#inverse scourge

[smileythefirst]

Sonic stuff that I’m always too lazy to post here because my main is on DeviantArt 😦🫵

I’m way too lazy to add lore to this AU, so check out my DeviantArt for that: SmileyTheFirst 👍

[scourge-sympathiser]

SCOURGE SUNDAY 025/???

BLESSING leader of WATERCLAN

[flameswallower]

THE BEST FICTION I ENCOUNTERED IN THE FIRST HALF OF 2024!!

Due to what I feel is the most in my wheelhouse re: ability to give a critical defense or determine artistic quality, and also so I won't be here ALL DAY, this list will include books, comics, interactive fiction, and one short video webseries I really liked. It will not include movies, TV shows, non-IF games, or nonfiction, although I do also enjoy/partake in those things.

Everything on this list was new to me this year with the exception of the comic strip Junk World; however, Junk World released as a zine fairly recently, and I forgot to mention it on my end of 2023 list, so I feel fine putting it here. "New to me" does not mean something necessarily released this year, so I have put the year of release in parentheses next to the work where I know the year of release. A couple of these books haven't actually come out yet (I read ARCs); I've noted that when describing them and they will also be on the end-of-year list so people don't forget about them. : )

--------------------

Novels and Novellas!

Cuckoo, by Gretchen Felker-Martin (2024): This is a blisteringly angry book: a constantly burning blow torch pointed at homophobia, transphobia, and, especially, the pervasive scourge of hidden, ignored, and socially approved child abuse. Yet Cuckoo has great tenderness for its immensely damaged protagonists, and also takes the time to flesh out and empathize with some of its odious antagonists. This nuanced characterization provides a necessary counterpoint to the rage that fuels the novel, and makes it more moving and memorable than most other politically charged, hyper-violent works of fiction. There are quiet moments of connection and sorrow that are going to stay with me far longer than the scenes of dynamite explosions and shoot outs with shrieking, starfish-faced cops.

Failure To Comply, by Cavar (comes out in August 2024): Reading Cavar’s Failure to Comply, I couldn’t help but think of the recent David Cronenberg movie Crimes of the Future. Both deal with dystopias in which bodies and their modification are strictly regulated, and people with unauthorized bodies form a vibrant, perpetually imperiled subculture on the margins. Both use this conceit to speak metaphorically about the plights of trans and disabled people, although Failure to Comply’s characters are also presented as literally, textually disabled and trans. But, although Crimes of the Future is often accused of being a “weird movie,” Failure to Comply is undeniably much, much weirder. Cronenberg is super normal compared to this.

Maej, by Dale Stromberg (comes out in September 2024): a doorstopper I found difficult to put down and finished inside a week; a work of very unapologetic genre fiction that’s equally unapologetic in its intelligence and dedication to doing strange, creative things with language; a high fantasy story I actually liked. The setting is the city of Sforre-Yomn, in the country of Hwoama, whose culture combines elements from across the continents of Asia and Europe. But Hwoama is matriarchal: men are subordinate to women, who dominate politics, business, the military, and nearly all other professions. As a result of this fact, almost all the major characters in the novel are female. By turns this presents a fun, simple, mischievous inversion of maleness as the unmarked default state for fictional characters, and meaty commentary on the social construction of sex, sexuality, and gender. Stromberg has cited Le Guin as an influence on Maej and, in the most complimentary way possible, this influence is evident.

Wrath Goddess Sing, by Maya Deane (2022): I listened to the audiobook version, read by the lovely voice of Katherine Pucciarello, so I can't vouch for whether I would have enjoyed the novel (as much) in text form. However, the audiobook was an engrossing tale of bronze age sandal, sword, and sorcery. Although it is based on the story of Achilles, readers who want a very po-faced historically or mythologically faithful retelling would be wise to look elsewhere; that said, I for one have little interest in retellings that do not bring a lot of new stuff to the table, so I was happy with all of the strange, interesting, surprising directions this one went. I loved the bizarre, often horrific depictions of the gods; this book really captured the feverish, molten, giddy, and terrifying feeling that accompanies magic and spiritual encounters in real life. Like I said, this is essentially a lavish work of epic sword and sorcery, and I think it is best to set one's expectations through that lens.

More Bugs, by Em Reed (2024): A slow-paced existentialist character study/slice of life about a cynical, depressed butch woman going through a quarter-life crisis after circumstances force her to move back to her sleepy central Pennsylvania hometown and back in with her disapproving mother. Also a f/f age gap romance. Also a magical realist/sci-fi story about shapeshifting alien beings. It's unique, and I connected with it a lot.

