#tsv theory

[misstrashchan]

So... Please tell me I'm not the only who has Thoughts. About Hayward's plan to recruit Shrue and specifically Carpenter's involvement in it because. Adjudicator Shrue has been working to legalise the Trawler-Man's people and was working with Mason and the current Katabasions. Before that they were trying to eradicate them, being the one to hire and send out Mercer and Gage with their own platoon of soldiers.

Which brings us to Faulkner and his murder of Mason and Thurrocks, his opposition to the Katabasions plans to legalise them and let the Withermark and their people be used as a weapon of war, and the story he spins pinning the murders on Carpenter, painting her as a traitor who was working with the legal authorities (aka Shrue) and undermining them:

FAULKNER:

I could never have imagined that the Legislatures could have won her over to their cause.

It was Sister Carpenter who alerted the government’s forces to the location of the Paraclete’s Gulch. 

(With a weary finality)

But they had, and of course her return was no coincidence at all.

It was Sister Carpenter who attempted to undermine our defences from within.

And after their attack failed, thanks to the combined strength of our disciples…it was Sister Carpenter who waited for a moment when the entire Gulch was gathered below in joyful celebration, and she assassinated Katabasian Mason and poor Sister Thurrocks.

(3x01 Something Dreadful Shall Arise)

And we know how strongly Carpenter feels about the idea that she would ever work with the government legislatures against the people who were once her family, how angry she is that Faulkner has written a story that has made that lie true:

CARPENTER:

You think I’d ever make peace with the people who did it? You think I’d work with them against my own family? 

Against my brother, my parents, my grandmother?

You think I wouldn’t have put a bullet in my own skull already if I had that weight pulling me down?

And I think it's important to point out that Carpenter has no idea why Faulkner killed Mason and Thurrocks. She doesn't know anything about Mason and the other Katabasisons plans to legalise their god by proving themselves useful as a tool in the war. But we do know that in the past, when the idea of legalising the Trawler-Man was brought up before in S1 by Paige as a more peaceful way forward, she loathed the idea as much as Faulkner:

PAIGE:

But this is what's absurd, isn't it? We're talking about ancient history. Laws from 50 years back, long dead legislatures.

They're accepting new faiths back into the canon all the time now. You just need to get your god's name on a petition and-

CARPENTER:

Listen to her, Faulkner. "Our god's name, on a petition". Well. Why shouldn't we be reasonable about all this? Now that the Peninsula is ready to hear our case?

Why shouldn't we go through the proper channels? Why shouldn't they be allowed to get away with it?

FAULKNER:

Carpenter, let's keep this quiet...

CARPENTER:

My parents were dragged in shackles to the Saints hydroelectric dam, a year after I was born. They were dragged there, they were sentenced, and they were tossed off the side into the churning waters.

And the last words that they ever heard were that they were to be devoured by something that they did not understand. Because the dam was new, and on unconsecrated, and because a god must feed, and because these false faith renegades from deep in the fens made for the easiest sacrifices.

I will not hear that the world is a better place than it was because there is process. I won't and I can't.

(1x12 And To Fight Is Just to Choke)

And now Carpenter is with Hayward, and are headed towards Adjudicator Shrue to try and work with them so they can help the Woundtree seem more sympathetic and have someone who can better tell their story, as it were.

Carpenter is still being hunted by Faulkner's schism, only being given a break by being in a no man's land, only now she won't be, as she's heading into Glottage.

CARPENTER:

(Staring out of the window)

If we stayed on this road heading south, we’d make it down to Marcel’s Crossing by nightfall.

Another day’s driving, and we’d be at the Paraclete’s Gulch.

