Here is the Evil Poly ™ and one (nervous) chaos gremlin
Someone definitely feels if not a tiny bit uncomfortable being there haha... (Maybe perhaps before he caved and found out he has some invincibility/protection with Lucidity around, then again, he doesn't really like the person Lucidity changed into either).
I gave up trying to draw Nightshades(Jet's) other eye, it was driving me insane DEAR HEAVENS (i. definitely forgot to draw their tendrils. help. just imagine that they're hidden ahaha..)
I discovered that i had 828 characters in heroforge. and a pro subscription gives me the ability to sort through them all. so i give them like $4/month now
but sorting isn't the only thing it gives me. look at this shit
i also attempted to do something cool with gonzalo and petruccio. it's okay but not like....great. those wings get in the way
and then there's this guy, + one without the effects because i spent ages trying to make him look ghostly and i'm quite proud of him
oh and here's lucidity. i tried to recreate the pose he'd had in his ref before i replaced it with him and champion
i don't remember if I showed Solacy's version of Nim, but i have her here. didn't go too crazy BUT her hair and stuff glows very pretty :]
I think, for tossing Nova and Mal into Lucidity’s AU, it’s going to be a good while after JR blows up until Lucidity goes “oh fuck wait the kid”
Like…probably in the neighborhood of month?
He’s not super close with Shale and Nightshade yet, but he has joined them. He doesn’t tell them where he’s going when he wanders off, just that he needs to check on something and will be back soon. It’s not important (he’s lying), but it’ll keep bothering him until he checks (that’s part’s true tho), so…
Ink may have popped in to check on Blue and the kids, but she’s not there when Lucidity arrives. He warns Blue, but it’s like “hey I’m going to be over there in like sixty seconds don’t freak out”
Blue’s more mad than anything though. He thought Lucidity was DEAD. JR exploded, no one could find him, Blue never heard a word from him, and now he’s just going to show up to visit?? Where the McFlurry has he been???
he keeps it mostly contained but even the kids can tell he’s mad. And Nova’s freaking out over goddamn DREAM being IN HIS HOUSE
(“You know him?? Like, personally??!? Why didn’t you tell me!!!” - “Nova, i promise, i will explain later. But right now I need to ask him why he didn’t bother to tell anyone that he’s still alive for an ENTIRE MONTH.”)
Lucidity is. Quite surprised by how excited Nova is.
Once Lucidity explains (but it’s far from the whole truth; just that he was trying to find the culprits, and at some point got lost in another multiverse where a couple of chaotic assholes kept bothering him), and Blue calms down, they also tell nova everything. Lucidity is real sure the culprits are in the other MV, so he’s going to stay there until he can find them and bring them to justice. And since this whole MV thinks he’s dead, it’s not as much of a threat for Nova to know who his biological/magical parents are. Or at least, one of them. Nova is vibrating so intensely the rest of them are afraid he’s going to explode
Blue probably notices that something’s wrong, but he chalks it up to Lucidity still being very shaken by what happened.
Nova begs Lucidity to come visit once in a while, if he can, and Lucidity promises he will. When he can. But he can’t promise it’ll be often. Aside from being very busy trying to track “those people” down, he’s trying to keep a lot profile, which is already pretty hard when you have giant glowing golden wings.
The more he visits, the more sure Blue becomes that something is very wrong. Lucidity’s changing. That shouldn’t be a huge surprise, he lost everything, but…
Nova and Mal don’t really notice, but they didn’t personally know Lucidity before. They don’t know why Blue seems to be wary of Lucidity visiting anymore.
Lucidity meanwhile eventually starts feeling kinda bad about what he’s doing, just because of how much Nova looks up to him. Or, the person he was before he lost JR. The person he’s still pretending to be in front of them.
But he doesn’t feel bad enough to stop.
Nova probably won’t ever find out. And if he does, it’s not like he’s going to be a threat. He’ll be horrified, probably crushed that his father and idol has turned into a (metaphorical) monster, but he will survive. Lucidity still hopes for Nova’s sake that he never finds out.
And yknow what.
Maybe on one of those visits, after the Meme Squad has put together all the information on the Diabolicule as they can find despite not knowing what to do with it, Ink happens to pop in to check on the kids at the same time.
By Lucidity’s request, they haven’t even told her than he’s alive. He hides it well, but he’s not super happy to see her.
He’s glad to see that she’s alive, and doing pretty good! But she could be a huge problem if she finds out what he’s up to. And she very well might.
