Content Warning: Mind fuckery, death, eye injury, suicide (attempted), nudity, sexual themes, messy relationships, gender dysphoria.
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started the new year playing corru.observer and replaying yume nikki, which are very good games that are saying more interesting things than this post. but more to the point, they got me thinking about things that aren’t Basedt. The more time I spend making stories that I want to be understood by others, the more time I need to spend telling stories to myself to decompress. these stories are too inarticulate to really share with others. communication is difficult for me. writing image descriptions, deranged essays about things that aren’t real, these things are fun but it takes more effort than it might seem to write something that is, i think, still pretty nonsensical at the end of the day.
anyway, i’ve been indulging my own flavor of art neuroses, chasing the compulsion wherever it goes, writing run-on sentences, etc. i’m not going to be very coherent about this. i’m sharing these things as the napkin scribbles that they are (which is true of most of my art, but right now it is especially true.)
good luck have fun
populating Old Sond with more types of fucked-up guys
(and worldbuilding fringe-cases)
one of my arbitrary rules is that we don’t do mind magic / mind control in moribund. I can’t stand it in most stories, it upsets me in ways that feel cheap and unearned. at the same time it’s an object of morbid fascination for me. I like to pick and scratch at the wound, turn it over in my mind and see what makes me tick. It’s a power/safety fantasy. like, this very scary thing can happen, but maybe it’s in a controlled environment, or with someone you trust, or you can break out of it through sheer force of will… things like that. moribund is also full of awful things, but they seem to occur in the past or in a faraway place, like they’re incapable of happening to us right here and right now. I bend the rules for things like that, I think it serves the world.
In this case, Old Sond straddles the line with its Endlings. the ancestral Sarikote must have had some mechanism for destroying the memories of others, because members of the New Guard don’t remember their previous lives. I speculate on why this is (im)possible, but it’s more interesting not to share that. the point is, there’s fucked-up and evil magic underneath Sond, and someone has to do something about it…!!
enter stage left:
Norohe? Noarohei? Noarohe? Noa-something-or-other Asanttu. he’s a metaphysician. probably.
[Long description: Noa the metaphysician. He’s short of stature and un- of hinged. He has a petite build that disappears under his coat, which resembles a watchman’s coat crossed with a labcoat. He wears glasses with large, circular frames. One lens is popped out, allowing the reflective film of his pupils to shine through the ominous shadow that seems to be permanently cast over his face. He keeps his hair tied back in a messy bun, but his curly bangs still fall over his face. As a Sauntiaq, he has large fangs that seem almost too big for his little face.]
- Completely off his chain. Doing illegal research on forbidden mind-altering magic that’s buried beneath Sond. Tried to do this the “right” way but the Lexarcs, Sentinels, NMU, etc. denied him, because jesus christ dude.
- of the opinion that a tool is never evil, just dangerous and misunderstood. he’s interested in using the fucked-up mind magic to image the Memory of the World, a theoretical skin of existence that’s thought to remember everything that has ever happened, ever. He wants to use this to interface with the old gods who are imprisoned under Sond and deemed too dangerous to release, especially the ones that have been there for so long they no longer remember who they are or why they’re so violently angry all the time… which is fine, but he is very much playing with the bones of reality over here. like these are very much the tools that they used to cannibalize god.
- pillaged his tuning knife from a satellite ruin of Sond circa the events of Basedt. This has zero impact on the comic, I just think it’s funny if area man is skulking around in the ash tundra concurrently with all that.
- Currently supported by a shady third party, probably a Basedti trade lord who still holds onto that classic xenophobia and lionizes the “good old days.” Noa cut a deal with the guy to fund his research by promising him a mind-altering tool of his own, which he intends to use to “convince” his estranged daughter to come back into the fold. will Noa deliver? has he sold his soul? is this all a front? time will tell.
- Metaphysically blocked, which means he can’t do magic. Requires help because of this.
