#when in dunwall

[bean-writes]

Me: *trying to break the ice at a party*

Me: "So... Shall we gather for whiskey and cigars tonight?"

[caimdrakengard]

I have a theory that Billie was trying to kill Daud from a heart attack, cause there's no other explanation on why she kept spawning in like that.

[purrgiri]

[ask-ciaphas-cain]

I love videogames because they'll set you up like "you are a master assassin. Few know your name but those who do whisper it out of fear. You are a harbinger of change and an omen of ill fortune" and then you start playing and you immediately fall off of a rooftop and get beaten to death by the Pinkertons

[bitd]

being an introject sucks for a multitude of reasons but they do indeed include when you get really homesick / start missing a guy you certainly should not. like stop it stop it STOP IT

[emilykaldwen]

ITS THAT TIME MOTHERFUCKERS

[barrymccaulkinem]

Im glad i didnt look at the achievements before i started playing dishonored bc now i'll still have to play through once or twice more to get the rest

[ninamodaffari]

okay you guys got me started on dishonored (the series) fucking IMMACULATE art direction. I'm going to try and sum it up but I'm honestly better with art than words so I'll try my best.

dishonored is fucking unparaelled when it comes to art direction. from when you first start the game, each level has a distinct style, color, and vibe. dunwall is dominated by cool greys, towering, imposing structures like dark sentinels watching over the land. twisting, rotting trees and an ever-present smog that overtakes the city. dunwall is inky blue darkness.

HOWEVER, from a gameplay perspective, there are visual points of interest still that stops you from getting lost in a wash of blue. dishonored is a master of using lighting and color to lead you to areas that it wants you to go.

for example, in the corner of a window you might see glowing purple lighting. these are void shrines - where the outsider will appear and share knowledge harass you. usually around shrines there are walls of writing, strange twisted words that lead you further into the mystique surrounding what the outsider is and what he *does*.

you might think the game is just awash in dull colors, but its not. one of the most beautiful and striking levels takes place in lady boyle's mansion, and it's INSANE how different it looks, because it's supposed to be a stark contrast. surrounding her mansion are the remains of a dying city destroyed by a plague. within her mansion, however, is decadence and debauchery gone awry.

it's amazing with a game that was made TWELVE YEARS AGO how this still holds up and looks fantastic. this is because they went for a stylized art direction. it's stylized, almost painterly. it looks fantastic. here is some of the amazing character design

(this is from dishonored 2, done by Sergey Kolesov )

LOOK AT THIS ART. IT'S SO FREAKING AMAZING AND THE THING IS THE CHARACTERS LOOK SO CLOSE TO T HIS IN GAME. its a masterpiece. if you haven't played dishonored, please play it. all of them.

[halfnekoslair]

AU idea

Ok. Imagine Dishonored 2. But Delilah didn't turn Corvo into stone. She wants all of Jessamine's favorite toys. She trapped his consciousness in a picture of better days. Where Jessamine is still alive. She is Jessamine. And Emily, trying to play against Delilah, is just a dangerous assassin. Imagine Emily fleeing Dunwall not just from a coup but from death itself. Corvo in his mask is chasing the girl. And he is absolutely invincible at the beginning of the game. Emily will have a chance only in the final. When she becomes much more experienced. And Corvo will begin to doubt the justice of his task. Of course, if Emily does not turn Karnaca into chaos. If she is a monster then Lord Protector will have no reason to listen to her. And Emily will have to fight her father to the death before getting to Delilah.

[williamverse]

Jayce in my dishonored au! I’ll leave a few more sketches and wip pics under the cut, along with his lore for anyone curious)

Jayce is an immigrant from Serkonos — he’s a part of an impoverished noble family. They move to Dunwall after Jayce’s father dies. During their voyage, the ship gets lost at sea, caught up in a storm. Death seems inevitable, until a mark-bearer aboard uses his magic to call the whales, who get the ship on their backs and bring it to safety. The mark-bearer than hands Jayce a rune and that’s when his fascination with void begins.

So, he starts studying the void, magic, different runes, their meanings, trying to harness magic and make it do good. At some point he even meets Sokolov, who shares his fascination, but they part ways soon because of moral differences. Once, when looking for new material for study, he makes his way to the Brigmore mansion, but is quickly stopped by a certain someone. “They will eat you alive if you set foot there, boy,” the stranger says.