And she does notice that something’s wrong. He’s not really explaining what he’s been up to, or why he hasn’t come back to tell the survivors he’s alive. Get backup. Something. “oh I just want to keep a low profile” but why? And once she starts asking those questions he gets really evasive, changing the subject entirely.
He asks her not to tell anyone.
She grudgingly promises that she won’t. She mostly means it, too.
But she happens to run into her old friend Error, with Cross and Nightmare.
They didn’t expect her to care, like, a lot, but she’s completely unsurprised to see that Nightmare’s alive and well. She doesn’t even really comment on it. No “oh, I guess Dream’s still alive then. That’s good.” or anything.
They tentatively ask if she’s perhaps seen him, and while she doesn’t answer Nightmare can sense her unease, uncertainty, and suspicion.
He goes “He told you to keep quiet, huh?”
“…Have you seen him?”
“Yep. Unfortunately. Did he actually tell you anything? I’m guessing no, judging by your emotions.”
“He said he was looking for the people who blew up JR, that they were in another MV and he’s been staying there, and that he’s trying to keep a low profile. And he didn’t answer any of my other questions and got really dodgy when I tried to get him to tell me what, exactly, he was doing, and why he hadn’t told anyone that he was alive. Other then apparently Blue and-“
freeze
Cross: Wait, he told Blue? Really??
Error: …Blue and who?
Ink: …uh, you guys?
Cross: Well. He didn’t really tell us. More like we heard some shit then caught him red-handed.
Ink: Wh- ‘caught him red-handed’?
Ink: The hell is he doing???
Nightmare, local lie detector: We’ll tell you if you tell us who the other person—or people—is who knows Dream’s alive
Ink:
Ink: fuck.
In a more crack timeline we transition to Blue’s house with him and the Boyes chilling, and then Nightmare and Error just Appear like “WAS NOBODY GOING TO TELL US WE HAD KIDS?!?” and scaring the shit out of the other three. And cross is just behind her friends watching this like ‘lol’
Tragically I think it’ll be a while yet before Nightmare and Error try to visit the kids. They gotta tell Ink what Lucidity’s actually been up to
So Lucidity finds out that the resistance never ever intended to destroy JR. How ever he ends up finding out, it’s in a way that implies—to him—that the resistance thinks that it being an accident makes it all better.
But this likely included an explanation of what the weapon was. And even if it’s not stated outright, it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out why they made a positivity bomb.
He likely will also find out about the functionally radioactive positivity surrounding the ruins, which he won’t be near as mad about but he’s not thrilled to hear about it, either
Perhaps near the beginning he wouldn’t have cared about who the bomb was originally intended for, but now?
Now, after his life’s work had been obliterated? After everyone he knew and loved (aside from Champ and Nightmare; that he knows of so far) was killed? After losing the home he’d made for himself? After finding people who will not only help him find the resistance, but who he loves so much, even when they annoy the hell out of him?
He can’t let the resistance hurt Shale and Nightshade. They’ve taken so much from him already.
They won’t take his partners, too.
And I think, after finding out what the resistance’s plan actually is, he will work on finding and ending them with the same quiet, absolute dedication that he’d given to his work at Justice Reigns.
He forgets to eat. Forgets to sleep. He spends a lot of time with Shale and Nightshade still, but he hardly ever sleeps with them (both literally and the. other way. the fuck is that called; a euphemism?) anymore.
Even Shale’s starting to look kind of concerned.
But there’s nothing they can say to convince him that he should be eating and sleeping regularly; that he won’t be much good when they find the resistance if he’s starving and sleep-deprived.
He just looks them in the eye, his solemn determination clear even through his exhaustion, and tells them quite plainly, like hes not talking about anything important, that he’s done this before. Pulled nigh-constant all-nighters.
He may not have told them what he learned about the bomb, but not with the intention to hide it from them. He just forgot. So he tells them easily, when they ask why he’s suddenly so…this.
There’s not much they can say after that.
This bomb would’ve sounded horrific (for them, personally) even if they didn’t know what happened to JR. But if there’s no limit on the amount of destruction it can cause…
Yeah, no, they can’t really blame Lucidity for this.
They do eventually manage to convince him to eat normally, at least. With Jasper’s help. Which is basically making something they know Lucidity especially likes and bringing it over, because *no one* can resist Jasper’s cooking once they’ve had a taste.
Officially the nature of Lucidity's feelings regarding Nightmare is up to interpretation, but due to the nature of DreamSwap, damn near anything is possible. and i'm gonna just play with the idea of it being romantic for a bit.
Nightmare definitely had a crush on Dream when they were kids. Like. That's actually canon. Dream I don't think ever knew.