(3x06 The Wise Man Knows the Taste of Rot)

So the next time Faulkner hears about Carpenter, it's going to be about how gosh, you were right all along Katabasion Faulkner, that devious Carpenter is working with the same government official who tried to eradicate us and who is now trying to legalize us to use as a tool in their war! (that's not even mentioning she'll be seen with Hayward as well, who as far as Faulkner is aware is the cop who was hunting them down back in S1) And Faulkner is just gonna be like

Wondering if he told his lie about Carpenter working with the legal authorities undermine the Parish of Tide and Flesh so convicingly that he made it into the truth and what's that? IT'S THE FOILING TO VAL AND THE LAST WORD WITH A STEEL CHAIR READY TO BEAT ME SENSELESS-

[eyesteeth]

since it's aro week i just wanna say when i was listening to All Lovers Part As Dust for the first time i was trying to guess the twist and came to the conclusion about halfway through that they were in a former love hotel inhabited by a god or saint dedicated to making people fall in love and/or have sex and carpenter's inclusion in the episode was to foreshadow what was happening as she'd be entirely unaffected by the whole process, essentially doing this

(original image here)

[crimeronan]

you know how i said val silt verses is blorbo material. she's becoming like BLORBO blorbo material to me. oh my GOD.

[clonerightsagenda]

While the finale had more overt examples of choosing to die for yourself rather than for a god, the moment that made the biggest impression on me was actually during the electrical workers' strike where instead of chanting the mantra of the wound tree or even invoking a god to curse their name, the workers' battle cry was furiously referencing the number of kilowatt hours the company thought their lives were worth. Saying no I'm not dying for a god, I'm not even dying for spite, I'm dying insisting that my life and the lives of the people around me are worth more than what you say they are.

And then, of course, the lights come back on anyway. But they still said it.

[darkwater-reservoir]

What is your favourite headcanon for TheSunVanished? Also if you could add anything to it, what would you add?

I thought long and hard on how to answer this and honestly? I cant really think on anything to add to the story that has been presented so far. I do have some ideas for stuff that could be added in the future (remainder of season 3)

Nat getting a remember album, but instead of pushing her to make some big sacrifice it pushes her to become her own person and to move away from following in tucker and tsv's footsteps. The album dissappears when she follows them too closely, and a new photo is added when she does something truly unique to herself and makes her own decisions

Danyon appearing one final time in the story to put an end to his tale. I'm thinking him and nat get stuck together in some house for a few days while a ship flies over and nat ends up interviewing him because she notices he's acting a bit different than last time (air of defeat around him). Danyon is an asshole the whole time, but gets really mad when talking about tsv's death, eventually telling her to fuck off and stops the interview. The warm spot is colder by the next day and danyon is already gone when she wakes up. He never shows up again. The clip would show that danyon sucks but he did still care a little bit about tsv, mostly out of guilt for how he treated him. He would have never changed his behavior, though. Tsv made him feel powerful, and beyond that aspect danyon cared very little.

Lucid reveals to nat that theseus was the son of two lucid members who died going to the fake coordinates nat sent them. "You killed his family nat. This is all your fault." That kind of psychological manipulation is right up lucid's alley and i really think it'd break nat too. Really get the plot going there

Another idea is that I would change how tsv died. I would have him annouce that he was dying via the doctor's results and then have him spend more time with tucker and nat. They play games and hang out when they have time. More posts like the dancing video basically. You even get to see tsv's mental state improve a little bit and he ACTUALLY starts to move on from danyon. Then as he further deteriorates (coughing up blood, weak, ect) he makes his difference and blows up. Idk i just feel like it all went so fast and having tsv live just a month or two longer would have made it more meaningful

As for my favorite headcanon? Honestly probably my headcanon that a group of strobes is called a rave. I think it's fun

[pensivespacepirate]

my bet on the answer to Hayward's 'What's the opposite of a sacrifice' is 'not sacrificing' because they had been pushing for the 'kill your gods' rhetoric but that seems too obvious but it might not be obvious to the people who had fed their gods for 6000 years but there's no way Paige and Carpenter wouldn't answer that but maybe they didn't have time to process the thought on the spot and so by structuring it as a riddle Hayward had successfully made them come to that conclusion on their own but also is Hayward a reverse psychology genius and playing 5d chess? but also he had been a cop so that might have been a persuasion tactic anyway i cannot wait for when they bring it up again

[kissurcomput3rr]

random tsv theory i thought up:

this might be farfetched, but what if tsv got harvested?? basing off the sun in the video of him fucking dying, i think the harvested do actually see the sun. (or atleast hallucinate it.) Back in tsv's neighbors notebook guide, the last page before they pretty much went insane from presumably looking at the red strobe light

