#wips that almost were

[foxys-fantasy-tales]

Arigale and Made to Taste almost were...

So, @ashen-crest started this with a post about A Rival Most Vial (comes out 3/20/2023! Go get it!) but I thought I'd make my own post for my own story might-have-beens. Here's some changes both these series have gone through over the years. Arigale Series

Judith has went through three different main love interests over the years before Chit came to be. Judith used to be just CisHet (I had not come out to even myself yet in college when I made her, so uhhhh yea) but now she is bisexual and polyam. The Order of Yani wasn't always the villain. There was going to be another big quest and Yani would have been Chit's patron god and giver of his powers. Not a great guy, but a good one. Wow, that changed a lot. Citers, Addena, Enumer, Kichi, all deities that appear in book one were not originally there at all. As Yani became a villain, I found a need to dive more into an array of gods and make up why he turned out that way and how deities function in this world. More explained in book two and three. Originally, Judith didn't lean on her staff for casting with her spirits or have a heavy limit/cost at trying to use more than one at a time. I found her far too overpowered and had to create this limiter. Rita was originally a character that died in a wholly different story, but I thought her and Rahat meshed well with the lore of Arigale, same with Aka and Varin / Madakast and Calsita as those four were another story as well. I enjoyed the process of turning Arigale into an epic with all these different races and histories. In Arigale's first draft, Judith tugged Chit into an even headier whirlwind romance. They were in bed together by chapter seven or so. Now that's in book two over halfway in. There was originally a different yellow power than Chinea, in fact, Chinea was created after i decided Yani would be a villain as a counter force in Chit's childhood. Made to Taste Series The original Made to Taste draft was set in a fantasy world way back in around the 1700s or so. It wasn't until draft two that I decided it may work better as a modern day setting in a diner rather than a tavern Noel was a very helpful and downtrodden character at first, far more of a wet cat boy than he is now. Now he has some bite and attitude to him and a punk look when before he only dressed in muted colors and styles.

Rosie and Sheryl get a lot more quips and story as they run the business with Lyra and Noel. They were there, but more quiet in earlier drafts.

Sheryl went from just the muscle and a good friend to the blunt butch ace lesbian we know and love today. My so far singular beta is obsessed ha.

The original antagonist of this series was Lyra's father and his controlling tendency toward his (abandoned) dhampir daughter. He's still a force for later volumes, but he's far less impactful in the new draft.

Originally, when Lyra has to flee home she turns to the fae kingdom and a friendly customer from there who helps her in. This character is now a background character and the fae realm is much more literal and in the same world. She doesn't even flee there, but to an underground city.

In draft one, Lyra was polyam and demi and ended up with far too many characters as I grew invested in too many. Many were cut back like the fae that helped her escape into smaller roles. I'm not sure if she's still polyam in this draft or if I want her to just be with Noel and just demi.

[blighted-lights]

(click for better quality, tumblr hates me)

i wanted to try making a tfa ravage but she ended up being more of shockwave's friend than soundwave's. in my head ravage is undercover alongside "longarm" as "blackcat"; they're spy friends!

[lunameimei]

"𝙸 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚘𝚌𝚒𝚊𝚝𝚎, 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝚈𝚎𝚊𝚑, 𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚑, 𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚑"

[rimeah]

[basiltonpitch]

some smoker will for you on this fine miwip wendesday

[angrybatart]

"Say pal, you don't look so good. You better find something to eat before night comes!"

The past few times I tried to play as him resulted in me dying in hilarious ways, but I haven't tried playing the updated version of him yet. 😵 Too little health, and I remember his shadow servants being dumb as rocks.

[cheriboms]

doctober day 3: gun fight

aka "if i had a nickel for every time a bttf character got shot, but was wearing protective clothing (unbeknownst to their friend), i would have two nickels"

(bonus bc i didnt think id finish this one in time:)

[averseunhinged]

it's wip wednesday! hooray. my actual ongoing wip are all kind of at a point of almost doneness where i should stop sharing snippets from them, so here is a thing from the archives. no idea when i might finish this, because of all the other things.

technically, it's a soulmates au, but doesn't really get into all that until like ten pages later.

The young woman who opened the door was none of the three he expected.

