yay another art plan is done (hoping to not lose all the other ones in my head)
at first i just wanted to make a post with only Zeefarer, and specifically tell a story about why a version of her as a sequencer is even scarier than ONE OF THE SCARIEST canon variants, and how did we even come to this
but another idea with this suddenly happened, and i love it so much too (i've had an idea of making references for fl/ss characters like i did for Kys, and i think that's when i'm gonna explain everything, THERE'S GONNA BE A LOT OF TEXT, AGAIN)
actually it's a silly trend that i've of course MISSED, but today i'm gonna talk about those two BECAUSE!!!! ABSOLUTELY SUDDENLY THIS PAIR TURNED OUT TO BE MORE INTERESTING THAN JUST A "HEEHEE I LOVE THOSE CHARACTERS, THEY'RE A COUPLE NOW"
at first it was actually like this, that's a normal situation for me
BUT HERE'S AT LEAST TWO SITUATIONS THAT MAKE THEM AWESOME
(I have to cut posts so often, I LOVE WRITING LETTERS SO MUCH)
if you've played through icarian cup, you know that the main thing about Zeefarer is her neverending lexicon of zailor speech, which is not just a fun detail, but also a part of her drama as a character, because the only one who understands her and is her only actual friend (and a translator) is a boot from Polythreme, but here's a thing, SHE LOSES IT TOO (by her own will) AFTER THE RACE (in our variant) as well as her crew, which could at least half understand her, and which probably ended up becoming sequencers
that's already a situation
BUT WE ALSO HAVE DIPLOMAT
who doesn't keep diplomatic notes in principle, either because of their boundless cunning, or because of their excellent memory, honestly I think both
AND LITERALLY, when they talk with Zeefarer, they could memorize her speech expressions and sooner or later start to understand her without any help
THIS IS VERY CUTE
i especially can imagine a situation in which the Zeefarer notices this herself, specifically when Diplomat translates her words for another person, just like the helpful boot in the ES (would be nice to draw this too but i'm not promising this)
AND HERE'S A SECOND SITUATION, that happens somewhere in the middle of the first one
as you could guess, in our variant the Zeefarer "wins" but manages to get saved, it's a spoiler, so i'm just gonna tell that despite being saved and the fact that the winner gets to their senses, is actually going through a sort of an adaptation (which is still a headcanon but takes root in many reasons, such as the fact that when he's saved, the Excursionist mentions that his dreams haven't went back to normal) and it's impossible to save them from becoming at least a normal sequencer
and i've already told that the Zeefarer is already in a situation, and that adds more to it, because even if the person can resist it, it's inevitable, and the more they resist the worse is their mental state and this makes it easier for a person to just break and get back to the machine (in our thoughts, you need to at least just get back to the geode)
unfortunately, it's not very easy to break Zeefarer despite the first half of her situation, and she could extend this until something really bad would happen
but thankfully there's a Diplomat who is an informant of the new sequence, they are clearly not allowed to know the true purpose of icarian cup, but here it's obvious that the one who disappears becomes a sequencer (BUT THERE'S A NUANCE, YEAH)
but anyway, we also have the Commodore, who's VERY good at reading people, and definitely knows how does the machine and the sequencers work, so he could understand that the Zeefarer's adaptation would be difficult, and to make sure that everything goes nicely (this is a new sequencer after all, and a useful one), it wouldn't hurt to send somebody to help her (and especially if it's a person who is not a sequencer, i think)
i don't have any ideas of how this dialogue would go, but definitely not that easily due to the Zeefarer's personality and her mental state, but in the end very effective
and despite this whole scary way, we actually come to a happy end, yay
(oh and she also gets her crew back then, not the ship from the race tho, which is kind of funny)
and thanks to Rinja for the help with translation, as usual, yay
One aspect of being alive and having physical form that Jessamine had forgotten entirely about in her long confinement is the frequent need for fresh clothing. When she had dressed herself that morning, so long ago, she'd had no forwarning that the outfit she'd chosen would follow her beyond death, into what came after even the afterlife. There is nothing wrong, per se, with the clothes themselves, but nothing in the wardrobe in her assigned room feels quite... right. Not laundered properly. Too soft. Too... too vulnerable.
And her clothes from home are certainly not impervious to dirt.
She starts close to her quarters- she has been to the station already and noticed the shops lining the streets approaching it. The clothing in the first few shops is... outlandish at best, hems too high and sleeves cropped short, no structure at all to the fabrics used. The High Overseer would likely have a conniption, she thinks with distant anusement, to see someone dressed so outside of the time of the Fugue Feast. He is not, of course, here, but the idea fills her with both a fierce pleasure and a hot, squirming shame regardless.
