#mourtair

[grunlaureiser]

Work fragment. The whole piece is not finished yet, and it (likely) won't be posted here because it's not about the Loop, but its characters are here so I might as well post this part.

[grunlaureiser]

Musical inspiration: Yabujin - BAATH

Pike is a happy little beast. Despite being a pyro, he loves water and is a very good swimmer. Apart from burning people alive, it is one of his few joys in this world. The gas mask grew dead into his head, sealing his nose, melting his ears, laminating his eyes under the glass, and twisting his mouth to an extent that even though the mouth is open, he still cannot speak. However, Pike has an open frontal nose in his crest, and he happily uses it as a snorkel for diving. At the same time, water procedures wash away the sharp burnt smell from inside his crest that most of the time prevents him from smelling anything else (but even then his sense of smell barely works).

The fireproof suit that became one with his skin prevents him from feeling the wetness of the water, and Pike has poor sense of touch and temperature in general. When swimming, he does not feel the waterness, but weightlessness and the soothing swaying of his body back and forth with the waves. It feels neat.

[grunlaureiser]

An afterword to the episode from the video. If you haven't seen it yet, do watch it! I loved every second of it.

It is very likely that Spy ventured into the deeper parts of the base, where the nonviolent-occupied people are concentrated, where clashes are less frequent - this is the belly of the base, unexpected guests are not supposed to be here. On ‘established’ maps with triple shifting fights, a box of equipment or a first aid kit may drop from a killed person, and a spontaneous wave of save will create a spawn point for it exactly where it landed. From then on, you can pick it up as many times as you want, after a while it will reappear there again. Sometimes the locals themselves drop supplies where they want them to appear in the future. In the inner parts of long-established bases, things are more scarce for purely statistical reasons: they are rarely dropped in combat, and there's not that much need to have them placed beforehand.

Spy did the right thing and found a tourniquet to increase the chances of getting to the nearest first aid kit, and maybe even continue with the task. But the arm is already blue. It returns to its default color because the tissues are dying.

[grunlaureiser]

AU posting it is then! Let's see how it performs.

The lack of normal food in the Loop is often mentioned in the context of the unhealthy culinary interests of the locals in each other, but rarely in the context of the very fact that some edible things are rare - while this is an important moment as well. Precious metals or stones are valued little in the Loop. The usual money is used for applied purposes at most: as a toy, as a material for crafts, to make a decision by tossing a coin and such. These things are not free, but usually very cheap - their value is equal to their utility and this is it, this is not currency. But you can get so much for tea and coffee if you know how to make a good use of it! You can sell it or adjust your own social status. Like wine - which is freely consumed here without any second thoughts - tea and coffee only become more valuable with time. It is prestigious to own a pack, even if the product itself it is the lowest-grade garbage hay ever produced.

Partly the high price is kept high artificially: very few people would want to waste such an expensive item on silly things like a tasteless tea party with the risk that the Machine will suddenly copy the thing and make two packs, and then four, and then ten. One wrong teacup, and you're on a brink of inflation! Besides this, why drink some horrible tea when you can have a much more tasty soda, beer or, if you're a big connoisseur, a glass of wine. So the deficit remains a deficit for the rich, who, as we know, have their own financial quirks.

This does not mean, of course, that tea and coffee are never brewed anywhere. It's still possible to use them for their intended purpose (they say there are even places where they are so plentiful that they cost nothing). But a tea or coffee party is always a serious event, usually accompanied by equally serious matters between the serious people.

* Except for Maniac. He gets his coffee in large quantities in an original way, and because of the way the method works, there's a chance it's not even coffee. Spy, who has unlimited access to Maniac, also doesn't have to worry about his own wealth. *The two spies' here are called Zinzin (wearing a tie) and Nick (wearing a bowtie). Zinzin is more or less okay with the nickname, while Nick is disgusted with his, but the more they resist, the more persistently they are called precisely that. If they take offense, then it must be fun, no matter the actual reason. They also sometimes ridicule each other for the same reason to let the steam out. Anyway, could have been worse. Both of them, when required, actively cooperate with Spy in his favor in exchange for their own benefit. They have a nice status, a safe place to rest, and are treated well among Spy's close people.

