#thrones archive

This Abnormality admittedly stumped me. It's tied with Pink Shoes, and the idea that you're being possessed to giving into your desires. I think it fairly made sense to give to Rodya and Chetwyn, as they have in the past fallen to temptations of short term relief to catatrosphic results. But I think the underlying motive that's being exploited here is the desire to temporarily shut out everyone else. "It's my shoes and I deserve to wear it", to justify the mistake you made. It's erasing everything about you, defining you only by its will to inflict more violence and cause bloodshed. You merely wanted a pretty pair of shoes, and you were so willing to put it on that you didn't care of what was going to happen.

[Lore]

Reading from my vn wikipedia, Yìnglóng 應龍 was born from a creature that was described to be the ancestor to all furred/feathered/haired creatures. Yinglong then gave birth to a horse-like creature, and that horsie gave birth to a smaller horselion creature.

This was sourced from the book Hoài Nam tử (淮南子), otiginally titled Hồng Liệt (鴻烈). Hồng happens to be homophonic to red 紅 btw, like Red chamber. It's a really big book. Many authors joined in to record everything they knew about the world at that time. So they believed that fantastical creature created all animalkind.

Yinglong is the Huangdi [emperor]'s (supposed ancestor of the Han people in China) beloved companion? I don't know how to describe it. It reminds me of the novel series Twelve Kingdoms, where each emperor has their own Kirin (same word for that horselion creature) who serves them and is bound by life to their master. It was described to be a relationship that transcended romance, familial, self-love, everything. Just utmost loyalty and dedication.

Here's the joyous part. The 應 Yìng in Yinglong means something like granting a wish to me (I don't speak Mandarin, just using what I know about Vietnamese to translate this). English translation of Yinglong is the responsive dragon. Think of responsive like... someone who is always there for you and grants your every wish, like how Yinglong was to Huangdi.

From EN wikipedia,

"Great Eastern Wastelands" (14, 大荒東經) mentions Yinglong killing both Chiyou and Kua Fu and describes using Yinglong images in sympathetic magic for rainmaking.

A dragon called Yinglong lived on the southern flank of a mountain named Xiongli Hill in the northeast corner of the Great Wasteland...having killed celestial beings Chiyou and Kuafu...Yinglong could not return to heaven. With no Yinglong, who created clouds and rain, the people below suffered constant droughts. When that happened, they masqueraded as Yinglong or fashioned clay images of the dragon to bring rain, often successfully.

Yinglong is a rainmaker, performing revolutionary acts like parting the lands to create waterways to cultivate rice. But after having killed Chiyou and Kuafu, other beasts in the myths, it could not go back to heaven... Supporting myths said it wandered around exhausted and wounded, unable to control its powers for good anymore.

So take it as... it was not taken care of following a wound, and that bleeds out until it no longer felt in control of anything. The last thing it remembered before thrashing in pain was fighting for the Emperor's sake. Yet what did it gain from that? Nothing, no purpose, just pain.

[Physical Depiction]

It's very important to the characterisation of Yinglong that it's a winged dragon. I believe that's why one of the reason why Sinclair resonates with it. In his sprite he looks like a baby bird. Around Sinclair's neck seems to me like a smaller dragon coiling around him, which fits the description that Yinglong is sometimes wrapped in smaller wingless dragons. He also has an ungrown tail, making him look really juvenile.

Now compared to Hong Lu, he is tattered, like the post battle remains of Yinglong. his wings are exposed in bones. he doesn't even have a tail. He only has one horn even. It's a harrowing sight. Even victory came with such a steep cost.

I've also said before but the pibo they share here really looks like guts. It reminds me of when I was a really young, I had to get surgery on my large intestine, otherwise my life would have been in danger. I don't know why I brought that up here but well, think of being strangled by your own guts I guess. That's how it looks for them to wear their own guts out, loud and proud. It's also stylised to look like hearts. Wear your hearts on your sleeves (literally). But your heart should be inside your body, not out. If it's outside, what's left inside you?

Now think, with the mechanic of them stabbing themselves to bring destruction upon their enemies. Hong Lu may have thought he needed to suffer to appease his elders, like Yinglong, while Sinclair believes he's too weak to destroy others unless he destroys himself in the process (just spitballing here).

I find it overall interesting that the rainmaker dragon brings in no water but only blood here. Blood of family, blood of enemies, but nothing resembling what it was meant to do. Not meant to shed blood, this thing. It always wanted to help.

[EGO Design]

Now I just want to share my thoughts on Huin's design. I had this alternate version without lines basically. I had wanted to stop there but then I got pushed into lining it.

Detailed crops for anyone who wants to see. I appreciate it.

About the horns. I saw that Hong Lu was wearing jade rings on it so I might as well decorate my horns with the signature items (a sword guard and with colourful strings tied to it).