The shame (and simple prudence), as it always has, wins out.
The shop she finally finds something even passingly suitable at is also odd. It's late afternoon, with the way her attention wanders so easily now drawing the endeavor out far longer than she had intended, and the sun catches sharp on the glass of the long windows in front of the shop, drawing her eye. The majority of the clothing is comprised of frills and lace and dark scalloped edges. Girlish, if girlishness were dark and dismal. Still, there is a display in the lonely corner that draws her in, makes her step inside the shop. She allows the shopkeep to press the outfit into her hands and usher her into a dressing chamber. She may as well.
The bodice is comfortingly stiff, forcing her spine straight and corralling her unruly curves into cleaner, simpler lines. It's rather military in nature, from the squared shoulders to the double row of shining brass buttons, securing dark fabric over the meeting of each side from where the collar touches high on her throat down to where the seam mimics a hem low on her hips. The sleeves come to a sharp point over the backs of her hands, and the skirts fall loose and swirling from her hips to the floor, shushing softly when she shifts. It is a beautiful piece and wholly appropriate, but when she steps out to view herself in the hall mirror, it feels... off.
She looks like one of her old governesses, stern and cold.
Almost absently, her fingers rise to pluck the pins from her hair, sending it into a loose cascade of dense, dark waves down her back. It softens her face, curling over her shoulders and around her chin, shining against the matte fabric, but... She feels lost, looking in the mirror. She looks lost.
Is that her face? Is this what she looks like?
She turns to return to the dressing room, and pulls up short before she finds herself blundering her way into another person. Her eyes miss their face entirely though as she takes a step back, fingers pressing to her stomach now, unsettled. "Pardon me," she says, quiet, distant.
In most ways Hope can think of, his life has been a series of bad situations, unpleasant problems that no one else could or wanted to solve. He’s used to the unknown. He excels at it. And nobody ever asked him whether he wanted to deal with any of those, either.
He can almost convince himself that this isn’t anything new.
When he found himself unarmed, all but naked, lying in a strange room on a mattress so soft he didn’t even recognize it as a bed at first, he progressed from total shock into tactical reconnaissance within about sixty seconds. (Not that he accepted this, of course, or decided it made any damn sense-- but shock and disbelief is a quick route to an early grave. Not that they have graves in his business.)
Nothing in the room suggested a threat, except his mounting sense of surreality. (Has he ever been in something he could classify as a bedroom before? He’s not even sure he’s seen one. Recognizing it is more a matter of deduction-- room with bed equals bedroom?-- than any familiarity.)
What was more concerning (is more concerning) was his total lack of arms. Whatever purpose, whatever person had brought him here had left him bare-- armor, guns, ammunition, knives, all gone.
The first theory he started turning over in his mind goes like this: he had suffered some kind of trauma, bad enough to knock him out of commission, plus a healthy dose of retrograde amnesia. This isn’t so far off from how he’d wake up in a medbay-- stripped down to the minimal layers of clothing or less, all his kit stored away for him-- except that nothing his eyes see tells him this is anything like a medbay. The hazy idea of a dollhouse comes to mind, he’s not sure from where.
It would be nice to think he’s safe. Hope isn’t biting.
He’s not sure what other options that leaves him. Kidnapping? Afterlife? Delusion or coma? None are very appealing.
He can’t put together any of the information available into anything coherent. Typical intel, he thinks, wryly. The room has windows, which seem like regular glass, nothing reinforced or plastoid-- and outside those windows are trees he doesn’t recognize. Further down, through the branches, there are glimpses of paths and occasional movement. He can’t find any bugs or tricks to the items left in the room: there’s an array of clothing, shoes in what he thinks must be his size, soap, about a quarter of his gear. The architecture of the room is bizarre. Like something out of a Wookiee fairytale. The furniture, the little datapad left for him here, is anachronistic. He doesn’t get it.
Hope’s been sitting on the floor, leaning against the mattress so he’s out of line of sight of the windows, just thinking for about an hour and a half now. Thinking isn’t quite the right word: he’s somewhere between critical analysis and reaching out, like he’s in the dark without his night-vision, trying to sense the shape of what’s around him.
He doesn’t sense any danger-- no barrel of a gun that he doesn’t realize he’s staring down. That makes him nervous.
You don’t just black out and wake up in some bizarre diorama of a real person’s life, on some planet you don’t recognize, and have it be a good thing.
(To be fair, he felt a lot more nervous before he barricaded the door with a dresser. Just to be sure.)
