any pronouns, 20, main interests are Hollow Knight & Silksong, finally changing my bio, RIP Bee Movie, I write fanfic and do the occasional fanart Spam blog: @spamgender-disaster
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You’re sitting on a long bench at a long table across from a woman you’re meeting for the first time today. She’s been alternating between clasping her hands in front of her chest and biting her nails. The latter has the darkless curly haired woman scolding her lightly, a small smile drawn on her face. Every time she’s reminded, the young woman startles, then flushes, then averts her gaze.
You already forgot her name. Both of their names, actually.
If what you’ve been told is true, then it’s not like they’ll remember soon, either.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
The next town you pass through, almost a month after that incident with the Defenders—you finally learned what they are called after a short conversation with another traveler—is nearly abandoned. Windows are shuttered, doors are boarded up, and the streets and plazas are empty of life. Here and there, dots of darklessness splotch walls or the ground, residual Craft energy wafting off of them in waves. It looks like parts of the world were stripped back, leaving absolute nothingness behind.
Weird. And, if you’re being more honest with yourself, a bit scary.
Or: Ūniversa will always lead its followers to the same outcomes.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
You didn’t notice anything weird about Vaugarde until a few months into your travels through it.
Well, no, that’s not quite true. The whole country is weird. They all leave their doors unlocked and you can come and go as you want (but not past the first room, for some reason?), they greet you like they’ve known you for forever even if you’ve only just entered their town, and they’ll toss odd jobs your way before you even have to ask for one.
That’s what tipped you off that something properly strange was happening, actually.
Or: Siffrin, and his journey to being trapped in the House of Change in Dormont.
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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
It’s been three days since “Paladin” has joined Mirabelle, Isabeau, and yourself on your quest to save Vaugarde. Three days of travel, of fighting Echos, of coordinating plans of attack. Three days of setting up camp, of cooking (poorly) around the fire, of early mornings together.
And you still do not trust him.
Or: The Paladin shares a hobby and goes on a secret quest.
Even thinking momentarily about this vile curse has tears welling in your eyes. This memory plague is so reminiscent of what could have—must have—happened to your country, your home. And for Vaugarde, such a perfect country, to suffer the same fate? It cannot come to pass. You will not let it.
And like that, sadness turns to grief turns to anger, all pointed towards your goal, your plan, your march to find the savior.
Or: Siffrin and The King swap roles in the story, and the man who could have been the King meets the party.
(It is evident by now that ISAT has sunk its claws into me and I’m not coming out the other end. As the French say: soo la voo)
Okay so the brain worms have finally made their way to me and I played In Stars and Time and loved it, but my mind generated an AU where Siffrin and the King swap places in the story
Behold, the power of musing over this at two in the morning:
King — The Paladin
Siffrin — still The Rogue
Sadnesses —> Echos (memories that are left forgotten, for better or worse)
No time freezing curse, but a forgetting curse, drenching Vauguard in darklessness. Comes on more slowly than the time freezing, and works on people slower, with early symptoms being hard to clock.
Siffrin’s wish: “I wish that anyone could understand.”
The King’s wish: “I wish for the power to save everyone.”
Siffrin’s backstory is all very much similar, with a dash more isolation stitched in. Based on a headcanon of mine that, if Islanders are “out of sight, out of mind” for too long, than they will literally be forgotten by the people who they met/bonded with/loved, preventing them from making many meaningful connections. Which is very bad for Siffrin, who already has a complex around this shit. At some point they hit their breaking point and, having heard about favor trees in passing, make their wish.
He doesn’t realize what’s happening for a long time at first until he lingers too long in one town over the winter and notices everyone beginning to forget too much in general. They shrug it off as weird and go to another town until the same thing happens, then they’re seeking help at the Dormont House of Change (unknowingly doing their “march to Dormont” and spreading the curse more, though, being standard wack-o-doodle Siffrin, they are already blaming themself with ZERO actual evidence and try to take care to stay away from populated areas). Euphrasie hears out their situation and immediately offers help, her curiosity winning out against her sense of self preservation. But she wants a fail-safe just in case, giving Mirabelle the blessing to survive against the curse, meaning that she will be the canary in the coal mine if anything goes wrong with the expectation that she will leave, grow stronger, learn more about the curse, and find a way to stop it by any means necessary (and she was out of the House the first day that Siffrin came, so she would likely not have come into contact with the source and probably be okay (she will be)) but she is spared the full story as to keep her calm. This makes Mirabelle a little wary of this mysterious stranger, but tentatively wanting to get closer, versus a Siffrin who is even more cagey than standard because they are literally destroying the country. This… does not deter her.