That stranger is none other than Viktor, of course. He’s from an industrial district. Dirty air, constantly filled with toxic fumes from the factories never served him well and worsened his already weak health. Still, he has a sharp mind, and is known and respected among workers. They know: if something doesn’t work right, he knows how to fix it. However, his genius was never satiated, so when he learned about Jayce’s research he was intrigued to say the least.

The two had to work in shadow as to not get caught by the overseers, spreading their little successes among the poor, in total secret. Then, during one of their experiments, something went wrong, and Viktor touched the void — maybe a bit too deeply for a regular human being. It scarred him, making the two stop their research.

When, the plague comes. Viktor falls victim to it and soon dies. Jayce, however, can’t accept a truth like that and strives to return him no matter the cost. He believes: Viktor’s soul is somewhere within the void and he only needs to find a way to pull it out and tie it back to his body. And so, he looks for an answer, nearly goes crazy, sees visions from the void, while Viktor’s body starts to rot.

Nonetheless, he finally finds a way to accomplish what he had in mind, tying Viktor’s soul back to his body. But Viktor is different. He’s already dead and he’d spent too long in the void — so, even with his soul back in his body, he’s not at home in the real world anymore

[bean-writes]

The Outsider's Gift: Dishonored fanfiction

You just had to temp the Outsider, didn't you? Hours of gameplay has proven there's no place you'd rather be than Dunwall, but when your musings catch the attention of The Outsider, you never believed he was real, let alone might actually listen to you. You find yourself thrust head first into the Wrenhaven River—but the plague rats look a lot bigger in real life and their teeth gnaw more than pixels now. You know more than you should in this world, more than you should possibly be able to - but will that be enough to save you?

[eviefyres]

i love when people draw emily kaldwin to look like corvo i do, but i love it even more when she looks like her mother. the holy ghost of jessamine once again on the throne, who looks like such a spitting image of the late empress that it doesn’t matter who emily’s father is because frankly jessamine might have just asexually reproduced to make emily. how terrifying for daud, the man who killed an empress, to watch her ascend again to the throne. the kaldwin’s haunt dunwall.

[adozentothedawn]

So today I learnt this goddamn fucker just hangs out at the end of Kill Cascade. In the room where you jumpscare yourself with killing Jessamine.

This in my opinion is confirmation for my headcanon that the Dunwall Trials are shit the Outsider makes Corvo do when he's sleeping at night.

I did try to get my own screenshot but unfortunately it's impossible to get into the room without triggering the end of the trial, so I had to snatch the one from the wiki.

[pasdetrois]

i’m still thinking about the way billie phrases her surrender in the knife of dunwall’s low chaos finale: kill me or let me live, if it even matters to you. the fact that they're even there to have this conversation is proof of how this decision must have weighed on her; with her training and her skills and daud's mind scattered in a hundred different directions, she likely could have followed delilah's brutally practical advice to cut his throat and be done with it once and for all. but she hesitated until the final moment of reckoning when their narrative had finally come full circle, from daud placing a knife in a child’s hands to give her “something to live for”, to her returning it in defiant supplication years later ("my life is yours now"). yet, despite her certainty in the inevitability of this moment, she still can not be sure of such a decision burdening him as it did her until the very moment he must make it in turn. it's part of what makes the ending so poignant to me, whether in sparing her and echoing his first words to her (now giving her a life unburdened by the ticking clock hanging over him), or clasping the knife together with her as she only smiles and nods back in understanding, and holding her hand long after she is gone—it's then that you see how much it mattered to him as well. and the unspoken grief of it not only ending the game, but also leading to the only bookend of the dlc's to have no narration from daud. it's the outsider who must take over then to chronicle the tale, as he had to for corvo. for daud, the rest is silence.

[tossawary]

I may never get over the parallels between Emily Kaldwin and the Outsider in the Dishonored series, specifically the parallels created/revealed by Daud's games (The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches) and Billie Lurk's game (Death of the Outsider). (Spoilers for the entire series if you haven't played the main games and companion games.)

The Outsider claims at one point that he doesn't play favorites. I think he's a fucking liar. Because in The Knife of Dunwall, he sets the story off by giving Daud a name, Delilah. He did not have to do that, just as he didn't have to give his Mark to any of the people he gave it to. He is constantly putting his hand on the scales.

Moving simultaneously to the events of Dishonored, Delilah was going to possess Emily and NO ONE saw her coming. She had everything ready in secret. She was going to win.

