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Hi I'm Kay & I made this blog because I like rambling about my OCs/ideas to help flesh them out, & I needed a place to consolidate them without a word limit.
Since this is basically for myself I won't be trigger tagging, but I will give you a blanket warning: some rambles will include mentions/discussions of death, murder, rape, other horrific/violent things. There will also be mentions/discussions of sexual stuff. Don't like, don't follow.
Was purposely looking for Lae'zel after finding Shadowheart after the crash but found Astarion & Gale & took another half hour of wandering around before finally finding her.
Speaking of Astarion, she legit thought he was gonna kill her when they met (and yet she tends to gravitate toward him while exploring...)
Was trying *really* hard not to laugh at Gale after pulling him out of the portal.
Nearly kissed the dying mindflayer before shaking her mind free. She then panicked & killed it (she tells herself she was just putting it out of it's misery)
Also tried not to laugh when they found Lae'zel in a trap.
Keeps wanting to talk with Shadowheart but also wants to respect her privacy
Very persuasive. And by persuasive, I mean people look at this anxious cinnamon roll & think she's incapable of lying (somehow her Baby™ vibes overpower the inherent distrust many people harbor for tieflings)
So far I've decided that she's an outlander tielfing (haven't quite decided between asmodeus or mephistopheles yet) warlock who made a pact with The Great Old One when she was a little kid, and then kinda just went on with her life like normal (aside from having a lot of weird dreams). Like, it kinda just became one of those weird things she did as a kid that she's not even sure if it really happened? She's also fairly anxious & kind, so nobody expects her to be such a good liar.
I'm thinking though, what if she's a compulsive liar? What if it comes from being a people pleaser? Being a tiefling, she might have developed the impulse to lie so people like her "despite" her race, and it just kinda snowballed into her almost never telling the truth. And at this point, she doesn't even realize she's lying, it just comes naturally.
Also, with her having ram horns, maybe having a sort of "wolf in sheep's clothing" type thing going on. She seems like a sweet little cinnamon roll (and she does mean well! She genuinely cares about the people around her) but she absolutely can kill you (especially if someone manipulates her into doing it; her need to make people like her makes her very susceptible to manipulation).
(Because my memory is shit & I need a reference sheet I can update; that said, as with anything I post, stuff is subject to change)
State Investigations Bureau (S.I.B.) - Government employed investigators. Divided into various departments based on types of investigations (such as homicide, missing persons, fraud, etc.).
Heart Mechanism - A mystical machine that powers all of the country's generators. Generally considered to be a myth.
Wheels of Fate - Metaphysical gears kept in Limbo which have various specific purposes but all help keep the universe moving. A long time ago, one was stolen & was used to create the Heart Mechanism.
Limbo - A liminal space connected to the physical world but not easily accessed. Everything related to the inner workings of the universe comes from here.
Saint Genevis - A denizen of Limbo infused with the spirit of a god. She can see & interact with Limbo, as well as being able to open paths to it for others.
Knight Mesiva - A denizen of Limbo granted immortality. Her primary purpose is to protect Saint Genevis and the Wheels of Fate.
Children of the Hours - A religious group that started as worshippers of the Heart Mechanism and Saint Genevis, but over time fell into obscurity and corruption. The current leader is obsessed with finding the Heart Mechanism.
Miscellaneous things I'd like to use but haven't thought out yet:
Caput mortuum/nigredo
Alchemical symbol for hours (probably for the CotH symbol)
I haven't actually started drawing him yet (despite having gathered references for him a few days ago) so his design is still kinda up in the air but
I just keep imagining that Elise finds out David is colorblind because she mentions something he wears being purple & he's like "what do you MEAN it's purple? I could've sworn that it's red!" & she briefly argues with him like "how could you possibly interpret that shade of purple as anything even close to red! You must be damn colorblind" and he's just like "well... yeah. I am. That's what these glasses are for."
And she takes a moment to absorb that information before saying "if those are color correction lenses, then that still doesn't explain why the hell you thought that color was red."
"They aren't a perfect solution, tritanopia is rare even amongst other sorts of colorblindness! ....also I just didn't pay that close enough attention to it. I mean, are constantly aware of what colors you're wearing?"
While sorting through old documents on my computer, I found the little bit of "Heart Mechanism" that I wrote early in high school!