- his being basedti and also a sauntiaq and also an asanttu doesn’t explain why he’s like that, but it does provide. hmmmmmmm. Context
So, area man is scuttling around Old Sond like an unsupervised rat. his progress is slow and frustrating, though, because there are things that he wants to do that even his ancestors couldn’t do alone… and he can’t even resort to self-experimentation to do them ):
help arrives as a blessing he doesn’t question…
enter stage right:
Saimon <surname>. World’s normalest mercenary.
[Long description: Saimon the mercenary. He is trim and svelte, but his silhouette is exaggerated by the large modified haori that’s draped over his shoulders. His profile is sharp and serious, with watchful eyes and a resting butch face. His hair is cut short to his neck. Choppy bangs fall over his eyes, the ends prematurely greying from stress. He wields a tuning knife, a sword of two tines and a serrated ricasso. The oracle-bone gauntlet that runs up to his shoulder protects him while wielding it.]
- Hired steel for a foreign expedition into Old Sond, studying ancestral Sarikote astronomy. The expedition ended when their dispatch went dark for a few weeks. The Sentinels who were sent to recover them found Saimon, alone, getting ready to off himself. he had slaughtered everyone on the team including his partner.
- Detained and admitted as a Sentinel to deal with (indicates generally) whatever that was.
- Completely deadpan, impossible to tell what’s going on underneath it all. Well-behaved and competent as a Sentinel, but nobody has been able to crack him, yet. His grisly crimes and complete lack of motive hang like a dead goose over everything he does.
- Covertly abandons his station and signs on to help Noa with his work, when he hears that he’s studying Forbidden Mind-Altering Magic. These are probably not the actions of a man fueled by ulterior motives. It’s going to be fine, I think.
- Yeah the big jacket belonged to his late partner. cool and normal.
Noa doesn’t know anything about Saimon, except that he’s a Sentinel(?) and he broke into his secret underground lab looking for a job(????). He knows that Saimon isn’t being forthcoming about some things (or most things, really) but he doesn’t care. it’s free help! and if he’s worried about anyone’s safety, it’s Saimon’s, not his own.
Unfortunately Noa can’t follow up on that, because the moment he teaches Saimon Forbidden Mind-Altering Magic 101, Saimon uses his tuning knife to ctrl+alt+del most of his own memories.
[Long description: Saimon plunges the tuning knife into his own skull. Sacre weeps from the wound, thick clots dripping down his face and fists before turning to vapor. It mixes with the burst blood vessels in his eyes, which blot out his vision. When Noa realizes what’s happening, he throws himself at the man and wrenches the tuning knife away from him. Noa balls his fists around Saimon’s lapels and tries to shake him out of it, but he barely responds.
At the end of his rope, Noa yells “WHAT happened to you that was so awful you’d try to lobotomize yourself?!” and throttles Saimon. Saimon’s body is limp, but in the fugue of his thoughts he responds <… I don’t remember…>. Noa stops shaking him and says, numbly, “you. tried to lobotomize yourself and succeeded.”]
This development sends them two steps forward and three steps back. The mechanics of this are fuzzy, I will try to explain.
When Saimon erased his memories, he disfigured his metaphysical body from the neck up. Normally a wound like this is temporary and regenerates over time, but Saimon did such a number on himself that he permanently altered his very being. This prevents him from doing the kind of magic that Noa hired him to do… Or at least, it prevents him from doing it alone.
Saimon can’t manipulate his own mind to perceive the Memory of the World, because he’s metaphysically braindead. Likewise, Noa can’t do magic at all because he’s blocked, but he still has an intact metaphysical signature. maybe you can see where this is going. Between the two of them, they have one functional mage. Saimon is the metaphysical vessel and the tool, Noa just shows him where to point it. or in other words, Saimon can act as Noa’s eyes-body-tool; Noa can act as Saimon’s mind-hands-pilot. they just have to get comfortable exploring each other’s bodies minds.