They very clearly stated in their final message that the sun is back. further kinda showing that the harvested hallucinate the sun coming back. They also seem to have some sort of consciousness and awareness (?) even AFTER they look at the light because of the previous things they wrote, like how tsv said that entire poem before he went silent. Maybe he saw something in that ship that caused him to get harvested? idk, this is just a theory

a game theory..(im sorry)

uhh idk have my rambling bye guys

[crimson-iden]

I have a theory about strobes. Granted, some of it might be a stretch, but I have a few ideas at least.

I think strobes may have a form of blindness or some form of lack of vision built into their biology. They’re definitely alien, we know that, but I’d like to take into consideration the idea that where they came from may be a place with very low to no light levels, considering that strobes are sensitive to light, that being one issue I’m thinking about. A lot of creatures, say bats and some spiders, may come from areas with very low light levels, like caves, and it’s found that animals that live in environments like that tend to have difficulties seeing or have sensitive vision. This would make sense as applying to strobes too, given that they seem better off in the dark.

Some animals that live in naturally dark environments and tend to have forms of blindness also use echolocation, the use of sound to locate their surroundings. I think this could apply to the clicking sound that strobes produce when their strobe lights flicker. Think about that quote, “They see motion”, this would make sense with a creature using echolocation, as its surroundings would seem static, but the moment something moves, they’d be able to tell in some shape or form. By remaining still, you could likely avoid a strobe becoming alert.

So what about their camera lens-like eye and their lights? I’d like to go back and look at a tweet that Tucker made when he was attacked by a pair of strobes, he claimed that as he looked back at them, there was some kind of cylinder protruding from its head. I’ll come back to this. Also consider that strobes are described as kinda organic but kinda metal, cyborgs likely. I believe their singular eyes are actually cameras built into their heads, producing a constant feed that I think would stream back to the ships, which tend to be present in the same areas as strobes, this may be due to the limited range of their transmission, not to mention the fact that they likely do better in warm environments.

So how do they transmit the stream? By the cylinder, I believe it could be an antenna, some kind of dish built into the head that send the signal to the ships, and receives commands, I don’t think the ships harbour a pilot, more that they are ‘alive’ in their own sense, like a ships computer in sci-fi having the majority of control over the whole thing.

I think the lights that strobes produce are to illuminate the stream, that way the ship’s computer can understand. I personally picture the computer of the ship like the eyes of a fly, every separate section of it is the different streams of strobes in the area, I think it would also make sense, given that the ship can somehow tell where the body of a strobe is after it dies, considering that they apparently retrieve the corpse. That would especially make sense for a constant feed, so when a strobe dies it kinda immediately starts to send an alert signal that the ships can act upon.

Obviously there are issues with my theory, namely, why are strobes so sensitive to light if they can’t see it? How can they see light? Honestly, I have no idea, maybe it’s that the strobes themselves aren’t affected, but the light messes with the camera and causes a reaction by the ship, maybe some kind of stress that messes with a strobes brain and causes the reaction, which I guess would make sense since I imagine having a camera stuffed in your face would mean you have wires near your brain.

At the end of the day, it’s only a theory, and I’m sure it can be debunked and questioned, this is just how I’ve personally been processing the “biology” of strobes

[mongeese]

I have Got to write my silt verses/disco elysium/actual political theory as taught in one of my uni courses essay regarding narrative and worldviews and activism unfortunately it's just a blob in my brain that I think about sometimes so it's maybe a long way off. Also I worry I'm maybe not smart enough to say anything interesting or original about TSV and DE. Sighhh maybe one day my brain will work

[misstrashchan]

So. What's the opposite of a sacrifice?

With the final episode looming it's a question we've been turning in our heads, so I wanted to give my best guess/analysis as to what it might be before Jon and Muna come to tear our hearts out in the final episode.

This is the question Hayward asks Paige, and later Carpenter, and it seems to be the underlying thematic statement of the series, in response to Carpenter's exposition in the first episode of the Silt Verses that introduces us to the fundamentals of the world and system they live in:

CARPENTER:

A god must feed.