[grunlaureiser]

hi me again [emoji with sunglasses doing thumbs up image]

i would like to hear about eugene his big sad eyes(?) and expression have captured me but that brings the question

are his eyes really big and fused together? or are the two black holes a view into his skull with the white part in the middle being the bone of his nose bridge/part of his skull?? lots to think about

what exactly ARE deadmates? how are they brought into existence? i am a little behind on my Learning About The Loop mission and i haven’t yet figured out what deadmates are uuhhh

and if you can would you perhaps name and show most (or all, SOLELYYY depending on how many there are) of the characters?? if there’s way too many then you could show off the most important ones IF that’s something that can be done GAHHH

also i want to say i love the scouders again i just feel like thats something that needs to be said again because they are so silliest to me YAAAYYYY scouders scouders scouders ;D

Welcome back! I'm glad you like all of this so much :3

Eugene does not have alive eyes. The big fused thing is the muzzle of the scattergun, and if you somehow get him to raise the eyebrows, you'll find its front sight hiding under the piece of skin. The hole goes all the way to the back of his skull.

Deadmates are the living errors of the Machine. They are very rare since normally, the errors of such magnitude are not compatible with existing in any form, and most erratic clones don't even get to be spawned in the first place. And, for some reason, those who were killed by the deadmates can't spawn new deadmates. They can have various properties, some god-like, some useless, some fancy neutral, depending on how their code was damaged. Common traits include -1 HP, which makes them unkillable (but damageable) and unrespawnable, so-called dead senses and random useful properties that they themselves call Gifts. Eugene's gift is being a living 3d printer; when he has enough materials he can create any object he's familiar with and basically functions as a walking dispenser. The "blood" leaking from his mouth and eyes is actually the material he prints things with. Dangerous objects (sharp, too big, etc) can severely damage his body while he's making them, or get stuck inside of him.

The dead senses are the counterparts of the regular alive senses. Eugene, having no alive eyes, has one of the best dead sights and sees very well. But very differently. He also is physically the strongest of all deadmates. Their team color is gray (though Sturm has blue uber because a white liquid may look... undesirable), and neither RED nor BLU tech reacts to them due to them being assigned to "a third" team. Deadmates may, but are not bound to have marks that imply how they died before respawning for the last time. Some of them looking like walking corpses has led to the name, although it's not technically correct. All Loop inhabitants normally have several nicknames for different purposes, but deadmates took an extra step and believe that every deadmate should have an appropriate name they should use from now on. Getting a name after being reborn into an error abomination is very symbolic to them. Deadmate characters: Ghost - the trojan spy, leader of the deadmates Eugene - the dispenser scout (is unable to get a proper nickname due to not responding to anything else besides variations of Eugene) Sturm - the blutsauger medic Drang - the bodyless medic almost always accompanying Sturm Mass - the texture glitch demo Rotten - the high ping soldier Shells - the big shot engie Grinning - the transmitter sniper Gibus - the jigsaw heavy (no illustration yet because I'm unsure on how to properly depict his gift) Their "team" has no pyro.

There are too many characters in the Loop, and the issue is I never aimed to write a single coherent story within the AU, or even to write any story at all. This is all random and spontaneous, so there are values and numbers of lore with no character arcs to follow along. The most important to me personally is Maniac. This blog is designed after his skin pattern:

[grunlaureiser]

Hullo!

I was curious about the Mourtairs; do they happen to have a preferred diet? :’-O

Hallo freund! The short answer is "the same as humans." Mourtairs are mutated humans and normally retain their human qualities, the diet being one of them. The long answer is "it depends on the personality." Mourts can't taste, only smell, which could affect their preferences. Mourts are designed to merge with different objects, sometimes inorganic, and to renew or grow those parts back, they will have to eat something that contains the required compounds. They are not suited for chewing, so gulping the food whole becomes a more comfortable way of consuming things for them. And, to top it all off, they are noticeably more resistant to food poisoning than regular humans. They still can be poisoned, though. Maniac often explores the limits of his body and boundaries of his diet by trying to rot his food, melt it in acid and lye, burn, macerate, and so on, and so on. Mirage's diet had a plenty of alcohol even back when he was a pure human, now it is obligatory. He also has to eat and drink a lot, and I mean a lot, because one of his attacks is stomach acid spewing. Pike can be found tasting or huffing gasoline or other flammables (no, not to get high). Spy does his best to control his food so that it is as "human" as possible. He won't eat anything that appears stale, but he cannot know for sure. Note: the mourtair are not unique to the Loop. They can live anywhere where humans live.

[grunlaureiser]

[grunlaureiser]