Putting the text under the cut even though reading it makes me cringe lol (and disclaimer that I'm in the process of revamping the story right now so most of the details in this little blurb are getting scrapped)
The chilly, gray weather of the Iron district was typical, but having lived in the sunny and mild Copper district all her life, Alice felt cold. She even contemplated taking her ginger-red hair out of its braided bun. As she walked up the short steps to a sepia door, she decided to simply purchase a scarf after this little visit, and remember to dress warmer if she ever came back. Knocking on the cold metal door infront of her hurt her white-gloved knuckles, and she withdrew the hand to join the other to her face, in hopes of warming them with her breath. There was a brief shuffling of feet before the door opened to reveal a black haired boy dressed like a pauper. He looked to be around her age, maybe a year or two older. His grey eyes looked into her hazel ones.
"Yes?" Warm air drifted past him, making the cold air behind Alice feel so much colder compared to infront of her.
"I'm here to speak with David Baskerville."
"That would be me." He looked almost bored as Alice tried to continue speaking without her teeth clattering. He seemed unfazed by the icy wind blowing in.
"I'm Alice Thackerey, Chief Investigator of the Copper district. May I come in?" Without asking for confirmation, David stepped aside, gesturing inward. She rushed in before he could say "Sure. Be my guest.", and she let out a sigh of relief. She thought she heard a chuckle from the boy as he shut the door, but ruled it as a figment of her imagination. "It's not all that cold out."
Alice looked at David as if he were utterly insane. Residents of the Silver district would probably say that the temperature was wonderful, since they're one of the coldest districts. The warmest district, Gold, would think that they would catch hypothermia. Alice was grateful for living in such a comfortable district, weather-wise, even if it was a bit moody. David guided her around the short wall next to the door an into the living room. They sat in an opposing light brown couch and a chair, with a wooden coffee table separating them.
"What's a gumshoe from Copper doing here?" If looks could kill, Alice would be sent to the bastille right then.
"I am not a gumshoe. As I had previously said, I am the Chief Investigator!" The cold had always brought out Alice's temper, though she usually controlled it with ease. David looked at her with the same bored expression.
"You look 15." He was spot on. Sort of. She'd turn 16 next month.
"I'll be 16 in 3 weeks." She was used to the disbelief in people's expressions, since it was nearly impossible to reach such a high rank in one's chosen occupation in less than a year. Most people her age were either still in school, or still in of the beginning ranks of their job.
Elise Thackerey wears her father's old coat from his days of maintaining the country's Master Horologium, the clock which all other timepieces in the country are set by.
Elise was 15 when her father suddenly disappeared, and despite official investigators efforts to keep her away from the case for her own safety, her keen eye lead her to be the one to find her father's body a year later. The circumstances surrounding his death are still a mystery however.
Elise decided to become a missing persons investigator not only in the hopes of helping others to find their loved ones alive, but in order to continue looking into what lead to her father's disappearance & subsequent demise.
-
Elise has a heart condition that necessitated surgery for a mechanical implant to keep her heart going. Growing up, her father made sure to keep the implant in perfect working order between check-ups. As a kid she would tease him for being overprotective. After his disappearance, her health initially took a nosedive but with his notes, she was able to continue her own maintenance. Now in her mid 20s though, she realizes that she's running out of time. A mechanical heart can only work for so long, and her doctors are surprised she's managed to keep going as long as she has (to which she credits her father's technical abilities & his extensive notes).
-
Elise is extremely detail oriented and her keen eye allows her to pick up on even the most subtle of clues. She's been accused on many occasions of being paranoid or even simply making things up, but her deductions are inevitably proven right every time. Her passion for her job is a double edged blade; she cares deeply about helping as many people as she can even after their cases are closed, yet her work takes up all her time and she has no social life (even before her life turned upside down, she had a hard time connecting with her peers, as her ability to read just about anyone like an open book caused a lot of friction; she eventually learned to be careful about what she says, but that inner turmoil still hinders any attempts at forming any sort of relationship).
The few times when her work life slowed down enough for her to have any spare time outside of that & investigating her father, she fell into depression. She had no family or friends to reach out to. No hobbies or pets to take her mind off things. It got bad. Like "what if I just let my heart stop" bad. Her boss noticed & made her start seeing a therapist. She ends up adopting a cat named Lattice & starts collecting keys, as well as making her own decorative keys. Whenever she's out of town on a case, the landlord (who owns several cats anyway) takes care of Lattice.
Thinking about just completely scrapping Arias's original story (not the Witch AU but the story I originally made for Arias) & sticking her in the Paradoxverse. Every time I think about her story I have a hard time making it make sense. Just start from scratch with who she is.
My first thought was "what if she's just some girl."
And then "what if she *thinks* she's normal but when people ask her questions about herself they start to realize something is off"
She says her name is Arias but she has no last name. Has no family, no job, doesn't go to school. You ask her where she's from & she just says "here". Like, it just seems like she just kinda spawned fully formed out of thin air? And when someone points out how weird it is she just shrugs.
What if I do still include hints to her previous story? What if the reason why she doesn't fit in is because she isn't from this universe? The one she is from collapsed, but The Millenial (the God she was an avatar/host for) managed to get her out in order to save her. It was a last ditch effort & not perfect; it left Arias with amnesia.
So Arias is an anomaly just wandering around in the Paradoxverse doing her own thing.
Of course, eventually she ends up on TPS's radar and they send an agent out to observe her & determine whether the rumors about her are true or not, and report back so they can determine what actions to take.
Now, I originally made Lyric for Arias's Witch AU to be her love interest, but what if Lyric is the TPS agent assigned to Arias's case?
Introducing a new race to the Paradoxverse: Umbralites.
Umbralites are basically shadows that were separated from their casters (yes that is what I'm going to call things that cast shadows, it's cool) and gained sentience. This can happen for any number or reasons, from magical intervention (i.e. someone purposely severing their connection to their shadow) to the destruction of a caster that is so sudden & so devastating that the shadow is the only thing left of them. Also, a caster is literally anything capable of casting a shadow. Theoretically, there can be an Umbralite whose caster was a rock, or a tree, or a library, etc.
Umbralites have control over their shape and can morph at will (making them a variety of shapeshifter). Some Umbralites prefer to stay in a form exactly like or reminiscent of their caster, while others like experimenting with their shape or maybe even hate the form of their caster & try to appear as different as they possibly can.
When an Umbralite is born, they're kinda stuck as a two-dimensional being for a while, but with time and effort, they can learn to become three-dimensional. It is also possible for an Umbralite to temporarily possess & control a caster not bearing a soul (i.e. dead bodies, machines, inanimate objects, etc.). It takes a lot of effort, though, and unless they are magically bound to the caster, they will eventually be pushed out.
It bears mentioning that Umbralites are not capable of casting shadows.
They can, of course, travel through shadows, and do so much faster than most traditional means of transportation. They cannot bring objects with them when traveling through shadows.
Although with some effort Umbralites can interact with the world as if they were corporeal, it's much easier to impact thing by interacting with shadows (like pushing a shadow cast by a box in order to move the box).
They don't need to eat or drink, but rest is required after expending a fair amount of effort.
Umbralites are masters of mimicry, and do not forget anything without magical intervention. Just as they can mimic the shape of any caster, they can also mimic the movement, mannerisms, and voice.
tell me about whichever oc is your current favorite! what's their favorite thing to do on a day off? do they have any cool hobbies?
:D Thank you for asking!
I've been thinking about Itheel a lot for the past few days.
Since retiring from The Paradox Society, pretty much every day is a day off lol. Itheel spends a lot of time just wandering around, just kind of people watching? She's generally pretty chill & not very social but likes to see and imagine what other people's lives are like.
Despite her distate for responsibilities, if she sees someone who needs help she won't hesitate to step in.
I don't think she has any "cool" hobbies, she just likes being around people & being a wallflower. She won't admit it but she is a bit lonely and misses her friends (the other TPS founders).
I can imagine if someone actually tried to befriend her, she would likely take an interest in their hobbies. Even better would be if that person decides to help Itheel find hobbies of her own.
I kinda feel like she might like arcade games, especially fighting and racing games. She tends to avoid stereotypically feminine/"pretty" things because they were forced on her back in Livilla as a princess, but I think she could get into gardening too.
Been considering a Paradoxverse AU for AnuCad, which considering how Anubis was *originally* created as a TPS agent (before I had actually figured out what TPS was other than being a “secret society”) is kind of funny.
Since then, I’ve made the core of Anubis as “con man magician but kind of a sub” and Cadmus is pretty vague but ultimately “witch who likes to tease people” (Cadmus as a character was originally made to be a My Time at Sandrock OC, she was originally involved in theatre in Atara or something before deciding to move to Sandrock to be a builder but she was also always meant to have witchy vibes).
In the Paradoxverse, I might go ahead and have Anubis be a TPS agent, and maybe Cadmus could be a librarian or curator for the Mouseion.
In the Paradoxverse, the Museion was originally founded by humans to gather human knowledge, but as one might expect in a world occupied by magical/supernatural beings, other knowledge was also included and including amongst human knowledge would prove to be dangerous, especially once intellectuals started being exiled from Alexandria. After Aristarchus of Samothrace was forced to resign as head librarian, the Museion went in a different direction: while it’s primary purpose would still be to gather knowledge, it would do so in order to restrict access by average human beings, as well as collecting dangerous magical artifacts.