Read and Then Burn This, by Rysz Merey (2024): Ah, young love! Have you ever been nineteen, shallow, insecure in your art, inexperienced in the world, and making poor sexual decisions? Haven't we all. This is a book about that. I find the relatively small scale of the proceedings, and the emotional numbness/constipation of the characters, makes this feel all the more sordid.

The Woods All Black, by Lee Mandelo (2024): This one has a couple flaws that bugged me while I was reading, but it's a revenge-horror romance story about two trans guys (or arguably: a trans guy and a butch) in 1920s Appalachia and it has blisteringly hot, graphic sex scenes of both the "regular" and the "monsterfucking" variety, so-- pretty much impossible for me not to enjoy overall! I thought the depiction of how 1.) people in the past conceived of transness differently than most people do today, and 2.) different trans people often conceive of their own transness differently, even if their embodiment is very similar, was nuanced and quite well done.

Short Story Collections!

Grime Time, by Ivy Grimes (2023): Some of the oddest short fiction I've read in ages! Grimes' surreal stories tend to be very brief, and they're almost always impossible to categorize. They deal heavily with ambivalence and ambiguity, two of my favorite things, and often end up unsettling the reader not because of anything particularly ominous or awful that happens in the narrative, but because it's very unclear what actually has happened, how the protagonist feels about it, and how the reader ought to feel about it. The definition of "really makes you think!" Grimes' prose is simple and clear, with minimal description, yet very distinctive. Often reminds me of Leonora Carrington.

White Cat, Black Dog, by Kelly Link (2023): Predictably enough, another all-bangers instant classic from Link. These stories are all based on fairy tales, with some following the original fairy tale quite closely and others taking very loose inspiration from the fairy tale or mixing and matching with elements from different tales. My personal favorite, the standout in an excellent collection, was "Prince Hat Underground," which is a really beautiful story about being in a long term relationship with someone you love but don't always get along with or understand, about accepting the inevitability of death and loss, and about what a fairy tale romance looks like when the people in the fairy tale romance are middle aged men on the cusp of old age, rather than wide-eyed young people.

Individual Short Stories!

"The Earth and Everything Under," by K.M. Ferebee (2014) is a slightly grotesque, surreal, fairy tale-like novelette about grief and witchcraft. I strongly suggest you read it at the link.

"The Clown Watches the Clown," by Sara S. Messenger (2024) is also slightly grotesque, surreal, and melancholic; it's about a young person in a space opera cyberpunk future who's caught in a rut. Again, you can and should read it at the link.

"The Evening and the Morning and the Night," by Octavia Butler (1987) has been anthologized in a few places and shouldn't be too difficult to track down, but I'd never read it before. It's an incredible work of sci-fi that deals with mad liberation/disability justice and also with (as in much of Butler's work) the idea of biology as destiny: to what extent are we at the mercy of our bodies and instinctual drives, and to what extent do we have the power to decide what we'll do with them? How do the stories we tell about certain kinds of bodies and medical conditions affect our ability to see that potential for choice, for agency, or just for things to turn out in a different and better way?

Comics!

Kiara's Junk World rules. I love the skillful inking, the cute animal characters, the playful and sardonic wit, the erudite references.

Interactive Fiction!

In a.c.d's The Beach That Makes You Old, you have to help a patient trapped in an evil hospice/psychiatric facility. (2024)

In K.A. Tan's Labyrinth, you play as the Minotaur, on the last day of his life. (2024)

Both games are free to play, with a play time of about forty-five minutes to an hour if you want to get all the endings/explore every aspect of the narrative. If you've never experienced interactive fiction before, it takes no special gaming skill: you just click through different links!

Video!

Mr. Samuel's Teatime Stories, dir. Yara Asmar (2024) is a distorted, Lynchian faux-children's show. Unlike, say, Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared, the tone is much more eerie, elegiac, and somber-- or, occasionally, surprisingly sweet-- than darkly comedic and satirical (which isn't to say there are no jokes or funny moments). I found it really moving by the end.