"Hi," she said hesitantly, elongating the word. "Can I help you?"

"The answer to your question is entirely dependent on whether you're planning on using that," Elijah pointedly looked down at the crossbow held nonchalantly in her hand.

"Oh!" she yelped and easily swung the heavy weapon up behind her back. "That's nothing. It's...a prop! Made of Styrofoam. My friend's a drama major. No big deal."

He heard a sigh from further inside the room and the approach of bare feet in sandals. A slim, pale hand appeared from behind the door and opened it wider.

"Well, you tried," Caroline Forbes said with an exhausted tilt to her inflection. "Points for thinking fast and coming up with a solid, truth-based lie. Would've been better to avoid flashing medieval weaponry around in the hallway in the first place, but you did stick the landing." She focused her attention back on him. "I thought that sounded like a Mikaelson. Hello, Elijah."

"Miss Forbes."

"Well, at least you know each other. I'm Ivy," the other girl cheerfully introduced herself and held out her hand for him to shake.

"Did you not learn your lesson the last time?" Caroline pushed Ivy's hand down and scooted the other girl back into the room. "Don't try to make friends with supposed friends of friends who turn up out of nowhere!"

"I'm already dead, what else could happen?"

"You could always be more dead, or about a trillion other awful things. Do you want to get shot in the head? I've been shot in the head. It sucks. There. The benefit of my experience. No need to do your own research."

"I give you my word no harm will come to your," Elijah paused and then questioned, "sireling?"

"Adopted. Her sire's an idiot, but he's an idiot I inherited, and unfortunately, I'm attached to him now." She sighed and looked over her shoulder. At what, he wasn't sure. "Okay, I'm kind of on a time crunch, so you should come in. No," she commanded, pointing one stern finger at him, "shenanigans. I will be super upset if you do any heart-ripping."

Elijah solemnly traced an X on his chest and said, with gravity, "Cross my heart and hope to die."

"Oh great. More hilarious jokes." Caroline stepped back and waved him in. "You all have the worst sense of humor. Like it's seriously terrible."

Whitmore was one of the oldest universities in the American South, and a wealthy one at that. Judging by its size and appointments, Caroline's dormitory room looked as though it had originally been a common room. There was typical evidence of young women--cosmetics and jewelry, warring perfumes, several brassieres hanging over the back of a chair--but there were also stacks of old, rough-bound books and an open train case smelling strongly of a witch's tools of the trade. Spread across one of the single beds and the surrounding floor area was an incongruous array of weapons.

The other girl, Ivy, was on the floor, peering at a rectangular, carved box. "Stilettos of Suffering?" she read from the small, engraved plate on it, confused.

"Not shoes, obviously, and not cute. They're like icepick knives with a curse attached, so don't open it. Witches," Caroline shook her head and sketched out an exasperated gesture. "They say we're nasty pieces of work, but I've never wanted to liquify someone's internal organs with a single poke."

With all his family had gone through over the past year, Elijah had to agree. "Vampires do tend to be a bit more direct."

"So," Caroline said cheerfully, taking the stilettos away from Ivy and placing them back in an old footlocker with respectful precision, "I don't know what you need, but Elena had a psychotic break on witch LSD and made the incredibly constructive decision to have her memory erased and Bonnie's dead. Sort of. Maybe." She toed off her sandals next to one of the clear beds and shook a pair of black trousers out of their precise, folded square. "It's complicated. Damon's unavailable, plus he sucks, and Stefan just won the award for biggest jerk ever, and he didn’t even have his humanity off this time. Oh, and there's this stupid Traveler barrier around Mystic Falls. You stop being a vampire and then die the way you died if you cross it. So, probably don't do that. Or do, if you want to. I don't know what's in your life right now. That's between you and Jesus." She squinted at him and tilted her head. "Or maybe Thor, I guess? Because Vikings."

Elijah hummed. "I'm not in correspondence with either one, and my to do list has far too many items left undone, at present, for a suicide attempt."

"You and me both, buddy."

"And as fascinatingly convoluted as that sounds," he began, placidly watching as she tugged on snug jeans under her pretty, pink sundress, bouncing a little bit from their tight fit, "I've already located my quarry."