[Long description: Scribbles of this and that. From the top left:
- Saimon and Noa cutting a window into the Memory of the World, somewhere in the bowels of Old Sond. Saimon drives his sword into the stone, and sacre billows forth from the blade. Through the veil, we can see the landscape before it was hollowed out– a rocky mountain slope with a single bristlecone pine, illuminated by the night sky.
- Saimon’s eyes painted with sacre to image the Memory of the World. The text reads “God’s blood over eyes for shared sight / imaging.”
- Saimon and Noa standing about 0.3 inches apart while he paints Noa’s right eye with sacre. Saimon looks like he’s concentrating really hard, but Noa just smiles. The text reads “Addtl. layer of intimacy b/c Saimon has to apply it”
- The great, shambling prison-corpse of a god. This one is shaped kind of like a sphinx, with an unfeeling metal mask and huge, armored limbs. Its ribs have been cracked, and Saimon sits on one of them, prying open a huge cut in the beast’s shoulder. Noa crawls up the ribcage to join him. They both peer into the wound as it weeps light and color.
- Noa’s right eye painted with sacre. Somehow the permanent shadow still obscures his eyes, even through the lightshow.
- Saimon sitting on a wooden stool with a completely hollow-eyed expression. Noa sits in his lap, clasping his hands and kicking his feet like a schoolkid. He smiles derangedly.
- Saimon sitting on the ground while Noa inspects his oracle-bone gauntlet. It seems to be stuck, because he’s taking a pocket knife to it. Saimon looks as enthusiastic about this as he is anything else.
- Saimon rolling up his sleeve to let Noa inspect the metaphysical scars that he’s sustained from the tuning knife, even through his protective guard. The scars are patterned with the same constellation- or neuron-like designs that are engraved into the gauntlet. The text reads “Metaphysical scarring from prolonged use”
- Noa sitting like this jester meme, cocking his head and smiling coyly.
- Noa grabbing Saimon by his armguard, maybe to tell him not to do something. Saimon looks irritated.]
this partnership works out fine, mostly. saimon’s interior world is so suppressed that imaging a memory is like decorating an empty house, and by god noa is rolling out the futon. surprise! the guy who deleted his memories is terrible at intimacy and great at being a blank canvas. (for his part, noa has no sense of shame. great projector, horrible filter, but at least he can fill a space.)
except
girl help i fell during the metaphysical trust fall ):
because there is a disagreement between Saimon’s memory of what happened to him and what the Memory of the World actually… remembers… and because Saimon is the conduit for the magic, the cognitive dissonance becomes metaphysical dissonance when he encounters the ghosts of his past.
[Long description: Saimon, except everything from the neck up is wreathed in sacre. His profile is so bright that it stings, like staring at the sun. The whites of his eyes are violence magenta, resembling the burst blood vessels from his earlier brush with the tuning knife. His iris is white with a stark black pupil, and he seems to stare intensely at you without really seeing you. Sacre billows out from the base of his neck, where the ossified cable of his protective gauntlet has been yanked out. The vapor trail resembles a ponytail, kind of.
Noa follows that vapor trail through the belly of Sond, carrying a qulliq lamp to guide him in the dark. When he finds Saimon, the man is standing stock-still and staring into the middle distance. All Noa can do is smile nervously and say “Oh, wow! You look bad!!”
Noa quickly backpedals and waves his hands frantically at Saimon. “E-Emotionally bad! Emotionally. Not visually bad. You look nice! I’m a little flustered h–“
Saimon moves forward, marginally, causing Noa to leap back on all fours like a startled cat. He lets out a single “A!”]