[scarlettaagni]

I'm assuming you reblogged the 'send me a character' thing with intent, so I will ask about. Cyclonus! please : 3

ye ye! I guess I'll refer to G1 (cartoon) Cyclonus by large

favorite thing about them: the most nuanced bitch this side of the cartoon! Decepticons constantly pull themselves down by only looking out for themselves and being conniving little shits to each other instead of only their enemies (and that's the point) but here you have a complete inversion, a Decepticon (second-in-command, no less) who is LOYAL. not only loyal, but selfless, by their standards?? nothing matters to Cyclonus beyond Galvatron, the Decepticon cause, and combat. he should be a force of nature but is rendered inert by an incapable leader because he just wants to follow. He's a warrior first and foremost but he gets to basically be in charge and isn't dumb muscle, e.g. he knows psychology (or at least how to work a crowd). Cyclonus is one year old and yet feels like he personally met Roman gladiators or something, he's great. A character of visible, textual multitudes in the G1 cartoon, which was notoriously allergic to nuance

least favorite thing about them: bro, the character assassination, like in Headmasters anime or the comics. I know by and large the Decepticons are dumb as hell, but I get like personally offended when chars are just dumbed the hell down for the sake of a joke or to facilitate the plot. If you have to do that, just pick more-fitting character or come up with a justification, fr. you'd think watching G1 five times in a row would inoculate me to this, but no. (for the record, his weird amplified cowardice I'm counting as stupidity) This doesn't apply to like, gag manga, that's the whole point of them

least favorite thing about them pt 2: that last answer felt like cheating so I guess while I like both demon and final designs, I hate how held back his final design is! I joke about the Unicronian legs being fine af, but he had curvier legs and they took them away. His neck is blank and featureless, so is his face. He looks fine this way, but there were so many interesting details they could have kept even when making him look more uniform with previous character designs. I guess I can thank AKOM for once, for letting us see his old design in motion lol

favorite (serious) line: damn. if I gotta pick? I guess for characterization: [out of breath] "It has been too long since I had an opponent that was worthy of my FULL attention..." or alternatively, "Galvatron...!" said like Roger C. Carmel is crying in the sound booth purely just for the line delivery

favorite (silly) line: "Everybody's gotta be somewhere..." [casually waltzes past a guy Scourge just roundhoused through a screen]

brOTP: I used to joke that Cyclonus and Scourge are at most drinking buddies to me, and I learned that's literally how they met in IDW

OTP: G1? CycMags. The rituals are intricate. It's about the symmetry. Two second-in-commands, more competent than their not-up-to-the-task leaders, the Soldier and the Warrior. They pointedly unname each other. They get petty when they're in the same space together. Cyclonus saved Ultra Magnus' life so that he could end it himself. He's sure he'll win but is perfectly open to Magnus ending him. Cyclonus views him as an equal, and despite the attempts on each other's lives, that is what makes it healthier than...

NOTP: Cyclonus/Galvatron. he's down so bad but it's obviously one-sided. he can do MUCH better, he just doesn't want to. Cyclonus won't consider any other options...... unless

random headcanon: he's prone to parroting. if someone uses a particular word or phrase, he'll use it in a sentence soon after, and phrased exactly the same way too. then it just becomes part of Cyclonus' vocabulary forever. which is how you get a guy who uses words like "vanquish" and "insolent" also saying things like "wimps" and "losers"

unpopular opinion: I'm so not with the silly ear interpretation of his horns. It's cute, and I'll make some jokey references to it, or have characters refer to them as such (derisively) but I'm insistent that they're horns. He's based off a demon, the Unicronians are clearly made in Unicron's image, they're horns. I'm a bigger fan of the wings swiveling up and down

song i associate with them: this is more of a song for all the Unicronians as a group, but I just like this one

favorite picture of them: there's some silly ones I already shared but I might as well pick one he looks really good in

in short: I like the him a normal, healthy amount

[killingthecringe]

When the Anti- Amy (Rosy) strikes a deal to help the Freedom Fighters rob Scourge and his castle of a power source in the basement, she thinks it's an Anarchy Beryl. The inverse versions of the Chaos Emeralds are certainly powerful enough - But that isn't what's down there. And what's down there is hungry.

My second submission for the 2023-2024 @shadamyzine ! This fic also contains artwork from the wonderful @mysuperlaserpiss, who did such an incredible job!

[bonefall]

would pinestar approve of firestar? also what are his thoughts on tigerstar :3c

I think Pinestar’s actually a bit conflicted on Firestar, and they wouldn't really get along. They're actually opposites!

Firestar will fight to correct any injustice he sees, he can't be held back or stopped. He opposed Bluestar's bad descisions and the pernicious aspects of Clan Culture from the offset, and never lost this, reviving SkyClan to right an ancient wrong and befriending Scourge.