A little down the line, Euphrasie realizes that she cannot recognize the person in front of her who clearly knows who she is, but she has so many notes about a spreading “forgetting curse” and her failsafe, so she’s putting all of that into place, sending out Mirabelle and locking the House, smattering the orbs in the hope that will contain the curse and stop the spread. Like canon, this does not work.
News of the curse reaches Corbueax at some point, where the King has a community of people around him (like implied in canon) who he loves and cares for and who feel the same towards him. Like in canon, he is better at holding onto memories of the Forgotten Island, so he hears about the curse and fears the same happening to Vauguard and immediately decides to set out to find the savior he’s read about, with the town sending him off with armor and supplies.
He meets with Mirabelle in the same type of situation as Siffrin, helping in defeating a strong Echo, and swears his fealty to Mirabelle.
Mirabelle is a combo of uncomfortable (hates being acknowledged as a savior) and entranced (knightly mysterious older man offering to help, this is straight out of a novel)
Isabeau is enamored (this stranger has all the bravery he wants and more, literally hunting them down to offer his help, doing more than any of his former colleagues ever would have (dare I say there is some really deep camaraderie dipped in here, perchance, with how the king can be so brave, so protective, and so level headed, all traits Isabeau admires (but also a short-lived jealousy, where Isabeau feels like his role in the party is being pushed aside a little because of that similarity between them (but he is good at self-regulating his feelings, so he works through this quickly and with little issue. He brings a lot to the table that King doesn’t, like a sense of humor and a jovial attitude)))).
Odile is suspicious, but not as much so as Siffrin (his timing was convenient, but at least he was looking for them) and concerned (is this man older than her? Gems alive….)
He is much colder to the party than Siffrin likely was at first. Not one for very friendly banter. He learns that they aren’t necessarily planning to kill the source of the curse (Mirabelle met Siffrin, she can’t imagine hurting someone who she knows the name and face of) and is frustrated by that immediately, but resolves to just ease them into the idea of it (he has Odile’s full support on the matter)
He warms up to the group mostly through Odile, initially. They both are very similar in their philosophies (“I would do horrible things to protect you/Vauguard”), and he takes well to her outward curiosity about the country. He wasn’t from here either. He feels like they can bond well over being accepted so openly by Vaugaurd (he doesn’t immediately fully connect to her enough to understand her tumultuous relationship to that whole can of worms). Next is Isabeau, who, both being Rock Types, finds an in with him over sharing how they use their respective crafts, and can ease that into becoming more regular conversations. The King treats Mirabelle like too much of a savior for them to get along immediately, but that slowly fades away overtime once he starts seeing her bumble around a bit more, at which point his attitude starts to match Odile’s “oh no the country’s fate is in the hands of children”. Once he’s at that point he resolves to act as a mentor to her through the journey. Still not as loose as Odile, but no longer the awkward hero worship from before. Plus, Mirabelle loves the mentorship. Gives her some peace.
Bonnie joins in a similar situation to usual, but instead they ran at the first sign of the curse hitting their sister. She told them to run as soon as she forgot the littlest thing, but, tragically, it started with her not remembering their middle names. They booked it the same day and were found ~a week later haggard and exhausted. There is no “first one to find them” like how Siffrin did, but the group all generally stumbled upon them at the same time and got them on their feet.
Much like in canon, Bonnie is a representation of how awful the curse really is. They are a child, and they’ve lost everything they knew and lived, and it will stay lost unless they all can fix this mess. The King, still having memories of home and Wish Craft, as soon as they at the next town, goes to the favor tree and makes his wish, Bonnie’s presence more of a catalyst that anything else could have been. As such, his loops last for ~3 months (insane bullshit beam go) but he doesn’t realize he’s in a time loop for a long time, obviously.
The “eye incident” doesn’t ever really happen like it did in canon. The King’s “weapon” of choice is a shield, so he just. Blocks the Echo that would have hurt Bonnie. It makes them grow closer, especially because Bonnie had been wary of the King (stern, sometimes weepy old man that isn’t as chill as most of the rest of the party). They cook his favorite meals for the next week, no doubt about it. He trains them a little in some basic Rock Craft (the rest of the party does not like this) with the idea of “they, too, share the goal of saving the kingdom, so it would be cruel to leave the standing on the sidelines”. Now they both are inseparable.
