hiii i'm from out of town (metaphorical) so I don't know the whole thang but the art looks interesting, what's that Sparkswap AU you have for Dead Cells?
OUGH…. Sparkswap is an AU I constructed with the help of @mage-ooc and @springles that’s very near and dear to me
Dead Cells spoilers below the cut because the concept highkey revolves around one.
TLDR; It’s an au about swapping the roles of the royalty in Dead Cells, and tells a story about consequences and sense of self
The general premise of Sparkswap is that the roles of the King and Queen in Dead Cells have been switched. Normally, the Queen resides in the Lighthouse and keeps any ships from coming in or out - enforcing the island’s quarantine single-handedly to keep the plague known as the Malaise in. This happens after a populace known only as the Apostates kidnaps her mid-Malaise and turns her into a perfected homunculus, one of those guys with fire for a head.
Likewise, in the base game, the King’s fate is a little complicated. Ingame the King asks the royal Alchemist (implied to happen after he’s already fallen ill) to find some way for him to either outlive or survive the plague, and the Alchemist does just that by turning the King into a homunculus. However, the project goes awry, and an imperfect homunculus who doesn’t remember their core soul’s past or morals is produced. This is our game’s protagonist, the Beheaded.
So in Sparkswap, the roles are swapped out. At the height of the Malaise, the Queen falls ill and becomes more or less comatose. The King, who we’ve taken to calling Cei, is desperate not to lose her and tasks the Alchemist with finding a way for her to survive and recover. Cei winds up barricading himself and the royal guard into the castle to ensure the safety of himself and his spouse.
However, dissatisfied with Cei’s hiding and selfishness, some of the remaining populace of the island- mainly the Apostates- storm the castle with the intent to gain some form of vengeance and kidnap the Queen, who we’ve taken to calling Eve. Instead, though, they get their hands on Cei and steal away with him before his personal guard, the Hand of the King, can get to and stop them.
So Cei is made into a perfect homunculus, retaining his memories, morals, and general sense of self. The Hand of the King comes to his rescue, and is horrified to see what’s been done, but he informs Cei that Eve’s personal guards are keeping watch over her, and the Alchemist is still at work with his task.
Cei makes the decision from there to venture to the Lighthouse and light the beacon, hoping to call a ship in and escape once the Alchemist has completed his work and sent Eve to him. Which, as you can imagine, doesn’t really happen.
Instead, the Alchemist creates the Fallen, who prefers her title over being named after a manner of execution. Fallen retains no memory of being the Queen, etc etc, and she sets herself to the goal of extinguishing the Lighthouse to keep the island quarantined so that the Malaise won’t make it out.
Overall it’s a fun exercise in exploring the core values these characters have, who they are as people, and how that affects the world around them when their roles are reversed :)
