last time I was regularly using this blog, I gave next to no shits about the dragonkin. I can safely say I loved Vicendithas, and... well, the monthly doses of LORE there have increased that about tenfold. I just........ really love him, as an Honest and Earnest dragonkin in this post-curse day and age, who actually gives a shit about anything that isn't another dragonkin or himself, who got born into the curse and had to LEARN through his own experiences how to have that basic level of respect for other beings....... and that's not even to mention the obvious Kerapac Issues lmao. I could go on for years
but man. Desperate Measures was the first bit of content that really got me giving a shit about Kerapac. I barely cared before the quest, and was basically apathetic about having him as the main villain, but... that FUCKING ENDING, man. just hit me full force, and it's had me going back and piecing together his old content ever since. just... the idea of someone so fully driven by Desperation ever since he was a fledgeling, and the way you see it all fall down around him in that one scene
(headcanon: dactyl cruelty to the dragons they create is totally their own way of appeasing the curse through violence, just in a less open way than the necrosyrtes)
also this one line from One of a Kind really hits me in hindsight
You see what the curse does to us, Player? Strisath was once one of our most celebrated philosophers. Time was he could peer at the vagaries of the universe and pluck meaning from chaos, but now... Now he is one of the Necrosyrtes, spitting death threats at anyone who so much as thinks about that accursed Stone of Jas.
really though it was Orthen Digsite that crawled right into my brain and flipped the switch to "lizard". the absolute magnitude of what the dragonkin Experienced didn't really kick in till they gave us a taste of what life was like for them before the curse.
is Orthen still spoilers? it's probably still spoilers. post's getting long anyway so I'll drop the rest under the read more
so uh I may be writing a fucking massive fic about Kranon (which has definitely exceeded 40k words at this point and is still going strong). the reason? god, just... compare him as the Ambassador to that helpful, kind priest/poet/teacher in Orthen, getting excited to teach dragonkin students about the Beauty of this New Planet, trying out all the Cool New Gielinor Drugs in the hopes of inspiring his poetry, consoling Skeka through grief, getting high and rambling about philosophy with her... being so cautious about potentially breaching Skeka's trust when she's off doing mysterious secret things and getting him worried...
definitely been revisiting his lore. what really Gets me is the fact that he turned to xau-tak as a peaceful, non-violent alternative to all the torture involved in the Dactyl's experiments.
I ask you, does this ritual require the torture of children? Does it require the sacrifice of sentient life? No. Unlike their science, this ritual is bloodless, this ritual is pure. Just faith and music, what purer indication of merciful intent?
we all know how THAT turned out.
god though, SKEKA... I swear half the kranon fic is turning out to be about her lmao. I lurk OSRS's updates sometimes, especially if there's lore, and when her lore got released with Fossil Island... apart from Vicendithas, she was basically the only other compassionate dragonkin we'd ever had. that set her apart immediately, made me interested on a level other than "all dragonkin are uncaring bastards". she had all sorts of other cool stuff going on over there too!! her own goddamn rollercoaster of emotions re: her own loneliness, to the point of trying to become a symbiotic lifeform with the mushrooms on the island just because she envies their constant companionship!! her OSRS lore is here and here and I bloody love it and I'm totally poaching a bunch of it for her characterisation in kranonfic.
SURPRISE SHE'S ON RS3 TOO NOW, and instead of "I'm literally the only person on this island" loneliness, she's got the different loneliness of losing her best damn friend, just at the point when they're finally getting to reap the rewards of all their struggle. there's so many different things going on with her though. I love the constant thread re: names with her, in that she enjoys naming things in the absence of being able to name herself. her name is something she got given as an insult (or a gorgeous mythological reference if you say it right!) and yet she still uses it as a name, as do her friends. we never do find out what her "original" name is. I'm totally not reading a whole buncha trans stuff into that.
also the moksha shit is WILD and the Xolo shit is EVEN MORE WILD. yes just casually develop psychic abilities and start researching them in secret (and by "researching" I mean "having wild fucking parties"). just casually develop the ability to influence just about anyone to do just about anything, the ability to fuckin' astral project all over the place and into animals... and then hey, SINGLEHANDEDLY BECOME AN ENTIRELY NEW SPECIES when your astral projection machine goes wrong!!! doesn't get much more wild than THAT, and good lord i'd Love to see where they might be going with the xolo!!!
also varanus is my Boy and he Deserves Better than being tied to the big bad dino that damn near killed him. it's just heartbreaking to talk to him outside raksha and hear how lifeless he is compared to his books in orthen. :C
god and I find myself super fascinated by the culture of Orthen in general. it's this little time capsule of the dragonkin, after years of difficulty, finally getting to the point where they're relatively safe and secure enough to just... relax a little, focus less on the survival and more on the everything else of life, y'know? knowing nothing about the devastation just around the corner for 'em. it's oddly peaceful, and tragic for that. just wanna explore that peaceful time as much as I can.
May 2020 update: still not using this blog on a regular basis, but still active in RS fandom and still logging in to maintain @ao3feed-runescape for anything that might need maintaining on that front (though it posts automatically).
More easily contactable via Twitter these days. Was going on the basis of “PM me for my Twitter” up till now, but since I barely log in and barely see PMs, here’s an easier solution to that: this is my Twitter.
Every time a certain portable at the Combat Academy gets replaced, it seems to get one square further away from the bank. It is currently making its way towards Farmer Fred’s farm; you return the next day to find out it’s reached Falador.
“The Voice of Seren is now active in the Amlodd district.” You click on the obelisk once and notice your Summoning level is 43 levels higher than it used to be.
“The Voice of Seren is now active in the Trahearn district.” A thousand pickaxes descend upon a single runite rock. You hear its cries of pain all the way from the Combat Academy.
“The Voice of Seren is now active in the Hefin district.” Two dozen people stand in a circle around an ancient fragment of a goddess. They chant to it, each performing their ritual in harmony. They sing the song of gainz.
A clanmate appears to have not logged off for the entire weekend. You message them in concern, only to find they have lost the ability to speak. They respond solely through Quick Chat: their Slayer level is 116; their Slayer level is 117.
The clan avatar has begun taking advice from Schrodinger’s cat, opting both to exist and not exist simultaneously.
Five hours into making and removing prawnbrokers, you feel your arm beginning to detach from your body.
86-90 smithing before I even worked out what I was doing and was just messing around w/ portable forges
more fletching levels than expected thanks to a clannie offloading spare broad arrowheads on me (92-97 instead of the expected 92-95 with my unstrung magic longbows from last DXPW)
less summoning levels than expected, and many missed amlodd hours
I’m seeing that “your OC is problematic” ask prompt post goin’ round and fuck it I’m just gonna do it for Dot
Doktin is problematic because
she got ~ half-Lunar magic powers ~ but they barely ever work when she actually needs to save someone’s life or something
more often it’s just. making a pie, wants to eat the pie now rather than have to wait for it to cook, ~ half-Lunar magic powers activate ~ and bake the pie for her, “well that’s nice but why don’t you work when I actually need you to”
wants to adopt everyone, terrible at actually looking after them
her name isn’t even slightly imaginative it’s just the fremennik name I got given in-game
(okay that last one is more “fenn is problematic” but still)
turnnoffyourmind
dededos
janainaart
ellievsbear
