I. LUMINĂ / ÎNTUNERIC

A LOVE LETTER TO CHARACTERS FROM MULTIPLE FANDOMS :

GAMES - BASED ROSTER & ANIMANGA ROSTER + CLASSIC LITERATURE LOVES + ORIGINAL CHARACTERS

IMPORTANT LINK : guidelines + memes && prompts tag + permanent dynamics call

ENDEARINGLY CHERISHED MAINS : almryan ; blaeddyd ; chaieos ; dangaer / truethes ; endlesstropa / zorkaya ; fraldareius ; nifhelheim ; starspurn ; yeonban.

SCRIPTURED BY : BLU. 25+. SHE/HER/HERS. PERSONALS + MINORS DNI !

For your whole life, you knew of only one thing: you are a vessel for the wishes of everyone around you. Saintess bound to the mast, ever gazing upwards towards the birds flying around you. Did the birds know of the blessing they carry? Did the birds even hold the power of comprehending the wondrous gift bestowed upon them? That they were free, and there existed no boundary between them and whichever skies they wished to roam.

Meanwhile, you were an altar and a sacrifice and an icon, all in one. This life you knew even since fragile girlhood. Mother? Father? Who are they? You cannot even remember their faces, and the sound of their voices are sooner akin to echoes fading into whispers fading into Oblivion in your mind. You hear the voices of the sailors, the voices of those who sing your praises in sacred reverence and prayer.

You hear their hearts, you hear their wishes… yet how can an idol wrought out of something human perform miracles?

Perhaps, this troublesome inquiry has never once disturbed the crew. Human faith, human belief, human superstition, they can be so terribly powerful. Anything can become a truth if there is at least one heart or one mind crazed enough to bring it to reality. Any creed becomes religion when you dedicate your life and your sweat and your blood to your God.

But, you are no manner of God or divine. You are only a girl. A girl wrought of human flesh and blood. A girl whose face and voice belong not to her own. Her own… there is hardly anything about you to call your own, not even yourself / your self. You are only filled with their wishes and prayers. With their ideals, with their hopes and dreams.

For, you are the altar and the Saint and the offering, all in one.

Yet, little mercy (Was there mercy?) did they show when “you” shattered their hopes and dreams. When “you” failed to bestow “Your” Holy aura upon those whom “you” were meant to serve and protect against Oblivion / Calamity. “You” were not permitted to live for “you” would clearly become an ill omen, a terrible, wretched thing whose existence could no longer be tolerated!

So, they sentenced you to drowning, they sentenced you to the Abyss…

Where once the Sun shone upon you, conferring you the aura they so passionately adored, now the darkness of the depths shall swallow you. What happened to your wondrous hair? What of your raiment ever-white? What of-

Your lungs and nostrils are assaulted by sea water, and soon you will be another offering to the Abyss. A scapegoat for the terrible destruction you failed to prevent. You sang so beautifully! Now, you will sing no more. Your chants and prayers filled their hearts with hope and courage! Now, you shall pray no more. Even if you wished to pray, no God shall hear you. For, where you have been cast is where no God can reach.

You sink, you sink, you sink, beginning to understand this is the most fitting position for you. This is your end. This is how you will go: blamed, cursed, eventually to be forgotten. No longer shall you hear the cries of the seagulls, no longer shall any mariner depose prayer and hope to the altar of you, no longer shall you gaze upon the birds flying around the mast, as you would nearly secretly envy them for their capability to be free. No longer shall you mourn, no longer shall you yearn. No longer shall you be.

The Abyss has eyes… and they are gazing upon you.

Has it come to devour you? Many tales and legends have it that the Primeval Sea is something to fear. It is part of the reason why those sailors needed a protective Saintess. Man is foolish to attempt to brave the sea, blaming the sea for when its wild, untamed nature emerges. It is easier to extract the monstrous from man and place it onto creatures of myth, rather admit to their own folly.

Yet, such burdensome thoughts have never gotten to cross your mind. Your entire self is vacant, filled only with their wishes and hopes and desires.

Hence, when something resembling the shape of a man seems to emerge from the darkest depths, you do not shake or falter. You do not question whether this presence is true, or some form of illusion. You have not once questioned anything, you have asked nothing, besides:

What wishes do you hold? Followed by your futile eternal, I will do my utmost to fulfill them.

