#he is a curse and a plague

[floweryred]

Let’s play a game! I’m going to show you four players who have been allied with Jimmy at some point in the life series, you have to guess which season they were allies with him! No cheating, so the name of the person is kept hidden until you click read more. (Though the first is fairly obvious)

Okay, here you go:

Scott:

*Tango (Soulbound):

Joel:

Martyn:

*Please remember that each season has a different number of people in it, so Tango actually did worse (2nd eliminated and not 4th) in Double Life.

Thanks for playing lmao.

[glouris]

I do not agree with the notion of characters' gameplay paths not being their 'lore' paths at all.

imo they wouldn't be called 'pathstriders' if the paths we were shown were not correct at all. the way I see it, a person who's personal ideals and actions allign with one path could easily belong to a larger faction that follows another eon as a whole.

excuse the genshin allegory here, but I think hoyo made paths funcion like visions - a character on the path of the hunt could easily be following preservation, like a character with a pyro vision could hail from fontaine. but then also an emanator of nihility could not be something else, like an electro archon could not have a dendro vision.

so, I decided to take a look at (almost) every character and propose some reason for them being assigned their path

Nihility: things losing meaning, falling into fears and hopelessness

Erudition: pursuing or keeping vast amounts of knowledge

Destruction: eradication of the self or what's around you

Hunt: condemning something, leading it towards your judgment 

Preservation: protecting what exists in this moment

Abundance: letting life flourish, continue in the future

Harmony: not letting a single part of the collective to collapse or overpower the other, keeping things ‘whole’, peaceful

if we take, for example, Dr. Ratio - even his gameplay kinda makes sense. he launches follow-up attacks when there are enough debuffs on the enemy - he's eradicating the influence of Nihility. same thing with Acheron.

some reasons I'm thinking off here might be wrong, or there must be much more to think of here, but I'm pretty sure that the gameplay paths are the actual paths of the characters. plus, it's been stated that the pathstriders could change their path, unlike eons and emanators.

[little-pondhead]

The Curse Of Hope

_

Danny is in another universe. He had a reason, but he doesn’t remember anymore. He can only stare, horrified and disgusted, at the sickest city spirit he’s ever seen. Shivering and swaying with every step, core exposed, and ectoplasm leaking from wounds that are decades old. A ratty blanket was thrown over their shoulders, barely hiding the spirit’s pale grey skin and protruding black bones.

The spirit didn’t even sense him until he reached out to touch its wispy shoulders. The spirit flinched, clutching at the dozens of trinkets hanging from their neck and tucking in on themselves like they were expecting a blow.

“Oh, shit,” He swore, floating back a few feet, hands in the air, to show he meant no harm. “I’m sorry. I promise, I’m not here to steal from you.” The spirit shivered again and rolled a pearl necklace in between their fingers. A nervous habit. “Uh, I like that pocket watch? It’s very nice.”

That got their attention. They peeked at Danny, and he saw that more tattered cloth was covering their eyes, blending in with the stringy hair that reached the ground. Their blanket fluttered weakly, revealing hundreds of thousands of tiny marks etched into their skin. Scars, really. Scars that wrote out curse after curse onto the spirit’s very being. They burned with evil intent, and even reached inside the spirit’s body and wrapped around their core.

Occasionally, blinding specks of color raced across their body, temporarily erasing the writing, but it always returned quickly. He watched, a little detached, as one particular line rewrote itself across their rough forearm, drawing fresh ectoplasm like someone was writing it with a thin knife.

“Are you…alright?” Danny stuttered. A stupid question.

The spirit cocked its head. He couldn’t see their eyes, but he felt their burning gaze as they pondered the question.

“The pain of others becomes mine own.” They rasped. “The lights of the city dim as rotten wealth clogs mine veins. Magicks long forgotten have eaten mine skins, pulled mine cloak, and darkened mine skies. Helios has refused to grace mine doorstep, and the seasons of the Earth have revoked their kindness.”

Danny held his breath. It felt like he was the one with the exposed core, not the spirit.

The spirit shivered once more. “Tell mine soul, little lamb. How could this Forsaken City know peace, when it was long since ripped from mine hands?”

Shit, he needed Frostbite. And maybe Clockwork. Now.

-Or-

Danny meets the spirit of Gotham City. The villains and rogues that have plagued the city for decades are literal curses that are taking quite the toll on Gotham, and honestly, Danny isn’t sure how much longer they can hold out. The heroes seem to be doing some help, and are probably the reason Gotham made it this far, but the poor city needs help from the Realms if they want to get better.

Luckily, Danny can provide that help.

But only if he could get Gotham to leave their city behind. Because recovery is going to take a very long time.

[deerspherestudios]

head empty only Mychael

Sounds about right,, 😭❤️🍄❤️

[arcielee]

I have made my complaints about the writers, but have decided to shelve my disdain and just focus on the bits that had my cunt heart aflutter.

And, as always, I will continue with my cursed Canva creations.

Stay hydrated everyone. 💜

[cryptidfrenzy]

”Pardon me, sir…. Was that perhaps a cough I just heard? No? Are you sure?”