The phone is still where he found it when he woke up, discarded after he checked the display and found it-- to put it charitably-- outdated. The functions are straightforward. He digs through them all, absorbing all the information he can, looking for any glimmer of what the fuck is going on. There’s maps-- confusing ones-- and a pre-filled contact list of names he doesn’t recognize. Basic video/audio capabilities, and a hologram setting. There’s a dating app. He files that away for later, category ‘misc’. (There’s actually quite a few apps, but he isn’t ready to go through all of them just yet.)
There are a couple of 'protocols’ whose feeds seem to autopopulate in his datapad, full of questions from other residents(?) and responses from some kind of AI. Some regulations (the term ‘illegal murder’ holds his attention for nearly two full minutes). The questions are weird, and for a minute he wonders whether they’re automatically generated, random filler text to make it seem active. Discussion of different worlds. Names he doesn’t recognize -- Eorzea, Concordance of Angels, TranStar, Earth -- although that doesn’t count for that much. He knows what he needs to know. Seems like he could stand to know a few more things now, though.
There are a couple of details that catch his interest in the records, glittering like pretty glass buried in the sand. First, according to the yellow protocol, they are on another plane of existence. That would be plenty to chew on, in its own right. He lets the thought sit as he contemplates it. Second, they are on some kind of space station. Third, it was built some time ago-- he isn’t sure what the conversion is of one Earth year to the standard units he’s familiar with, but common sense about how fast a habitable planet can orbit a sun suggests it can’t be too recent.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Hope weighs this information piece by piece, turning each around in his mind. He would not go so far as to call them facts-- after all, the Codex also said ghosts were real, and all this information has been conveniently left right in front of his nose like meat on a hook -- but he can’t discount anything at this point.
He is formulating a plan. Although it is less of a plan than a series of objectives, with the first objective being ‘stay alive’, and the second being ‘gather intel'.
He’ll have to go outside for that, which is what he’s cleverly avoided up until this point, balancing reconnaissance against cowardice. Seems like the balance has finally tilted.
He puts together a depressing assortment of so-called gear: surprisingly solid pair of boots (they are in his size), black cargo pants, gray tee. His rations, canteen, and first aid equipment are wrapped up in a sweater and tied up with some of the rope, then slung over his shoulder. The datapad goes, begrudgingly, into his pocket. If they can track him with it, they already know exactly where he is anyway.
When he steps outside, he doesn’t know what he’s expecting: not the immediate shock of finding his name above the door, spelled out like he’s seldom seen it, HOPE RC-8018. That takes him aback enough to leave him standing agape for two whole seconds. Good thing no one is around to witness the slip.
A quick sweep later and he’s found there’s three rooms like his, also labeled, and an array of common areas. There’s nothing remarkable except the fact that there are common areas, like this is some kind of-- dorm or something. Not sure what to make of it.
He intends to descend immediately to the first floor, but stops short when the stairs lead him into an open-air garden between the levels.
It’s beautiful. The air is sweet and crisp on the wind, alien in a way he can’t qualify but that smells of minerals and growth and new atmosphere. He wishes he had his suit-- not that he begrudges the softness of the breeze on his skin, but it’s like he’s missing a second pair of eyes, staring right at readouts and analysis results that he’s too blind to see. He’d sell an organ for some more explicit information right now.
The ledge of the garden spreads in front of him, a promise and a threat: wide view, no cover. His movements are slow and methodical as he approaches the little wall around the edge to gaze out at the scene below, studying the little streets and trying to identify the furry shapes he sees occasionally between the tree branches.
It almost absorbs him. The way he turns around is sudden, more reflex than conscious thought, as some part of his mind starts pinging an alert. Someone’s coming.
The water is so cold it stings. The Outsider can feel the chill drenching his feet, and creeping its way up the flesh of his calves, like frost spiderwebbing across a pond. He is ankle deep in the ocean, his dark pants rolled up to his knees, and he is mesmerized. The smell of salt prickles in his eyes and nose, too; he thinks if he opened up his mouth he’d taste crystals on his tongue. It’s… overpowering.
He lifts a foot on impulse, kicking the water lightly. His shoulders jerk in surprise at the shock of air on his freezing skin, and the way the cloudy gray light catches on the water. Experimentally, he tries again.
there are too many plans but I needed to draw this until it lost all relevance
because the situation is interesting
I REALLY DON'T KNOW HOW DO I DO THIS BUT I CAN REALLY FEEL THE STUFF ABOUT THE SEQUENCERS OR ANYTHING RELATED TO THEM BEFOREHAND
???
this has really happened in one day, and before that I was just looking
and thinking
AND NOW SHE'S A PART OF A GROUP OF OUR FAVS YAYYY
and literally after this (but I still haven't fully understood the situation and a more plausible reason as to why she has an eyepatch) I've got a dream where the Diplomat had a glowing eye and she dazzled the Admiral with it
I really think he has very sensitive eyes or something like that
I don't know what to feel about their ship (+ I already chose old man yaoi) but their dynamic is FUCKING AWESOME
and we have a joke that the machine induces autism (I LOVE THIS PHRASE, UNIRONICALLY LOVE THE THOUGHTS ABOUT IT, maybe someday I'll make a compilation)
and a joke that the Admiral has dawnburnt 0 (thank you bug in the stag and the shark)
and if the machine induces autism, then the admiral has ASPERGERS
I
really love our jokes about fl/ss, AND ITS JUST A SMALL PART OF IT EHEHE
AND ALSO ABOUT HIM
I HATE HIM
not like actually, but because I don't understand him, absolutely
The outskirts of Crises are a dismal, crumbling mess. Crowded buildings giving way to burnt-out husks, streets made more of weed than stone, the pervasive sense that someone, somewhere, is watching you. At the very edge of Mare Crisium, one particular burnt out shell of what was likely once a financial building has been cut cleanly in half by the wall of the bubble that surrounds the Sea- or perhaps it was simply built to seem that way.
On these bisected steps Jessamine has found an escape. It is not a happy escape, one of bliss and mind-numbing heat as on the beaches of nectar, where she can pretend to be, if not happy, then at least a whole person. No, this escape is one more suited to her reality- a place where she can think and listen to the echoes of residents past, people who lived here before whatever happened that drove them towards the center. A place where she can lean back against rusted metal railings and indulge in her more unsavory and miserable vices.
Today, she stares at the sky as she draws on the thick cigar between her fingers, then exhales slow, blowing soft clouds of smoke into the air. The city is surprisingly quiet, for the moment, and the weight of everything doesn’t weight so heavily on her heart (ha) as it has on other days. She’s not moping- she’s simply... enjoying the solitude. It takes her back to when she could escape for a handful of hours and just be. Back before she was a mother. Back before she was an Empress.
Back when she was a person, who know who and what she was.
It’s when she’s lowering the cigar to gently roll the ash off the glowing tip that she notices the figure approaching. It’s too far away for her to tell if it’s a resident, or one of the unfortunate souls who’s been trapped here- it hardly matters though. She keeps her eyes on it for a while before looking at the shimmering wall instead, biding her time. They’ll come closer or they won’t- there’s no need to interrupt her quiet calm just yet.
Crises looks more like home, in all honesty. The stone and brick are more solid than the shacks in Nectar, more defensible, the aura oppressive, like danger is waiting around any corner. Very much like home, though it’s missing, still, the golden threads, the Coral, lighting up like transmitting impulses from core to nerves. It makes her homesick- not for where she came from, but for her true home, for the home of her childhood, for the cheery voices of the twins, her mother’s soft arms. For how things were before... before. Before Talos 1. Before her doctor told her she would be on booster shots for the rest of her life. Before her father disappeared into the cold abyss of the Syrian labor camps.
The nostalgia is her only excuse for letting her guard down enough to get pickpocketed by, of all things, a bipedal rat that comes nearly to her knees and looks more like a cartoon than a truly living thing. Then again... well. She’s seen the typhon. Anything can be real, after that.
If she had anything extraneous on her person, she wouldn’t have had to chase it. But she doesn’t. What she has, and what it takes, is one of her booster shots. She has no way of knowing if she can get more here, and they’re her lifeline, literally. The only thing standing between her and a slow, painful death while her brain paralyses every muscle in her body, until her diaphragm stops working, and she suffocates on a sheer lack of ability to move her lungs. And so she bolts after it, not bothering to waste the energy it would take to yell.
She’s laser-focused, and doesn’t see anything except the rat very nearly in her grasp- until her shoulder collides with another warm body, hard, forcing her to stumble to keep herself up. Instinct has her whipping around, and she just barely manages to get her arm around the person’s waist, keeping them from having an incredibly undignified meeting between their nose and the ground.
By the time she gets them upright and situated, the rat is nowhere to be found.
“Chyort voz'mi,” she mutters, frustration thick in her voice, and she lifts her hand to push a hank of hair back from her face, then turns her gaze to her almost-victim. “My apologies,” she says- “I have no excuses. Are you alright?”
