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[dryococelas01]

You know one thing I'm surprised not a single worm fic I can think of has played with is that scion just flies around helping people.

Theres so many points of divergence you can have fun playing with by just saying oh, there was a Scion Ex Machina.

What if Scion showed up earlier to the leviathan fight and several Bay capes didn't die? Gallant still around to help the Amy Victoria situation, E88 still have their leader etc.

Scion shows up at the bank.

Scion stops the S9.

Scion stops Annette's death.

Like halfway through a fic this would be unsatisfying, but having it happen at the first chapter of the fic and exploring the ripples onwards could be fun.

[dryococelas01]

Sure, when John Wick kills a bunch of people to avenge the death of his pet he gets a bunch of fans.

But when I, Polyphemus...

[dryococelas01]

Do we think Victoria grew to hate tinker tech because the Iron Giant 2 (a canonical thing in Worm/Ward) was literally just THAT BAD

- Polarize 10.9

[dryococelas01]

Big news for the 40k heads.

Female custodes are now officially a thing

This codex screenshot has been going around

Now women too can have ridiculously overpowered genetically engineered super soldiers.

[dryococelas01]

Update:

Finished it

Loved it

Hellgram and his wife are couple goals gonna be honest.

Another reccomendation. I'm only 326/500 pages through this book but it's genuinely been great.

Adrian Tchaikovskys City of Last Chances.

It's essentially about a city occupied by a foreign power and the process of revolution in that city. It's about faith, both religious faith and faith in ideals. And fundamentally its about how you lose faith, how you lose fantasy. The process of disillusionment. At least those are the themes I've identified but there's quite a bit more.

It's got a lot of interesting things in it about how immigrant communities traditions are often exoticised and commodified by the culture they enter which I've been particularly enjoying. The immigrant community in the city its set in, the Allorwen, are very interestingly portrayed.

There's a wonderful character who's a brothel madam (that's the right term yes? For the head of a brothel) of a brothel that conjures daemons to serve their clients. And she notes how back in Allor she would have been respected for the skill at the craft she has, but now she has to use it for sex work and there's this feeling throughout her chapters of how degrading to the traditions she finds it (not that there's anything wrong with sex work). There's a beautiful moment in one of the chapters where she hires a coach that's being pulled by conjured demon horses and she notes how back in the day this horse would have been conjured for a hero by a witch in a fairy tale, and now look at it. Not the exact wording but I'm rambling and can't be bothered finding the paragraph.

It's just... wonderful so far.

There's also this wonderful character who's a student and she's so caught up in her ideals and ugh, idk how to describe it except its really good.

Also The Reproach is awesome - if the theme is disillusionment, the reproach could be said to represent the good side of that, the negative side of holding onto those idealised images of the world. Plus the chapters they go into it are so tense, I love it.

There's this amazing scene that I can't go into detail because it gets on the verge of spoilership, but a factory foreman goes to a factory because a conjured demon is refusing to work and has broken its bindings, and this guy is from the occupied city. And he tricks it and forces it into work again. And the feeling of self hatred in the guy, who recognises that he is oppressed and so is this daemon but they can't work together on this, that he is, as he puts it, "a collaborator in a larger war" is palpable. Its genuinely amazing and ugh, idk how to describe it further.

The magic in it is great, idk.

I love God in it. God is the name of a god seperate from the Christian God (confusingly for this discussion) but he's great. There's 2 pages where he reminisces about himself and another god called Ovrost that he had a rivalry with that fills me with so many feelings. Not my most eloquent description but still.

If anyone here reads it on my reccomendation or has already read it, feel free to comment or DM me, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Additionally, and this is a Spoiler so I'm gonna give a long break before I say it.

As of the current chapter, really well executed gay male romance! Idk how far the relationship will hold (kinda a heat of the moment thing) but so far it's great.

[dryococelas01]

Another reccomendation. I'm only 326/500 pages through this book but it's genuinely been great.

Adrian Tchaikovskys City of Last Chances.

It's essentially about a city occupied by a foreign power and the process of revolution in that city. It's about faith, both religious faith and faith in ideals. And fundamentally its about how you lose faith, how you lose fantasy. The process of disillusionment. At least those are the themes I've identified but there's quite a bit more.

It's got a lot of interesting things in it about how immigrant communities traditions are often exoticised and commodified by the culture they enter which I've been particularly enjoying. The immigrant community in the city its set in, the Allorwen, are very interestingly portrayed.

