lezywritesstuff

(idk i can guarantee the blood just read at your own risk)

so while I planned for cc2!lan's exit, I mainly thought of what he would be up to afterwards, since death isn't really the answer... and what immediately came to mind was funger 2 (thanks supereyepatchwolf for dragging me back to funger brainrot) because in that game there's a mechanic called moonscorching... so would you still love cc2!lan if he was REALLY fucked up and evil lmfao

soo... meet The Unbound...

the general idea of moonscorching is that the moon (in this case, it would be the sun) burns off your typical human fleshy form and mutates it into a basic representation of the character's mental state. could be how they view themself, how they fear other people view them, who they really are, etc.

so let's get into it, starting with:

THE EYES

I mean, there's not a whole lot to get into here, actually? He's mentally all gone, just a whirlwind of violence and mania, and so his eyes reflect that, with these bright red circles over yellow that resemble targets, because...

THE ARROWS

god, I really worried that I overdid it with this aspect of his design, but... then it worked? because cc1!lan (or caspian, I guess) was so flamboyant in everything he did, so the arrows resembling a peacock just clicked. But the real story behind the arrows is that I presume seeing a 9 ft wolf/man thing roaming around would cause some hunting parties to get started, and with those eyes, plus the sort of general insanity that would result in trying to kill this immortal beast kind of slots The Unbound into one of those older stories of a man trying to hunt something down and going insane because of it. Think Moby Dick, TADC episode 3, and just a whole lot of greek stories (mainly Atalanta's). Unbound is INSANE, and he makes other people go insane, too, which plays into his mentality of thinking he makes other people worse.

THE BLOOD

because he's got so much of it. yeah, don't be fooled, these red markings are NOT markings. it's blood that's stained to his fur. specifically his hands and ears are what I want to call attention to, because in the case of his hands, I mean... duh. Dude has major blood on his hands. It's the thing that affects him mentally the most. But then, the ears, because "hear no evil." He knows a lot, maybe too much, because he was there, he saw it, but he's also good at spying on people, so if he DIDN'T see something, he HEARD something. and DIDN'T say something.

now, the yellow. it's dripping from his eyes, it's on the tip of the arrow that goes through his chest, it drips from his mouth, it flows from his forehead scar (that we will get to). since he's already got some greek myth in him, let's throw in some good old ichor, yeah? the blood of the gods! because, well, he's NOT a god? but a god has been in his mind for so long, dragging him around from time to time, and those interactions he has when he's not conscious, when the god is speaking for him, that he fears the most. also keeping in mind that this god caused most of the pain he went through (being a nomen SUCKED, his entire purpose for being there in cc1 was to keep from being "disposed"). so the ichor being there is a representation of that godly trait that he so desperately wants to be separate from, but like i said before, all the blood on this design is stained there for good.

THE SCARRING

this one is simple. he's got a heart carved into his chest because he cares too much, but far too late, so it's a consistent reminder of the Unbound's lateness. too late to see what he was doing was wrong, too late to get the consolate on track, too late to save anyone, as he so consistently is. the forehead is just a representation of the sun, leaks ichor because of the godly connection, yeah you get it.

his back and neck are pre-existing scars from cca (neck snapped, spine ripped out) that persevere through his fur sprouting up because unhealed trauma symbolism yay

THE CLOTHES

he's still technically uniformed for the stellar rangers! look at how studious and rule-following he is!

uhh, okay, yeah, so the real reason he's still wearing anything is because he's outwardly malicious now. you know how i mentioned these moon/sunscorched forms have to do with the outward, inward, and imagined self? he's VERY imagined-self personality-wise, which manifests as a purely evil being. he's violent, malevolent, and scraps his typical cunning self for brute strength. and you may be saying: "lan, your character was malicious, but he was so quiet about it. guy just kinda played on the sidelines and manipulated, so why is he scrapping that?"

well, simple. he's not in the greatest state of mind, so instead of seeing a chain of events how it is (we'll take samaras death):

samara asks to be a nomina -> caspian complies -> rift volunteers to become a nomina publicly to be seen as trustworthy -> the event is misunderstood as culty -> samara is killed trying to protect rift

he sees it like this:

made samara a nomina -> samara died

made rift a nomina -> rift died

did anything to anyone -> they died

so it doesn't matter HOW they died, who killed them, etc, The Unbound just knows that people die when he gets close. et la... if people are going to die anyways, let's just speed it up.

alright, and now you're asking "lan, you started this part of saying that he wears the uniform because he's malicious. build on that."

gladly! he wears the uniform to trick people into thinking he's been bit/infected and turned into something, then as soon as he gets within range of a camp of people trying to help him, he starts the slaughter. what a bundle of joy.

so. that's The Unbound. and also a deep dive into how cc2!lan perceives themself. now, am I going to USE this concept in cc2?

im fucking never not streaming/recording lore stuff again me and @lanawesomeversion did a performance of our LIVES and it's never gonna see the light of day cuz neither of us recorded :sob: