a mutuals only writing blog for scaramouche, “the balladeer”, sixth of the eleven fatui harbingers. do not assume canon compliance. portrayal is closely tied to @moonsurper's il dottore. rules and verses under the cut.
studying. a vessel condemned and discarded, neither machine nor man, flesh nor blood, mistaken for failure but built to endure eternity. rage born of abandonment, the weight of betrayal. divinity not granted but awoken, godhood as a birthright. a puppet cutting its strings, scrubbing away what makes it fragile.
this blog is scaramouche-focused, not wanderer-focused. my default setting is pre-inversion of genesis. i do have a wanderer verse, though it exists as a smaller, secondary verse and should never be assumed as the default. you should not follow if you're looking for wanderer interactions only.
| | | rules.
001. please don't follow if slow replies / low activity bothers you. this includes out of character.
002. basic roleplay etiquette is expected. no stealing, godmodding, or rushing. no minors or generative ai users. please softblock to unfollow.
003. it is unlikely i'll follow first as i'm still learning the character and their lore. genshin and non-genshin blogs are welcome, as are ocs. if you are a single-muse duplicate, i may block you while i find my footing. it is never personal.
004. triggering content will be present and will not be tagged. expect written depictions of unethical experimentation, invasive modification, physiology and anatomy (both human and machine). body horror is a deliberate and recurring theme alongside death, gore and intrusive thoughts. there will be religious imagery as well as blasphemy and references to fictional deities. nsfw / will be used for any sexual content.
005. i'm open to plot but i prefer interacting through calls or memes. the quickest way to interact with me is through asks and starter calls.
006. multimuse blogs that do not specify their muse on starter calls or memes will not be answered. no exceptions.
007. i won’t interact with posts such as, "like this if you want to stay mutuals" or "like if you want me to follow you on my new blog." if i am following you, it means that i am interested.
008. i like ships and will happily explore them. pre-established relationships are preferred because i'm a slow writer. expect dynamics to be messy and toxic™ (for the most part).
009. i am not looking for mains or exclusives at this time (unless we know each other quite well). the only exception to this is @moonsurper, who is my exclusive dottore.
010. i want this blog to be as drama-free as possible. i will be using the block button if there's too much of it. this is not me taking sides, i'm just trying to keep my dash healthy. a place i come to chill and write shouldn't feel uncomfortable.
aggressive fans (especially aggressive scaramouche fans) that police lore and nitpick interpretations are not welcome. ever.
| | | verses.
001. primary, canon-divergent : follows scaramouche throughout canon, from his creation to his rise as the sixth of the fatui harbingers.
this verse encompasses his years in tatarasuna as the kabukimono and the events that lead to him becoming kunikuzushi. it also includes his past as a fatui grunt. this verse follows canon for the most part, including his ascension attempt as the god of wisdom and his defeat at the hands of the traveller. the divergency comes in here : rather than remaining in nahida's custody and entering irminsul, he escapes. he never learns of dottore's manipulation, is never erased from history and never becomes the wanderer. depending on the plot, he can either return to the fatui as scaramouche, or instead abandon the fatui and the gods alike, waging war against every power.
002. secondary, canon-compliant : follows the events of canon after scaramouche's erasure from irminsul and his subsequent rebirth as the wanderer.
003. secondary, canon-divergent and plot-preferred : follows a timeline in which scaramouche's ascension attempt succeeds. he is installed as sumeru's new god : shouki no kami, the prodigal. before long, he turns his attention to inazuma, the nation that abandoned him. he returns home to reclaim the birthright denied to him centuries ago.