Lucidity certainly didn't.
But if any of those feelings remain, Lucidity will notice pretty quickly now. Unless him going evil has finally made Nightmare go 'oh jesus christ no', which I find unlikely since Nightmare also finds out that Lucidity still cares about him at about the same time. that's going to complicate things a bit.
i could go on this tangent about a hyper-specific scenario i had in my head, but it'd involve way too much backstory about an overly complicated AU that isn't ready to be shared yet, so i'll just stow that away and pull out the basic themes of it.
If Lucidity ever happens upon Nightmare when he's in danger, Lucidity won't hesitate to try and save him. Generally Nightmare doesn't get into the kind of trouble where he needs saving, but Lucidity's fucking paranoid about losing people, so he just swoops in and gets rid of the problem as fast as possible no matter how small it is, or if Nightmare seems to be handling it just fine.
This wouldn't change if, somehow, probably through some outside interference, their destiny bond was broken.
if Nightmare's crush hasn't fully gone away, and if Lucidity really does save his ass from certain doom, that crush is going to suddenly come back like 10x worse and he's going to be a mess about it.
Lucidity would love to have Nightmare stay with him, Shale, and Nightshade. If he wasn't absolutely convinced that Nightmare's moral compass was so strong he'd only agree so he could try and stop them from their shit by messing stuff up from the inside, he'd have given the offer to Nightmare ages ago. This applies to non-romantic versions as well, but in the romantic version Lucidity is also looking for a way for him, Shale, and Nightshade to get along. His boyfriends don't all have to date, but they need to be able to peacefully co-exist. otherwise things are going to be. uh. difficult
He's right about Nightmare, though. Even if Nightmare's romantic feelings for him got turned up to 11, he's not just going to run off with him. He's kind of thinking about it, but in a 'how can i get him to Not Do This and just stay with me' way, rather than 'would it really be so bad? it's not like he's going to hurt me. or people I care about. ...right?'
cross and error would be teasing Nightmare about being a disaster gay, but they're a little more concerned that he's considering it at all. In any way. He's also really distressed about this, and they absolutely understand why! no fucking idea how to help him though.
All that said, Lucidity is trying to figure something out. He doesn't necessarily need Nightmare to love him (romantically), he just needs to make absolutely fucking sure that Nightmare stays near and stays safe. And is happy staying with him, without trying to interfere. romantic feelings can be considered afterwards.
I have no idea if that's going to work out for him. It probably will in one timeline, because i love making things worse, but I'm not sure how yet, or if that will be the main timeline.
I do know that it'll be a hell of a lot harder so long as Cross and Error are there. Even if Nightmare's too busy being a fucking disaster to remember-slash-notice, those two are absolutely going to notice that lucidity's being Weird. And his boyfriends are, too. They might not pick up on what exactly it is but they'll figure it out eventually. And they're certainly not letting nightmare go off alone to see Lucidity and his boyfriends; especially not fucking Shale
'fucking shale' (adjective + noun; derogatory) doesn't have the same ring to it as 'fucking obsidian' (adjective + noun; derogatory)
Nightmare might think they're overreacting sometimes, but they've konwn each other long enough and been through enough together that, unless lucidity can talk to him alone and make him doubt his friends, he absolutely trusts their judgement. Even if Lucidity does get him alone, Nightmare knows that Lucidity never had a great opinion of Cross, so pretty much anything negative he says about her is going to be taken with a whole mountain of salt chunks. And once he starts on Cross, Nightmare will be more dubious about anything negative Lucidity says about Error.
Nightmare's very smart. And he's had some bad run-ins with people. He knows to look out for certain things. He knows he shouldn't trust Lucidity after he's clearly lost his head and has been hanging out with a couple of nasty bastards (whom night may or may not know are manipulative pieces of shit anyways).
Unfortunately, he (and also Cross and Error, admittedly) is still having trouble believing that Lucidity's changed this much in such a short amount of time. The Lucidity he knew before, who ran Justice Reigns, wouldn't try to turn him against his friends just for his own gain. The Lucidity he knew before wouldn't try to manipulate him at all. And if his crush has gotten way way stronger, that's...that's probably going to color his perception a bit. No matter how hard he tries to do otherwise.
Also. As a general rule I consider breaking the destiny bond a Good Thing. While neither of them are likely to try to get themselves killed, it’s nice to know that they’re not going to die for the other’s mistakes.
Lucidity would not want it to be broken. Particularly in the context i mentioned above, where someone is trying to kill Nightmare, but very much wants Lucidity alive. This means that destiny bond is more or less keeping Nightmare alive.