Noa just gets to deal with that. The shambling specter of Saimon’s amnesia is operating on a disorienting mix of past and present memories. What’s normally a coordinated dance becomes a frantic cat-and-mouse. Noa tries to keep Saimon from doing things that he’ll regret while he relives a memory, and Saimon struggles to comprehend the presence of a stranger in the fragile projection of his(?) memories(???). Other times he mistakes Noa for someone from his past, and… well… being that nobody from his last friendgroup survived, this bodes poorly for Noa. sometimes Sond is the tomb-labyrinth of the old gods, and sometimes Sond is the tomb-labyrinth of you, your psychic damage, and your lab partner.
It’s complicated enough that Saimon’s keeping secrets even from himself, he doesn’t really need Noa to add to it. But Noa is great at inserting himself into situations that he doesn’t need to be in. when Saimon learns that Noa has been saying all these pretty words about using a terrible tool to do beautiful work, doing the research everyone else is too scared to do, risking it all so that he can do this one good thing… and then learns that he’s in the pocket of some egomaniacal schmuck who wants to manipulate others with impunity…. it puts Saimon right back into those blood-soaked ruins, standing over the bodies of his former friends.
[Long description: Saimon holds Noa at swordpoint. Noa scrabbles at the ground to get away from the business end of his blade, saying “Hey hey hey hey hey hey!! I know! This looks bad!!”
Saimon tilts Noa’s chin up with the flat of the tuning knife, winning him a sharp gasp and an inappropriately-timed blush. Noa then waves his hands about in a mad panic and shouts “I CAN EXPLAIN”]
this will have an effect on their co-authorship i think.
Noa doesn’t actually intend to fulfill his end of the bargain with his benefactor. he wants to take the guy’s money and fry his brains out. what comes after is irrelevant. Noa and Saimon will have already demonstrated the utility of their work by that point, and the world won’t miss Noa when he’s gone, because it turns out that Saimon isn’t the only one with a dark past.
Noa was once a Basedti physician, before the curtain lifted on Basedt. He was responsible for rooting out any Sauntiaq who tried to sneak into Basedt and pass as normal, living people. He condemned a lot of people to death, he was very good at what he did… and that’s just as well, because he was using his station to hide the fact that he was a Sauntiaq, too. He was eventually found out, and the Watch threw him over the wall with those that went before him. Such is their fate.
With nothing to lose and time to kill, Noa turned his attention to the ruins scattered across the Ash Tundra. He studied metaphysics to distract himself from the hunger and death and imminent apocalypse hanging over his head. He was one of the first to theorize that Sauntiaq eat magic, and to identify the threat that Old Sond posed to the world… but that didn’t really mean anything, because the Ash Tundra wasn’t exactly an engine of scientific inquiry then. there were bigger fish to fry.
In any case, Saimon realizes that his lab partner shares the same attraction to the abyss. he’ll allow it… for now.
at the fallen arkai
S
Stop. (irritated)
N
No. You were a good Sentinel. You listened quietly and you did everything they asked you to do. But they still looked at you like you were a wild animal. Am I wrong?
S
You’re talking about things you don’t understand.
N
Nahe, word to the wise. Our people will yoke everything, and what they can’t yoke, they will destroy. (suddenly serious)
Plants, animals, rivers, mountains… each other.
Maybe they didn’t think you were a good Sentinel because they were trying to put a yoke on you, too.
the dynamic.
well i was going to write something here but you know what.
[Long description: Saimon pinning Noa to the floor. He is wreathed in sacre and buck-naked, except for the oversized haori wrapped around his shoulders. Noa trembles under him, the tuning knife hovering just a few inches away. It’s hard to say if Noa is smiling or baring his teeth nervously. Saimon regards him dispassionately: <Afraid…>
Suddenly, he narrows his eyes and relaxes the pin. Noa rises with it, slightly, and we can safely say he’s nervously smiling. He reaches up for Saimon as Saimon thinks: <But wanting.>
Noa nods with delirious enthusiasm. Saimon just watches him. He thinks: <You are confusing.>]
yeah.
