ART OF WAR.

Make death proud to take us.

[darkining-1]

meanwhile aatrox sits up in a tree and waits for rhaast and varus to take over their hosts like goddamnit guys, it wasn’t that hard, what’s taking you so long

[shadowedsteps-deactivated201802]

"My purpose is to tell of bodies which have been transformed into shapes of a different kind." (darkining)

So this had been the answer, all along.

Not power, not glory. Of course, the challenge of conquering one of these weapons would draw greedy, ignorant humans to try and master them (people like shieda kayn).

The Darkin required bodies to manifest, and unleash their fury upon the earth. To curse, destroy and slaughter every man, woman, child. Just like the days of old– but this had been no child’s tale.                  This was the brutal reality– one he had brought upon himself. 

In his own arrogance and absolute ignorance, this had been what he had brought upon the world.

Kayn grit his teeth and cursed himself. He cursed the very day he had been born into this world. What a fool he’d been, his own stupid vendettas had endangered the very world. And everything, everyone he held dear. 

  Kayn gripped his side (where his arm used to be). 

                                “So this was your intention… all this time.”  

Of course, he’d known. Yet he thought himself different. He thought himself able to push back against that most horrible presence. What hubris. 

@darkining

[darkining-1]

brudder

sweet baby brudder........... 

[rhaaxt-deactivated20191227]

pls i am but a small baby rhaast lookin for some good snacks friends, support ur local darkin

[darkining-1]

im really quite salty that Riot made the Darkin these apocalypse-bringing, world-destroying demonic entities, because with the little information we had for the Darkin, they literally could’ve written anything else but decided to go for the boring “ok they’re gonna destroy runeterra” route. 

It only really works in a narrative where Kayn is the protagonist and he’s trying to stop the Darkin (ala aatrox continuously tries to get “break” kayn so rhaast can take over, kayn defies the odds and kills rhaast, subsequently kills aatrox at the end of the story). And that’s fair enough! That’s a story in itself and I’m willing to admit that, yeah, Aatrox is probably meant to be an antagonist of sorts now. And it isn’t... bad writing, per se, just basic and linear at best. 

If I were writing a book, that would be one thing. It would work. But the fact is, this is an RP blog. And I’m not interested in running an entire blog dedicated to some single-minded war entity that wants to destroy Runeterra. That isn’t my cup of tea. 

And so that’s... kinda where I’m at with Aatrox atm? I might just roll with it eventually, and I’m waiting for Riot to release a color story, but it’s kind of... eh. I do like keeping with canon as much as I can, but canon is really testing me. 

[darkining-1]

regarding fighting style---

     For a creature of war, Aatrox is rather straightforward when it comes to combat. He doesn’t use grand flourishes or spins like certain warriors--- the one distinctive trait is that Aatrox puts all his weight into his blade when he strikes (which, evidently makes a fair bit of sense, considering who he is). Some may point it out as a dangerous maneuver; if Aatrox misjudges or his opponent moves too fast, then he’s suddenly falling instead of striking. Aatrox’s solution? Well, don’t miss, ya buffoon.

     Surprisingly enough, his fighting style is also made of lessons he’s learned from people. Real actual people! Aatrox may be a Darkin of war, but even he doesn’t know everything there is about fighting. He has picked up many tricks throughout the centuries, from ancient tribes and military groups, implementing them into his own fighting style. 

     Most Darkin do not easily show respect. But Aatrox is one of the few who will eagerly bow his head to someone who can hone his skills further. 