(Side note: I think Delilah originally developed this plan because she wanted to possess Jessamine, but her half-sister's death at Daud's hands caused Delilah to scrap whatever painting she'd originally been working on. And no one would have foreseen THAT coming either. Nightmare scenario AU for Corvo Attano.)

Corvo, Emily, and the conspirators of Dishonored didn't even know that Delilah Copperspoon existed. A guilt-stricken Daud sliding in at the last moment is the ONLY reason that Delilah didn't succeed in taking over Dunwall in Dishonored instead of Dishonored 2. And Daud only caught the impending murder of a second Empress because the Outsider gave Delilah's name to him directly.

The Outsider's favor came down on the side of Corvo and Daud, rather than Delilah, even before Delilah started doing weird shit to the Void and he took offense. Or rather: the Outsider came down on Emily's side, even before potentially Marking her. And... why?

In Death of the Outsider, it is revealed to Billie Lurk that the Outsider used to be an ordinary person. He is not infallible. He is not objective. He knows a lot, but he's probably not actually fully omniscient. An ancient cult took an ordinary young man, slit his throat, and turned him into a god against his will. And the theming surrounding eyes is not in the least bit subtle.

The vibe that I personally got while playing Death of the Outsider (interpreting only from the canon of the games, rather than any additional material) is that the Eyeless cult greedily looked upon the incredible but unpredictable power of the Void, then they made a human sacrifice and gave it a face, so that they could look upon the new avatar of its power without going insane. (At least, without going insane nearly so quickly.) They turned a person into a focus, a lens, in the hope that they could use him like a corpse puppet for their own ambitions and become powerful through him.

But the Outsider has never cooperated. Personally, I don't think that he has much power of his own, honestly, at least by what he's shown doing in the games. I think that he can only really act as a focusing lens, a pathway, through which other people can touch and use the Void. All he can really do is offer people the Mark, the ability to use him, and then watch them go. (The Heart, he manipulated Piero Joplin to make, I think. I don't know where he got the Time Piece, but I assume it was made in a similar way, taking advantage of the Crack In The Slab that Delilah made. When he "took" Billie's eye and arm in Death of the Outsider, it was only because he opened a connection to the Void in Billie Lurk that was already there.)

I think he can probably use this to make people go insane, obliterating their minds by opening the lens to the Void too far, but... I think there's a vulnerability to him making connections, temporary or permanent ones. It can be dangerous for him. In Dishonored 2, when Delilah is doing whatever she's doing with the Void, the Outsider says, "Delilah is a part of me now. And I don't like it." Delilah appears to use her own Mark to reach out to Corvo or Emily's Mark, so that she can talk to them in the Void, and she's probably doing it by reaching through the Outsider somehow.

I don't think that the Outsider can control what powers his Marked get from the Void or how deeply they reach into it (thank you, game mechanics of giving different characters different powers), which is possibly what he meant when he said that he didn't play favorites. Once he gives them access to the lens into the Void, I don't think that he can take it away or control it, only give his Marked the cold shoulder and stop talking to them. (His role in Dishonored is definitely to give you cool powers and then step back so that you can do your thing.) The game mechanic of collecting runes to increase powers suggests that it's up to the Marked to improve their powers and practice them. (See... everything with Granny Rags.)

The Outsider in Dishonored 2 struck me as... kind of helpless in some ways, confirmed by Death of the Outsider. When Billie Lurk finally finds his body in the Void, there's no fight. He can't do anything to defend himself. (I don't think he wants to defend himself.)

Somewhere in The Brigmore Witches, the Outsider says something about Delilah looking out through Emily's eyes. Emily is in some ways the avatar of Dunwall. She's the focus point of imperial power, the figure supporting the mythology of royal right and privilege, the legal means through which people can seize social, military, economic, etc. control. The Royal Spymaster tried to use Emily. The conspirators tried to use her too. And Delilah tried to trap her own niece in (I think I'm paraphrasing something else that the Outsider says) an invisible prison, screaming inside her own head while someone else takes control, to take this power for herself.

Delilah tries to do to a little girl what the Eyeless cult tried to do to the Outsider. And I think the Outsider went, "Hm, don't like that."

So, the Outsider gives a would-be Empress's name to the man who just killed the last one and is desperate for a release from guilt, even if that means covering up blood with more blood. He gives Delilah's name to DAUD, an assassin, the fucking Knife of Dunwall.

(Or maybe the Outsider could foresee the chaotic wreck that Delilah was going to make of Dunwall, when it turns out that her schemes don't "fix" everything for her like her fantasies, like she does in Dishonored 2. And the Outsider decided that Delilah's future was just too boring to let happen. That's also possible.)

