#relapse au

[retrocandyart]

I keep putting off posting about my Omori AU... more info under the cut!

[asherisawkward]

Update to the Relapse AU

In this AU, Caleb drags Philip to a lake for them to relax and have some fun, but they end up falling into the Boiling Isles and meeting Evelyn. Initially, both of the brothers are suspicious and on guard around her, but Caleb starts opening up to Evelyn, and they become friends.

They don’t know quite where there portal back is, so they live together for a little while. Philip is begrudging tolerates Evelyn while they search for a way home. As they spend time together, Caleb and Evelyn start to bond and develop crushes, but the former refuses to move further until Philip is okay with witches to prevent any feelings of betrayal. It takes a lot of effort, but they figure out foods that humans can eat and keep those in stock.

Philip is being the slowest pot to ever boil, but he’s warming up one micro-degree at a time. Then he gets the common mold. I headcanon Philip as the type of child to get the flu every year and almost die each time he gets it. And when Philip gets something his body isn’t used to handling, it goes really badly. Evelyn tends to him while he’s sick due to her resistance to the illness, and Caleb finally locates the portal home. After consultation, the three of them decide that they will wait until Philip is better to go home so nobody gets sick in Gravesfield.

Caleb packs and prepares obsessively, fine tuning a story of how they got lost in the woods and came across a cottage belonging to a woman who rescued them. Evelyn sees that Philip isn’t better and, without talking to Caleb, administers the medicine given to witches and demons that get the Common Mold. In this AU, Hemlock is commonly used in healing potions. Philip gets drastically worse, and Evelyn calls Caleb in.

After a lot of probing about the ingredients, Evelyn tells Caleb everything in the potion, and Caleb sees red. He believes that after all the time they’ve spent in the demon realm and the difficulties they’ve had with finding things they can eat, Evelyn should have NEVER presumed to give anything to Philip without checking with him first. As such, he mischaracterizes her negligence as intentional harm.

This perceived attack on his baby brother has him going back into full witch hunter mode, and he carries Philip to the natural portal and runs back to Gravesfield to get a doctor. He doesn’t realize that he’s carrying a corpse by the time he arrives until the doctor says there’s nothing he can do. With that, Caleb explains the whole story, buries his brother, and sets off to the Boiling Isles to get revenge.

Due to his view that Philip was a victim of witchcraft, he harbors no ill intentions for the situation and refuses to defile his baby brother’s body with witchcraft. Caleb has no such reservations about his own humanity. It’s a quest for vengeance, and he isn’t hiding from that fact.

Over time, he starts manipulating the people he comes across and behaving as he did with Evelyn. This prevents a trail of bodies being led back to him. Caleb has no interest in going back to Gravesfield, instead focusing solely on finding the Collector for access to magic.

He mutilates his body with Wild Magic by replacing parts of his body with various elements of magic—including ingesting Titan’s Blood and surgically implanting a Galderstone inside of himself. This results in a curse of his own, but there are no sentient voices, as he never consumes Palismen. Caleb amasses power and creates a cult by claiming he’s essentially Titan Jesus. The glyphs and Titan’s Blood in his veins are proof, and it gives him a way to explain his unusually long lifespan to the populace.

Meanwhile, he’s fond of the Collector, who reminds him of Philip as a child, and spends a lot more time interacting with him as a form of projection onto them and regression to ease his grief.

Collector (affectionately nicknamed ‘Collie’) begins noticing this and creates an empty shell of Philip’s childhood self, represented as Mindscape Belos. There’s no intelligence behind it, and it’s not even truly sentient, but Caleb latches onto it obsessively, though he doesn’t reveal him to the public.

By this point, Luz is arriving to the Boiling Isles, and Caleb becomes focused on getting her away from witches and demons so she won’t be hurt. As such, he makes a proclamation that all humans found are to be brought to him, and adds another excuse to criminalize Eda (also using Sigils like Belos). This means that Luz and Eda would have to play it very carefully.

There is, of course, lingering resentment towards the Clawthorne sisters do to their relation to Evelyn. He never caught her, so Caleb frequently stresses or torments Lilith as displaced vengeance and makes Eda almost unable to go out in public.

[meekzhyu]

ship chart for my take on the relapse au. very accurate much lovings

[ninblahgo]

...H e l p

I just

Thiutht of

An AU

Where

Where-

Tox and Paleman

Fricken uh, relapse into their old ways of being villains (LEGO Ultra Agents)

But like, they don't serve anyone this time- and they're just a villain duo

[mercurys-mailroom]

Here’s Relapse! Thought he needed a ref as well!

