dark.

“Y̷̯͛o̸͇͆ǔ̷ͅ'̴̗̐l̵̦̓l̷͍͠ ̵̜̂b̷͙́e̷̟̊ ̴̱͆m̵͚̈́í̵̲ǹ̷̻e̵̛͚ S̷̝͠h̴̭̔e̵̺͝n̶̆͜ ̵̳̏Ỳ̴̻ü̷͇a̷̤̔n̴͈̅!̴̼̐”

7̸̝̓3̷̬́%̵̧͊ [User 0002 is out of B-Points! It appears you have failed! (>U-U)> But! This generous system is willing to offer User 0002 a super! limited! one! time! offer if User is willing!] [Y/N] [Why]

7̵̙̑8̵̰͗%̸̯̈

[Because User 0002 transformed a stupid work into a magnificent, high quality, first-rate classic! It would be a shame for so much work to be unmade due to… external meddling!] [And the cost] [^-^ Will User 0002 not pay any price? This SYSTEM is offering User the chance to escape this fate! Protagonist Luo and Second Male Lead Liu will be alive! The best ending could be in your grasp!! After all “You can you up, no can no bb!” ] [Y/N]

8̷͙͊1̴͉̈%̴̘́

[Y]

8̸̘̊5̷̣̐%̷̟̆

[User 0002 has made the right choice! This SYSTEM can’t wait to work closely with User Shen! <(^3^)>] {Loading World State: 10….........33..............68.............99.........100%} {Creating Mind Space 100%. Building Temporal Archives 100%. Allocating User Permission. . . Complete}

{Clearing WORLD CORRUPTION FILE DATA: E̸̹̋Ṟ̵̅R̵͉͊O̵̳͘R̵̭̿} {Activating ARCHIVIST Protocol...}

F̷̥̀ï̸̮l̸̘̋ḙ̵́ ̶̘͊R̶̲͘e̵̯̋c̸͈̅a̸̡̍ĺ̶̤l̷̪͂ ̴̧̀C̷̤̑ȏ̵͇r̶͎͋ȑ̷͎u̵̳̔p̷̧͑t̵̤͝e̸̡͛d̸̨̽

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[ponuchuu]

ok so i finished it

[arsenicflame]

Hornigold's Izzy was the worst, of course. A version of himself that never escaped that terrible place, who lived his life as little more than an object. He still has nightmares about all the things Baz told them, about all the things he didn't.

It doesn't really surprise him, after the first ones, not at its root. To be Izzy Hands is to be someone's after all, though seeing his own face on someone so fundamentally different to him never gets less weird. The people who these other Izzys attached themselves too often left him with more questions than answers. Jack's Izzy, he can understand, from a certain view, though the man himself felt like a fever dream. The less said about Stede's Izzy the better, he's never going to forgive him for the ideas he put in his Stede's head.

Then there was Sam's Izzy.

The first thing anyone noticed about him was that he was happy. He smiled and laughed without thought, and went through life with an ease Izzy didn't think he had ever felt. The crew took to him immediately, accepting him in a way they never did the other Izzys, and certainly not their own. They prodded him and asked him endless questions, and he took every touch without a flinch and answered every question without a hint of a grumble. This Izzy was free. He was open, unburdened, trusting. He was happy.

Sam's Izzy was the one that hurt the most to see. He could accept the worst that Hornigold could've offered, that he would have suffered and been broken. It was infinitely harder to see that he had a chance to be this happy. That it slipped through his fingers.

He's never looked back before, but now? Seeing what might've been? He can't stop himself from considering the possibility that maybe he made the wrong choice back then, going with Ed.

[satsuha]

ageswap au made by @tenretsuzan on twitter! there's a brief explanation beneath the readmore

your name is hikari ku, age 30. you were banished from your home nation of ku at a young age and led a failed rebellion against your treacherous brother, laid low by a harsh betrayal.

"even if it means harnessing this darkness... i will see my country freed from war."

marred by scars left by your once erstwhile friends and plagued by a darkness that grows uncontrollable, you grasp onto the small hope that you may one day reclaim your nation once more...

-

your name is temenos mistral, age 21. you led a peaceful life in flamechurch until one day your brother disappears after leaving you with an ominous message about the church.