A god must be fed.

This is a fact agreed upon across every territory in the Peninsula. And so, really, the only difference between the people born to the water and the people born to the land...

...is the precise nature of the sacrifice we need to make.

There is a God for anything in their world as long as there is someone believing in it. But all Gods need human sacrifices. A god must feed. A god must be fed.

These simple rules have been used as fascinating and horrifying metaphors of our modern society, and to explore themes of faith and sacrifice throughout the story.

And so the final question the last season proposes is if we can find a way to make something better, that can exist outside of this ultimately unsustainable exploitative system and the harm it inflicts upon ourselves and the world, when it has come to define so much of the way we live and how we think. And that means figuring out the opposite of a sacrifice, if they want to kill the idea, the lie, that is at the heart of their world.

At first I thought the opposite of a sacrifice, of offering up to the gods, was about killing your gods. Starving them out. Refusing to offer up anything. And that is part of it, I think. I mean it's literally been a repeating mantra of multiple characters this season once they've reached they're breaking points. Violence in revolution as a tool to overthrow oppresive systems is sometimes needed and necessary. But what about after? What kind of future or vision for a better world can there be? There needs to be something at the heart of that movement that isn't just about violence against their opressors, because you then define yourself in relation to them.

This is even illustrated in the Many Below god Paige created having predator and prey emeshed together, a movement defined by their resistance against the predators of the world, the beasts, cannot seperate themselves to meaningfully create a better future that exists outside of that dichotomy. I think Hayward realises that even earlier in S2:

HAYWARD:

There’s a hare in the grass, half-buried and bloodied.

A barn owl has latched onto its back, its talons driving deep into the flesh of the hare.

Both animals are dead.

Familiar black stone veins protrude from the carcass of the victim, twisting like branches, driving upwards into the predator’s skin.

Hare and owl are locked together, inseparably.

The god must have struck just as the prey died.

White crocus is flowering up from the two entwined bodies.

(Unhappily)

And suddenly I begin to feel deeply afraid.

It all makes me think of a dormouse, dead in the dirt, its ribs showing. Of rabbits, teeth chattering, hungering from their cages

I kick dust up over the corpses. Nudge them aside into the long grass so they can’t be seen from the path.

Paige doesn’t need to know about this, I tell myself.

There’s no sense in worrying her. Not yet.

Which then makes sense why he's the one proposing the question of what the opposite of a sacrifice is to Paige (and Carpenter), for this very reason.

I think the answer is pretty simple and yet, like most simple truths in this world, it's forgotten and overlooked or twisted as naïve.

Preservation. The opposite of a sacrifice is preservation. To better explain this let me use an example:

If someone who cared about you tells you you're working too hard at your thankless job, sacrificing your sleep, your time, your personal relationships, your physical and mental wellbeing, far past the point considered sane, they'd tell you to stop. To make sure you take care of yourself. Instead of endlessly feeding yourself into a machine to justify your existence.

Applied to the world of the Silt Verses, it's not just self preservation and caring for yourself. It's about caring for, protecting, and preserving the lives of those around you, that is the ultimate act of rebellion and political warfare, the first steps forward towards a better world. Caring for humanity.

Whenever our characters reach a breaking point of turning against their gods, there's a common thread of wanting to save their fellow man, and realising the inadequacy of a god's ability to do that. Whether that's somebody close to them (like Faulkner and Paige):

Or humanity as a whole (VAL and Shrue):

SHRUE:

Use them, pass them on, do not forget the suffering that keeps the engines of this world turning, forget the name of your god and cherish the name of your neighbour that was swallowed up by it-

Cherish your neighbour. Be kinder to one another.

This can even go back to Carpenter's rejection of the Trawler-Man back in S1, her fury at the fact those she loved had been eaten (her family) and would continue to be eaten (Faulkner).

CARPENTER:

(Yelling to the river)

It's over between us, you twin mouthed prick!

Do you hear me?

Does that stir you from your torpor? Pry the barnacles loose from your sodden ears?