004. secondary, canon-divergent and plot-preferred : follows a canon-divergent timeline whereby he was never discarded and is installed as ei's puppet as originally intended.
serving under scaramouche is quite the nightmare. i think his cruelty often gets lost behind his tragic backstory™ or discussions of what led him to become who he is. this is just to iterate that his behaviour as a harbinger is genuinely frightening to fatui soldiers and he is repeatedly shown being willing to intimidate, manipulate, and hurt them over the smallest things.
the husk of opulent dreams artifact lore is one of the best examples. he strikes a subordinate for simply asking a question and the narration talks about how he enjoys watching the terror and helplessness play across their face. that alone is why he keeps them around. he scolds and belittles his men in unreconciled stars, then there's also viktor's dialogue in mondstadt where he prays scaramouche isn't the harbinger he is reassigned to. his poor treatment of his soldiers is clearly well known throughout the fatui ranks.
99% of the time any kindness he displays is entirely performative.
i'm pretty sure it's obvious, but i’m on a bit of a semi-hiatus at the moment. i’m still around, working on drafts and starters in the background. i will be getting to dms to continue plotting with you all. things are just going to be slower than usual (if that’s even possible lol). with the pressure i'm facing at work right now, i’m just not in a position where i can throw myself into my writing, at least not in the way that i want to.
i won't go into specifics but i'm going to try and get an appointment / call with my doctor to see if i can be signed off work for a bit. this isn't something i do lightly, it's actually quite difficult for me as i take great pride in pushing through difficult situations. but i am very burnt out after months of carrying my team and shouldering the work of multiple people. it's time to think about myself.
i’m still here. just a little quieter and a little slower while i sort this out <3
i'm pretty sure it's obvious, but i’m on a bit of a semi-hiatus at the moment. i’m still around, working on drafts and starters in the background. i will be getting to dms to continue plotting with you all. things are just going to be slower than usual (if that’s even possible lol). with the pressure i'm facing at work right now, i’m just not in a position where i can throw myself into my writing, at least not in the way that i want to.
i won't go into specifics but i'm going to try and get an appointment / call with my doctor to see if i can be signed off work for a bit. this isn't something i do lightly, it's actually quite difficult for me as i take great pride in pushing through difficult situations. but i am very burnt out after months of carrying my team and shouldering the work of multiple people. it's time to think about myself.
i’m still here. just a little quieter and a little slower while i sort this out <3
the most random yap session on this blog but is it good food i promise. but some potential verse ideas / scenarios i've been thinking about for scara (and blue scara)
the idea wanderer is actually scaramouche in disguise and he's simply pretending he's a good boy now but it's an act. whether the erasure from irminsul actually happened or not is? up to you. but for me, it's much more interesting if it didn't happen because scara having to work for everyone's trust while keeping enough of his old personality to make it believable is so fun.
or ... stick with me here. what if scaramouche was successfully infused with the divine knowledge before his ascension and gained some form of omniscience as a result? that would mean he could have foreseen his defeat at the hands of the traveller and nahida. or perhaps he didn't foresee it, instead he orchestrated it as well as the erasure. and most importantly ... what if wanderer isn't scaramouche at all?
more under the cut because it got longggg but if you actually read it all i will blow you more kisses than times blue scara has been called hat guy
what if the wanderer is a puppet that scaramouche himself created before all this went down? scaramouche would know about the process of his own creation more than anyone and after everything dottore did to him, it's hard to believe he learned nothing from that. dottore developed his segments after researching scaramouche so surely scaramouche picked up something about creating a segment of his own. he creates this duplicate of himself and places it in sumeru ahead of time, that's the wanderer paimon and the traveller come across helping the old man at his stall, the person we immediately think is scaramouche with his memories erased.
it always felt odd to me how scaramouche is erased from irminsul and then we stumble upon him almost immediately. what if it wasn't a coincidence at all? he erases himself from irminsul because he already saw his own defeat play out, then deliberately manipulates events so that the traveller and paimon find this duplicate. everyone assumes that wanderer is simply scaramouche with his memories wiped but it's actually part of a grander plan (i don't actaully know yet LOL and whether it involves dottore's ascension or other fatui is neither here nor there).