At some point after the founding of The Paradox Society, the Museion’s head librarian reached out to form an alliance given their similar missions. They also reached out in the hopes that since the Museion’s employees were mostly trained as librarians/historians/curators, collecting artifacts was something few employees were really qualified to do and resulted in a fairly high mortality rate. TPS agents, on the other hand, were trained in dealing with dangerous people and situations. The Museion had a hard time finding reliable independent contractors, but if they could have TPS send out agents to do the collecting for them? That would make things WAY easier.
Anyway, since one of TPS’s founders (Aurelia, aka “Brimstone”) used to work for the Museion, it didn’t take much convincing to have TPS lend it’s agents for Museion missions.
So in the present we have Cadmus, a witch working as a library for the Museion (working mostly in the theatre and witchcraft sections), and Anubis, a human TPS agent with a knack for sleight-of-hand who ends up having to work with her to locate and retrieve an artifact for the Museion.
The Paradox Society was started in the mid 1500s (during the European Renaissance) by a group of inhuman friends who wished to feel safe without giving up what they are.
Aurelia, a woman from ancient Pompeii who died & became immortal (and also can manipulate the flow of time).
Matéo, a faerie man raised in Spain by a human family.
Itheel, the half dragon daughter of Ethelle, the late queen of the faerie kingdom of Livilla, willingly exiled from her home.
Corso, a nadreal man with a love for both philosophy and mathematics.
and Emiliana, a fallen angel turned vampire who dreams of being a detective.
Itheel used to have her own world but last night I was like "y'know what? She can be in the paradoxverse", especially since every time I thought about her story I had a hard time figuring out the worldbuilding but sticking her here helps a lot of that. Emiliana and Corso are brand new though (I might change Corso's name though).
Thinking about Arias's Witch AU, particularly Saint Arias. I want to give her design a little revamp, but I need to figure out what she's the patron saint of in order to give her Saint design some meaning.
This AU is imagined as a book trilogy, probably YA considering as I start the first book with Arias being an adolescent (book two takes place a few years later when she's in her early 20s, then the last book in her mid/late 20s) going to this university for magical studies (thus far I've had it so magic is primarily referred to as "The Studies" but I want to change that & really want to have it so that there's a difference between Magic™ as channeling arcane energy and magic as exerting your will/intentions upon the world like real like witchcraft) but there's these dark forces threatening to destroy the school and Arias ends up being the one leading the fight against it.
In book two, Arias has graduated and is a full blown witch. She ends up being forced into this tournament to determine who the best mage in the world is, & y'know of course there's some shit about to go down during threatening the whole country/continent it that she has to stop. And of course she saves the day & ends up becoming Champion.
In book three, Arias has to basically stop the apocalypse, and she ends up sacrificing herself to stop it.
In the epilogue, we find that the gods have made her into a minor god, aka a Saint.
So what is she the patron saint of? What are the pillars of her identity when she was alive? At the moment, all I have in mind is patron saint of arcane savants and night owls (she was a savant in the arcane studies as well as being a night owl, I've also been thinking that her arcane speciality has something to do with the nighttime but idk). I should probably actually work out everything that happens over the course of the books first lol
Also, I remember seeing a post once about a warlock (or it might have been a cleric, idk) whose patron was someone they were were friends with before they become this powerful being. I think I want to have that happen with Lyric, Arias's love interest, where after Arias dies and becomes a saint, Lyric becomes a Cleric of Saint Arias or something.
Thinking of a comic where Tataré monologues about what it’s like after Clovis & Sammen bring her back to life.
I’m not Tataré Boïne.
At least, not the one they knew.
I have her face, her memories. I still love Sammen and Clovis… but I’m not really her.
I can’t blame them for trying. Sammen is literally a necromancer, his specialty is bringing things back from the dead (even if those things are soulless shells who mindlessly follow his orders), and Clovis has walked amongst my dreams so many times it wasn’t difficult to find my soul in the aether. With all they’ve been through, of course they couldn’t bear to lose the one person in their lives that made life worth living.
But I’m not her.
They tell me she hated coffee and always had something in her bag that would help the situation at hand. She liked walking around in the rain and found comfort in the sound of rolling thunder. That despite her inability to express emotions properly, she was the kindest person they had ever known, prioritizing helping complete strangers over her own health. Even if it killed her.
But I find that the little things are different now. I prefer to bask in the sun (the cold wet rain reminds me too much of the day she died). I cut my hair short (I don’t know how she didn’t tire of the maintenance such long hair required). I fumble through the contents of my bag, unfamiliar with the contents. I find I like the taste of coffee (and I’m always tired, living is so exhausting).
