Vizual Static

Holding hands to keep you close

This adorable comic was a commission for @creamsoda1998! As all of her ideas, it's just the cutest thing.

And she also wanted a summer illustration!

Edwin and Charles with DID/P-DID/OSDD/etc.

Payne is a tank protector, whose role is to absorb physical pain for the system, who finds himself needed far less after Hell but also less and less as Charles protects them more and more, and eventually starts to exist for other things than just enduring pain.

In Esther’s house, Payne screams while being tortured because as he’s started to step out of his role he’s no longer quite as “good” at it as he was (from his point of view); once upon a time Payne wouldn’t have been capable of screaming, and he only does in Esther’s device because he has become more.

Edwin-the-system (and Edwin-the-outernaut) isn’t always a woman, but Edith is.

The Edwin who is the outernaut after Hell (fluid, expressive, openly bitchy, freely queerly-mannerismed) is not the same as the Edwin Paine who was the outernaut before Hell (extremely restrained, shy, passive, physically pulled-in). Post-Hell Edwin formed in the first few years after Hell and was shaped by Charles’s acceptance and adoration, and their residual anger at authority.

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Charlie Row is aces with people, is able to turn off the part of his brain that sees that his “friends” are assholes in order to happily get along, isn’t a bully but is blind to bullying, doesn’t flinch from raised hands, doesn’t have triggers.

Charles was forcibly switched in, the night they died, because what their “friends” were doing was too much for Charlie Row to be blind to, and Charlie Row had to swap out to maintain himself.

Charlie Row is still useful, still fronts a lot with clients or with certain dangerous powerful individuals; Edwin took over conversation with the Cat King because he knew Charles-the-system would have that conversation as Charlie Row and he would be actively blind to TCK’s dangerous spots (as he later is to Brad and Hunter’s) which would be… not great in that particular situation.

Rowland is a protector/persecutor/avenger. Edwin didn’t know about him for years. He was the one who went after Mr. Devlin and the one who shrugged off Edwin’s hand on the cliff. (He’s the only one of them who’s touch-averse; Edwin didn’t know any of them were, so was shocked to be shrugged off.)

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Edwin Paine was dormant most of the time in Hell, and he fronts very rarely post-Hell. He thinks he’s lesser than Edwin, small and shy and repressed; he comes out when something happens that makes the system feel small again, like they need to hide.

You can find rambling about Magnus Archives au here

and you know this place all too well, but you still can't stop the way the relief punches out of you

because you're looking at him now

and you love him

you're in the worst place in the world because of course you are. because you'd never just leave him there

and you're looking at the most beautiful boy in the world, the most important person in the world to you

you look at each other

Eldrich horror Monty.

Esther wasn't a weak woman, she wasn't very high in moral, and she wasn't scared to play with divine forces. Not when she felt like she had a hold on all the cards.

It was fast, the slide from making a deal with a goddess to the wish to take the power of a fallen and neglected god. It was an easy plan as well. A god exist only if they have followers. It's the believing that make them potentiel, that make them powerful. That make them gods. And a god who lost his followers for whichever reason became easy prey.

And so Esther want on the search for the god left behind, forgotten, isolated. Easy victim.

Prosdiorismós has been alone for quite a while. It's senses blocked from the world, stuck in an endless sleep. Eyes closed, ears deaf, skin alight with unbearable cold. But then a light, small, warm roused him from his slumber. It followed the soft glow, follow until it's eyes percieved the outside world. There stand a woman. She looked young, kind, and had the biggest smile on her face. She was happy to see him.

She kept coming to light a candle on the small, unassuming shrine she made for It. She kept praising him, saying how strong he was for not dissolving into nothingness after so long. And It listened. She was a follower, she was a friend, she was its everything at the time. And so, when she proposed to be its priestress, to take its consciousness to wander the world and keep it self and meet new followers, Prosdiorismós accepted.

Addicted to the new warmth it just got, it incarnated its consciousness into the shape of a crow. Dark and loud like his name, but smart and mindful, with a memory of who wrong and who help. The bearer of grunge and love alike.

The mistake didn't take long to bite him back. The witch used a spell, hold and powerful, - used to destroy unruly and violent god, used to destroy power nature that shouldn't be ignored -, and bide the crow to her will.

Taking away its natural form, taking its name and so bidding its powers and memories and draining its life force. And once again Prosdiorismós disappeared

Monty didn't remember how he cames to be. He always assumed that familiar were normal animals selected by witches by magic affinities, and then a long processus made him be. He wondered sometimes if he was more happy as just a crow. Far away from the heavy hands of Esther. From the screaming, from the cutting. From the dismembering everytimes she wanted an ingredient... Being a familiar hurt. But Monty couldn't dream of going away from Esther. She was his everything and he was her follower.

So when she send him to catch a ghost boy, he didn't think twice. Then he did think. He wanted what the dead boy detectives and their little psychic and nerd had to offer. He wanted the soft banter, the help, the concern. Everything. Jealous could barely translate what he was feeling. But he felt stuck in place. Too weak to move. Monty has never been a determinated person, not stubborn, not egoist. How could he when he was Esther thing ?

But for the first time in his life of familiar, he craved. Deep and hurtful. Violent in its intensity. And so, when he was back in his cage, back at step one and Charles was begging for help, and Edwin was crying from pain and everything was so far from his craving, he moved. Of his own volition for the first time.

It was a small move, bring the bag, bring the sword. It was barely any action at all. And still, still he felt a rush of power, of existence pass through him. For the first time, determination.

And then everything moved fast. And Esther was dead. And with her soul gone, Prosdiorismós's soul was freed from its chains. It was strange having two existence so drastically opposed juxtaposed in his mind. Monty was both a follower and a slave, Prosdiorismós was a god and eager to help.

But in all that mix of feeling, one thing stuck. The craving. Both his forms were neglected, isolated, left to rot on the forest floor. And the craving for what the DBD agency gave each others was so strong. And so he made a choice. Prosdiorismós was dead, long forgotten, it would fall back down in the cold sleep soon enough. Monty was known. He had the beggening of friendships, relationships. And so, Monty left his crow form.

He would hold those four souls in his hands, stopping them from leaving, stopping them from disappearing. Safe and HIS. He already held, in his grips of cold snowy fingers the bright soul of Niko. Petting the poor thing, he kept it close to his chest as he went on his way to bring her back where she belonged. Where he belonged too. Were warmth and laugher waited.

Knocking on the office door. He smiled when Crystal opened the door.

"You ! How did you get here ?! Weren't you a crow or som'thing ?!"

He heard a chair against the floor and twin foot step. Good. Everyone was there.

"I came to give you back something. And see if you were open to let in two lost souls..."

Taking Niko's soul out of his jacket, he smiled at the gasps, at the grabbing which was more eager confusion and happiness than real rough housing.

And sitted in the office sofa, in that warm bubble. He thought about the reason he was forgotten. Turn's out, determination unrestrained turns into obsession. And apparently that bad. He wanted to laugh, he got stuck because he loved to hard and scared away his followers. And then made a slave because he loved too much is only light.

And he watched himself fall for the same trap as he extended his consciousness to map every centimeter of the office, putting his protection on it.