[darkining-1]

aggressive tag dump

[darkining-1]

i still shudder whenever i’m reminded of sea hunter aatrox’s existence and/or a post that described aatrox as an attractive eye candy male champion

[soperasinger]

guys i can’t believe i have to say this again

DO 👏 NOT 👏 GO 👏 GENTLE 👏 INTO 👏 THAT 👏 GOOD 👏 NIGHT 👏

[fracknugget-blog]

RAGE 👏 RAGE 👏 AGAINST 👏 THE 👏 DYING 👏 OF 👏 THE 👏 LIGHT 👏

[masteredshadows]

WHAT ABOUT kayn + menace :0

I’ve been staring at this too long I give up on it

“these will be quick warm-up sketches,” I said

48 hours later, here we have an unfinished painting zzz

[darkining-1]

also this URL was just 100% meant to be a silly pun but with the revelation of Darkin being a process of corruption, it.... works really well? but i wanna give this URL to a kayn and then change to ‘darkined’ because aatrox is completely. well. darkined. 

[darkining-1]

also in light of lore changes im just gonna dump some old headcanons here to get them out into the world before i have to pack them into a bag and toss them off a cliff:

     When the Rune Wars nearly vanquished the Darkin race, one of the surviving members, Izan, was left in a crippling state of near-death. No matter how much blood she and her blade were given, Izan never recovered. Her wings could not move, she was drifting in and out of consciousness, and her lifeblood only pulsed weakly through her once-proud sword. Rune magic continued to crackle on her skin, also making her a living liability to the Darkin, as well. 

     She held on for centuries. This prolonged state of death horrified Aatrox; none of the Darkin would dare to kill her, in interest of preserving what little survivors they had left. They hoped that eventually, their fallen brethren would heal. 

     Eventually, Aatrox returned to his home continent and demanded that Izan lift her blade and make a final stand before he cut her down. She was, of course, unable--- but made a futile attempt nonetheless. A shaky arm lifted her blade and slashed at Aatrox, falling to the ground halfway. 

     He then gave Izan the death suitable for a Darkin. In her last moments, she thanked her brother and called him “the best of us--- the warrior.” Aatrox warned his remaining brethren that he would give the rest of them the same fate, if they did not honor their Darkin traditions of a bloodied life and sewn chaos. 

     And for the first time in centuries, they did not refuse. 

[darkining-1]

i just listened to rhaast’s interactions with aatrox after he’s taken over kayn and i really get the impression that Aatrox is the calm collected brother who just wants to get the job done and Rhaast is like, backflipping off the top of a skyscraper in Piltover with the scythe in one hand, a lit match in the other, and a can of hairspray held between his teeth

i also really like the idea that apparently the Darkin have no fucking idea how many of them there are--- four? five? twenty-four? who knows! 

(i lowkey wonder if i can reintegrate my old headcanons into this but i won’t get too ahead of myself before lore comes out)

anyways im gonna blast old ta.ylor sw.ift songs and think about darkin headcanons while i clean my room

[darkining-1]

i love the line “we have history” from rhaast towards aatrox, like that can mean so many things

were they close and had a falling out? mentor and student? boyfriends? aatrox owes him $15 from when they watched transformers?? who knows! 

[darkining-1]

HES A BABY

[darkining-1]

a proposition: i give a kayn the URL ‘darkining’ because he’s not fully corrupted yet and aatrox gets ‘darkined’ because he is

[darkining-1]

assuming that Aatrox is a fully-transformed/corrupted Darkin, then i imagine he’d be very interested in seeing Kayn give into Rhaast. The part that intrigues me most is the “---or the malevolent scythe consumes him completely, paving the way for the destruction of all Runeterra.”

so, I’m guessing the gist of it is: the Darkin weapons corrupt hosts, and once the five(?) hosts are fully transformed, they can team up and wreck everyone’s shit. 

(also, i wonder how Tryndamere fits into this--- are the Darkin parasitic? can it latch onto Tryndamere’s blade and corrupt it into a Darkin blade? Or has it already started, with Aatrox calling him the greatest creation?) 

And knowing that Aatrox was once human, I really do wonder if there are remnants of that in there. I’m not too keen on the idea of writing him out as this fully-fledged corrupted monster, because eh that isn’t really fun to me, so I think I might integrate my old headcanons for Darkin society into his mindset. Just so he isn’t a broken record of KILL KILL BLOOD WAR YAA. The literal end of the world doesn’t fit well into an RP community story :(