There's a wonderful character who's a brothel madam (that's the right term yes? For the head of a brothel) of a brothel that conjures daemons to serve their clients. And she notes how back in Allor she would have been respected for the skill at the craft she has, but now she has to use it for sex work and there's this feeling throughout her chapters of how degrading to the traditions she finds it (not that there's anything wrong with sex work). There's a beautiful moment in one of the chapters where she hires a coach that's being pulled by conjured demon horses and she notes how back in the day this horse would have been conjured for a hero by a witch in a fairy tale, and now look at it. Not the exact wording but I'm rambling and can't be bothered finding the paragraph.

It's just... wonderful so far.

There's also this wonderful character who's a student and she's so caught up in her ideals and ugh, idk how to describe it except its really good.

Also The Reproach is awesome - if the theme is disillusionment, the reproach could be said to represent the good side of that, the negative side of holding onto those idealised images of the world. Plus the chapters they go into it are so tense, I love it.

There's this amazing scene that I can't go into detail because it gets on the verge of spoilership, but a factory foreman goes to a factory because a conjured demon is refusing to work and has broken its bindings, and this guy is from the occupied city. And he tricks it and forces it into work again. And the feeling of self hatred in the guy, who recognises that he is oppressed and so is this daemon but they can't work together on this, that he is, as he puts it, "a collaborator in a larger war" is palpable. Its genuinely amazing and ugh, idk how to describe it further.

The magic in it is great, idk.

I love God in it. God is the name of a god seperate from the Christian God (confusingly for this discussion) but he's great. There's 2 pages where he reminisces about himself and another god called Ovrost that he had a rivalry with that fills me with so many feelings. Not my most eloquent description but still.

If anyone here reads it on my reccomendation or has already read it, feel free to comment or DM me, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Additionally, and this is a Spoiler so I'm gonna give a long break before I say it.

As of the current chapter, really well executed gay male romance! Idk how far the relationship will hold (kinda a heat of the moment thing) but so far it's great.

[dryococelas01]

As a biologist myself, biotinkers and some changers would be fascinating to look at.

There are people who spend their entire lives looking at one species of beetle - imagine all the extra work cataloguing and studying how the hell nilbogs creations work. Or what the hell aegis' power is actually doing to his body.

- Sundown 17.10

I love Victoria talking to Citrine about Contessa, but this mention of Precog Literature gave me pause.

Because… man..

I never really thought about it, but the existence of verifiable precognition must have SEVERELY fucked with philosophy and physics tests

[dryococelas01]

Just discovered that the Rick Riordan fan wiki has a page on Bloody Friday and I'm remembering why I love fan wikis so much.

It apparently came up on the norse series. I never read them, read the Greek, Roman and Egyptian when I was younger.

I have no clue what to tag this as.

[dryococelas01]

I just want to get something off my chest re: the uk.

So people on this site may know about the Brianna Ghey murder. If you don't, long story short, a trans girl was killed last year, for definitely transphobia related reasons, it stirred up a lot of political talk and memorial services.

Recently her mother's been advocating for some political projects (stuff about online safety and mental health mostly from what I've seen but I haven't looked into it much). So she was on the house of commons when Rishi Sunak (current Conservative PM) made a jibe about Keir Starmer not being able to define what a woman is.

Uproar in the newspapers, apologies demanded. The audacity to make such a comment while the murdered girls mothers in the building. And yes, that's all horrible and shows a rather disgusting attitude on Rishis part.

But, hey newspapers, this is all shit you have published. Do you think Esther Ghey didn't see them? Do you think Brianna didn't see them? Do you think her murderers didn't?

This sudden batch of caring about this issue just because the mother was physically present in the building is baffling to me. You have said all the things Sunak said. You have said worse. This is the modern day, your words aren't restricted to the house of commons or your newspaper pages. They leave it and trans people, and their families and friends do read them.

It's really just about civility. They don't care about the insult to trans people, they just care that its rude to do it while Esther Ghey is there. Once she leaves and the media attention isn't on Brianna and Esther anymore they'll go back to saying the same things sunak just did. And hundreds of people like Brianna and Esther will read them.

[dryococelas01]

They shouldn't apologise for being right.

I've created bigger waves getting into the bath.

PRT Officials Publish Apology, State That Calling Leviathan 'mid' and 'kind of a letdown after the last one' Was Premature And 'insensitive to the human survival community'.

[dryococelas01]

Wait what?

Have I missed some top tier worm discourse nonsense?

Anyone got any deets on where this all comes from?