She froze at his congenial tone, slowly removing her hands from underneath her dress, where she had finished fastening her jeans, and looked at him in quick-dawning denial.

"Oh no," Caroline insisted, shaking her head, her thick ponytail and the late summer humidity ringlets framing her face bouncing from the force of it. "No, no, no. I have my own idiot to rescue from his poor decision-making skills. I don't have time to get sucked back into your idiot's bad choices."

"From what I understand, Miss Forbes, my idiot just so happens to be your idiot as well, and perhaps even more in need of rescue."

[simplegenius042]

A very late WIP Wednesday

Tagged by @g0dspeeed @adelaidedrubman @socially-awkward-skeleton @direwombat and @cassietrn

Tagging @strangefable @carlosoliveiraa @shallow-gravy @minilev @wrathfulrook @josephslittledeputy @nightbloodbix @derelictheretic @deputyash @deputy-morgan-malone @inafieldofdaisies @ec-10 @ladyoriza @vampireninjabunnies-blog @voidika @onehornedbeast @thewanderer-000 @softtidesworld @snake-in-the-garden @corvosattano @henbased @neverthesameneveranother @chazz-anova and @strafethesesinners

Here are three WIPs, each from Far Cry The Silver Chronicles, A Radioactive Calamity of Love, Bombs & Gore and Life, Despair & Monsters. Read below the cut.

TW: Harsh and heavy cursing, mentioned/implied character and general death of NPCs (either it be a time loop or a cybernetic homicidal monster around nine or ten feet tall and very pissed off). Implied mentioned sexual content, mentions of abuse and fantastical racism (against ghouls, Jericho leave Gob alone!). Mentioned prostitution and fantasies of murder (illegal but understandable).

First WIP is for the time loop/"Groundhog Day" FC5 AU fic called You're Almost Like Family where the Seeds are stuck in a, well, time loop. And whenever Silva (or the Seeds themselves) die, well, the days are reset. Funniest part is, none of the Seeds know that they are all in a loop, just their individual selves. Snippet below:

[John] slammed the entrance to his chalet shut, causing the blonde figure sorting his papers in his lounge to jump. The documents slipped out of her hands as she stood up with a hand to a holster, only to calm down when she realized it was him.

Noticing that the reports laid scattered on the floor, Nadi gave him a stink eye, gesturing to the papers.

John would have been apologetic if he simply didn't have time for this. Ironic given the predicament he was stuck in.

Sooner or later, the Deputy is going to end up dead, and he'll be back at square one... again.

The thought reignited his frustration, but he reigned in enough to examine his number two.

Nadi was a loyal member of the project, more faithful than Jacob's hound, and while they did butt heads sometimes, he was grateful for her presence and for her strategic input. Admittedly, John knew that without her, the Deputy would have gotten to him sooner rather than later.

I would have preferred not to have to had died to appreciate it.

"Once you finish with those, come meet me upstairs in my bedroom. There's something I need to discuss with you," John ordered smoothly, making his way to the stairs.

He didn't notice the confusion etched on the blonde's face, for John was already making his way up the stairs to his room.

It's times like these I wish I could have a shot of tequila, he thought to himself, walking over to the open bedroom window and closing it shut, pulling the lock down.

Next, he grabbed a torch light and shined it at the closet. Hearing nothing, he walked towards it and opened the doors. Empty.

Finally, John turned off his torch, knelt down, and swiftly rolled it harshly under the bed. Hearing no grunts, he looked under.

She's not under there... good.

John exhaled a huff of air, and sat on the edge of his bed as he put his hands over his face.

It was exhausting. Though John knew by the end of today, or the next two if he was lucky, the Deputy would be killed by something or another and he would be back at square one, he really needed to figure out how to reach out to her, without being shot.

Going to her too early leaves her shooting first and questioning the morality of it never, and trying to go to her late only ends up with her being killed by whoever it is she seems to have evoked the wrath of. Not that he thinks she doesn't entirely deserve it.

He needed guidance, and from his last conversation with Joseph, his brother seemed content with sitting by and letting God do his work.