Pinestar? He was old and tired. His whole life he fought battles he couldn't win and was cynical that the Clans would ever change. The only winning move was not to play. It sucked and he hit the bricks, and that was the right choice for his happiness.

I think... Pinestar resents that a little bit. Firestar makes it look easy. He's this bright little ember in contrast to his burnt-out red pelt, and he was allowed to die a hero. Pinestar just got older and older and couldn't even enjoy his last years in peace.

StarClan looks at his long life of service, looong past the point of elderhood, and damns him for his last seasons.

How insulting is that?

Meanwhile Firestar can't fathom that. He can't imagine not going out fighting, he doesn't even want to think about leaving his children to fend for themselves.

They see themselves reflected in the other almost like a corrupted mirror. Firestar's life is a fantasy to Pine, to see it exists is so... painful. Pinestar’s life is like a sick inversion of Firestar's own.

They would be able to cooperate, but the existence of the other is deeply uncomfortable.

[bloodymxrie]

who, or what are the trinity?

there are a few conflicting viewpoints here. in the LORE video that attempts to explain the game's lore in a minute or less, the trinity are described as "a trinity of euclidean horrors masquerading as beautiful goddesses" that saw that mankind was impure and sought their destruction. surely that must be the answer, right?

well it's been almost a decade since then, and a lot of our information has changed, especially with the release of eliza and skullgirls mobile. allow me to attempt to explain how i've pieced together skullgirls' lore.

in ancient times, there was a kingdom formed around a human woman named lamia and her two daughters, aeon and venus. parasites thrived in this age, being known to the public as "theons" and their hosts as "avatars." notice the language here. the root word "theo" in theons means "god", and representatives of gods in real life were often called avatars. the mysterious substance "theonite" was also responsible for the parasite's immense power. aeon and venus were seemingly bonded to their theons, khronos and abaddon, in life as they are in death. it's no wonder they would be in positions of high power back then with parasites that were able to rend time and space at will. but at this point, importance has not been placed on the girls themselves, only their parasites. the trinitarian religion did not exist until after their deaths, when double was sent down to spread the gospel of her masters. suspiciously, lamia herself is never implied to have had a parasite, but i'll come back to that later.

enter neferu, more commonly known today as eliza.

at the time of the kingdom's apex, neferu was lamia's righthand and governed alongside her. either through sekhmet's doing or her own lust for power, she betrayed her queen, violently killing her daughters and "destroying their kingdom", as double puts it. neferu was branded as the crimson scourge, and theons fell from their place of high importance in society, condemned now as pests or "parasites." i'd assume that would sour just about any person's outlook on humanity, honestly. but it's especially interesting that in lamia in mythology was driven to insanity by the murder of her children. and equally as interesting is the fact that she herself is never stated to have died. it's been mentioned before in lore posts on the official skullgirls forums, but there is no afterlife in the skullgirls universe or at least there wasn't intended to be. corpses are resurrected on command by the skull heart, which is (you guessed it) comprised of theonite. who's to say that when their avatars died, abaddon and khronos didn't resurrect their masters and ensure their continued existence on a higher plane? that's only part of what i think happened though. i believe that, consumed by her grief and desire for revenge, it was lamia's doing that propelled herself and her daughters to the status of divinity. and it was neferu's betrayal and society's contempt for theons following that incident that inspired lamia to go on a crusade against all of mankind. i say lamia instead of implicating aeon or venus because they seem... pretty chill about it overall. in game it's even stated to be their mother's plan, and while they are just as evil, they seem to be having fun with it more than seeking any kind of revenge. but who is lamia's parasite? double, duh.

not only is their physical resemblance uncanny, but the two are often stated to be one and the same, or at least the inverse of a common parasite-host relationship. double is lamia's avatar, her representative on the mortal plane as well as the window for the goddesses to see and operate through. i'm willing to suspend my belief and say that lamia is so powerful of a being on her own either through double's power or in spite of it that she is able to control her remotely, without physically even needing to be present. though it helps that double is made in her image, so to speak. lamia devised the skullheart, which would corrupt any woman who was not pure of heart, and used double to carry it out into the world. since she viewed mankind as vile, "defiling insects," she assumed that none could wield it without being corrupted by it's power, and that humanity's greed, similar to eliza's, would be their undoing. double then founded trinitarianism, bringing us to the present day. to recap, since i know that was a lot: the trinity were once rulers of a now fallen kingdom who derived their power from the theons, or parasites. they were betrayed by eliza and sekhmet, an incident which is said to have caused the prejudice against parasites today. upon the deaths of aeon and venus, their mother resurrected them and set out to avenge them by destroying mankind. and honestly, the girls are only there for the ride, i respect that.