[dryococelas01]

Reminder that it is canon that there are TOO MANY cat girl capes in Earth Bet

[dryococelas01]

I've been thinking lately about a particular character archetype that's been really emotionally resonating with me for a while. I've had trouble pinning down exactly why and thought if I rambled on a bit maybe that would help get my thoughts in order.

I'm gonna dub the archetype the Quixote, for reasons that will soon be obvious. Both of my examples are, funnily enough, created by games workshop.

Content warning for, I guess, severely altered states of mind, alzheimers/dementia, insanity, cannibalism and I'm not sure what else. This is a bit of a weird one to tag. I'll put mental illness as a tag even if its a fantasy mental illness rather than anything real.

So I'm gonna introduce the 2 examples first, so everyone's on the same page. They are Nemesor Zandrekh of warhammer 40k and the Flesh-Eater Courts of Age of Sigmar.

So quick Zandrekh crash course. He was part of a race called the necrontyr, they got forcibly uploaded into robot skeleton bodies by soul eating gods called the c'tan and got their souls eaten in the process, becoming the necron. In the process most of them lost all personality, with the nobility being allowed to keep between aspects and the whole of theirs. They then managed to turn on and kill the ctan, and went into a several millenia long sleep. Many of the ones who still had their personalities have odd quirks as a result of their uploads, the long sleep, too early wake ups etc.

Zandrekhs condition is that he does not see the world as it is. To him, his body is flesh and blood. The many aliens and armies he fights are necron rebels and separatists, the mindless robot armies he commands loyal troops.

He has a bodyguard, Oberyn. Oberyn takes care of him. He stands by as his Lord holds feasts of rotten food for prisoners of war he regards as enemy ambassadors, watches his lord attempt to shove food into the flat metal grin where his mouth was. If one of these PoWs or a noble under zandrekh, sick of his nonsense, tried to deal with Zandrekh, Oberyn deals with them.

He stands by him until the end. He knew and loved his lord before they were machines, and he does so now.

(Quick note: some people interpret this as romantic love. I don't but I can see why. To me I have strong recent memories of my dad and me taking care of my grandma whos mind has aged, and that's how I see it. We do explicitly as of the novel Severed have obyron describing it as love). (Second quick note: these 2 are explicitly based on Don quixote and Sancho, one of Zandrekhs old abilities was called something like tilting at solar mills)

That's your crash course on Z. Now the Flesh Eater Courts.

The FSC ars a faction of flesh eating undead ghouls. They are withered and rotten, riding giant bats and undead dragons into battle, devouring the flesh of soldier and citizen alike.

But much like Zandrekh, that's not how they see things. They have a form of infectious delusion.

They are Noble knights. The giant bats are magnificent pegasi, the zombie dragon is alive and majestic, their barren wastelands beautiful and fertile, the hordes of ravenous ghouls the loyal citizenry at their command.

When they invade a civilian village, tearing at their flesh, devouring young and old alike, that's not how they see it. They see a goblin warcamp, a chaos cult hideout, a Necromancers castle. They ride in on their noble steeds, their loyal armies at their back, and save the day. And after? They have a grand feast, peasant and knight feasting side by side on rich and expensive meats.

You get the idea

This archetype so interests me for so many reasons.

Lets start with them as a moral question.

Is The Ghoul Evil? The ghouls have taken part in the butchery of innocents, the slaughter of villages and destruction of homes. They've eaten people and serve the whims of a far less deluded master.

But they don't see it that way. Not only that but they are incapable of seeing it any other way, their senses and minds completely in thrall.

There are plenty of people who do horrible things and see their actions as good, but they have the capability to be different. A violent white nationalist will no doubt say everything they are doing is for some greater good, but they have the capacity to change, they can be something that isn't a voilent white nationalist and there is evidence in the world around them that their views are wrong and abominable.

The ghouls cannot not be ghouls, they can't see the evidence in the world around them.

They can't see their rotten fraying flesh, their sharp teeth. They can't see the farmer they killed, they taste delicious chicken instead of human flesh, drink wine not blood.

They are Noble heroes to their eyes. And there's no way for them to know otherwise. They are doing good, to their eyes.

So is the ghoul evil? I don't think so. Their acts are evil acts, but there is no evil intent to them.

It's a very interesting moral question to me. I'm curious on your thoughts, if anyone sees this.

When the veil lifts.

Nate crowley recently wrote a novella about zandrekh called Severed, from the perspective of obyron. In it he based zandrekh on his experience of a relative with, and I can't remember which, alzheimers or dementia (hence the / in the content warnings).