My father and mother were Gregory and Sandra Glass. My grandmother was Adalina Glass. My brother was Em.

They died for you.

Every single one of them died for you and they thought it meant something.

My name is Carpenter. And I am still alive!

I have loved you for so long. I have tried to know you for so, so much longer.

And I'm done with you. Here and now. I'm not laying down my life for you.

I'm not dying, do you hear?

The same breaking point for Faulkner at turning against his parish and finally snapping is the idea of Carpenter being offered as a sacrifice, an offering returned, begging for her to live.

I must clarify this is my own interpretation of the question and themes the story proposes. I'm

I'm not sure we'll actually get a hard answer so much as different characters offering their own answers and us as the audience encouraged to think for ourselves what it might be. I think this is what Hayward's answer might be at least, anyway, because like me he's a corny motherfucker:

If a sacrifice is the idea that the most meaningful and transformative thing you can do is to give up your life, your sense of self, to die, then the opposite of that would be to try to keep on living, and finding meaning and transformation in that, surely?

[eyesteeth]

okay but like. there's a mouth that takes and a mouth that returns. there's them who run and those that chase. a voice says marco and a voice says polo back. do you understand me. is this making any sense

[gamergirldick]

The opposite of a sacrifice is living for a cause, i.e. what Hayward is doing. He's so used to being in danger, to constantly being on the edge of being a sacrifice to the Cloak — the opposite of that is living. Dedicating your life to something, which gods notably don't feed on in this world, so the TRULY antithetical god is one that feeds not on the ending of life but on the continuation of it.

so guys,

what's the opposite of a sacrifice?

[valtsv]

forgive me if this is utterly incoherent but i'm suddenly thinking about tsv sainthood again and how saints are the living product of violent traumatic assault on the body and subsequent death and rebirth as "something else", elevated to divinity by their sacrifice in theory but seen and treated as subhuman - created for the sole purpose of serving their former fellow man, upholding the infrastructure at the very bottom of the social hierarchy - in practice, and how intrinsic their suffering and death is to that conception. the corpse is, after all, "the utmost of abjection". a corpse is necessarily an object, a thing, a concept, because to acknowledge it as a person is to acknowledge one's own fragile position in the symbolic order, and how easily that is broken down and rendered meaningless. even more so when the symbolic order is as sociopolitically relevant as it is in the silt verses. saints are necessarily subject to abjection in much the same way as the corpse, because to look upon them and allow yourself to understand that they were once a person is to acknowledge that you could just as easily be in their position, and enduring the terror and revulsion in the face of that absence of meaning - that utter void of alienation - for an extended period of time would drive almost anyone blindingly insane with fear and grief. dehumanisation necessitates a sacrifice, necessitates death, necessitates assault upon the body, and this assault upon the body encourages its dehumanisation in an ouroboros of violence.

[thesiltverses]

Hello! Apologies in advance for the long ask. I'm currently writing an essay for a rhetoric class and I'm analyzing TSV via American Indigenous theory on bordertowns (written by Nick Estes et al) and I was wondering if you had any comments to make that I could use in my writing. I'm discussing:

- the relationship of voluntary sacrifice and implicit faith in the system in TSV versus the involuntary and violent sacrifice of Native land and blood to uphold capitalism

- the similarities between illegal faiths who must be kept in line to maintain order and peace and the Native tribes who are policed militantly both inside and outside the reservation to maintain order and peace in settler society

-the difference between liberal methods of reform (Shrue) revolution and fighting fire with fire (Woundtree) and the end solution of refusing the basis of society and leaving altogether

I'm curious on if you had considered the relationship between the saints and people of color (specifically Indigenous tribes in settler societies like US, Canada, Australia and NZ) when making TSV or if that was largely unintentional? I enjoy that the Linger Straits and the Peninsula are based heavily on settler society mentality and culture, but that the colonization comes from within via the people and the land. Just curious on if you had any comment on Indigeneity as it relates to the Silt Verses, or anything else that stands out to you.

Sounds like a really fascinating essay! Uh, OK, let me try my best here.