desire is mortifying ahhhhhhhhhhhh so scary, etc. we mix fear and desire a lot in here, but fear Of your partner usually gets… i dont know… softened or qualified, for hopefully obvious reasons. reyes thinks chief was scarier when she was a soldier, not a monster; the only fear brun feels is for sinuk, rather than of her. unconditional love for the monstrous is comforting, and it’s self-gratifying to think that one would extend a patient hand where others run or empty off a few rounds.
but what if those fears are justified? what if you have a healthy sense of self-preservation? what if you are not more noble (or foolhardy) than the rest? being able to say “i Always trusted you, i was Never afraid” is wishful thinking for some of us. on the other hand, being told “you were monstrous and terrifying” by someone you love is an awful reality, too. this is a line in the sand for most relationships, and the ones that dont draw the line end up locked in the cycle of abuse or worse more often than not. it’s a dumb gamble to make for something that is so nothing.
… and noa has made a lot of dumb gambles in the name of self-preservation. not so much for love. teasing apart whether a fear informed by trauma is founded or not is impossible sometimes. noa is a little confused, but he has the spirit.
at the ravine
N
Did you show the Sentinels what you showed me?
S
No.
N
I see… You had already tried to explain yourself many times… (thinking)
S
… … …
I could have tried again…
N
Ah… I don’t think so….
You were still convinced that if you had suffered more beautifully, this wouldn’t have happened to you. (beaming)
(matryoshka dolls of) gender
the other thing hanging over Saimon’s head like a dead goose. moribund doesn’t really have systemic gender inequality. different groups have their own ways of thinking about gender, some more regimented than others. some, like the Brundel and Ser, lack gender as a meaningful linguistic/social class. these days the global theater is interconnected and different notions about gender are easy to share. i can see Ser teens in Ausank using the very concept of gender, pronouns, and gendered language as accessories, petnames, terms of endearment, flippant things to try on and discard. for Xanti ex-colonists, Sarikote notions of gender as a temporal/seasonal phenomenon are completely novel. maybe they provide insight for those who have experienced gender only as a rigid thing, or something you change once or twice and never again. there is a lot of room to iterate.
still, there are instances of gender inequality from certain periods/regions… and although Noa and Saimon might not navigate it at the societal level, there are still interpersonal gender dynamics that play out. This is especially true for them because they come from places that historically had well-defined gender roles.
For Saimon, it’s hard to say what he thinks about himself, I think he prefers to leave most things unsaid. but we can glean bits and pieces from his previous relationship. As Saimon got close with his ex-partner, it became clear that his ex perceived him not quite as a man, but as someone masquerading as a man. His ex was in on the “secret” and this put Saimon in a difficult position. In some ways it was endearing, there were things he suddenly had permission to do that felt novel and coy, but it was also like an implicit failure to perform masculinity. What came so naturally to Saimon was taken from him without his permission, and almost without him even realizing it. Suddenly he was playing a part… Not quite that of a man but not quite that of something else, either. His performance endeared him to his partner but it was, at the end of the day, a performance. This was unsettling to Saimon. When had it become a performance? And why was he performing?
I think it is interesting for him to encounter Noa, who seems so secure in everything he does, including his own masculinity. He is so clearly his own type of guy, even when others might think differently. No amount of petnames or dressup or foppish posturing seems to diminish that. that’s wizardry to Saimon.
So, it’s not accidental that Saimon feels the need to posture. He pushes Noa around the same way his ex pushed him around. He doesn’t know if he can trust Noa not to take this away from him. Noa doesn’t mind, though, he thinks it’s fun. (he thinks most things are fun.) he’s not threatened at all by Saimon’s posturing. Noa’s relationship with gender is playful, like an invitation. He knows who he is, and he also knows how fun it is to perform an exaggerated version of that person. He just assumes Saimon is doing the same thing, until it becomes obvious that he had a piss-poor experience in his last relationship.
at the end of the day, Saimon’s ex was attracted to him because of what he was not. they became close and yet alienated by this push-pull objectification-attraction-fascination-othering. Noa is attracted to Saimon because he is— despite his best efforts— just like him… And when he says “you are like me!” it disarms Saimon, and kinda pisses him off, but it doesn’t diminish him.