And he tried. To wait it out. To let God do His work. But if the sign that John seemed to be getting was that leaving the Deputy to her own accord only leads to her death, and back to the morning of Joseph's arrest.

And it wasn't like Jacob, or worse, Faith, were going to be helpful.

John had figured out quickly that his intervention was needed for the Deputy to even get through another day. And while the Father may not have understood what he told him, John deduced that this was a test from God.

A test against his sloth. A test towards his patience. A test meant to prove that John was worthy of entering Eden. And what better way than to save the life and soul of another? Especially one as sinful and wrathful as the Deputy?

Which is why he waits for the only other faithful member of the project, his trustworthy second-in-command.

A knock on the door shifted his thoughts to the matter at hand, and he made his way to the door.

Opening it, Nadi stood there, the blond looking at him with expecting brown eyes.

John pulled her inside, earning a yelp from the young woman, and closed the door behind her.

Here's a WIP for a collection of short fics from different character perspectives throughout my Fallout fic series A Radioactive Calamity of Love, Bombs & Gore. It is still under heavy editing, but I've got a good grasp on where to take it. Snippet below:

In the five of the twenty four hours she's been awake, Nova had expected more-or-less the same day as before.

Walking around and offering her body to anyone who came into the saloon had not been a life she pictured for herself as a little girl, but it was one that paid well.

Well, it would have been if Moriarty didn't continue to take a cut of her and Gob's pay any time a customer gave them a generous donation.

That and the amount of times Moriarty had utilized her services with no intention of paying her, but she supposed it was a better alternative to being kicked out of Megaton. Given Moriarty still had that power.

She drew in the smoke from her cigarette, and surveyed from her post as Gob gave another orange bottle of whiskey to Jericho, the ex-raider sneering at the ghoul, his disgust evident all over his face.

Thankfully he didn't make a scene, slamming the small bag of caps on the counter as he left through the door.

Gob stared at the bag, string noose tied tightly around the bag, not immediately grabbing it. Nova could take a guess that Gob was lamenting over the debts that he owed Moriarty. Debts both the prostitute and the ghoul bartender wordlessly knew their boss was unlikely to pay.

Gob snapped out of it though, giving a miserable sigh, and dragging the bag away from the counter for Moriarty to pocket later, turning his attention to the damn radio that never seemed to play at the right time.

It pained Nova to see Gob like this. He was a real sweetheart with shitty luck, and she knew that the only upsides in his life were the hope of one day paying off his debts, however unlikely that was, and the Gravity News Radio host screaming out "fighting the good fight", whatever that entailed.

She was also painfully well aware of his crush on her.

Though she never had minded his appearance to the point she'd hang out with him in public, given how much she knows the ghoul is actually a decent guy, she had her limits, which was rare given her current standing under Moriarty.

She hoped he could find some semblance of happiness, whether that be with a person or a life long after Moriarty was rotting in the ground. But it wouldn't be with her.

If things were different though...

Nova looked away from Gob, shaking the thought away. It didn't matter on the what ifs, right now she had a job to perform.

She could ponder a different time.

Just as Gob began to smack the radio, a risky action given Moriarty's repeated threats on treating his property harshly, the saloon door creaked open, and Nova spotted two teens enter. One male, the other female. Both wearing what appeared to be blue jumpsuits with the numbers "101" imprinted in yellow on their backs.

Nova eyed them both. The young man was of average build, short auburn hair cut neatly with a few strands springing out from the harshness of the wasteland most likely, and light brown eyes on the lookout for anyone and anything.

The young woman on the other hand had dark hair tied in a pony tail, was a little chubbier than her counterpart, and her hazel eyes were more focused, trying to narrow down a specific person.

They glanced back to the door, whispering amongst themselves, though not too quiet that she couldn't catch their words.

Amongst the harsh gravel Gob spat out at the poor radio, and the chatter amongst the patrons, Nova could decipher the words "here" "back outside" and "think she'll stay?" in hushed voices.

And finally Jennifer putting murder on her mind to the back burner as she remembers to drop, duck and cover my WIP of Sonya's Push. Snippet below:

Breathing heavily as she pushed her way through the audience as they gazed upon the newest arena fight between beasties, the bruises formed from her fight with Malvolio's bitch protesting against her movements.

