Because I love weird-ass crossovers: Behold, Gemsonas of the Neath! Spoiler: Glim, Moon-Pearl, Scintillack, and Venom-Ruby Spoiler: and (a super awkward attempt at) Deep Amber!
Your wish is my command. And while I was at it I did the Ray-Drenched Cinder, as well! Spoiler: cute Neath-stones (My strongest association with jade in FL is as gambling chips, so Jade here is a cardsharp, with eye-hiding-bangs for sneakiness.)
Fallen London! Woo! I'm not exactly great at Talk right now but I am very invested in the lore (to the point where I turned my character into an entirely self-indulgent lore-tangled monster) and screaming very loudly over Mr Eaten's twitter activity - I love Seeking so much, you guys. So much. It was half the reason I decided to try this game. I'm hesitant to hope for the return of Seeking, but I seem to recall them being in the process of updating the Ambitions - perhaps it's Heart's Desire's turn. It does have an unfinished option to journey NORTH. Then again...
Turns out I'd really like something to talk about and someone to talk to so here goes This goes into Fallen London cosmology, at least one Sunless Sea ending, Destinies, etc., so Huge Spoipers for pretty much everything. Like, massive spoilers. This is my opportunity to gush about everything I know about Fallen London lore and I have dug Deep Spoiler okay so I really love the Judgements??? and when I read up on Salt and the Sunless Sea Traveler Returning ending and how Salt is an agent sent by a Judgement to find out just what the fuck the Bazaar is up to in the Neath. Salt traveled to the Neath from the NORTH - turns out NORTH is space, also called the High Wilderness - that's why everything up there is frozen. Salt had a seriously bumpy ride crossing the Wilderness, left an impassable trail of devastation that may have made the Wilderness itself impassable, and was irreversibly changed by the journey. So now it just kind of hangs out in the East, as far as I know. (fun fact: Some people have taken "It is NORTH under granite" to mean Mr Eaten's remains were sealed in a meteorite and cast adrift in space) now add to this the Chain of Being - everything has its place, the Judgements are at the top, and to deviate from your place is cardinal sin. (So, naturally, a lot of people have tried. The Rubbery Men dealt with the Bazaar for the secret to shaping Vitality, an essence radiated by the Judgements (and the Mountain, which is why nobody in the Presbyterate dies) to move up the Chain, and the secret to amalgamy. (It's called Red Alchemy, I think?) but moving down the Chain is apparently a thing that can happen too. The Principles in Sunless Sea are all about that - their Dissolution is a quest to dissolve to a more base existence. So I came up with this backstory for my character, Ayara: There was a Judgement who had never encountered uncertainty before. All things happen as decided by Law, and Law is decided by Judgements. Then it heard about the case of the Sun and her lover. They committed the sin of amalgamy and were not immediately destroyed. They were granted reprieve and given time to prepare and present their case - if it were impossible to defy Law, why was it given a chance to try? Did the Judgements, by agreeing to the reprieve, indicate or perhaps create the possibility that they might be persuaded? This distant pulsar was intrigued. So intrigued that it made a friendly wager with its neighbor, which was certain the case would fail. If the Bazaar won, it would receive the lion's share of its neighbor's dominion and all that it was - its light, its mass, its Laws, everything. If the Bazaar lost, its neighbor would similarly devour it. It was a long shot, and as the Bazaar's seven-city reprieve ticked away, the shot only got longer. So when London fell, the Judgement made another gamble: It crammed all that it could fit of itself into a vessel without the vessel exploding, fired it across the High Wilderness, then promised the Bazaar its active support in the case of The Bazaar vs The Universe if the Bazaar could safely catch it. Cue Ayara, a fabricated kindasorta "human" with a Judgement Egg for a soul (and claws and fangs and a very long, very flexible tongue and eyes that are radiant solid violant and a presence that feels like a terrible crime) waking up in New Newgate subject to unimaginable horrors like death, and causality, and fate. Ayara's goal in the Neath is to find some way to fix the odds in favor of the Bazaar, so their Ambition is Heart's Desire. They mean to use the Marvellous to retake their throne. (Their judgement is just as terrible as their old self's judgement, they are terrifying and inhuman and monstrous and they eat people and judge the value of a thing based entirely on if it appeals to them. They're also, just, a huge hedonist. If it's sapient enough to speak, it's sapient enough to consent - this includes tigers, cats, rats, ravens, snuffers, bees, rubbery men, etc. They eat inadvisable things, stray too close to wells, walk through mirrors, fall in love. The first time they ever experienced real fear was when they found the Nadir and lost a piece of themself there.)
Oooooooh. Spoiler I knew a lot of that lorestuff but I'd never heard of the meteorite thing! Makes sense though. And Ayara is kind of horrifying, but in a way I kind of wish I'd thought of. Good times. :D
Horrible idea to name the space bat legendary in Pokemon Moon after one of the Masters when I get it months from now. Mr. Candles or Mr. Wines, though?
my death by water dream isn't nearly high enough, shit. I am not prepared edit: but at least I remembered my password and unlocked Mahogany Hall really quick, which is something? I remember it being important