Sammen, despite his confident air, worries over me. They both do, but Sammen’s concerns are based in his knowledge of the undead. He acts like it’s a joke when he tells me to let him know if I find myself decomposing or craving human flesh, but I can see in his eyes that it’s a genuine concern.
When I sleep at night, I do not dream. Clovis reassures me that not everybody dreams all the time (but I know she dreamed quite often). He shares fragments of her dreams with me. He reads her favorite books to me, takes me to her favorite places in town. It all feels familiar and not as the same time.
The first time I tried to heal someone, I only made it worse. The wound opened up further and turned dark as they cried out in pain. I felt nothing. No urge to help, no determination to fix my mistake. They were lucky another healer was nearby. I was lucky they took over.
This body I inhabit once belonged to Tataré Boïne, a stoic healer beloved by many. I am not her. I do not know who I am.
———
I most likely won’t use that exact script for it (assuming I even get around to drawing it).
I’m thinking maybe when they bring her back, they actually grabbed the soul of a Tataré from an alternate universe (not unlikely, since the Sammen mentioned here isn’t originally from this timeline). Nobody realizes it at first because death is a traumatic experience, as well as being brought back to life, and the more time there is between the two, the likely they are to come back “right”. It took a bit of planning for Sammen and Clovis to bring her back, so it’s not surprising that she’s missing a lot of memories and that her healing magic has been corrupted (they did their best to preserve her body, but the soul is where the magic comes from; the body simply houses it).
I think maybe the soul they pulled back was from a universe were Tataré was a necromancer (and in that universe, Sammen was a viveromancer, I’m not sure what Clovis would’ve been. Need to figure out what the opposite of a Dream Eater is lol) and that’s why she can’t heal.
I also really need to figure out my own worldbuilding for this. Lacigam was originally an RP with my friends back in high school but during college we kinda grew apart (even had a falling out with a couple of them as a result of having grown apart). I know a couple of those friends still use their Lacigam OCs. I’m somewhat considering merging SamTarClo with Astrid & Caspian’s world, but I’ll probably have to change Sammen’s design a bit (as well as Clovis’s alternate outfit) because Terris is supposed to be a classic medieval fantasy world, while Lacigam is a little more complicated (definitely inspired by medieval fantasy, but Sammen’s outfits are decidely modern, and Clovis’s are like. maybe late 1800s but kinda more 1900s).
Eve is also a thing. I still haven’t figured out if/how I want to fit her in with SamTarClo, especially since her character was so thoroughly intertwined with my friend’s character Adam.
Had a mildly unsettling dream last night about something that I am genuinely afraid of irl & y'know what my first thought was before I was even fully awake?
"I can make this into a story"
The tentative name for the moment is "Curiosity Killed the Cat" because being a nosy little shit is what got the protag into the situation in the first place & she just keeps figuratively digging her own grave with it in the hopes that it'll get her out too.
So the basic premise of the dream was that I was back in college (not the same one I went to) and there's this farm next to the college but the owners are this rich & kinda shady family. For whatever reason one of the sons takes a liking to me. And by that I mean "dark obsession" type thing. He's super possessive but also initially not super obvious about it I guess?
But anyway I'm trying to investigate what the fuck is up with this farm & this family and somehow end up being kinda trapped on the property?
Eventually I manage to leave & go into town to look for this one specific building owned by the family & guess what I find inside?
Bodies. Dead human bodies just all over the place.
Then in true nonsensical dream fashion I go back outside & slip in with this class that's happening in the little park area across the street from the building, writing notes about the building & whatnot, trying to also formulate a plan for not getting caught by the son again. I remember clearly thinking "I need to find someone to take me in that I'm not friends with because he'll find me if I hide with a known ally."
I look up and in a corner building on that same street is the father of the family's fancy ass apartment I guess? It's got these big windows & everyone can see inside pretty easily. I see the father.
At this point, I remember I had a dream featuring a very similar setting years ago. The person in the apartment killed themself in that dream.
I notice the other students looking up at the apartment and I say that he's going to kill himself. Everybody is watching quietly but intently. We all watch as this old man shoots himself. A mild panic ensues. I realize that when the son finds out what happened, he will take out his frustrations on me (both as punishment for leaving, and to cope with his father killing himself). I see that there's another class at the other set of picnic tables in this little downtown park, lead by a professor I know and trust (one of my favorite professors I had irl!). I go to her and I tell her my situation. I look back up at the apartment & I see the son and his brother in the apartment. The son turns to look out the window & locks eyes with me, and in that moment, I realize my chances of making it out alive are slim.