He wouldn’t think much of it normally, without influence from wholly different multiverses. But if anyone’s actively trying to sever the destiny bond they almost definitely want one of them dead, and Lucidity is going to assume its Nightmare until further notice. And he isn’t going to let that happen if he has anything to say about it.
Your rambles about Lucidity (your au's spin on DS!Dream) has had me HOOKED, especially seeing his descent into madness. Also that post about Sweammare??? Love that, i humbly ask thee for more (on my knees begging, actually).
It would also actually be funny to know what Nightmare thinks of Shale and Nightshade... If Nightmare were to (somehow) end up in a relationship with Lucidity, i bet Shale and Nightshade would have many thoughts on that
I also have a feeling they (Shale and Nightshade) would bully Nightmare really hard when Lucidity isn't looking (because Lucidity would NOT want anything happening to Nightmare, but that doesn't mea they can't bully/tease Nightmare a bit when Lucidity isn't looking...)
Anyways, thank you for your thoughts and your story, love it, love everything please keeping making more am so invested rn...
awww thank you :] lucidity’s so fucked up <33
I might be able to give more sweammare but it’ll have to be after work
Nightmare doesn’t trust Shale and Nightshade at all. He’s pretty sure Lucidity’s the reason Shale’s been better about some things, but given what he’s learned about the bastard he’s real sure Shale hasn’t just suddenly decided to draw the line there. And tbh Shale just has the most rancid vibes in general
And Nightshade just…on the outside, he’s the kind of smooth, confident pretty boy that Nightmare might get a huge crush on, but damn near everything he says sets off alarm bells in Nightmare’s head. The fact that he’s close with Shale isn’t help with that. And he, across, and Error have found very little about Nightshade (especially compared to Shale), which makes Nightmare even more suspicious. Just how much is he hiding…?
Shale and Nightshade, on the other hand, probably think Nightmare is cute, in the sense that He Looks Cute and that they think he’s a naïve fool who’d easily manipulated. And once Lucidity gets Nightmare to join his evil polycule, Shale and Nightshade will try to make him stay in the manor, even if they don’t have personal emotional attachments. Aside from other reasons to keep someone around who you think is cute, it would make it a little easier on them and Lucidity if they all knew where he was. Despite Lucidity telling them he’s much more clever than they think, they still severely underestimate him.
They also don’t realize how fricken annoying he’d be (mainly to Shale) if he stops being afraid of them. He doesn’t particularly want to get stabbed for trying to prank either of them, but if he’s convinced they’re chill, then all bets are off. He will test his limits with each of them. He will replace all of shale’s 57 black shirts (exaggeration) with nearly identical ones that he partially bleached. He will steal all of Nightshade’s shoes and hide them around the manor. He’s an agent of fucking chaos and they are not prepared.
Unfortunately for Nightmare, his brand of intentionally annoying is rather similar to Nightshade’s, so as much as Shale’s going to bitch about he’s also becoming more attached to the little shit
They do tease Nightmare a lot, but Nightshade’s teasing is ‘friendly’ because he’s mainly just trying to make Nightmare less and less likely to realize something’s wrong.
Shale’s more of an actual bully, but he’s toeing the line between actual harassment and affectionate teasing (which he pretends isn’t affectionate at all, regardless) for the same reasons Nightshade keeps his teasing sounding friendly
After a certain point, Nightshade and Nightmare’s flirting with each other is just affectionate teasing and the not-too-rare dirty joke.
Nightmare’s favorite way of showing that he likes you is pranking you, so if Shale ever gets fed up with Nightmare’s bullshit and tries to turn the tables-
…well. one, it won’t work, because Shale hasn’t pranked anyone in decades (if ever) and Nightmare has been doing it for decades, so Nightmare sees it coming a mile away. But the fact that he tried at all is very much encouraging Nightmare’s bullshit
so like…TLDR they do like him, but he needs to stay well the fuck away from them for his own good. Not that that’s a surprise; the Jet and Obsidian alts are being manipulative and shit? Whoa…who could’ve guessed…?
And as (I…think?) I said, once Nightmare caves and decides he does want to be with Lucidity (specifically romantically), Lucidity won’t care what Shale and Nightshade do so long as they don’t physically injure (or really upset) Nightmare. So when they start trying to ‘convince’ him to stay in the manor, he’ll pretend he doesn’t see a thing
heroforge added an actual husky dog body + face, so obviously i had to give Lucidity his Boye
champ looks like he's trying really, really hard to have a thought, and i think it's hilarious, but mostly i'm really sad that i couldn't move his eyes or head. I coudln't even give him a tongue to stick out.
also i accidentally saved that over the actual reference. so. um. oopsies. i guess that's lost to the ether now
Imagine real quick. You have spent one hundred years trying to make the world a better place. Some people say your methods aren't...ideal, but you're confident you're making a positive impact.
