vullcanica

[vullcanica]

One thing i will say in addition is that this is the only time that rooms in the tower may look marginally habitable and conceivable in memory (read: anything other than alien) from the moment of their conception. These are spaces that have definitely existed, that someone designed, that are someone's taste - a living thing has clearly stepped foot within them at some point or other and forced them to look conceivable in reality. Therefore they are real. There is detail to them, input - items, personal belongings, colors other than untolerable amounts of whitebeigegrey and decor beyond the most essential furniture scattered around in a poor guesstimation of interior design.

The Tower does take care to camouflage itself but even those attempts are clumsy and of minimal effort. Only the rare instance of it hosting someone it wants to impress results in cohesive spaces. Then it shows off - an unnerving display of fawning reserved for creatures greater than itself or useful to itself.

Further on its ability (and need) to create habitable spaces - modern disguises of the Tower include public or residential buildings, partly to soothe the Architect's recently developed loneliness, partly so it can evolve its architecture through the trial-error of a human eye. Throughout the millenia it has existed, the Tower's never cared what it should look like until an outside creature has stepped in it and either approved or disproved of its appearance, opted to stay or leave; and it has found that inhabitants are useful ways to dress up its general unpalatability to society. Blending into the urban facade of villages and cities suddenly demanded more than an owner-like creature holding document-like proof of its right to exist in the street it's slotted itself into. So it opted to let itself be lived in, for whatever time or purpose living things may need, in exchange for them taking the blank sterile slates of its room-like creations and prettying them up with their habitation, making their presence functional.

In newly born rooms, especially in the previous millenia, the Tower stuck to guesstimating interior design and therefore produced a lot of eerie abominable liminal spaces. Things not borne of nature are usually designed, built and made by humans - feasibly, that is what every space with 90 degree angles and straight lines presumes. It's supposed to be preceded by humans, made by someone for something and either has been something, is something or will be something. Except the Tower has no need of organized, logical places. Rooms here serve the express purpose of simply existing. Fill the space behind a door because doors are supposed to lead to somewhere and opening it to a blank wall is odd. Ergo, here is a room. It is empty or ill-made and makes little sense, but it is a room that exists therefore that is convincing enough for now while the tower has other duties to attend to. You have no reason to complain. Even if it feels like this space sprouted from the ether of concrete and beige paint mere seconds ago to fill observable space for the sole express purpose of you observing it, you have no reasonable proof of that. So let it go and move on.

Suffice to say, that approach isn't ideal for most sane human beings. So you know, improvise adapt overcome. And, occasionally, kiss up.

[vullcanica]

ARCHITECTURE. PART I.

Constance and The Tower are based on one of my favourite horror tropes. Architecture. Strange, terrible architecture

A building that's fundamentally built wrong; tilted, looping, with dimensions that make no sense both outside and in. A living, breathing space with a mind of its own - that's what The Tower of Equilibrium is. Fundamentally, it's a liminal space and those tend to be neutral, which it is, geared towards accomodating itself first and foremost. Yes, it moves around, adds and substracts things as it sees fit, makes extra floors and rooms on a whim, then takes them away, it can inconvenience you greatly for its own gain, it holds a whole endless realm within its walls. But all of this isn't necessarily horror. An impossible feat of abstraction may give you pause of disbelief or unnerve you, but the place's shallows limit themselves to fathomable shapes and proportions for the sake of camouflage. An optical illusion isn't inherently scary, it's just confusing. But since it is a being, a breathing thing with its own sentience, The Tower can form opinions on its inhabitants, can judge them and, as follows, its treatment of them varies. And it takes shape accordingly.

One trope that's fun to explore is the Tower as 'the perfect home'. What would you do if you entered a place that liked you? It's overjoyed you're here, it warms and brightens at your presence, and will do anything to make sure you're comfortable. What does your favourite room look like, where do you sleep best, what do you like to eat or listen to. which view would please you more: ocean or mountaintop? Endless sky perhaps? You ask how can a room hug you with its walls and floor, how can it express its affection to you? Imagine you walk into a house and it shapes itself like home around you.