One important note: The King’s memory is canonically better than Siffrin’s. Because of this, in the AU, he can keep things at the front of his mind and hold onto them, but he still has enough gaps due to everything to do with the Island that the party is genuinely concerned that he was infected with the curse and is slowly succumbing to it. They think he’s only holding on due to either sheer force of will or because maybe, they hypothesize, proximity to Mirabelle can fend it off. There are conversations behind his back on if it would be merciful to leave him behind somewhere if he starts to forget too much. Obviously, it never gets to that (until, perhaps, some of the later loops, where they severely start to consider it. Vague suggestions and whatnot).
He is still weepy if he thinks too long about the Island, but mostly is focusing all those bad feelings onto the curse. Destroy the curse and prevent this from happening again. No ifs, ands, or buts.
He dies to the rock trap first, too, lmao.
Loops back to when he made his wish and immediately realized what happened. He has a good memory, after all. And he is elated that he can keep trying over and over and over again.
The caveat: as there are more and more loops he has to shift his attention from the past to the present/future, leading to his scant memories of the Island/Wish Craft/how to read the language slipping away from him bit by bit. Makes the party more anxious as he seems to lose some of his skills and abilities. Once he realizes that he is crashing out. Sob, gay boy, sob.
The first time he gets to Siffrin he’s not waiting for any noble speech. They can’t even get a word in. It’s probably been ~4 loops (if they’re all lucky as shit, though I do imagine there are less keys locking things up, given that people probably forgot to do that, lol) so at least a full year has passed (unless he could press for them to go faster, given that he’s looping, he knows what they need to do, but there is only so quick they can go) and he’s ready for this to be done by now.
And as soon as Siffrin is dead the loop resets back to the start. That isn’t the solution.
Eventually, obviously, he would need to try a different solution and come at it from a different angle (his stubbornness makes this nearly impossible to do, but nevertheless he persists), and I imagine, on a loop where he is intentionally choosing to hold back from attacking Siffrin, Bonnie may offer them something to eat. Seeing as they’ve been locked in the House for so long, the idea of food is almost novel, and they are beyond starving. They snatch and gobble that food down like the pan au chocolad, lol
And I think, if I were to write a fanfic, this would be a place where it would be awesome to show the King both losing some of those memories of the Island and some of his sense of self in the loops, but also showing him losing his anger towards Siffrin. Very Act III KingQuest of him. Here’s how I would write it all out:
First (polite) meeting with Siffrin: They eat much like a gull from home, grabbing the pastry in one quick swoop and wolfing it down with such speed that one must wonder how they do not choke.
Second meeting with Siffrin: They eat like a type of sea bird, diving in for the food and carrying it back with them, tucking into it so quickly that it is hard to believe they even held it in the first place. There and then gone.
Third Meeting: They eat much like a crow, grabbing it with a precise nab and feasting, the food gone in seconds flat.
Fourth Meeting: They eat like a starved hound, swiping up the pastry and burying their face in it with wild ferocity. It’s gone in two bites.
Fifth: They eat like an abandoned cat, darting over to snatch their prize before backing away a defensive distance, eating quickly, but eyes locked on you and your band all the same.
Sixth: They eat like a man deprived of all of life’s simple pleasures, as if they had never been able to conceptualize the prospect of food given freely.
Seventh: They eat the pastry just as fast as they snatch it from Boniface’s hand.
Okay so the brain worms have finally made their way to me and I played In Stars and Time and loved it, but my mind generated an AU where Siffrin and the King swap places in the story
Behold, the power of musing over this at two in the morning:
King — The Paladin
Siffrin — still The Rogue
Sadnesses —> Echos (memories that are left forgotten, for better or worse)
No time freezing curse, but a forgetting curse, drenching Vauguard in darklessness. Comes on more slowly than the time freezing, and works on people slower, with early symptoms being hard to clock.
Siffrin’s wish: “I wish that anyone could understand.”
The King’s wish: “I wish for the power to save everyone.”
Siffrin’s backstory is all very much similar, with a dash more isolation stitched in. Based on a headcanon of mine that, if Islanders are “out of sight, out of mind” for too long, than they will literally be forgotten by the people who they met/bonded with/loved, preventing them from making many meaningful connections. Which is very bad for Siffrin, who already has a complex around this shit. At some point they hit their breaking point and, having heard about favor trees in passing, make their wish.