The blonde looked back to the closed elevator door on the other side, paranoid that Malvolio's Beastie would burst through at any moment.

The speed of it had been abnormal, disappearing in a blink and being nothing more than a flicker of movement when it had slid down to the hall. The movement of its tail daggers swift and deadly, like her own claws. The red in its one eye, more robotic than flesh.

Why had Dicko approved such a thing? It barely counted as a beastie with the mass of metal it was made of! Jennifer huffed, and around the arena, looking pass the patrons in search of Dicko.

Her blue eyes spotted the Englishman on a lower circle, himself seated down on his VIP sofa that she once shared with him, disheveled but celebrating his escape with a glass of disgusting champagne, like the pig hadn't just left her to die to that one-eyed mech of a beast. As if the reason it was free in the first place wasn't because he allowed his creep of a "buddy" onto his premises, or the fact Sir Enigma might be a fucking alien in addition to a Darwinist with no care for the fact "handing control" did not mean "releasing the Beastie from its brainwashing bullshit".

She felt the razor claws pushing through her fingertips as she glared at the man from across the arena, anger and betrayal clouding her mind.

Those fantasies of killing him while in his bed resurfaced, and she oh so wanted to enact them now, with the sofa as an acceptable exception.

She wanted to get her claws through his throat before the Beastie could make its way down to the arena. She tried to move pass the cheering audience, making her way around to the other side to get to the stairs.

However much she tried though, a block of people just refused to move aside, and she was tempted to slice her way through if it weren't for the guards.

Ding!

...Or the faint noise of the elevator door that echoed throughout the arena, deaf to everyone but her.

Frozen in place as she looked back, trying to get a glimpse of the beast that would no doubt tear them apart.

She pushed people aside to get a solid look. Enough people disbanded to show the doors opening to reveal the empty box of the elevator.

Jennifer's face scrunched in confusion, mouth gaping open and shut, lips stinging as the cut on her upper lip made contact with her bottom one. She desperately searched for any sign of the beast, the monster made of steel, the relentless creature that stalked and hunted her not moments ago.

Upon still seeing nothing, she let out a mirthless laugh as she turned her back to the elevator, shaking her head as she focused her attention on Dicko once more, the man a ring below talking with one of his guards.

It was with this focus that she noticed a... shift on the stone barriers that kept the audience at bay.

Large spots on the stone cracked, small dusts of powder dropping down as an unseen pressure was placed on the stone. She saw more of this dust from the next ring up, and then the next, and the next.

Up and up and further up until it stopped at the final ring. Then dust slowly dropped down from the roof, unbeknownst to the audience too invested on the violence happening between the two wild beasties below them. Not that the fight between those Beasties were anything special unlike what she saw from her hunter mere hours ago.

Jennifer felt some familiarity with this, words exchanged to her by the madman who released the Apex from its prison, a far too fond explanation on how the creature could "rush so fast it would be merely a flicker to the human eye!"

"...Or match its environment to disappear right before you," Malvolio explained, grinning at her with all his teeth.

Jennifer's eyes widened as she barely registered the outline of the beast that had adjusted its steel to uncloak itself while hanging from dark and dank ceiling. Red optic looking down to the cheers in the rings and the Beasties fighting under it.

She saw the tail split in three, and immediately followed her gut by making distance from the open space of the barriers.

She had just dropped flat onto the floor to curl up and cover her head when the she heard the wind and patron's necks crack in one simultaneous whoosh.

[shitouttabuck]

fuck it friday

tagged by @transboybuckley @rewritetheending and @devirnis <333

eddie doing some birthday party face painting

Eddie gets lost in requests for butterflies and whiskered animals, one particularly adorable sunflower, and a ladybird who cheerfully scuttles off looking only slightly like she’s contracted a horribly contagious disease from medieval Europe. Through it all, he watches Buck out of the corner of his eye, dancing and prancing in the afternoon sun with at least three tiny children attached to him at all times, a blur of pink. He's just finishing up with the last kid when Maddie announces it’s time to cut the birthday cake, rushing back inside in that whirlwind of stressed energy unique to parents on their children’s birthdays. Eddie watches as Chim smiles after her, fond about it, before hurrying in himself when Maddie calls for him impatiently. Something in Eddie’s chest aches then, just a little. He wishes he had more memories of Shannon like this—he missed enough of Chris’s birthdays when they were together that he didn’t get to have that first-hand with her, only through grainy home videos filmed by his parents and emailed to him after, her grin bright even as her dishevelled hair and tiredness was apparent through the screen.