You have created so many new branches since you first founded your organization. There's medical research. An exceptional hospital. An orphanage. Apartments. Rehab for criminals and addicts.
Most everyone you know is here. Your friends. Maybe a few you'd think of as family, though after all this time you can't really bring yourself to get too close to anyone. Especially after them. But still.
This is your home. Your life's work. You've poured your heart and soul into this.
And now imagine, one day, somehow, it was all destroyed.
No warning. The castle that had served as your base of operations--you're home--has been turned to dust.
You know there were no survivors. Their emotions burned so brightly, and now there was an empty void. The only ones who'd survived were you, and maybe a few of the teams you sent out earlier that day.
In an instant, everything you had was ripped away. Everything.
And you know exactly who did it.
This is how Lucidity ended up losing his goddamn mind.
I was just going to have one big essay with some vaguely defined sections, but then I realized it was so ungodly long it'd probably take three years to read, so i'm going to cut it into three or four (or. maybe five?) pieces. This is part 1.
The Catalyst
It started with the resistance in JMV finding Dreamswap.
At this point in time, Nightshade and Dark have unofficially moved into the manor. Nightshade has decided helping Shale would be entertaining (also they’re gay), and Dark is trying to quietly and gently get Jade out of there (with little success, presently). The resistance is not having a good time with Jet now being part of the team.
So, after hearing a lot about JR, Peridot decided to ask Lucidity for help. Some details still need to be ironed out on my end, but she had a whole plan. Their request, a partial solution to suggest, and some way to repay him for his help.
Their potential solution was a weapon they had been working on for a while. An explosive device powered by positivity, which takes the little bit of positivity it’s given and very quickly produces more, before exploding. The explosion would be partly your typical bomb explosion, and partly a violent boom of highly concentrated positivity. A corrupt that survives the initial explosion would more than likely be killed by the positivity.
But they hadn’t been able to test it yet.
Because the only two people in the multiverse left with the Tree’s positive magic are Jade, who’s stuck in the manor, and Quartz, who’s constantly on the run and would probably rather chew her own arm off than give that away.
They may, with an incredible amount of effort on Peridot’s part, have been able to simulate a very small-scale version of it.
But, either because Peridot (a spirit) didn’t come to DreamSwap herself and saw how much magic was just sitting in the air around JR, or they didn’t realize how sensitive the prototype was, they brought it to show Lucidity, and it reacted to the ambient positivity in the area.
This ambience was a result of both Lucidity’s radiant ass living there for about a hundred years, and the positive emotions of the hundreds if not thousands of people who staff and/or live in the castle.
No human or monster can feel it, but any spirit who doesn’t live there (literally anyone except Lucidity) would notice. Immediately.
And it turned out, the weapon didn’t store a certain amount of energy before exploding. It exponentially increased the amount of positivity that it’s given. The strength and concentration of the positivity also affects the size and strength of the less magical part of the explosion.
And there was far more positivity in the air than they could’ve ever hoped to acquire in their home MV.
So…they pretty much brought a radiance nuke to JR and it went off because the air was too magical. There’s a lot of lingering positivity in the area. There will likely be severe consequences in the environment and any life in the area that wasn’t killed by the initial explosion.
It was an accident.
But they would never be able to make it right. Not in their own eyes, and especially not Lucidity’s.
Lucidity was not in JR. But he was in the same universe. He was taking Champion out. He hasn’t been able to get out much with Champ, so he’s taken the whooole day off to both relax and to spend time with his dog.
They’re close enough to the castle that they can see it. And while they’re not close enough to get hurt, they’re close enough that they can feel the shockwave from the explosion.
Lucidity sees JR start to crumble before the shockwave reaches them.
Lucidity is losing his shit. He’s very, very not okay. He’s in shock, grieving the loss of damn near everyone he knows, his home, and his lifelong work, and he’s fucking furious.
Lucidity doesn’t know who these people were, but he does know that they were part of an organization. The idiots who brought the weapon noticed it had been activated, and managed to run far enough that they hadn’t been vaporized in the blast. He found their clothes, several meters away from the rubble, and each had an unusual pin with a logo he’d never seen before.
There must’ve been more of them.
And this is the official start of his descent into (relatively) minor madness.