There is an amazing moment, at one point, that I'm just gonna quote.

So obligatory, spoiler for the novella Severed.

__________________

‘Well fought, old friend,’ said Zahndrekh, with companionable warmth. ‘You really ought to have rested more, but we need to leave. I must commend your rather… straightforward method of dealing with the sorcerer’s engine, and it very much appears to have done the trick. Doahht has gone off like a light, and its legions with it. But without the engine, I fear the stability of the planet itself won’t last, so we’d be much better off in orbit. Are you ready for a short jaunt up to the Horaktys?’

Obyron nearly said yes, but then he remembered the engine’s true purpose. Or what it might have been – it was so hard to recall now.

‘But… our souls, Zahndrekh. The machine… it could give us our souls back. It could give us our bodies. Please, lord, let’s at least take part of it with us, so we can know for sure.’

‘Oh, dear vargard, why do you hold on to such things? You must let the thought of this awful contraption go.’ Zahndrekh put an arm round him in consolation, and continued.

‘Let me pose you this thought, Obyron, in the hope it will bring you ease. What do you think caused you to hold true to me for all this time despite all the power you might have enjoyed through betrayal if it were not a soul? What can love, but a being with a soul?

‘Even if we all ceased to be flesh and blood millions of years ago, which of course I don’t be-lieve for a moment,’ – Zahndrekh actually winked – ‘wouldn’t it have suited us better to live in denial of that, as some fools might say I had done? Wouldn’t it be better, Obyron, just to accept our fate, and enjoy immortality for the everlasting life of merry campaigning it has proved to be?’

Obyron stared hard at Zahndrekh, unsure of what he was hearing.

‘You old bastard. You knew all along.’

‘I knew nothing of the sort, old friend. But since you seem to be labouring under some delusion that you’re a soulless machine, I thought I should at least make some attempt to set you straight.’ Zahndrekh stood up then, and patted his thigh for Obyron to join him. ‘Come now, soldier. Up on your feet, and let’s return to the flagship. If we’re quick about it, we can have this all cleared up in time for a truly astonishing feast.’

Obyron, ever loyal, obeyed his lord. He would have wept, but he had no tears.

__________________

With the authors statement I'd say this is a moment of clarity, not zandrekh having known all along as Obyron imagines. I've seen grandma having many similar ones.

Zandrekh sometimes sees the horrifying reality he lives in, sometimes the fog lifts. And he prefers the fog. There's a lot more to pick apart from that quote but that's what I want to focus on.

Age of Sigmar has a trpg called soulbound, in which you can play a ghoul. If I ever find a play group I will.

Imagine a scenario, out adventuring team has just butchered a village. The ghoul is huddled on the ground, lifting the arm of a murdered young man who tried to defend his home, ready to eat it.

For a moment, the veil lifts. The noble Knight, defender of his people looks around him.

His good freind, the hedge mage, is raising an undead abomination out of murdered civilians. The noble Knight he rode besides has lined up survivors and is draining them of their blood. The beautiful noble lady he traveled with and hoped to court has no flesh, she's a vengeful spirit.

He sees his claws, and sees what he's eating.

Imagine the horror that sets in in that moment.

He doesn't know if he's seeing the truth, or if he's gone mad. If it's the truth then he knows he's a monster, his friends terrors, the people he saved flesh eating ghouls and the people he killed innocent civilians. If its not the truth, then he's gone mad, he's being tormented by some daemon or spirit, he's cursed.

Now, the veil would likely fall shortly after and he'd forget that moment of horror, but let's say it doesn't.

Let's say our noble Knight has a choice. He knows the truth of the matter, and can choose between the veil falling again or staying lifted.

Does he choose to keep it lifted?

I like to imagine I would, that I'd accept the guilt and horror of my existence and past actions and try to be a force for good.

I know that I wouldn't. I would accept the delusion, because fundamentally the horror of what I am and have done would be too much. Reality would break me, so I would retreat and allow the delusion to take me.

I'd like to imagine my noble knight would stand up and become a force for good, redeem himself. He is a noble knight, after all.

Zandrekh sometimes sees past the veil, but keeps acting like he doesn't because the veil is preferable to reality.

It makes a wonderful character moment, something beautiful and tragic beyond my words.

Whenever I think of these moments the veil lifts something in me cries. There's something so tragic about, in the case of the ghouls, someone that is noble, is trying to do good, but is incapable of. Something sad but strangely beautiful about zandrekh choosing to retreat into joy and fantasy rather than face reality.