The dream gets a little odd again as I rush down the street, the professor following me and telling me she has her own airplane and she can take me to Alaska (irl the professor spent a while there for a book she wrote so that detail isn't completely out of the blue), and then I started waking up & thinking about turning this whole thing into a story.
I really want to draw the moment when the son looks out the window bc it really felt like a horror movie moment but I feel like it would hard to get that vibe across out of context.
So ANYWAY, for the story, I'm thinking the protag is named Katherine and she's majoring in journalism. She wants to be an investigative journalist, hence her being a nosy little shit and poking around the shady farm and whatnot. When the son finds her poking around he is intrigued by her, and she tries to use his interest in her to her advantage (aka she leads him on in the hopes she'll get more info out of him).
In the dream I was never like, specifically kidnapped or chained up. I just ended up in the house that was so big I got lost in it, which seemed to be the son's plan, and the way he talked to me had "you are mine now and if you try to leave I will hurt you" undertones. I think I'll kinda keep that for the story, where Kat comes to the house and the son heavily implies that she belongs to him now and if she leaves he WILL find her. There is no escape.
Kat nosing around in the house leads her to some documents about this building in town owned by the family but it's not clear what they're using it for. She goes to the building & finds the bodies & is like "ohhhhhhhhh shit. This is worse than I thought."
I'll have to change the park scene to make more sense but then she still witnesses the father's suicide through the window & I NEED to keep the moment when the son looks out the window & immediately locks eyes with her. I so badly want to portray that moment and the instant sense of doom before she runs, because the son just watched his father kill himself & then saw this "pet" outside?
Idk how I want it to end. I don't think I'll have Kat actually die, I'll probably go with the classic "final girl versus killer showdown" type thing.
(I probably won't actually do anything with this idea, but it's not the first time I've had an unsettling dream & was like "oh that would make an interesting story!")
The OC I made for the co-op file with my brother: Bea
Bea is in her mid 20s. She grew up spending summers on her grandparents farm, until when she was a teenager her grandmother died and her grandfather soon followed.
After graduating high school, Bea went to college but went undeclared, not knowing for sure what she wanted to study. Late in her freshman year, her parents find out she has a girlfriend and basically disown her. She struggles to finish out the year, but thankfully she's allowed to stay on campus over the summer & she gets a job in town working at a Joja Mart, which she keeps once the school year starts up again.
The following school year, while Bea is struggling again to keep up in her classes, still hasn't decided on a major, and at the end of the fall semester, her girlfriend breaks up with her. Bea finds an apartment in town to move into with money saved up from her job and doesn't return to school the following semester, just focusing on paying for the year and a half worth of classes and her rent. She tries to build up savings but after a couple years the rent goes up without her pay going up and she's struggling to make ends meet. She gets an eviction notice after falling behind on her rent, and the stress from worrying about the bills has been impacting her "productivity" at work. She ends up snapping at a customer and gets fired. With zero savings, now jobless, and about to be homeless, she finds an old letter from her grandfather while packing up her things. A beacon of hope: he left the farm to her.
And thus she moves to Stardew Valley!
In the co-op file, my brother named it Blyat Farm but I think for Bea's story I'm gonna call it something else. Might also make up another OC she shares the farm with to keep the co-op nature of it.
Rethinking the Cas x Harvey time loop AU bc I just unlocked Rasmodius's spell book thing in game & was reminded of that expensive fucking clock & if you know me, you know I love clocks. Also maybe instead of having it as an AU, it can be a whole story arc (not that I'm actually writing a fic of this, I just figured why not have it be part of Cas's canon).
Also I read this fic last night that doesn't technically mention the clock itself, but rather as a spell that Rasmodius casts & I think Cas would also be able to convince ol' Razzy to give her a discount on it.
Also also, this turned out SUPER long because I went a little more in depth than I originally intended.
(Sidenote that I'm considering starting a fresh file for Cas to help nail down the timeline for her story)
If you've read/watched D. Gray-Man, Miranda Lotto is my favorite character & I might have this AU take some inspiration from the Rewinding Town arc in that maybe the curse doesn't just make Cas relive the move to the farm over & over, but make it so that outside the town, time goes on normally.
So anyway, Cas & Harvey are already dating by the time Rasmodius asks Cas to go get the ink for him. She manages to do it without running into his ex (who I think I'm gonna call Esmerelda). He grants her access to one of his spell books. She of course looks through it immediately. The Junimo Hut could be nice (especially since she kinda misses seeing them around the Community Center). She doesn't mind making warp totems & would probably still use them if she had the obelisks (sometimes you're on the mountain & are like "shit, I needed to go to the beach", having a big ass obelisk on the farm is less convenient than having a few little totems on hand).