[toaarcan]

I mentioned in my Bold New Moebius post the other day that Miles is one of my favourite Archie Sonic characters, so I thought I'd elaborate a bit more on that.

Bear in mind that the more I talk here, the more likely I am to go into pure "I made it the fuck up" territory, because he was a very underutilised character in canon, and that means I'm going to be doing some heavy interpreting and stretching. This is how he appears to me, after all.

The obvious first point (one I even made in the previous post) is that he's a Starscream-type, and that's one of my favourite villainous archetypes. Some little shit of a bad guy who sits there going "I could do better" and often has kind of a point, because the main villains they're working for tend to be a bit... dim.

Miles usually working for Scourge is a prime example of this. He's a genius, and Scourge is... not. Remotely. They work in very different ways, Scourge being loud and explosive and prone to self-sabotage, while Miles is more sneaky and subtle.

But what gives Miles so much potential is actually something unexpected: His fear.

Miles is often regarded as a coward, and I used to hate this. After all, being afraid of Super Scourge is a fairly reasonable stance to take. At the same time, framing Miles as someone who talks a big game but is kind of a wimp when cornered does fit as an inversion of Tails' lacking confidence and braver centre.

But the main reason I think this is actually a fairly good trait for a villain is that it compounds with his intellect.

If Miles is a genius who really, really doesn't want to get punched in his smug face, then he should be very cautious in his schemes. He has the intelligence to make his plans in such a way that he's always safe. His plans have contingencies. His contingencies have contingencies. Even if you thwart and foil the first six layers, maybe the seventh will catch you out. Even if you stop him from achieving his objective, he's already escaped.

Miles isn't a villain who can show up every few weeks with another crazy scheme and get foiled. He's the sort of villain that only shows up rarely, but when he does, strap the fuck in, because even getting close to stopping him is going to be a challenge.

And despite the Sonic series' propensity for genius antagonists, none of them have ever really tried the "Master planner" angle. The most genius plan we've seen from other villains in Archie is Mogul going "I'm immortal and you're not, so I'm just gonna wait until you 80 and then win."

Finitevus is a genius, but while his plans are good, they're not hugely intricate. He tends to resolve his problems by way of overwhelming force, and his ultimate goal is worldwide genocide by way of burning the entire planet to the ground.

Eggman... look, as much as I dislike Ian Flynn's version of Eggman, whom I find an incredibly confused character, I do think he's got a good point about Eggman being a fuckup. The SEGA game version of Eggman is the guy who responded to one Gizoid going into murder-mode and nearly killing him by immediately building another one, which then proceeded to go into murder-mode and nearly kill him. He constantly unleashes other threats that he cannot control (Chaos, Shadow, Emerl, Gemerl, Dark Gaia, Zavok) and then acts surprised when it blows up in his face.

The guy is a scientific and mechanical genius with the foresight and planning skill of a cranefly. It's weirder when his plans don't backfire on him.

And that means there's a niche! There's a type of villain that Miles can fill, a character who uses his intelligence not for the creation of doomsday weapons, but to concoct a plan that will take every last scrap of Sonic and co.'s determination to overcome. Additionally, Miles has another trait that works in his favour: Who he's a counterpart to. After all, in Archie, Tails has a grand destiny and unmatched power that is simply... never used. For anything. Gallagher introduced the idea, and Penders waffled on about it and dragged it out and changed his mind about what it was meant to be, and then Flynn ended it in a really weaksauce way.

So basically, Tails had a big role to play, and ended up fulfilling his destiny about three times, and with the final one it was mostly done for him, by a machine, that he was being used to power, but he was mostly unconscious, and he had help from Shadow. And then Flynn said he lost all of his powers except flight off-screen, but it was never shown and that's intensely lame so I ignore that part and so should you.

But... Miles is an evil counterpart to Tails, and the antiverse appears to have just as many Emeralds (or Beryls) as the Prime one has. There's no reason Miles can't also be a Chosen One. In fact, it stands to reason that he is one. And while Tails briefly had all the power of all the Chaos Emeralds in the universe, and gave it up... what would a villain do with that kind of power? Certainly nothing good.