im so nearly done i promise im just walking fucking everywhere so whenever i get home im so sleepy my brain refuses to even attempt coherency and it’s been slow going!

tagging @onward--upward @eddiebabygirldiaz @try-set-me-on-fire @zahlibeth @clusterbuck @jeeyuns @housewifebuck @anakinfallen @forthewolves @buckactuallys @athenagranted @eowon if anyone’s got anything to share!

[kaitaiga]

thinking about Damien and Daniel again n crying

their stupid matching stick-and-poke tattoos they got when they were drunk

their silly tiktok account they ran where they posted literally anything and everything prior to army life (+ Dan’s constant wheezing over damo doing stupid shit) hell they probably even had a small YouTube channel they made when they were 12

the times dan had to carry damien back to his apartment when he got blackout drunk and took care of him, scolding him just like his Indonesian mother

dan who somehow knew all of the answers to damo’s questions and problems as well as getting Damo’s life back on track

the time damien helped set up dan’s entire marriage proposal spot to his girlfriend. he was probably more excited than daniel himself. he was even set to be best man but that day never came

and so on

this makes me wanna write about them in a fic again😔

[bagelrites]

hahahaha I'm so sane and normal 🙃

[cambriancutie]

get this guy some ibuprofen

[daughterofhecata]

Kaj's Kink January #3

So. Gestern bin ich nicht dazu gekommen, weil der Tag unerwartet stressig wurde, aber jetzt gibt es die offizielle Liste der Prompts für Januar, wie gehabt erstmal ohne Pairings, die bleiben vorerst ein Geheimnis, auch wenn sich einige davon sicherlich durch einen Blick ins Dokument ermitteln lassen, falls sich jemand die Mühe machen will 😄

soft & healthy + watching s/o masturbate

voyeurism

punishment & aftercare + safewording

(semi) public

smoking

shibari

filmed + deep throating

praise + cockwarming

roleplay

D/s + in public + phone sex + needy

mile high club

first time + thigh fucking

jealousy + smoking

edging & aftercare + size kink

mirror + parallels

scratches + belated realization

size difference + car sex

subspace + overstimulation

seconds

familiar face

lingerie

blindfolded + collar

dub con + burnplay

praise + facial

watching

daddy kink + body worship

harness + quiet + power bottom

body worship

threesome + sex pollen

sex tape + somnophilia

vampire AU

Bonus:

[redacted] -> Cotta/Reynolds

[redacted] -> Jeffrey/Finnley/Peter

[redacted] -> Donatelli/Morales | Cotta/Goodween

[redacted] -> Reynolds/Jeffrey

[redacted] -> Cotta/Goodween | Caroline/Monique

[novelconcepts]

fleeting

Van's always been the kind of person who develops fleeting crushes on friends. There's a kind of relief in the temporary nature of these feelings before they level out. She doesn't mind.

Most of the time.

(based on conversation with @owltrifecta)

T, 6807 words

Some things, Van reasons, just aren’t meant to last. Some things aren’t meant to last, and that’s fine. More than fine. Refreshing. Fantastic, in its own way. They’re like summer rainstorms: brief, punchy, and easily forgotten. Not everything’s like this. Her mother’s always predictable, always gonna be. Off at five, drunk by six: the Vicky Palmer way. Movies, too, are a certainty. Feelings for Michelle Pfeiffer, for example, are eternal; god bless Grease 2, god bless Catwoman. But other things—things like the warm, gooey feelings that drum up when another girl laughs at her jokes—don’t stick around long. It’s good that way. Reassuring. None of them last, so there’s no reason to worry. No reason to think about it much at all.