And then there's the polar opposite. The place that hates you. The house that wants you dead. A great big god made up of concrete and anti-matter, whose foyer you've dared tread upon. The door as a mouth. The room as a stomach. The Tower can love, and it can chew. So what is the shape of hatred? Of fear? Is it an endless hallway whose walls narrow as you walk? Is it a door that opens to brick? A window with nothing but the darkest black beyond it? A looping corner? A flooding bathroom? A holed floor? A crumpling ceiling? The unlit maze of The Catacombs or the bottomless pit of the Tower itself? It all bears little importance. If a maw you've willingly walked into wants you dead, you die. It tips its room-head and slides you into its wall-mouth, yawns the mattress open and gnashes its spring-teeth, pinches you with a groan between cracking plaster, metal and wood, pops you like a grape and wipes away the remnants.

The Tower is a dimension unto itself. One whose borders are unknowable. End is beginning in here, time means nothing, the hallways loop and loop and loop. The place exists to store everything from the very dawn of this world to the very end of it, an infinite archive not just for files but for living things, equipped to imprison atrocities that should not die but should not be allowed to live either. Its very architecture allows for exile. There is always a jail cell in the form eternity available, should one trangsress within the Tower's borders. And just as it bends around those it likes, it does the same with those it hates. For some, hell is shaped like a bedroom, for others a kitchen, a living room, a porch. Mostly, the jail cells rarely ask for personal preferences, nor bother with proper geometry. They have no one to impress or fool, unless you've earned some intimate torture. The walls and floors are softer down here, less trustworthy, the slopes steeper, stairs less linear. The rooms collapse on themselves if they are even whole to begin with. From whence you've come, you often return. There is nothing but darkness and solitude. You are all alone.

Constance is not the god of equilibrium. He's a small, replaceable piece of human geometry who can walk, talk and blend in, allowed a measly chunk of the vast consciousness of entropy itself, meant to serve as its surrogate. And as its diversion. Because humans are vain things who always look for gods in human faces, who will walk in and look at the bellboy, unaware they stand atop the tongue of a behemoth. Within the cavity of a mouth. Still, Equilibrium is not a body. It is a Tower. It is an angler. It is a house.

[vullcanica]

god but i cooked so hard with Constance and the Tower. hi, this planet's personification of balance isn't a god or a person or some creechure, it's a random building on your block that's the highest fixed point of entropy on this plane of existence and it Knows You like Really Knows You. It's aware of every special little guy on earth and keeps creepy little tabs on them and because it can't shamble its way over to bother them about incorrectly parking their antichrist or apocalyptic war plot on its terf, it spat out a badly duct-taped cardboard cutout-looking mini me with the legs and eyes necessary to go and clean up this planet's messes. i love them sm

[vullcanica]

damn, i miss this place

[vullcanica]

happy holidays to everyone celebrating from my little corner of the world y'all! and a merry christmas too! i know i've been away a lot this year but hey thanks for making it better every once in a while when i had time to log on here and spend it with you folks. even if i was just watching mutuals grace the dash with their creativity, writing and art; grow and brave new muses, get into new fandoms, diversify, develop or simply blog their heart away as god intended. i keep on the downlow and pretty quiet, sure, but i'm loving on you in my heart and i hope all of you took care of yourselves this year. kisses under the mistletoe from me and the freak roster!

[vullcanica]

cleanup first 🧹🧹

officially removed nik from the roster and whole carrd :''') migrated some drafts to his blog, then removed some other ones, now i've got a few to work with - all of them old as dust but i'm ✨sentimental✨

[vullcanica]

WHEW sorry i haven't checked in on here folks !! i've been scarse as hell and mostly over at my other blogs. since free time and muse had an uptick though i'll be around more

[vullcanica]

selective, private, indie original character BARONESS TULIA OF BORUM, written by VII. 20+ and mutually exclusive, exploring myths of knife-women, wicked witches, the heredity of scorn and blood curses made a century past

       you return to the mountain ;;

   𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐀𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐒 𝐈𝐓 𝐍𝐎𝐖

[vullcanica]

    “ I  LIVE AND DIE BY MY HAND !!    𝐈 𝐀𝐌 𝐌𝐘 𝐎𝐖𝐍 .. ” .

meet the necromancer in his own domain .. indie fandomless oc NIKODEMUS DESALVAR the undying, based in original lore. influences from miscellany witch and necromancer myths . mutually-exclusive. selective. private. au-oc-female friendly. 20+ only. unburied by VII

[vullcanica]

Yet again featuring Nikodemus / Nicodemo @vullcanica (credit)

[vullcanica]