We absolutely did consider thematic relationships between saints/sacrifices and communities of colour, but I think our primary influence was probably the treatment of migrant workers within wealthier nations who are made integral supports to some key internal function - whether that's domestic help in an upper-class household or social care or construction while also being horrifically exploited (and viewed with contempt, treated as abject and unwanted in their suffering and poverty, etc) on the basis of their outsidership. They are brought into the heart of things while remaining perpetually outside; becoming both pariahs and martyrs at once.

That slippery relationship and ultimately unwinnable choice between insidership and outsidership for the powerless (remain an outsider and be despised and destroyed; become an insider and be exploited and consumed) is I think a big concern in the show, and something that I definitely think it'd be very valid to apply as a parallel to experiences of indigeneity in America, as you have.

I personally wouldn't compare the illegal faiths of the setting to indigenous communities under settler colonialism (mostly because I think we come down pretty firmly on the side that the illegal faiths like the Parish of Tide and Flesh are equally awful and that they've always perpetuated the same monstrosities and exploitative power structures as everyone else, in almost exactly the same way as everyone else - they've now just ended up on the wrong side of the story.)

For me the Parish is most comparable to something like the rebels of Hereward the Wake in the English Fens, who may have partly inspired Robin Hood. A local resistance movement out in the marshlands against foreign Norman invaders, made up of Anglo-Saxons who'd been the foreign invaders against the Britons just a couple of hundred years earlier but could now be mythologised in turn as heroic nativist defenders against a colonial power.

The oppressor, when under any kind of attack, gratefully embraces the consolation of reimagining themselves as a plucky oppressed underdog and cleansing themselves of any historical sins. (This is a very English thing, we do it all the time.)

[kassandrasdisciple]

Demigods in The Silt Verses

~~ spoilers for the entire show~~

Relistening to TSV and I won't lie, alot is blotted from my memory due to the trauma this show has given me (in the good way), however finishing season 1 I feel like we only see 2 proper demigods?

The most obvious is Val, her and TheLast Word have intertwined so much that she is it and it is she. From what I remember The Last Word is a new propaganda God, so it would make sense she's it's only disciple and therefore able to completely co-exist within her. Not like a larger faith where the constant pulling from other worshipers means it'll hurridly create saints before moving to the next call.

Val is called a battle saint but the level of autonomy, internal thought, and "humanity" she's retained makes her seem like a true demi(in the purist sense)-God.

The second is almost the opposite, but also not.

Paige.

In some regards they're similar, both Paige and Val want to change the world they live in, and both The Last Word and The Wound Tree want to help facilitate that. What's different is that Paige won't allow it. In some ways Paige is a black box, Val has proven the coexistence she has, by preforming miracles without losing (much) control. Paige on the other hand never really utilises The Wound Tree's power directly, acting as a messiah and letting others call upon its power. This would put her in the same camp as Faulkner, where they're more "divine emissaries" rather than demigods.

However the difference I think is their internal worlds. For Paige, The Wound Tree is HER. It's her baby, a part of herself, her deepest wants, it hunts for HER and wants to give her everything she wants if only she would let it. The Trawlerman is an external force for Faulker, an important one, but he's his conduit, not a host. This might seem like semantics but in Paige we see a coexistence, not a healthy or balanced one, but The Wound Tree is in her unlike any other God we've seen.

Also like The Last Word, I think the small size of Paige's cult was why she was able be the incarnate of The Wound Tree. I think among other reasons she decided to abandon the cult was that, as it grew, she could feel her demigod status changing, and she'd either become a saint or a messiah.

In this way I'd say that Demigods in the TSV universe are humans fused with all or a large portion of a divinity. Not saints as they retain their higher cognitive thinking and relative autonomy, and not messiahs, as the divine is an internal part of them, not an external source to which they are a special person too. A coexistence is needed but as with both examples above, it'll always be on a knifes edge and will eventually crumble. Lastly an alignment of goals, down to the minutiae, is needed and works best if the deity was made for the demigod or vice versa.