The clock fascinates her. "You can really make something like that?" She asks. He says "For the right price" and points to the listed price. She nearly chokes.
"Seriously? I mean, I get that you're essentially stopping time for like, specific things on the farm, but ten million??? It would take YEARS for me to save up that much money!"
She manages to talk him down to 100,000 gold, 100 solar & void essences each, 10 iridium bars, 5 prismatic jellies, and 100 gold bars.
It takes her a couple of weeks to get it all together but it's winter so she has a greenhouse full of ancient fruit plants, a few silos full of hay, and plenty of time to go into the mines. At some point during this though is when she realizes she wants to marry Harvey so she gets Rasmodius's help in making a rain totem that guarantees the following day will rain. (Upon looking at the wiki I guess it can technically be used in the winter but I like the idea of her having to wait a little, build up some anticipation, y'know?)
The gold clock gets made on the last day of Winter, when she also uses the rain totem. The following day, Cas does the whole thing where she shoots out of bed and barely remembers to throw on some proper clothes before she gets a totem out of her bag & warps to the beach to buy a mermaid pendant off of the old mariner. She runs over to the clinic (in the rain, she didn't even grab an umbrella or raincoat). It's not open yet & she left her phone, keys, & bag at home. She considers whether she should run home to grab her keys, or just hope Harvey is awake to hear her banging on the door (and that Pierre doesn't complain about hearing her battering down the clinic door at 7 in the morning).
When Harvey wakes up to hear the banging he rushes down thinking that there's an emergency (he wonders if Cas spent the previous night in the mines & was once again found passed out & injured, even though she swears up & down that she's more careful than she used to be & it's been a while since it happened). He opens the front door to find her standing there soaking wet and grinning from ear to ear.
"Are you okay-" he starts but Cas leaps forward to kiss him, knocking him a step back & soaking the front of his pajamas. When they part, Cas looks at him and she planned to just ask him straight away but she's just lovestruck and can't seem to get the words out at first. He asks what's going on, did something happen? She shakes her head, still grinning, and slowly opens up her hand that had been holding the pendant the whole time (it's a miracle she didn't drop it or crush it when she lept into his arms).
"Doctor Harvey Emerson, will you marry me?"
Of course he says yes, they kiss again. Harvey says something about Cas still dripping water on the clinic floor and urges her up into the apartment to take a warm shower (she didn't even realize how much she was shivering until he pointed it out) and dry off.
If Cas had it her way, they'd go have Lewis marry them that day, but Harvey convinces her to at least take a couple days to plan the wedding.
(It comes up that Cas doesn't really have any relatives to invite; she has no siblings or cousins, she never knew her father and her mother dying is part of what motivated her to quit Joja, which had basically taken up her whole life so she didn't really have any friends while working there.)
Meanwhile, Esmerelda is cooking up a plan. Her henchman told her what happened (to which she responded by turning him into a void chicken). She spies on Cas and Stardrop Farm, sees the gold clock and Cas planning the wedding with Harvey.
The day of the wedding, everybody including Rasmodius (who walks Cas down the aisle) in attendance, Esmerelda steals the gold clock to take back to her home and use it as the medium for a time loop curse. By the time Cas and Harvey come home it's been a long day and they don't notice that the clock is missing.
The next morning, everybody wakes up and it's the first day of spring, the first year Cas moved to the valley.
Cas wakes up at the bus stop with her bags, more confused than she's ever been in her life.
The first thing she does after making Robin think she's absolutely insane is go to Rasmodius's tower, but it's locked. Despite her pounding on the door hollering for him to open it, he doesn't answer. She decides to go into town, and when she comes across Lewis, he takes her to the community center. She's relieved when she finds that she can still read the golden scroll.
She heads to the clinic. Part of her knows that since so far no one seems to remember her, it's unlikely that Harvey will, but she hopes.
And he doesn't.
"It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Harvey, the local doctor. I perform regular check-ups and medical procedures for all the residents of Pelican Town. It's rewarding work. I hope you'll find your own work equally rewarding, in time." He says, just like the first time she met him. Her heart drops. She looks so suddenly pained that it concerns Harvey but she just tells him "I'm fine, it was... it was nice meeting you too" and leaves, heading back to the farm & plopping facedown on her bed. It's barely noon and she's already exhausted. She wonders if this is all a nightmare, or worse, that the past couple years were only a dream.
Ever the busy body though, she can't just lay around moping all day so she gets up and starts planting the parsnip seeds Lewis gave her. By the time she's done tilling and planting them it's close to 4 and she has no food. She drags herself into town to visit the saloon so she can finally eat for the first time that day. On her way home she forages a bit so she has something to eat the next morning.