For, even when sinking and dying, duty and destiny are entwined. How will you preach with seawater in your mouth? How will you sing, with your voice suffocated by the depths? How will you shine, with your light soon to be captured by this primordial darkness?

The Abyss replies not, for how does one query the Abyss of its/his own wishes and desires? In the eyes of this being, you are but another corpse tossed into the waters, perhaps another proof of foolishness of humans who believe these offerings shall please whichever divinity they created in the narrow halls of their minds.

The dying struggle for their life, they wish to breathe again, they vainly attempt to reach the surface and the light once more. Then, there is you. You who have long accepted your ending, you who hold no will of your own. You whose light is fading and whose aura has been dying long before you had been given a chance to live or shine. What is the Abyss to make of you?

No word reaches you, no sensation finds you, and all sound is long dulled. Nothing reaches you, save a palm cradling your cheek. Another one tossed into the ocean by their cruelty…

Cruelty? No, No! You failed in your role. You didn’t protect them. Your aura didn’t shine bright enough. Your light was not powerful enough to vanish the darkness. Those enraged by the loss of their loved ones were quick to blame it on you, now they must have slowly but certainly begun to forget… this is what this terrible calamity they all call Dissolution must be, is it not?

if there is one thing I can appreciate about how they draw Celeste, aside from the rich and intricate design, is how absolutely vacant her expression is

she doesn’t smile, she doesn’t cry. yes, you could tell she is burdened, but that’s the look of someone hollow inside, if you ask me. someone who’s long become hollowed out.

I love that her gaze is facing downwards, and she’s not looking at us or at the player character. she’s zoned out, she’s unfocused, she’s somewhere else. where? we don’t know. we just don’t. she’s here and yet not here at all.

Draven / the Keeper. I just really enjoy his tormented not-your-ordinary college kid vibe and story.

William. seriously he’s just so dear to me, plus you show me a competent man who admits he’s afraid in front of the Keeper, and I am sold.

Celeste. but she’s more than just potential, I will be honest here.

Pontos. the old man lover in me is never going to say no to him + Greek mythos and hmmm yes. just yes.

Uvhash.

maybe 24 / Mason

he wouldn’t see that as an act of offering, as we already know. the humans made out of Celeste a scapegoat for a situation they refused to objectively face head on. families lost their loved ones to the Dissolution, yes, but it was also human superstition and idealization that created something around Celeste’s image that wasn’t here

and like honestly Pontos doesn’t sound cruel to me, he sounds incredibly grounded, just as something as ancient as him should be. some of his lines DO creep me out but gosh it’s also the casual manner in which he speaks them that sends me. whereas you have that burdened softness in Celeste’s voice and yeah my brain did a funny here

FORTUNIIS' LUUK HERSSEN INQUIRES OF ORION : ❝ do you think i'm a good person? ❞ - luuk for orion ! ( A TENDER GLIMPSE BENEATH THE SURFACE... ACCEPTING ! )

He's hardly the suitable one to ask for an opinion on matter as grave such as this. Do you think I'm a good person? Luuk inquires of Orion, and Orion does not hold, for a while, a response to give. In the end, some choices he has made in the past have affected so many lives, torn apart so many hearts. He loves this world, he loves those who inhabit it, yet for those who have tried to hold on to him, he has been akin to the rays of light slipping between their fingers: warm, present, real, though only ever so terribly briefly.

His past self must have known the cost of this decision. Ever the troublesome thing: to wear a face everyone around you seems to know, to want to understand what was done, what happened, yet the answers are elusive. His past self must have understood the consequences of all this, and chose to continue onwards on this path nonetheless. What could have been so much more important than what was shared with all of his loved ones, that such drastic measure was taken?

"I don't have an answer for you, Luuk," Orion finally begins to give a response, the most honest one he can muster, "Looking back at it, I have made decisions that have hurt a lot of people. If anything, maybe, I should be the one asking you the very same question you have addressed to me." But, all of that is pointless now, isn't it? When the damage is done, when what is past is past... Orion wishes to look forward to the future, to be there for everyone as they walk together towards a radiant dawn emerging after merciless night.