writ upon the heavens

adult - he/they - one of many - not straight - not cis - not white - not human

Call me Phosphor!

I’m just here (very reluctantly, given tumblr’s Everything) for my friends and my fandoms, and I read much more than I post. I expect that I’ll mostly post Fallen London stuff (namely my OCs and my fanmade sigils) but who knows. I may occasionally post things on my headmate Lark’s behalf, including stuff about his own FL OC. (You can find him on his own blog as well, at @lutekeeper.)

Anyone who’s not a TERF/Nazi/etc is welcome to follow. I believe in good faith and in caring about people despite their messiness; I have no fondness for exclusionism, puritanism, or the slapfighting that passes for “discourse” on social media. Do with this information what you will.

Tags/posts of interest:

My Correspondence sigil art

My "what even is Fallen London" guidepost

References for canon Correspondence sigils

(more info below the cut)

throughout the week, I park my butt in Burgundy. if I have at least 20 actions, I go into the Stacks. if I have fewer actions, I draw cards in the Burgundy deck and play the most profitable cycles until my actions eventually pile up, at which point I do Stacks again, and repeat.

(Stacks is the aforementioned disgusting 6.5 echoes-per-action infinitely grindable activity. The Burgundy deck can give over 7 echoes per action, but it's, well, gated by being an opportunity deck.)

at the end of the week (by which I mean the day before Time, the Healer arrives) I haul ass to Zenith and climb the High Sancta until I reach the top or eat shit trying. then I head back down to London, clear my residual irrigo, and dunk myself in the Nadir. after that, I ride on over to the Hurlers to reapply my Discordant Law. (speedrunning all the horrors!!) after that, I treat myself to a nice relaxing end-of-week laundry list:

pick up my gift from Balmoral

turn in favors at Jericho Locks

grab more bones at Ealing Garden if I need them (Zenith trades make it disgustingly easy to source Surveys of the Neath's Bones)

grab my weekly profession payment

head into the Rat Market and offload sellables at max profit

clear any menaces I've accumulated throughout the week

if I've cleared Wings of Change, I head back to Burgundy. otherwise I do something nice and safe until Time, the Healer arrives, like Miser-Herding or Law-Hunting. (the former is good for building up the three zee-god qualities, while the latter is good for repairing stat damage from the Nadir.)

at some point during the whole week, I'll also use up my weekly Bone Market Exhaustion by building skeletons according to hBart's optimal skeleton spreadsheet. the exact timing slides around - my Time, the Healer arrives Sunday night while the Bone Market trends cycle Tuesday morning, so if the trends for the week are good I'll sometimes pop down and make my skeletons on Monday. otherwise, I usually make them on Sunday while I'm running around managing the rest of my laundry list.

(and of course, I have my agents going all the while!)

when I say this activity is profitable, mind, I mean really profitable. absolutely disgustingly profitable. done optimally (which is not terribly difficult), it has an estimated profitability of 6.5 echoes per action, which for context is fucking absurd. (before this, 5 echoes per action was considered good. now it's considered subpar.) what's more, the activity is grindable and almost entirely self-contained - it costs no resources to start or to progress and you aren't locked to a certain number of goes per week, you can just sit there and pour every single action into it if you so choose. the only things better than it are things limited by opportunity deck draws or weekly limits like bone market exhaustion. it's just that good.

All it takes is a certain sideways shift in perspective, and dream-centuries pass in a painless flash - and you clatter to the ground as a pile of bones. But death is not the end for one such as you. Nonchalantly, you stand back up. You detach a foot here, a hand there, and shake off your chains before reattaching your bony extremities. It is simple enough, too, to fit through the bars of your cell, to step over the long-decayed remains of the guards, to pass through the time-eaten ruin of the once unassailable keep, to freedom, where you bury yourself in the loamy earth under the cosmogone sun, and wait for your body to regrow.

Rafael's level 100 dream warlock powers are, generally, something he tends to be subtle about. his flavor of glassworking tends to be less about shaping Parabola to his will, and more about reshaping himself to fit into a given dream-landscape's narrative on his terms - to slip through its cracks, or to redirect its energies from within. he prefers to work with Parabola, not against it. it's a realm he respects, perhaps even reveres, in large part due to practically growing up there and having a Fingerking as a sibling.

that's the side of his ability that he isn't shy to use. but as for the other... he is also very, very good at creating nightmares. he can create nightmares that are powerful, even lethal in a general sense - he can become a towering beast with thunder in its palms, can summon thorned vines mighty enough to crush castles. but where he excels is creating nightmares that are much more personal in their horror.

A dreamer dreams of starving amidst an opulent feast. The other revellers aren't unsympathetic - if anything, they're greatly concerned. They fill the dreamer's plate with lavish portions, top up their goblet with ruby-red wine, encourage them to partake as much as they wish.

And they do. But the wine burns like acid. The food turns to grave-dirt and maggots in their mouth. They stop partaking. The other revellers notice. They heap more delicious-smelling food atop their plate, pour more gleaming wine into their cup. They ask, why aren't you eating? You should eat! Eat, live, and celebrate, like the rest of us! They don't seem to realize that they are no longer piling food and drink in front of the dreamer, but on top of them - burning wine poured directly into their eyes, grave-ridden bread and flesh forced into their mouth, suffocating their screams.