[humanmorph]

Lye „Lyke“ Lychen as a sacrifical altar (to Aterika’Kaal) (but he's also kind of the sacrifice)

my @secret-samol gift for @bronanlynch! for the Aterika’Kaal/Lyke prompt of „what if things had gone differently and Aterika'Kaal was still with Lyke“.

notes on this under the readmore!

AU

In this scenario Lyke would succeed in getting the heart of the Motherbeast in Episode 47 and while Alaway would notice & probably still call out to Aterika’Kaal the way he presumably did in canon, Lyke would be there and get to make a compelling case to Aterika’Kaal the likes of „If you stay with me I am going to feed you. I’ve taken care of you until now, I’ll keep doing that“ (argument supported by the fact he’s currently holding the heart of an incredibly powerful dead god). Aterika’kaal agrees and they barely escape through the Sanctum of the Stone Chorus portal. I think it's fun if Lyke then stays there after the hour described in the move is over, maybe knowing he can't convince Pickman & the others that what he's done is actually good, and fine, there's not even anything to worry about he has this totally handled, But yeah he then sets out from whereever in Sangfielle Aterika'Kaals domain is (Austin did say it was an actual place somewhere), and the rest of the Blackwick Group is left to wonder what the hell happened since Lyke just vanished! Alaway has possibly fucked off too after losing the heart. And them getting fired, the Carnival of Moted Light etc. would still happen (and I guess Chine would succeed at what they were doing since Lyke isn’t there?) and who knows if they’d take any action in finding Lyke after that! All that aside though, Lyke basically offers himself to feed on (through blood and/or energy) and to sustain that he keeps consuming(not literally eating) powerful objects/artifacts/resources and possibly eventually living things (I’d imagine he'd still take work as a „please deal with this weird shit for us“ person and when he has to kill a cursed beast or whatnot... might aswell feed Aterika'Kaal?) (What also plays into that decision, and is part of Lyke justifying this to himself, is that without him, Aterika’Kaal would become too powerful. So he aims to function as kind of a conduit & control the power intake so to speak. I think this probably doesn’t work for very long.) I think this eventually goes bad for him because it’s super taxing on his body and the whole deal kind of flips with Aterika’Kaal feeding/keeping HIM alive. He starts finding bodies in the domain again (alternatively, Aterika'Kaal gets better at hiding them because it knows Lyke doesn't particulary like it when it does that). Lyke probably gets stronger due to this power/magic wise, but also way more fragile (he's constantly anemic!). („I love you. I want us both to eat well.“ - Christopher Citro) („When I write of hunger I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and it is all one.“ M.K. Fisher) Notes: I put some resources Lyke’s canonically had in-game + some extra stuff in this picture (the arrow is a reference to Marn’s epilogue, the bugs are bugs (with possibly sinister connotations. If you want them to have those, it’s optional) and the fur is from the Ravening Beast). Another detail I came up with I might aswell tell you because otherwise noone might ever know: the ring with the blue stone is a gift from Es. Sketch Notes: 1. Lyke turning his head to kiss a rose / exposing his neck was one of my very first ideas/sketches I made while working on this, and I liked it too much to not include it. 2. This is supposed to be Aterika'Kaal giving Lyke a blood transfusion but it rather looks like it's feeding on him instead...! I like how the relaxed pose turned out. 3. I wanted to draw something smaller in a simpler style to fill the big canvas I was drawing these on (even though now I put them in separate files anyways...). The day I drew this I saw a tweet about a medieval monks sketchbook, so I was still thinking about that. I didn't even plan to color it originally but I ended up getting invested, haha

Inspired mainly by these 3 quotes: „KEITH: I’m a walking- I am a shrine to Aterika’Kaal.“ (Sangfielle 12: The Secret Ledger of Roseroot Hall Pt. 4) „KEITH: There's a version of dealing with Aterika'Kaal that ends with Lyke being satisfied that he rehabilitated a god or at least it looks […] like what he thinks Aterika'Kaal would have been before the YVEs showed up. That's probably his main retirement path, but it also might kill him instead.” (Sangfielle 47: Wax, Iron, and Ichor Pt. 4) „AUSTIN: As you’re fading, the last thing that you do is make this blood sacrifice to Aterika’Kaal. Your own blood.“ (Sangfielle 52: Six Travelers: Lyke)