"roi... what could have led someone like you down a path like this?"

despite your father's protests, you follow after his footsteps in hopes of uncovering his whereabouts, as well as the church's secrets that forced his departure...

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Hey do you think ya can explain Barnaby and his illusion smoke a bit? It seems really cool and I don't remember if ya talked about it in depth before

sure! this got a bit longer than i expected!

so i was thinking that Barnaby seems like more of a hands-off kinda guy when it comes to altercations. would rather sit back and make funny commentary! so if he Had to get involved, i imagine it would be from a distance and still in an Entertaining Way!

thus - illusion magic! for this au i've been picturing that he got his paws on some illusionary herb in his early teens. for making people laugh, you know! and help out with the farm - illusions could distract animals, convince them to move on to different pastures, calm the chickens for egg-collecting, etc!

Ms. Beagle didn't really approve, since smoking is harmful, but lucky for the both of them this particular plant doesn't deal as much damage when smoked as normal smoking materials would - like tobacco! something to do with the magic properties! so Barnaby mostly used it for chores (when his mama wasn't paying attention, ofc - it's still a bad habit in her eyes) and entertainment purposes.

how it works: on its own, it doesn't do much when burned. it's not like illusions will waft out of the pipe's bowl, or that sniffing it will give someone hallucinations. in order for it to work properly, the user has to inhale properly, form the Intent of what the illusion should be / look like / behave, then purposefully blow the smoke out with that thought firmly in mind. the reach of the smoke depends on the force of Intent, and the intensity depends on the amount inhaled. those that breathe it in / are surrounded by it will see hallucinations of whatever Barnaby - or whoever the user is - wants them to! it can be literally anything! whether or not the target is fooled depends entirely on the individual, but the herb is potent enough that most are convinced that what they "see" is real (auditory hallucinations only occur if the target breathes in the smoke)

upsides: this form of magic is great for distractions, cover, deescalation, and that kind of thing. if needed, Barnaby could stop a fight with one exhale! it's a pretty powerful trick! it also means that Barnaby has built up a tolerance to illusion magic over the years, so where most of the party would be tricked, Barnaby would be unfazed. the only one with total immunity to the form of magic is Wally!

downsides: if Barnaby uses too much in too short of a time, it will get to him. and since he breathes in the largest amount - undiluted at that - it can fuck him up! using it sparingly / using repeated small amounts doesn't do anything. the most it will do is make him feel slightly untethered, but he has an easy time ignoring it / shaking it off.

in mild cases of the magic getting to him, it's like a bad trip. his proprioception is messed with (basically he gets uncharacteristically clumsy & off-balance), he feels like he's falling, anxiety spikes, and his vision is just... off! there are blind spots (im talking actual blind spots, not spots of black), things are moving in ways that they shouldn't, he has mild auditory hallucinations. the others can help ground him by talking to him, touching him, and confirming what's real and what isn't.

in bad cases, it's like that but 10 times worse. on top of all of the previous symptoms being worsened, he gets extremely vivid hallucinations, and they're very often not fun! it's a simultaneous feeling of dying, going insane, and not knowing what the fuck is going on. Barnaby loses sense of where he is, who's where, what's happening. he can get lost in the hallucinations - he has no way to know that they aren't real. in these terrible trips, no one can really help him. they can't get through the hallucinations, and if they do, the magic morphs Barnaby's perception of them and they end up adding to the effects. honestly the best thing for him is to let him rest somewhere with as little sensory input as possible & leave him be until he starts to come down. physical contact does help, since Barnaby understands on an instinctive level that illusions can't touch him, but it doesn't help half as much as it does w/ the mild trips. and again, the presence of someone can make the hallucinations worse.

so! suffice to say! he doesn't like using the herb all that often, and it's why he Stays Out Of It unless absolutely needed. he has two pouches of the herb - one with the strong stuff, reserved for emergencies / one with just a tiny bit of it mixed in with Barnaby's own personal blend for recreational/everyday use. (he also has an emergency tobacco stash in his pack, but that's only for when he's completely out of his usual blend <3)

extra lil scribble that didn't make it into the lil doodle post... i broke his wrist...