[kurithedweeb]

An idea I had last night: Jacob survives.

So, instead of the amulet just making everyone drop dead, we're going with the curse being a plague. (Thank you @irenes-journal for turning the plague amulet idea into what it is today.)

In canon, the amulet kills everyone save the person holding it, so the plague amulet would theoretically grant one person immunity, or at least resistance. How it grants some kind of immunity/resistance is by releasing antibodies for the plague, slowly at first to acclimatize the body a bit before it floods the system, and Jacob got some of the antibodies before he gave it to Aaron.

He was the first to fall ill, and he took twice as long to succumb to the illness than anyone else infected did. The town doctor died before Jacob did, so when he fell into a coma that looked a whole lot like death, he was mistaken for dead.

Lily was barely holding on herself at this point, and Aaron came back from burying the day's dead to find his wife and son dead in Jacob's room. Lily worshipped Menphia and some minor gods, being from Tu'la, and raised Jacob to do the same since Aaron's side of the family doesn't worship any recognized religion (Ultima stuff is for later), and there was a small tomb previously made for when Lily and her children died according to Tu'lan burial practices. Which gives Jacob some more time than he'd have in a grave to get out before he runs out of air.

Aaron goes on burying bodies and surveying the sick while he mourns his own family's loss. Jacob wakes up maybe a day or two later in the dark with what remains of Lily. Obviously, he freaks out, crying out for help, and no one comes. Fueled by adrenalin and fear, he manages to open the tomb door just enough for him to squeeze through, and he finds the streets covered in graves. He has no idea what's going on, no clue how long it's been, but he runs home and his dad's not there and all the streets he's run down are empty and stinking of rot. He needs his dad to not be dead, so he comes up with this idea that obviously Aaron thought he was dead like everyone else and left.

And so Jacob packs a bag and sets out to leave Falconclaw, and he leaves barely an hour before Aaron gets home. They just miss each other.

Jacob isn't well. He collapses on the road and wakes up in a merchant caravan bound for some village way North. He asks if any of them have seen his father, says he's the son of the Lord of Falconclaw, and one of the mercenaries hired to guard the caravan sees an opportunity. By the time the caravan reaches its destination, Aaron is already in O'khasis being groomed by Zane to become a Juror.

Jacob is snatched off the street by the same mercenaries who were guarding the caravan and sold to someone visiting from Tu'la, and he winds up a servant boy for one of the king's vassal clans. Maybe Nana's, maybe the one his mother escaped from. The plague left him incredibly scarred, so for a long time he's a faceless, bandaged figure in the shadows of the house, all this anger and frustration building up inside him at not being able to figure out a way home, until one day the master of the house thinks it'd be funny to match a servant boy against one of his soldier-apprentices.

And Jacob wins. No training, having thrown away his weapon and beaten the other boy with his bare hands until they were dripping in blood. He's sent to the gladiator pits, maybe the same ones Liochant grew up in, and as long as he has his anger he dominates. His contract is bought by some wealthy noble with a penchant for collecting pretty, broken things, and on the road he kills them and flees into the night.

By the time he gets back to O'khasis, Aaron's time on the Jury is over and he's disappeared completely, having forsaken his own name and become The Stranger. This is when Jacob finally hears about, finally confirms, the fall of Falconclaw. He goes to Zianna, waiting for her to be out in town before he approaches her. She and his mother considered themselves sisters, once, and Zianna had been an excellent spy in Tu'la, if anyone would help him it'd be her. All Zianna has to give him is rumors, but anything is better than nothing.

He takes it, he thanks her, he goes on the road trying to find his father, and gets waylaid a bunch on the way by saving people and taking out the mercenary company that sold him to that Tu'lan visitor and into years of servitude and gladiator rings. He had a number of names in Tu'la, but he goes back to the name from a lifetime ago, introducing himself everywhere he goes as Jacob Lycan, son of Aaron Lycan, last Lord of Falconclaw, in an effort to see if his father will be drawn to the man using his son's name. By the time he makes it all the way around to Phoenix Drop, it's the middle of the Irene Dimension time skip, and since no one knew who The Stranger was or ever really saw his face, they don't realize that that's exactly who Jacob is looking for.

He goes back to Falconclaw, thinking maybe he can find some clues where this all started. It's practically the same as he left it since everyone thinks the land is extremely cursed, and in looking through their home he finds books on the teaching of his father's faith. He fits his father's old clothes, his old faith. He takes whatever he cares to keep from the Lycan estate and visits Lily's tomb before he leaves, and not a day later he comes across Abby, who's taken to the road hoping to find a lead on the woman she believes killed her father, Lady Katelyn the Firefist, who disappeared without a trace years ago about the same time High Priest Zane Ro'Meave and a few other Jurors did. She and Jacob agree to help each other and become good friends, and eventually they round back to Phoenix Drop.

A week after Aaron died.