On Moebius, the Great Harmony is a doomsday prophecy, and Miles is at its centre. And that feeds into another one of my favourite villain tropes, "The Chosen One exists and it is explicitly a bad thing."

And we'll round this out with another villain trope example, because Miles is an absolutely amazing candidate for the Villainous Breakdown.

I love it when a bad guy reaches the end of their rope and just fucking loses it. Maybe they start begging for the mercy they never showed others, maybe they lose control and just start viciously attacking everything in sight, determined to take the hero down with them. Whatever form it takes, it can be immensely satisfying.

And Miles, a genius schemer who really, really does not want to get the crap kicked out of him, would play out this trope beautifully.

Now if only they'd actually done something with him in Archie. Or maybe it's a blessing in disguise that they didn't, given the standards most Archie villains were at by the end-stages of the preboot.

[kudzuoath]

Been rotating the Phylactery that Temperance absorbed -- became? in my brain. It really does make her something of the inverse of the Dark Urge and plays into the unrelenting/unreasonable paladin trope. As well as the RAW blurb about Scourge Aasimar.

If she were a player character the player would have to make saves to avoid attacking Mizora or Raphael on sight. And she would absolutely leave the party of an evil Tav/Durge. Probably via being killed by attacking said party.

I low key based the Phylactery and how it affects her off of Justice and Anders in Dragon Age 2. The souls don't have (heh) temperance. They Will Right Wrongs and Smite the Wicked. Oath of vengeance even says 'you have sacrificed even your own purity' so it's just. To me. A very neat exploration of a loss of agency and identity.

I also think the more the phylactery 'takes over' the more it takes of Temperance's actual self. She's but one soul against many. And while embracing the powers of the phylactery can grant incredible strength, the cost is her identity. She wont die -- she'll simply be one small voice amid hundreds. Her body becoming a guardian of faith rather than a person.

Something I think Temperance was more or less waiting for, pre-game. All the people in her life were dead, hated her, abandoned or betrayed her. Or in the lone case of Shepherd, would be endangered by her presence. What was left for her outside of vengeance? Once she found Eldrey and had her answers, and her justice... there would have been nothing left. And she knew that going in.

[v1model]

!! [ LONG RANT I GUESS ] !!

Long ass rant incoming regarding V1 and V2 as characters and their personalities. I might add art to this later on if I'm bored enough!

i like the vmodels a lot [can you fucking tell???????????????????????????????] and i think that characterization is important when it comes to these two characters who have had absolutely no words to say but speak in their movements. i like the idea of a bratty asshole v2 and i like the idea of a quiet efficient v1. but i also cannot ignore or neglect other aspects of them!!!!!!!!

my most favorite of all characterization of v2 happens to be inkfaire's, which is like. to quote them, "i just enjoy the idea of them being someone's precious creation; only to fall to its own sense of hubris... we love a machine made to guard times of peace being ended by its desire for violence!"

and i like that, i like that it's coded to be human at first and slowly descends into its own form of madness trying to compete. that would make sense, it fits nicely with the story too.

but v1 i feel is also the same, but in the opposite sense......?

war is also a very human concept, and i think that because of it things like comrades also exist. i feel like v2 could have been a friend, a partner, a comrade. for stuff like gabriel and other enemies with healthbars on-screen, they're almost immediate. v2 always has moments of hesitance? like v1's waiting to see if v2 will actually strike or not, assessing if it truly is a foe. i like that idea. i like the idea of them wanting to be friends. then again, that wouldn't really make sense for 'You're not getting away this time', or even when we Know v2 will fight us again in 4-4 the healthbar doesn't show up (or gabriel's speech in 6-2 either for that matter) rendering it kind of a dumb theory but whooooo knows.

anyways my point is, i really think while it's not exactly programmed to, i feel like v1 carries weight of its death around with it. it grieves. they were born together (though its unclear if they were together at the time of making), and i think they're extremely bonded. the game isn't designed for that, there isn't any special text for it, but i think most people stayed around or at least REACTED when v2 fell and died. i think v1 would do the same. there's even an animation in which v1 flinches upon impact. even if hakita didnt give v2 the closure i think it needed for such an important enemy to v1's life, i think v1 definitely takes v2's death around with them.

and i think violence as a layer is going to fuck with us the absolute most because of how its designed. it's a war themed layer, i think there's going to be callbacks to v2 and humanity somehow. v1's special spot in hell.