He doesn’t realize what’s happening for a long time at first until he lingers too long in one town over the winter and notices everyone beginning to forget too much in general. They shrug it off as weird and go to another town until the same thing happens, then they’re seeking help at the Dormont House of Change (unknowingly doing their “march to Dormont” and spreading the curse more, though, being standard wack-o-doodle Siffrin, they are already blaming themself with ZERO actual evidence and try to take care to stay away from populated areas). Euphrasie hears out their situation and immediately offers help, her curiosity winning out against her sense of self preservation. But she wants a fail-safe just in case, giving Mirabelle the blessing to survive against the curse, meaning that she will be the canary in the coal mine if anything goes wrong with the expectation that she will leave, grow stronger, learn more about the curse, and find a way to stop it by any means necessary (and she was out of the House the first day that Siffrin came, so she would likely not have come into contact with the source and probably be okay (she will be)) but she is spared the full story as to keep her calm. This makes Mirabelle a little wary of this mysterious stranger, but tentatively wanting to get closer, versus a Siffrin who is even more cagey than standard because they are literally destroying the country. This… does not deter her.
A little down the line, Euphrasie realizes that she cannot recognize the person in front of her who clearly knows who she is, but she has so many notes about a spreading “forgetting curse” and her failsafe, so she’s putting all of that into place, sending out Mirabelle and locking the House, scattering the orbs in the hope that will contain the curse and stop the spread. Like canon, this does not work.
News of the curse reaches Corbueax at some point, where the King has a community of people around him (like implied in canon) who he loves and cares for and who feel the same towards him. Like in canon, he is better at holding onto memories of the Forgotten Island, so he hears about the curse and fears the same happening to Vauguard and immediately decides to set out to find the savior he’s read about, with the town sending him off with armor and supplies.
He meets with Mirabelle in the same type of situation as Siffrin, helping in defeating a strong Echo, and swears his fealty to Mirabelle.
Mirabelle is a combo of uncomfortable (hates being acknowledged as a savior) and entranced (knightly mysterious older man offering to help, this is straight out of a novel)
Isabeau is enamored (this stranger has all the bravery he wants and more, literally hunting them down to offer his help, doing more than any of his former colleagues ever would have (dare I say there is some really deep camaraderie dipped in here, perchance, with how the king can be so brave, so protective, and so level headed, all traits Isabeau admires (but also a short-lived jealousy, where Isabeau feels like his role in the party is being pushed aside a little because of that similarity between them (but he is good at self-regulating his feelings, so he works through this quickly and with little issue. He brings a lot to the table that King doesn’t, like a sense of humor and a jovial attitude)))).
Odile is suspicious, but not as much so as Siffrin (his timing was convenient, but at least he was looking for them) and concerned (is this man older than her? Gems alive….)
He is much colder to the party than Siffrin likely was at first. Not one for very friendly banter. He learns that they aren’t necessarily planning to kill the source of the curse (Mirabelle met Siffrin, she can’t imagine hurting someone who she knows the name and face of) and is frustrated by that immediately, but resolves to just ease them into the idea of it (he has Odile’s full support on the matter)
He warms up to the group mostly through Odile, initially. They both are very similar in their philosophies (“I would do horrible things to protect you/Vauguard”), and he takes well to her outward curiosity about the country. He wasn’t from here either. He feels like they can bond well over being accepted so openly by Vaugaurd (he doesn’t immediately fully connect to her enough to understand her tumultuous relationship to that whole can of worms). Next is Isabeau, who, both being Rock Types, finds an in with him over sharing how they use their respective crafts, and can ease that into becoming more regular conversations. The King treats Mirabelle like too much of a savior for them to get along immediately, but that slowly fades away overtime once he starts seeing her bumble around a bit more, at which point his attitude starts to match Odile’s “oh no the country’s fate is in the hands of children”. Once he’s at that point he resolves to act as a mentor to her through the journey. Still not as loose as Odile, but no longer the awkward hero worship from before. Plus, Mirabelle loves the mentorship. Gives her some peace.
Bonnie joins in a similar situation to usual, but instead they ran at the first sign of the curse hitting their sister. She told them to run as soon as she forgot the littlest thing, but, tragically, it started with her not remembering their middle names. They booked it the same day and were found ~a week later haggard and exhausted. There is no “first one to find them” like how Siffrin did, but the group all generally stumbled upon them at the same time and got them on their feet.