everybody concludes that the experiment failed, nahida says that she didn't sense divinity coming from him so the assumption was that he was never infused with the divine knowledge capsules. but what if that assumption was wrong? we already know scara doesn't function like a normal human, we've also seen him demonstrate abilities that aren't explained (in unreconciled stars he talks about magic that allows him to do things others can't). it's plausible that he managed to conceal the fact he had consumed the divine knowledge. so maybe he did ascend and his defeat doesn't represent a failure to become a god, instead it's merely the first step in a much larger plan. he allows the traveller and nahida to believe they've defeated him and erases 'scaramouche' from irminsul. he leaves behind a puppet that everybody accepts as the new scaramouche. and now the traveller, paimon, nahida, everybody basically. believes that the original scaramouche is gone.
the real one meanwhile is still out there, free to operate without everybody on his ass with the added bonus of enjoying some time playing god.
but also my favourite part: imagine when scara has no use for the duplicate anymore. he confronts him and well ... it's safe to say he is disgusted by what he sees. a past reflection of what he used to be back in tatarasuna. a weak, small, pathetic little thing that thought it was a human merely missing a heart, something he has long since convinced himself he is above. he could just leave it alone but what fun is that. so he has his foot pressed against its chest, katana drawn, looking down with this twisted sort of pity and perhaps even?? sympathy. the poor innocent thing. he tells his past reflection: i see why mother abandoned us. he recounts the betrayals of his existence to him but with a twist. their creation being the first. the second being told something as small and ugly as them could ever be something holy. then he drags his fingers along the blade to test the edge because if he's going to put this thing out of its misery he at least wants it to be quick, he'll grant it that much. the third betrayal, being permitted to live despite all that. then he lowers the blade towards him and tells him that after all, the world has no use for a dull sword.
maybe one day i'll be so lucky as to write this with a wanderer or anybody for that matter but HDGFFGD.
a pretty widely accepted theory, but it applies to my scara too. when ei was creating him, she unconsciously drew inspiration from her twin sister, makoto. yae miko says that scaramouche wasn't intentionally based on ei and this is why.
the traits the kabukimono displayed when he was first created, specifically how openly emotional he was, mostly came from makoto. ei didn't set out to do this on purpose, but those qualities found their way into him.
so the way i see it, he's not a direct copy of either twin but a blend of the two. his appearance carries traces of both, while so much of who he originally was comes from makoto.
❝ you who told you to come here?! don't they know i have enough broken machinery lying around my lab? which one left you like that? why did you let them?! ❞
[ RE: EXPERIMENT 00?. // @6uppet ! ]
what crawls across the laboratory barely resembles the sixth anymore. it's a god cast from glory it never even had the chance to touch. it's an inheritance denied, the wreckage of a never destined divinity wrapped in a splintered shell and shredded silk. but above all, it's something more human: something so ridiculously, regrettably human. a creature that once carried itself as though the world was not worth its attention, now hunched and useless, dragging makeshift strings / severed cabling that hung like shot nerves. a creature that had abandoned its divine purpose in pursuit of what, exactly? a hand / a home / A HEART? (BROKEN THING / PATHETIC THING, haven't you learnt by now? there was no room within you for such sentimentality, hatred had already made a home in your hollowness.)
❝ spare me the meaningless questions. ❞ harsh perhaps, but the balladeer had always worn candour better than concern. even now, when words are but a tremble / a murmur, rolling off the tongue with all the venom of a serpent defanged. he had not brought himself before such blasphemy to suffer pity, nor to demand that it piece him back together. he simply stands, wasting what little strength remained on so volatile a being / so profane an imitation, without so much as a reason. ❝ every second you waste on me is another second he spends getting closer. once he arrives, none of this will matter. ❞ a gaze set firm, a reluctant forewarning that needed no further explanation. ❝ don't be a fool and go thinking you're an exception you're not. take my advice and leave. ❞
❝ it would seem i underestimated you, buer. i wonder if things might have been different, had you not chosen to hide yourself behind mortals. ❞ / @pinktetia ✦
❝ inheriting the eighth seat one day, cleaning up after the doctor the next. no wonder the fatui's reputation isn't what it used to be. ❞ / @blaziingmaiiden ✦
