#sticky lore

unrelated to your answer i just woke up (or rather got on my computer after waking up) and in the notifications bar your ask showed "hii i know you're in the torture labyrinth..." and i was like wughuh?

but indeed i am. not only am i in the dankovsky fic torture labyrinth i also have midterms coming this week sisters i'm afraid i might not make it. but i must.

okay re:murky for those not up to date on the #lore anon is making mention of [this one] true and real.

she never really "gets over" her visceral repulsion wrt blood, but as i've mentioned she goes Hard on the herbalism/herbology/tincture-making of the menkhu's role, i think in this, and only in this, is she able to overcome a hint of repulsion when she has to use blood or organs in the tinctures: i think what horrifies here is the blood on/in/of a warm body (trauma of the death of her parents). and vice-versa, i think Sticky is a huge gross organs and blood and operations fan (comic i'll make one day: dandy catnip stiky [and khan but it's not about him rn] hanging out at notkin's worker-flat as a adults, to cut the tension sticky who brought his medicine book goes "anyone wants to go see a diagram of a tracheostomy" and catnip and dandy are like ewwww don't show me this shit!!!!!! and notkin who's been trying to rest yells Can you all shut up on my day off. anyways that's his deal) but sticky's not like The Best at tinctures. indeed murky is better. so they become a two in one deal. they work together (even if sticky is "easier" to deal with as a person because murky loves going away into the steppe when she doesn't want to socialize. very much like my father and me in this regard which tells you something about us more than about her) and will work together until the end, where the next generation's menkhu (and in my head, even if they're of the same age with murky, it'll be Taya, or a youth of Taya's circle) comes around. Murky is Essential to Burakh's & Sticky's practice as they grow up because She's The One who can pick the herbs. Burakh is also very good at it, but as time goes he can't go out in the steppe and wander off for hours because his legs hurt, and Sticky no matter how hard he tries he struggles a bit. Murky Is Here Murky Has It In For You. both sticky and murky are emshen more than they are fully fledged Menkhu because both do not fully master the intertwineness of things, but they both do enough + work under Burakh so socially they're let to (if they want) do the Menkhu things such as cutting up bodies (which Murky doesn't want to. but she's socially allowed).

she is still really close to the herb brides and to the maidens she once knew who've now become brides because as stated -> Goes There In The Steppe. they're also murky's informers on the state of the herbs this time of year, she can go to them and be like Do you think you could grow us blood twyre. i kinda need blood twyre for a thing. and the herb brides will dance the dance that coaxes blood twyre out of the bloodground.

she grows really close to Taya (in no small parts because Taya, or someone from Taya's circle, will take up the menkhu torch after them) and they see and speak of each other as equals. taya studies under Burakh like the rest of Burakh's bond did (or kinda-did) under Isidor. "getting along" and "being close" are two different things, murky again is not really a Sociable person but she and taya find each other so often (-> the steppe) that they link up and bond.

murky's favorite holiday is the end-of-winter one (which in the steppe corresponds with the spring equinox because the snow stays that long (even longer)) where there is a lot of eating as you within rites eat what of the winter's reserves is still left to celebrate Making It Through the winter and as a way to intice warmth to come quicker (in Murky's time this is less of a Huge Deal because even the Kin [those who live in the town, but still of course participate] have access to stuff like. flour and sugar so it's Technically harder to starve if the temperatures drop again after the spring equinox). she's not found of the noise and the crowds but she fw the dancing so she. say it with me. goes out into the steppe. and someone brings her food eventually. it's a big Herb Bride Day too because they're thanked for last year's harvest which allowed the people to live through the winter and are asked to do good again this time and make the plants grow quickly quickly. murky mostly prefers keeping to herself Due To Noise And Crowd but the household typically holds a smaller gathering after the main party so she can celebrate.

thank uuu 🫂 and while i mostly have hcs for the kids after the game i have a few for some of the kids before

Grace: her mother used to pour twyrine on the graves, dance near them and sweep the stones with her hair, and Grace has been trying to recreate that in some ways. she cannot dance very well so she mostly does little steps around. she is in contact with herb fledglings a lot as she's just right by the steppe and sees them dancing often so she's like. hmmm. could take inspiration from that [and then she doesn't because they dance like crazies]. since she sings songs and tells poems to the dead, I think she has a stack of papers where she writes them down; she never learned how to write so they're written in a language only she understands. she used to steal twyrine from andrey's bar to pour on the graves but now he leaves some by the door so she doesn't have to come in, or leaves them by her Lodge when he goes to the cemetery. he also of the people who leave her some food.

Murky: tracer of lines on the ground enjoyer. i think she spent (still spends) a lot of her days wandering around just making paths on the ground with a little stick. people at first were freaked out bc they had no idea what these lines were/where they came from but soon realized. oh it's just her. she always makes a point to fill the earth back in at night and comes to it again when morning comes. etc etc. she collects anthropomorphic & zoomorphic rocks and pieces of bark those are her dolls.

Khan: he was supposed to be sent away to study, at least for a while, at the Capital; it ended not panning out. he has brought many books to the polyhedron, which he doesn't read often, and more has them here as a keepsake. an interest in astronomy blossomed when he started hanging out in the Tower because you can see the night sky from it.

Notkin: i know his jacket belonged to someone else. I'm still deciding if he has stolen it or it was a hand-me-down. i think it might have been his father's, that he took after he died as a keepsake, or an older brother's who didn't survive the first outbreak. not necessarily about His Life Before The Game but I think he has face tics to me, that are more prominent when he's stressed. he has helped many a stray cat deliver her kittens.

Sticky: i know for a FACT this little thief has a huge stack of matches somewhere. and I know for a fact he makes little towers out of them. and he thinks of peter's polyhedron "I could do that too [with matchsticks]. i also think he hoards gasoline cans and smells a bit of it.