# 𝐀𝐇𝐑𝐈      ⸻    a love song to the literary themes of  𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐇𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐇𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐒 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 = 𝐏𝐇𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 &. 𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐁𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐌 𝐀𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐀𝐖𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐎𝐅 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐂 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 , the   𝘩𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳   for love in a loveless world , 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝘃𝘀 𝗴𝗶𝗿𝗹𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗱 , the fragmentation of one's chimerical identity and the subsequent loss of it , 𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙬𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙣 𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙮𝙩𝙝 . 　　　　　　　⸻ as tenderly loved by 𝒃𝒖𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒆 ᕱ⑅ᕱ ♡

[vullcanica]

Headcanon generator but it's only the canon ones:

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[vullcanica]

Assorted Silas facts:

His missing 1.5 fingers and three toes Silas lost to frostbite. Being 15 and living in a forest hut means you're a little screwed in particularly cruel winters. He didn't know better, was undersupplied for the deeper snow, had no dry wood once the thatched roof gave under the ice and, at loss of what to do, undertook a trecherous trek back to town on foot. Collapsed in a snowbank a kilometer or two away. To this day he still jokes he's only alive because of the red hair, bright enough for a passing farmer to notice amongst all the snow. He was brought in and thawed out, safe and sound but for three blackened toes, a righthand pinky and a righthand ring finger, only half of which was cut off. A small price to pay considering the alternative. He's a leftie with a sword for that reason alone. No pinky, no grip strength.

He's entirely illiterate, being a peasant with no formal education. Can't read nor write and has no way of learning. But he does want to learn. If nothing, then for the purpose of keeping a healer's journal and amending the insult of his mother and father's graves remaining unmarked long after their deaths. He wants to know what his brother and sister's names look like on paper.

He sings or hums. Often. Technically unimpressive, his range is mid, but damn does he have a voice for folk songs.

Tangentially, living in a forest with bears means he.. might encounter bears. Smaller ones to be precise. The type you scare off by being big, obnoxious and loud, which Silas is great at. And to achieve that, he's taken to traversing the Elkswood while either whistling or singing whenever he's not on the hunt, making a whole great ruckus to signal his position to anything that might want to avoid it. If you ever pass the Elkswood and hear full-throated singing from far away, it's Silas casually evading a bear attack. It's the little joys in life, honestly.

Has poisoned himself on several occasions by ingesting things he shouldn't. Confidently wrong each time. Twice with mushrooms alone when he was younger. Woke up on the other side of a river the first time around. There was still a second time. He does have better mastery of the fungi nowadays.

[vullcanica]

@maramcna : Lucienne & Silas in Fiddler's Green and she's reading to him who has his head in their lap

Days like these when the tree shadows get dark and tranquility grows deep and unbroken, he misses the Elkswood something fierce. The stone-wood hut and the hearth within it. And the foxes. There aren't nearly as many in the Dreaming and what few there are speak or walk too odd for believability. Nostalgia isn't in his nature, not usually, but death - and afterlife - would make even the most headstrong of men ponder an irretrievable past, wouldn't it?

It's been an effort getting Lucienne to join him like this, but their voice is a pleasant, even calm that has him thinking they no longer mind the regaling that got them here. Even if he's a weight in her lap, when it should perhaps be the opposite... But the grass is cool. And the book is a classic.

His fingers drift across the hard cover. A grey, smooth binding Lucienne had called 'satin' he'd not known in his time, and a raven stitched atop. "When was this written..?" a caress against the knuckles she's curled around the book. "How long after my time?" How truly irretrievable, indeed.

[vullcanica]

    "It's not much.."       ― ❝ 𝑰𝑻'𝑺 𝑷𝑳𝑬𝑵𝑻𝒀 ❞

Silas and Ellarian in the Elkswood // @valdorin

[vullcanica]

    it's not an actual question, though, is it ― when the answer wouldn't change a thing? 40 minutes into god knows what hour, empty downtown streets and nik's fingers through eames' beltloops feels like there's a hook and line and sinker there already. eames doesn't even stop when he asks. gambler, meet roulette.

    nik grins. "long as there's a reward at the end, does it even matter?"

     "do you have any idea where we are going   .  .  .     or are you trying to get us lost on purpose?"     /     STARTER CALL   FEAT.   @vullcanica / nik!!

[vullcanica]

thinking about silas' strength being a scary revelation to some despite the clear evidence of it and kicking my feet actually. big, formidable guy with logs for arms, of course it's not far-fetched to say he'd win in a fight, but who's ever witnessed that strength at play in any memorable circumstance? pretty easy to forget it's there with a personality like that so folks don't fathom being scared. til he loses his key and breaks the metal lock or bends the doorframe of his hut with such casual strength that it inevitably suggests a human skull would yield like butter under his hands