Other possible demigods are -

Side Wright - who I was originally gonna have as one of my 2 but thinking on it, paige is much closer to the balance than he is. However he does seem different from other saints we've seen, like Babble, as he seems bitter (haha) wnough to recognise he was sacrificed for no great reason.

Mercer and Gage - I think they where gunning for demigod status but would've likely been sainted. However Mercer at least was perfectly aligned with The Beast That Stalks Through The Long Grass, it's just that for them to remain perfectly aligned she would've had become more animalistic and eventually would just be a saint.

Carpenter - personal crackpot theory, I think by the beginning of the show Carpenter isn't tied to The Trawlerman at all. Her use of language, her philosophy, and the results she gets when she invokes it. I think Carpenter made a new river god "My River". And I think that is who she's the demigod of ... possibly. "My River" as a separate deity to The Trawlerman is a whole other post that's too long for here.

Anyways I know the TSV is antithetical to categorising the divine and their effects, and the whole show is about trying to read human concepts into what are essentially reality parasites, but this was kicking around my brain for too long and the voices must be expunged. I hope you enjoyed.

[thesaintofpatience]

tagged by @celira and @goblins-riddles-or-frocks for this first fic line malarkey (thank you very much!). My fic-writing is sporadic at best so these ten fics span four years of time, several fandoms and a wide breadth of, uh, quality, but nevertheless:

Rules: share the first lines of ten of your latest fanfics (or up to if you have less!) & tag 10 people.

the dark backward and abysm of time - TLT: Disco Elysium-style fic in which Augustine awakes on the Mithraeum post the attempted murder of the Emperor, with no memories at all

THE DARKNESS — This is not the half-light of the world before dawn or the cosy self-imposed darkness of blankets over one’s head, palms over one’s eyes.

2. switching masks into brave faces - TLT: necro/cav swap AU ft. my very favourite crack ship BabsFred

The assault on Canaan House was embarrassing for everyone.

3. orbits, eccentric, on course for collision - TLT: Harrow the Ninth through the eyes of Augustine Quinque, 75k words and nearly as many footnotes.

When God, Necrolord Prime, the King Undying sent for you, you dropped everything.

4. not just a river in egypt - TLT: pre-Lyctorhood Canaan House era Augustine/Mercy and Augustine/John. Complete shameless self-indulgent smut. And a Ulysses cameo.

In the one hundred and fourteenth year of the reign of Emperor John Gaius, his original disciples were called back to the First House from whence they’d scattered across the system, summoned for research and service in order to establish the necromantic theory behind ascension to Sainthood somewhere they could be kept safe and unharmed.

5. vertex point - TLT: Cam/Pal - the intricate rituals of sharing a body. Also shameless self-indulgent smut, what am I like

On the thirtieth floor of a battered apartment building, with the suggestion of blue light creeping in at the edges of the curtains, Camilla opened her eyes and came back to her body.

6. only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness - TMA: Sasha James and Melanie King, a brief connection before the horrors

“Sash! Sash Sash Sasha-” Tim rounds the corner so fast that his shoes slip against the old carpet, worn nearly-smooth by decades of footprints, and he whips his hand out to catch himself against the edge of Sasha’s desk, landing half-sprawled against her chair.

7. feet in the tide, nails in the bank - TSV: a brief Carpenter character study from looong before the rest of the pod was even out

The thing is, if Nana Glass had had her way, Carpenter would have grown up a devout and open worshipper.

8. a year in the garden, four days below - Supergiant Hades: Persephone comes home

It’s plain to Persephone as soon as she comes back that nobody has touched her garden in her absence.

9. going nowhere fast - Supergiant Hades: Hermes/Charon. Shameless smut. Who'd have guessed.

“Look, boss, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the attention and all, it’s just that this is the first time I’ve had a chance to catch my breath in weeks and it seems pretty unfair that you’ve immediately set out to steal it ba—ah—”

10. the play of parts has given way - The Terror: Joplittle, but Jopson isn't terribly nice, and even when Crozier isn't in the room, he is

It takes two guard shifts for them to build the gallows.

I think most of the ficwriters I know have been tagged in this already to be honest! So I'll leave this an open call for anyone who fancies doing it and hasn't yet been tagged <3