And sure, Delilah comes back years later in Dishonored 2, more powerful than ever, semi-immortal, pushing back against the Outsider within the Void itself, and no one saw her coming this time either. Possibly not even the Outsider. (When the Outsider makes fun of Corvo for not seeing Delilah coming, for losing another Empress, for not stopping to talk to Daud so that Daud could warn Corvo about her, it can read as a genuine admonishment of sorts. I think the Outsider is honestly frustrated.) But if the Outsider hadn't decided to play favorites in the background of Dishonored, if he hadn't decided to set Daud on her, then Delilah would have won before anyone even knew that she was playing the game.

[dangerousdan-dan]

hello! do you have any daud headcanons? I miss him :')

Hi, friend!!!

I miss him so, so much. Thank you for giving me an excuse to talk about him xD

Here are some of the headcanons that keep me up at night.

There's a part of Daud that'll always hate Corvo for not saving Jessamine when he should've. In a way, he blames him too for what became of Dunwall, and when they faced each other in the flooded district, yes, it was about giving each other something vaguely resembling closure and about facing his consequences, but it was also about him having the chance to fight the man who (in his irrational logic) helped doom them all.

Now this is just more of my rambles about my previous headcanon. I can't stop thinking about the parallel between their first encounter in the tower and then their fight in the flooded district. How Corvo had no chance that first time, but Daud's defeat is a given once Corvo gets the mark. Of course the circumstances are different, but I feel that having the chance to fight Corvo again and to witness how goddamn good he actually is at it would only fuel Daud's spiral of You could've saved her. You could've stopped me, or it could give him another reason to hate The Outsider even more because giving the mark to the only man who could defeat him only AFTER he actually needed it to stop him could be seen as his cruelest joke. Also, I can't keep this line out of my head: "I'm the one who killed her, but you are the one who failed her." A line from the Dishonored fic I'll never write lol.

Daud loves books. I know it's kinda stupid to say this is a headcanon when it's canon that the man has his study full of the stuff, but I mean that he LOVES them. He writes and speaks with the cadence of a person who is fond of words and the meaning behind them, you know what I mean? Smoking isn't his only vice. I can imagine him stealing books from every aristocrat's home he sneaks into, and how when he's reading at night in his study he silently misses the academy's library and all the mysteries left to unravel there. (Oh, to think of all the trouble he should've gone through to keep his books in good condition and safe from all that humidity... I need a bone charm for that).

Since the moment he was abducted, he forced himself to suppress almost every thought and memory from his previous life. The only thing he perfectly remembers is that he loved his mother, even when he can't really recall more than a few details about her. (I have mixed feelings about DOTO, but Daud calling out for his mom in the void always gets to me).

Now a silly one. Among all the intel he and the whalers have collected over the years, Daud keeps a special file with all the gossip that has genuinely made him huff (or void forbid, even chuckle!!). Is it the most important information to keep around? No, but sometimes the Knife or Dunwall just wants to sit back and amuse himself with how ridiculous these people can be, and who knows, maybe it'll be useful blackmail material one day. Billie is the only one who knows this file exists and its true purpose.

He also keeps a file with all the rumors that have been told about him and the Whalers, and he carefully chooses which ones to encourage and which ones to put out.

After Corvo spares him and he leaves Dunwall, Daud tries to fall into old habits and force himself to suppress every thought of Billie and the Whalers. He fails. He swears The Outsider mocks him every time he instinctively calls on his mark just to feel the phantom pain left by the severed connections.

Daud never regrets the Whalers, nor that he taught them how to exploit their blades for coin. Most of them were already killers, anyway. He simply gave them the means to survive more than a few fights in an alleyway, right?

In a bizarre way, he sometimes even sees the Whalers, not as a family, but as an act of love (I don't think love is the word, but something at least close to it), even with the discipline and the punishments involved. Some of the whalers knew better, others saw that love as well.

To me, the Knife of Dunwall is a silent assassin who rarely engages with a target head on unless he needs to. He's methodical and professional, quiet and efficient. Unless one of his Whalers is killed. Then you'll know what it looks like when he lets himself enjoy it.

Above everything else, his biggest pride will always be Billie.

I don't believe he went fully "clean hands" after Jessamine's death. He killed, mostly for survival and when there was no other option (to him, at least), but the few times he did it, he saw Jessamine's dead eyes staring back at him.