in a less serious version of humanity, i like to think v1 is kind of like wall-e...? fascinated by peace itself, to inverse v2's fascination with violence. being stylish during combat, finding secrets, literally just looking around. some people like to write the secrets into their work, i've read a fic where they mentioned that v1 liked to stall around layers and explore basically everything. i think they have an extremely expressive body language, whereas v2's expression comes moreso in their voice. asl can be optional (i like to project and say that they sign, because i sign and i rlly love v1). some people like to think it collects little trinkets and such. holding florp and other things very gently in their hands. doing challenges (which i take as completely canon) just for the fun of it. yeah they're a war machine and yeah they're wiping out all of hell but in their scourge it develops their own humanity and its own identity and they have fun. WE have fun, playing as v1, so they must be having a fucking blast.

anyways uhh v4v sweep uhhh gay people BBRBFBRBBFBBR or something idfk im sorry if this doesn't make sense or is stupidly off canon i just think they should hold hands

[simplysoriya]

hide: What does your OC hide? Why do they hide it?

Honestly Soriya doesn’t usually hide a lot, she’s probably honestly one of the more genuinely open people I’ve seen written (personal bias aside of course). She’s happy to talk about herself, but usually takes a role listening and engaging rather than dumping her personal stuff. But! It’s not like she’s actually hiding a dark past or anything. Recently she kind of realized that talking about growing up in Quel’thalas after the Scourge is a harsh memory for a lot of elves, so she will downplay it unless she actually needs to talk about it.

Even externally she doesn’t really hide how she feels and is very outspoken about things that don’t sit right with her or on the inverse things that make her happy. Even so, you’d expect things to get contentious with a person like that but I’ve always thought her delivery and sensitivity usually lets her get away with stating (harsh) facts in gentle ways.

Truly, Soriya lives her life with her heart on her tattooed sleeve and I have nothing but respect for her for that.

So sorry for the non answer but she—— OH MY GOD IM SO SORRY. I totally forgot that she’s been in ninja training mode for like the last year. She regularly hides herself with a cloaking device one of her friends made for her to help her ‘be more sneaky’. She also has had a habit of pickpocketing people’s cigarettes and will hide them in a lake.

But other than THAT she’s not prone to hide things from people.

Thanks @zariasilverleaf !

[smileythefirst]

Wow, more AU stuff?! (Yeah-) + Needlemouse cuz yes

Also the Pentas sketch was just me figuring out her color palette so the sketch was hella rushed (first time drawing a comic, too, I know it sucks 😭)

[scumbag-the-hedgehog]

Thinking about the recurring motif of Sonic 06 of characters choosing the people important to them when faced with a decision between them and the world (the Amy quote, Rouge and Omega standing by Shadow, etc) and thinking about how Scourge is like a toxic inversion of those themes ("If I can't have you then the world is worthless")

[thepaintedsable]

Ravenpaw page

My device kinda sat on the quality and made dirt, but I tried to fix it the best I could haha.

I’m hiding the rest of this post behind this line.

Ravenpaw! Why? I don’t know. I just felt like revisiting an old interest of mine, and that just so happened to be Warrior Cats: Into the Wild. We do love our traumatized boy. So, I kinda drew how I envisioned him in the series to compare back to some old art (if I can find it). I drew him and Barley a few times back ‘n’ the day, so I wanted to see how it changed. I like the idea of him being slightly spotty like an inverse cow. Opposite Barley.

The twolegs who own the property obviously can’t speak cat and the cats can’t speak human, so I’d like to think they’d have the same instinct I would, and call them Cow and Magpie, pfft.

Honestly, tho. How to kittypets know their names? And how do they know how to translate it back to cat? If their name is Spots, do they try and meow that sound or do they have the concept that they were named after their fur pattern? What if their mother named them something different? A prior owner? Do they just go with it?

Raven the Cowardly Cat. I need not explain further.

I swear I remember a scene happening along these lines, but trying to look it up I cannot locate one instance where they actually said goodbye like this. I refuse to reread the series for this fact alone. This is distressing. ALSO, if cats can point with their tails and make complex signals, I should be seeing more everyday hand-type actions. I want the patting of backs, gosh darn it.

Get back Firestar/Scourge, pack your bags Tigerstar/Scourge, I will simply present my take on the clear and obvious Ravenpaw/Scourge parallel.

Black cats with white spots? Check. Both described as small, probably? Check. Childhood trauma caused by a certain Tiger? Double Check. Runs away from clan territory? You know it! Gets cool cow spotted sidekick? Hell yeah!