When she receives Rasmodius's letter the next day, she rushes to water the parsnips and head out to the tower.
There's the whole thing where she tries to tell him that something is wrong, she's lived on Stardop Farm for a couple years but the day after she married Harvey she woke up and the town was back to day 1. He thinks she's fucking insane and when she starts getting riled up he straight up teleports her out of the tower & locks the door.
It takes a few days before Cas resigns herself to the belief that everything before was just a dream. It felt so real, more vivid than any other dream, but she doesn't have much of a choice. Things go on like normal but with a dull ache underlying every interaction with the people she came to know as dear friends. She falls in love with Harvey all over again. This time she marries him before completing the Community Center (before Rasmodius thinks to have her steal the magic ink). She lives through the happiest day of her life for the second time... and wake up the next morning at the bus stop.
She tries not to freak Robin out this time. She tries to act normal. Plants the parsnips, heads into town, visits the Community Center, stops by the saloon to pick up some food. On her way home, she overhears Jodi talking about how surprised she is that Kent is home so much earlier than expected. He was acting weird, but she figures it's just because of the war. Given a spark of hope that *somebody* remembers the previous years, she visits 1 Willow Lane.
Kent, having not been anywhere near the valley when Cas first moved in, is apparently immune to the time loop induced amnesia affecting the rest of the town. Like Cas, the first time it happened he thought it was a fluke, just his war traumatized brain playing tricks on him, but this time, one day he's attending Cas & Harvey's wedding in the middle of fall and the next is the first day of spring. After some convincing, he agrees to go with her to the wizard's tower tomorrow. Hopefully, with Kent, they can convince Rasmodius that something really weird is happening.
Cas is much calmer meeting Rasmodius this time and in addition to Kent's testimony, Cas tells Rasmodius everything she knows about him and the rest of the town (at this point she has the Community Center bundles memorized), including Esmerelda having his magic ink.
Rasmodius isn't quite sure what to make of it all, but Cas seems genuine so he agrees to look into it. They come to the conclusion that it is no coincidence that both resets happened right after Cas married Harvey, and if Cas really did sneak into Esmerelda's home then it makes sense that it was caused by Esmerelda & that Cas is the focus of the curse.
(Kent finds all the magic talk to be confusing and overwhelming, so the trio agrees that while Cas will keep him in the loop, he should focus on reconnecting with his family while Cas helps Rasmodius figure out how to break the curse)
It is also agreed that until it's broken, Cas cannot marry Harvey. Despite this, Cas goes home that night filled with hope that with Rasmodius on her side everything will be back to normal in no time.
It takes some time, a lot of trial & error, before Rasmodius comes to the conclusion that they have no choice but to confront Esmerelda.
Rasmodius insists that he do it alone, as who knows what Esmerelda will do to Cas.
Cas also figures that they're close enough to breaking the curse that she can at least give Harvey a bouquet.
At Esmerelda's home, she & Rasmodius have a confrontation that escalates pretty quickly. Ras also notices the gold clock. Just when Rasmodius thinks he has Esmerelda cornered, she forces a reset.
Cas wakes up at the bus stop. She throws her bags and kicks her luggage in frustration. She's crying when Robin comes up to take her to the farm. She tells Robin that things just haven't been going well for her lately and she didn't get much rest last night.
She goes through what is becoming a routine: parsnips, Community Center, Kent. She tells Kent that she isn't sure what happened, she didn't marry Harvey yesterday but she did give him a bouquet. She tells him that Rasmodius went to confront Esmerelda, something probably happened. Once again they go to the tower the next day to tell him what's going on.
I'm kinda running out of steam so I'm gonna try to wrap this up.
At some point, whether it's in the current loop or if it takes another reset or two, they figure out that the clock is the medium and they need to both kill Esmerelda AND destroy the clock, but Rasmodius & Cas both have to be present to destroy it (because Rasmodius made the clock, and not only was it made for Cas but the curse is centered on her).
Also at some point in one of the loops, Cas got the bus repaired and found that time outside of the valley has gone on normally. Sandy & Mr. Qi had been wondering why they hadn't seen Cas in quite a while, but when Mr. Qi tried to visit, something prevented him from entering the town. Word has spread around that something is up with the town because the merchants that come around for special events have been thrown way off schedule.
Anyway, the curse gets broken, and all the memories from the loops come rushing back to the citizens of Pelican Town & time catches up with the rest of the world (causing a mass migraine event & ruining all of Cas's crops).
Cas & Harvey get married & live happily ever after, the end.