[retrocandyart]

Working on Aubrey's design for my Relapse AU, I'll do more doodles and a proper reference for this concept soon but I'm soooo tiiiired

[asherisawkward]

I’m drawing Caleb’s monster form from my Relapse AU. He passes it off to the public as “being able to temporarily channel his past form.”

You cannot imagine the dread I feel at going to draw Caleb’s monster form and being forced to look up furries because I’m basing him off of a wolf/bird mix pretending to be a Titan (with some Titan features).

All because I need references for the stupid anthropomorphic canine legs.

[asherisawkward]

Relapse AU Character Art

Pardon me, this is a ramble in no particular order with not a lot of sense.

First of all, Caleb goes by “Arioch,” which is an angel in Biblical mythology who fell in order to pursue vengeance. He made his mask based on his “Golden Guard” mask and Philip’s mask. I headcanon that the idea of the “Golden Guard” came from Philip’s desire to be a Witch Hunter General, and Caleb joked that since he’s a blond and protects him, he should be called the Golden Guard and made his own mask.

His coven system focuses on the restriction rather than elimination of mixing magic. Witches are allowed to choose up to two or three covens in order to create more efficient and specialized magic users.

His main color scheme does involve gold like Philip’s version of the Boiling Isles, but he prefers to use deeper golds contrasted with cream as opposed to white. Maybe coffee colored accents.

I still don’t know if the way that Caleb is going to get curse mimics Philip’s or not, but it will relate to the consumption of magic, like basilisks do. His own monstrous form has sharper teeth and is more ragged/thorny than Philip’s. This is meant to be more symbolic of the way his obsession with revenge is hurting both himself and others, restricting his potential and opportunities to grow.

Their relationship is much healthier than Philip and Collector’s because Caleb is fond of their excited and childlike nature. He does take time away from his job as Emperor semi-frequently in order to play games varying from tag to just about anything else.

Caleb meets the Collector in much the same manner that Philip does: through the manipulation of Lilith and Luz during time-pool shenanigans. However, his dislike for witches is more personal, so he has a harder time lying and pretending than Philip. He explains to them by saying he was betrayed by someone and does not want to risk it yet.

For the Day of Unity, it will still utilize the draining spell provided by the Collector. However, Caleb actually honors his deal with them due to his fondness for their childlike personality and the way it reminds him of Philip.

Instead, the Owl House crew stop the spell by convincing him that it would be much more fun to play Owl House first and that they can finish Caleb’s game afterwards once the game is over. Of course, Caleb becomes furious at what he considers to be a betrayal at his only companion these long years. He attacks them, and the Collector flicks him down the skull in response.

Now for Philip! Caleb does not make grimwalkers of his brother the way that Philip does in canon. He does not feel abandoned by him because he was killed instead of leaving. He also does not worry for the salvation of Philip’s soul because he did not abandon the values that Puritans held. However, Caleb experiences extreme guilt associated with his death and loneliness from the loss of connection.

His solution? He asks the Collector to give him a spell that can create a vessel. It takes the form of his choosing and the personality from the memories associated with the body’s form.

Using it, he makes a version of Philip from his early childhood (think Inner Philip in Hollow Mind) because that is when he has the happiest memories associated with him, as his teenage form was the one he died in.

He calls the child Pip (who will hereafter be referred to as such) because his grief makes him desperate for any escape from the knowledge of his brother’s demise. Pip is introduced to the public as Caleb’s son and heir, but he has no public appearances and rarely (if ever) leaves the castle.

He spends most of his time with Caleb or playing with the Collector, who he considers a good friend of his. They have lots of play dates. Pip has been alive for about six years by the time that Luz arrives at the Boiling Isles. However, the nature of how he was made means that he doesn’t age like normal people do.

Both the Collector and Caleb are thrilled by this because Caleb doesn’t want Pip to grow older than Philip, while Collector sees him as the eternal best friend he has always wanted. Additionally, it provides an interesting opportunity for Eda to…surprise adopt…the kid, fearing he is in an abusive family situation. The doodle bear the staff and the full drawing of Caleb is a pretty accurate representation of what his reaction is.

I headcanon that Philip was nonverbal as a child because he did not say anything as a child in Hollow Mind, and then he immediately started an almost monologue once he was big again. Pip, while not entirely nonverbal, spends more time not talking than talking. In response, he, Caleb, and the Collector have become very good at understanding charades or acting things out when Pip doesn’t have a pencil and paper.

This is it for now. Talk later.