Much like in canon, Bonnie is a representation of how awful the curse really is. They are a child, and they’ve lost everything they knew and loved, and it will stay lost unless they all can fix this mess. The King, still having memories of home and Wish Craft, as soon as they at the next town, goes to the favor tree and makes his wish, Bonnie’s presence more of a catalyst that anything else could have been. As such, his loops last for ~3 months (insane bullshit beam go) but he doesn’t realize he’s in a time loop for a long time, obviously.
The “eye incident” doesn’t ever really happen like it did in canon. The King’s “weapon” of choice is a shield, so he just. Blocks the Echo that would have hurt Bonnie. It makes them grow closer, especially because Bonnie had been wary of the King (stern, sometimes weepy old man that isn’t as chill as most of the rest of the party). They cook his favorite meals for the next week, no doubt about it. He trains them a little in some basic Rock Craft (the rest of the party does not like this) with the idea of “they, too, share the goal of saving the kingdom, so it would be cruel to leave them standing on the sidelines”. Now they both are inseparable.
One important note: The King’s memory is canonically better than Siffrin’s. Because of this, in the AU, he can keep things at the front of his mind and hold onto them, but he still has enough gaps due to everything to do with the Island that the party is genuinely concerned that he was infected with the curse and is slowly succumbing to it. They think he’s only holding on due to either sheer force of will or because maybe, they hypothesize, proximity to Mirabelle can fend it off. There are conversations behind his back on if it would be merciful to leave him behind somewhere if he starts to forget too much. Obviously, it never gets to that (until, perhaps, some of the later loops, where they severely start to consider it. Vague suggestions and whatnot).
He is still weepy if he thinks too long about the Island, but mostly is focusing all those bad feelings onto the curse. Destroy the curse and prevent this from happening again. No ifs, ands, or buts.
He dies to the rock trap first, too, lmao.
Loops back to when he made his wish and immediately realized what happened. He has a good memory, after all. And he is elated that he can keep trying over and over and over again.
The caveat: as there are more and more loops he has to shift his attention from the past to the present/future, leading to his scant memories of the Island/Wish Craft/how to read the language slipping away from him bit by bit. Makes the party more anxious as he seems to lose some of his skills and abilities. Once he realizes that he is crashing out. Sob, gay boy, sob.
The first time he gets to Siffrin he’s not waiting for any noble speech. They can’t even get a word in. It’s probably been ~4 loops (if they’re all lucky as shit, though I do imagine there are less keys locking things up, given that people probably forgot to do that, lol) so at least a full year has passed (unless he could press for them to go faster, given that he’s looping, he knows what they need to do, but there is only so quick they can go) and he’s ready for this to be done by now.
And as soon as Siffrin is dead the loop resets back to the start. That isn’t the solution.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
you know I find myself lamenting whenever ao3 is down for maintenance just as much as anyone, but one splendid thing that comes from it is that the best ever fanfics get posted once the site is up and running again
I have had the greatest time seeing what authors spent the last fifteen hours cooking up, truly they are putting in the work
i have never drawn a horse before ever in my life, but @spotsupstuff mentioned Second Sentinel riding a horse and i was enraptured and needed this to happen immediately
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have you thought about how second sentinel would respond to the parasite/cursed crest plotline? if it saw hornet in that state i feel like they would blow a fuse lol
Sec when bitch lady in ITS lady:
Nah, but seriously, I have a bit:
My idea is that the Sentinels can see crests, at least as flickers. That's how it makes sense to me that they can "judge" people on their innocence/purity.
Headcanoning that the judges of blasted steps have runes in their masks that allow them to see crests and there's probably instructions or something for what they are looking for - has to be true about the judges (as in their judging is not just a sham) since there used to be a mechanic that the Last Judge would let Hornet through if she hadn't killed anybody (and the reason it's scrapped is because that's impossible to do).
The Sentinels' ability and the masks (a bit) are one of "evidences" of them being Eva's precursors (in my delusions).
And once, I got pissy by how often Sec challenged Lace to a duel over her innocence from the Haunting in fics the same as it did to Hornet (nothing wrong about it, I'm just being a whiny baby), so I'd actually rather Sec doesn't turn to chopping.
We can bullshit this by saying that thanks to Hornet holding the token of the Order, she is now recognized as one of them. She is talking sense while cursed, therefore this is an ailment that can be fixed, not warrant immediate decomission. Normally, a Sentinel would rush the other to an Architect, but in this case the best Sec can do is chase her out of the Citadel to hopefully find a doctor.
Can't take her to a doc itself, gotta hold its post; can't fix her itself either (organics don't typically appreciate having their chests wrenched open as is the starndard first step for it and its siblings, it heard), so this is it.
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