@unpredictably-ghostly hi haunted!!! It's so sad living in such a different time zone from you, because I'm always so delighted to talk with you! Your art is so lovely, and i hope we can both reach our art improvement goals!
Ps please never apologize and never stop sharing pictures of your kitty, she's adorable and I'm in love with her
hey hi hello!!! could i trouble you for anything about the storybook au? just had a look through the tag and oh man i love it!!! i'm especially interested in the ghosts, and if they play any kind of role in the story? -unexpectedly-haunted
HIIII OMG HI the storybook au is my BABY my most darling boy
So the main story is in the last life setting, with the specific factions and terrains and such, but the ghosts are actually from the third life era, several centuries in the past!
The time that the ghosts of the Red King and the Hand are from follows the same timeline event that canon does, but simplified or compacted into one life. The one that they actually die to is their last one that takes them out of the game, during the siege of Dogwarts.
But they weren't always the inseparable king and hand. Once upon a time, there was a simple blacksmith in his hilltop forge, and a bard that came along the bend.
The bard had been travelling far and wide, telling fantastic stories to the people he boarded with, and the blacksmith was no different. But the blacksmith was also a charismatic storyteller, and they clicked so easily. He had exceptional talent within his forge as well, with special magic to apply to the armour, weapon and tools he created. Pots that never sprung holes. Gauntlets that bore twice the damage before they broke. When the bard left again, he came back, not long after having told surrounding villages about the blacksmith's talent. But talent and skill is always sought after, hunted down for one's own gain.
The blacksmith never wished to be a lord. The bard never wished to be a hand. But when threat approached their home, where people had settled around the forge, they had to take a stand one way or another. Along side them, a small army of trusted men and militia from their lowly village. A demolitionist, a braveheart, a mountainman. Fear begun to set in for Dogwarts and its citizens when a planted explosion rattles the gates of the township, the lord caught in it and heavily injured.
There's rumours of snowfall one spring, on the night of a full moon. When the king had called his most loyal hand to the courtyard and placed upon his hands the finest of Dogwarts' forge, a crystalline axe. Two young men stood beneath the eyes of the stars and the hard, unblinking stare of the moon, the whispers of the night, hopelessly in love and running out of time as enemies close in on their territory.
That night, the lord of Dogwarts fell with the symphony of his lover's wails, but the Red King rose. A chill swallowed the courtyard as snow fell like blossoms, and the Lord, cold to the touch and bleeding from the head, helped his Hand to his feet. Deep, ancient magic thrummed through them like the beating of their hearts.
They lose. It was in their fate to lose, left to decompose in the fields of their village.
The enemy was not unfamiliar with magic. Perhaps it is why they hunted the mage king so ruthlessly. The young wizard who had struck down both the King and the Hand entombs their souls within storybooks. History books, even, written by the winners. Scriptures that detail the two young men as beasts fuelled by bloodlust, blinded by war and vengeance, described as not an ounce of humanity in their blackened hearts. Sealed in separate books, one burgundy and the other forest green, the ghosts of the King and the Hand are locked away apart from each other for the next several centuries.
However, that wizard was only in the beginning of his magical career. His powers were amateur, and little by little, fractions of soul seeped from the spines of the storybooks as they travelled between libraries until settling in the archives of Spawn, a central neutral kingdom in the present timeline. And those small portions of soul found their way back into the life cycle, eventually forming Sir Ren Digenty of the Shadowlands and Councillor Martyn Littlewood of the Southlands.
Eventually in the story, Ren and Martyn open the books separately, not knowing that they released the souls of their ancestors. The fun part tho is that Ren opens the green book and Martyn the red one, and the Hand and Red King attaches to the opposite reincarnate! Because they're of the same soul too, Ren and the Red King and Maryn and the Hand each are linked in feeling and memory. No matter how far away the ghosts are from the reincarnations, they still feel what the other counterpart is feeling.
hey i'd love to see the picrews of your AU stacys!
Hi yes sorry this is a bit late I decided to make a few more, haha. Here, I'll put them under the cut!
Here's normal Stacy again:
Inverted Stacy:
Switch Stacy:
Horror septics Stacy:
Stacy from the Bad End ask blog:
Stacy from the Rift arg--aka, the break-between-the-walls blog:
Stacy from the Facility JSE blog (she hasn't appeared there yet):
Fantasy Masks Stacy:
And finally MerMay Stacy:
There are more of these lovely girls, but they don't feature too heavily in the Stitched AU or the PW timeline, so I didn't include them. Also I haven't got a good mental image of Septic Heroes Stacy yet, but she will be in that story!
Blue, Marvin, this is not your fault! You're more than whatever role Anti wanted you to play, and you're not any less worthy if you're not enough on your own. That is far too much to expect of yourself, especially in such a terrible situation as this. You're part of a family, of a team, and you can win together. Oh and dear, dysphoria is horrible, but there is help for it. There is recovery and healing and a way forward. It's all possible, love, and you deserve comfort.
“Blue,” calls Chase, moving towards him. “Blue, don’t listen to that part of yourself.”
“This is not me!” screams Blue, his nails scratching at the face of the shadow as it struggles to hold him down. “This is what Anti did to me! This is what he left on me! Once I kill him - and it - it will be done!”
“That’s not true, Blue!”
Blue looks up at Chase, anguished, but before he can speak, Chase is there, helping shove the pair of them apart and pinning the false Blue to the ground.
“You don’t have to hate yourself so much just because you couldn’t save us earlier or because Anti used you!” cries Chase, holding him down as gently as he can. “You never should have been left alone to fight him, to save us all. Now we’re together, Blue, and you can’t just drown in that despair! Trust me, I know better than anyone how terrible it is to be possessed and used like that. Blue, fuck, Blue - I love you. Don’t hate yourself. For me?”
The shadow is sobbing under his hands. Gripping at his wrists. Blue stares at it, mouth open, eyes wet.
“Blue,” says Chase, turning to look up at him. “You’re going to recover from this. Forgive yourself, bro. You are not alone and you never, ever will be again.”
For the ask game! Burnt sienna (is there a painting that brings you peace when you look at it), and english red (what animal do you relate to most). Hope you're having a nice day, love your writing and your blog!
in the well of the great wave at kanegawa, for SURE. i love the painting it’s my absolute favorite.