Blood covered my face like tears. The pibo is wrapped around my fists like manacles. For a deathrow inmate. I had tweaked the clothes to look more like hanbok than hanfu. My favourite part about this outfit is turning the fur cape from Base Huin into this white feathery cape. I don't have a tail. It's just the cape's tail.

Also creates a cool contrast when everyone's pibo go up whereas mine goes down... It really looks like I'm the only one who doesn't deserve heaven (I jest). Ah also, I had an excuse to have double dragon patterned sash, because it calls back to Huin's story closely involving his brother. Idk, two dragons side by side, like a story of two brothers.

I read on the Wiki that it's based on the surrealist painting "The Persistence of Memory" by Salvador Dalí. Featuring a vast landscape and melting watches, as well as a duck shaped thing which I've been told is actually a human face seen from the side. It originated from an earlier painting called "The Great Masturbator". You know I mentioned that because of Hyde and Jekyll's relationship.

"The Persistence of Memory" and "The Great Masturbator" side by side.

So what does this Abnormality signify? If the marriage in church aesthetics aren't a coincidence, then I'd read this Abnormality as a symbolism for a marriage where a person loses themselves in the other one. "Am I the duck or the rabbit? What am I to you?" is what it's saying. Taking inspiration from time melting and "The Great Masturbator" of all thins tell me that the spouse here feels like they're perpetually lonely or being erased into being what the other spouse wants I suppose. They ask to be defined by you the observer, because they couldn't remember who they're supposed to be anymore.

And why Sloth? Sloth to me, symbolise a lack of resolution. A resignation to a higher power, a contentment in never breaking free. That's why Faust got this EGO before anyone else did. She let Gesellschaft dictate who she is, without chasing the answer for herself.

On a marriage angle that I mentioned, this Abnormality could be perpetually reliving the day of the wedding, when the vow is said and what not. Remembering what it used to be before it was transformed into someone else, post-marriage. "Everlasting" vows, you know?

The Dreaming Current was formerly a human child who was experimented on after being forsaken by his parents. It takes the form of a limp shark with two gaping toothy mouths and colourful tongues. Notably it has a large syringe impaled behind it's back and six holes in its abdomen. It's constantly squirming and gurgling in its chamber, helpless to the researchers who keep it confined for testing.

This resonates with Ermine a lot, who had grown up being force-fed canned experiences by the N Corp. These things aren't so different from the drugs they fed the shark, it revitalises your will to live, to fight, to die for N Corp. With every thought of doubt for the N Corp's causes, and every wishful thinking about going back home, the amount of canned experience administered increases.

Also. Side note. I hate Lobotomy Corp's armour so much. It really was a headscratcher to draw. Like what the fuck am I looking at? The front piece looks like it makes sense when you look at it, but it's held up by hopes and dreams (two black straps, one around your chest, one around your waist). ZERO shoulder straps. It also has a little piece of armour that protects your belly button, what is the use of that? How can you bend your body with that? And the lower part is. apparently bendable?????? Advanced metallic armour. It looks thin enough, but the upper part encroaching upon the midriff muscles just really makes no sense to me. I feel like whoever designed this armour in universe wants the employees to die so, fair enough, it does its job in that regards.

I had written in my archives about how Grave of Cherry Blossoms represent the ideas of sacrifice, of sort. If you want the beauty of deep red blossoms you must pay with blood. That made me think of the oppressive parts of Japanese culture, how they'll tell the marginalised to shut up and endure any sacrifice so the rest of society can keep on blooming.

Okay some quick lore about this. Canonically I had planned for Holmes to get Mountain of Smiling Bodies. For that I will have to talk about Smile itself. It is the remains of employees who lay rotting in the hallways of Lobotomy Corporation, their expressions twisted as they lost their lives to a breaching abnormality or an employee going on a frenzy. It is quite famous for its wailings whenever it breaches. The mountain seeks to accumulate more bodies into its mass whenever it roams the halls.

However, I find it quite sad. After all, it signifies being left to rot and forgotten right where you died. Your coworkers walk past your corpse, happy to sigh in relief knowing they had survived in your stead. Maybe that's what motivates it to chase down exactly those clerks... Make sure your halls are clean. It's the least you could do for the fallen. Don't ignore their cries, and remember it's thanks to their deaths that you're alive.

Contrary to that is the self important Queen of Hatred, who necessitates that people die for her to be the hero that will save their day. The kind of person that gets irritated when nothing stimulating is happening, just like Holmes. The kind of person that tied their identity to being everyone's saviour, so if nobody gets endangered, what purpose would she have? People's suffering is what gave birth to Holmes' existence to begin with. If not a detective, then who would he be? Just a nobody kid who likes to collect random trivia. And if there's no crime, how can he keeps solving it?

One requires bloodshed to sustain its own existence, while the other begs you not to cut anymore lives short in the hallways of the facilities. Surely, if one breaches, the other will surely follow? To put you back in your place, silly naive Mountain of Smiling Bodies. You should know all along that you are nothing more than casualty in the name of justice. A hook to my plot ~★