I don't know how to put it, it just touches something in me.

I don't know, there's a lot more I want to say but I can't figure out how to say it. Hope my rambles were at least interesting.

[dryococelas01]

You should never forget literally the best line in all of video games

[dryococelas01]

reddit is having a glitch where it puts the wrong captions over photos and it’s the only thing i care about right now

[dryococelas01]

I don't have anyone else to really tag but sure!

3 ships: ooh, this is a hard one. I've never been a big shipper.

It's a largely meme ship but I do think it has interesting potential for exploration, so celestine and greyfax from warhammer. Though if we count anti ships I absolutely despise the Guilliman/Yvraine meme ship. Additionally I have a sortof antiship but also I entirely understand the ship for Trazyn/Orikan and Zandrekh/Oberyn, who are all the best boys in the universe. I just prefer the bitter intimate distaste for the first and the caring for grandpa feel of the second without making it romantic.

I have a fondness for Marika the Eternal and Rennala (Elden Ring), just because of all the weird shenanigans that ship implies. And especially the uh, spoiler reasons I won't mention.

I'm having to proper wrack my brain for this.

Oh of course! Vimes and Sybil from discworld. Just a genuinely loving couple that are both amazing people.

First ever ship: Percy and Annabeth from Percy Jackson, when I read it as a kid. One of the few ships where I accept no other partners for the two of them haha.

Last song: the song of Beren and Luthien by Clamavi de Profundis on YouTube (well originally by Tolkein but they recorded themselves singing it). I listened to it a while back and YouTube reccomended it to me again.

Last movie: weirdly enough, Hellboy. My dad wanted to rewatch it and I thought, what the hell, why not. It was alright, the effects were pretty cool, didn't watch it with a mind to analyse it though so don't have much to say about it.

Currently reading: random stuff I find online and I've started my reread of the stormlight archives. Currently on book 1, last I read it oathbreaker had recently come out, so that's the furthest I've got.

Love the series.

Just finished a little science book called taking flight by Lev Parikian, which is just a bunch of stuff about the evolution of flight in animals. It was a lot of stuff I'd already learnt in my zoology masters, but there was some new stuff and it was interesting enough. I'd say it would also be a read for interested non biologists, the author I think isn't a scientist, so if you're interested in flight maybe give it a shot.

Currently watching: nothing really to be honest. Always found it hard to connect with most movies and series. The medium doesn't usually speak to me. I have been sitting in the room while my brother watches Taskmaster, if that counts.

Currently consuming: also nothing (im about to sleep - its 7:20 in the morning haha), but the last thing I ate was a slice of a ginger cake I've made for the family. It's a nice and simple BBC recipe, nothing amazing but it works. Though you do need to modify it by adding like, triple the ginger and a bit of icing on top.

Currently craving: more ginger cake haha. More realistically, an unhealthy takeaway pizza. Haven't had one for a while, and sometimes you just need to eat trash. But also I'm now craving a good chicken tikka masala from this local curry place that's really good.

tag 9 people to get to know better

tagged by @fallowhearth & @wormbraind Wow i'm kinda honored never been tagged in one of these before

3 ships: Rachel & Taylor from Worm ofc. Shen Qingqiu & Liu Qingge from SVSSS. Kim Dokja & Yu Junghyeok from ORV. Charlotte & Anri from Hello Charlotte

First ever ship: Spike & Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. My childhood OTP lol

Last song: Obsessed with Moonlight Magic by Ashnikko. Saw her in concert recently <3

Last movie: Think it was also Barbie lol. P decent

Currently reading: Finally finished reading Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint and my reread of Worm. Currently finishing up with the scarce few good wormfics before I start reading Tian Guan Ci Fu/Heaven Official's Blessing

Currently watching: Heaven Official's Blessing donghua season 2 just came out - watching that & I'll be reading the book afterwards

Currently consuming: Hot & sour noodles, my go-to

Currently craving: Spicy curry or maybe sesame noodles or seaweed salad. Idk i'm indecisive

Tagging with great caution and fear: @krousenoelle @chaoticrushu @seroquelfan @tranz-regent @z1zb0mb @dryococelas01 @trans-queen-administrator @bronzethunder @thepariahcontinuum No pressure ofc

[dryococelas01]

worm fanfic, best idea ive got in me

what if, the homeless man scion listened to wasn't kevin norton but was tequila sunset from disco elysium