[phantom-fleetways]

Kiturge and Sontails are like each other's inverses. But in a funny way. Thank god, I made them worse with Scourge and Spite.

[iratusmus]

honestly its a real shame we didnt get to explore moebius as a concept more because it has like an incredible amount of potential to be a really interesting deconstruction of the "alternate universe where all the moralities are FLIPPED!!!" type of stories. like i was talking about it with @/goosewhisker and she brought up a bunch of super interesting points like. okay see the main question that most of this springs off of is... what, exactly, is the relationship between mobius and moebius.

i think its really worthwhile to go ahead and put in this question ian answered on his now-defunct forum that has frankly haunted me ever since i first found it. i've transcripted it below for easier reading.

"Question #4 wrote: When we talk about anti-Mobius, is this an evil version of Mobius really? They seem flipped around, but Knuckles, for example, is a good guy really in either dimension, and anti-Sonic… well, there's some potent foreshadowing in #172. But if anti-Mobius isn't an evil Mobius, in what sense is it the anti-Mobius?" In terms of Anti-Knuckles, at the time he was the antithesis. Knuckles at that point was still a nebulous hero - distrusting, hermit-like, and ultimately heroic in that he helped against the greater evil. Anti-Knuckles also was very open and telling about himself and his world, the exact opposite of Knuckles who sequestered himself away and generally kept everything to himself. Our Knuckles has grown to be more open, trusting, helpful, and truly heroic. One would assume the Anti-Knuckles wouldn't be nearly as approachable nowadays. I think calling the Antiverse the "evil Mobius" is too easy. Originally that's exactly what it was, but as its slowly built up over the years there's more to it. Mobius is a world under one dark cloud as the Eggman Empire seeks to conquer everything. Despite this there are pockets of hope, of heroism, and selflessness that fight back. On Anti-Mobius, the one beacon of hope is Dr. Kintobor's hospital and what he's managed to rescue in the Great Forest. The world is in a perpetual state of chaos as pockets of selfishness, ruthlessness, and misery sustain each other. Mobius is an example of hope enduring despite all odds. Anti-Mobius is a sad look at inevitable doom. I'll have much more to say on this later on.

so as ian himself says, moebius is no longer just the "evil mobius", but at the same time it can't really escape the shackles of being the inverse of prime mobius (see: knuckles vs anti-knuckles). so is this connection one way? do the inhabitants of moebius truly have any free will, or are they simply bound to be the opposite of their mainline counterparts?

i think scourge is definitely an interesting way of exploring this concept. as a character he's concepted on the idea of somebody who hates the idea of being considered a derivative of somebody else. he's not his own person - he's simply a discount version of the "real" him. his identity isn't his own. in his desperation to become anything that isnt sonic, ironically he ends up leaning into... well. still being a derivative of sonic. namely, what he is. anti-sonic. so even in his attempt to break free of the place that the universe has assigned him as a "sonic", he ultimately becomes exactly that.

does he really have free will, or is he simply confined to his lot in life? alternatively, is it that his natural inclinations/personality/choices are exactly that of his assigned place, which is how he ended up as the "anti-sonic" in the first place?

there's also another aspect to consider here - zonic says that scourge's "mutation" has made him "something of a wild card in the grand scheme of things". a line which is... never explained. but fascinates me nonetheless.

what is scourge's mutation, then? is it the master emerald incident, or is it that he rejected(?) his assigned place in the universe? if its the latter, then what does that mean for the rest of moebius, who have all followed in his footsteps (willing or not) to take on new, personal identities that are allegedly separate from their mobian counterparts?

buns' joining of kintobor is also definitely worth mentioning here - at the point that she switches sides, bunnie is still an unwavering freedom fighter. morally, both the mobian and moebian are on the same side. given that after the antoine incident, bunnie was going to join eggman's side to get legionized, what does that mean for the moebius/mobius connection?

is it possible that when scourge made them all take on new identities, he made the connection twofold? can changes in a moebian now affect their mobius counterpart? ironically, again, could scourge's attempt to break the ties between mobius and moebius only brought them closer together, now that both sides could potentially affect each other?

on a different meta note, i really would've liked to see more of moebius just because like... if mobius is a world where people are generally default "good", then is moebius a world where people are generally default "evil"? are they literally set up to fail because of the world they were created into?

frankly, going back to ian's commentary on moebius posted earlier... its no wonder that scourge (+ by extension the rest of the ss) ended up like that. the entire thing is so screwed from top to bottom and i wouldve killed to see it explored more.