Jacob introduces Abby first, notes that the Lord, or maybe she's the Lord's mother, seems to know who Abby is, and then he introduces himself. As Jacob Lycan, son of Aaron Lycan, last Lord of Falconclaw. And the look on this Lord's face is indescribable. She asks to speak with Jacob alone.

She tells him about his father in the last part of his life. She tells him how he saved her several times, taught her to fight, saved her guards, those two over there. That one he sacrificed himself for just last week, when he saved the man from another realm and finally got vengeance for his family and village. How he once said that when his journey was done, when he had taken the life of the man who cursed them all, he would finally be at peace with his wife and son.

Then there's a child's cry, and suddenly Jacob is being introduced to two little girls who his father helped raise. To his sisters.

He can't even process it properly before he hears Abby scream, and suddenly he is running to pull her off a blue-haired woman and holding her, thrashing and spitting vitriol, yelling how she thought of Katelyn like her mother, as Katelyn explains what really happened that day, and everything Abby has been keeping inside her for years spills out in wave after wave of tears. She clings to Jacob, and he finds himself crying too. If only they had known the truth earlier.

If they'd only learned the truth earlier, Abby wouldn't have spent so long hating an innocent woman she once adored, and Jacob could have seen his father again. Maybe if he'd known Aaron was The Stranger, if he'd known to wait in Phoenix Drop, Aaron would be alive. He would have had his son to live for.

They can't make themselves stay there once they know the truth. They're not ready. Abby tells Katelyn she'll be back to catch up later, and Jacob tells the Lord he'd like to meet his sisters another time, and with Jacob's quest over they go to hunt the Jury of Nine for Jeffory Goldenheart.

[mugwot]

an artfight attack that is also a webcomic fanart! two birds, one electric type attack.

inhibit webcomic courtesy of @evegwood

[crazymecjc]

✨ justice ✨

persona 5 (spoiler!) shitpost below the cut!!

[iicaru2]

thinking about this fucking thing

[plaguethewaters]

ocs save me,,, ocsss

[starry-mang0s]

WIP!! :O

Trying out something new with my rendering :>

[phoenixcatch7]

Persephone captain marvel au. Hear me out.

Associated with duality, reincarnation, resurrection, childhood innocence (and it getting ripped away by adults), and her 'counterpart' Kore, which is her in her returning aspect of spring, youthfulness, new life... Come on. Is that not the closest thing to Billy you've ever seen in ancient Greece? Where he gets his powers?

It all starts with Teth Adam, and his devastation at the death of his son. He finds the old paths, breaks them open, and storms down into the underworld to demand him back. His is not a new story.

But where Persephone might ordinarily be inclined to ease her husband's scorn, give the troubled mourner a chance, she is speaking to the champion of magic, the world's mightiest mortal. The chance of success is too high. The challenge would not be enough. The death was too high profile and would risk too many attempting to follow in his footsteps. The man is too unstable, too powerful, too close to the heart of magic for it to be safe - for any of him - to grant his wish and risk his false hope.

They deny him.

Enraged, implacable, Teth Adam lashes out. The battle is long and drawn out, neither side tiring even as both weaken, but Persephone, in either form, is not one of war, and she is felled as her curses shatter, her furies tossed aside like dolls. The sound of Hades' scream as Adam's surprise leaves him open flattens the rubble of their throne room.

The wounded champion escapes, hounded by cerberus and skeletons instead of his son's shade, as her husband crashes to his knees beside her. She has not a mortal soul, and thus will be going where even Death cannot reach.

But Adam killed the goddess of reincarnation, and Billy has odd dreams. He's pretty sure he needs to ease up on the stress. He's restless in winter and distracted in summer, he can sleep outside in howling storms as long as he's tucked snug in the boughs of a tree, he's had the luck of never tasting a rotten fruit. Sometimes it feels like there's ghosts in his hideouts and the kids at school try and bribe him to curse their enemies.

When he chosen to be Captain Marvel the wizard chokes on his own speech when the smoke clears. They stare at each other.

"Well," says Persephone, "that was unexpected. Hullo."

"Hello," the wizard replies, "I was under the impression..."

"I don't think the laws of interference quite apply until I'm immortal again," he says.

The wizard's relief is palpable. It's understandable, he looks ready to keel over from old age. "Can I ask...?" he gestures at the new body. It takes a second to understand.

"Oh, I'm a boy now. For a while."

And that's that.

Until green lantern is killed in battle.

[cult-of-dollbabies]

pissing him off like he gets paid to

[jonathanbyersphd]

Why am I still up? (I'm in the Google doc writing Jonathan Byers head over heels in love with Nancy Wheeler)

[druidonity2]

Wranduin oneshot where Anduin grew up taking old stories of beheaded kings to heart and being deathly afraid of anyone or anything touching his neck. He hides his neck with clothes, bandages, and accessories, and flinches anytime anyone gets too close. At this point his neck is more sacred to him then any other part of his body, and is the one place Wrathion would never dare dream of being allowed to touch.

That is till one night Anduin gently and carefully takes Wrathion's bare hands into his own hands, and guides them to his own bare neck, and lets him.