[Long description: A comic strip. Noa is curled up in the arms of a silhouetted Saimon. Saimon watches him with mercurial interest, and thinks: <Rohin. Call me “she.”>
Noa is taken aback. He sets a hand on Saimon’s chest and turns to ask: <Excuse me?> to which Saimon replies <I want to hear you say it.>
Noa sinks down a bit, as Saimon begins to run his hand through his hair. Noa thinks, maybe more privately, <He wants me to call him “she?”> <Is he being serious?>
Saimon just watches him. Noa averts his eyes and turns away, thinking <He’s looking at me so seriously…>
Saimon cups his cheek and gently turns Noa’s attention back to him. Noa touches his hand uncertainly, as Saimon scrutinizes him: <Even his thoughts hesitate.> Noa scrunches up his face in response. <I’m trying!> he thinks. Saimon is silent as Noa thinks out loud: “Saimon is…”
“She’s handsome,” Noa says, simply.
The word lodges itself in the back of Saimon’s skull like a piece of shrapnel. It is overlain on a memory from another time, of a rough hand brushing the hair out of Saimon’s eyes. Other words ring in his ears: “You’re a pretty thing when you want to be.” He can’t let go of that tyrannical little word, “pretty.” it repeats over and over like a string of errors on a computer monitor, beneath Noa’s words.
Saimon’s fingers dig into Noa’s jaw. Noa’s hand hovers over Saimon’s, uncertainly. Saimon tilts his chin up, studying his face through pitiless eyes.
Without warning, Saimon lunges at Noa— and smothers him with a messy kiss. His thoughts are clear. <This is acceptable.>]
(rohin is a nickname. i recently learned about using -ん / -n as a phonetic softener for girls’ nicknames in japanese. i’ve also been thinking about what makes someone’s manner of speech gendered… so often what you don’t do matters as much as what you do. masculinity feels arcane and nebulous and easily lost, where there are lots of ways to mark your speech as ‘girly.’ perhaps because masculinity is formed around what it is not when it’s part of a power structure, it’s easier to lose it than gain it. anyway, i just think it’s fun for saimon and noa to play with this kind of language in private.)
gender !
at the lab
N
Shishi… Saimi… Shy… (making up ridiculous petnames while fiddling with his lapels)
S
Rohin…
N
Rohin? Come again??
S
No. <You heard me the first time.>
N
<Aw…>
falling asleep at the design wheel, etc.
these two were a nightmare to design and im still unhappy with them. i was playing in the margins from the start. i made a stupid post about it on tumblr and it’s still the best explanation of the vision:
I need to design two dudes who are matryoshka dolls of gender. I need two lesbians who look like yaoi boys with forgettable faces STAT. But i need them to be subtly weird-looking to combat the conventional attractiveness and forgettableness or else I can’t draw them. I need two dudes who fit together like rusty spoons. I need to make some straight women very confused. I need boys with unknowable faces. but I have to know their faces so they can kiss. I need them to do unethical science. And I need halva
in practice i feel like i put reyes warhammy, moth corruobserver, sinuk moribund, rhodes twwm, and mizu blueeyesamurai in a blender. not enough to feel rude to the originals, but enough for me to want to empty the blender and try again. this happens a lot, where the design process never ends and just becomes a series of “done is better than perfect” decisions. i needed them to have a design, any design, so i could draw them kissing etc. as fast as possible because i was starting to scratch at the walls without an outlet for the thoughts. the visions
at the same time, there is stuff i like. saimon’s protective gauntlet, noa’s punched-out glasses lens, the “basedtized” lab coat that’s modeled after a watchman’s uniform. i think it’s funny that saimon is visually the anti-sinuk. i guess he is textually too. area man does everything in his power to forget the murders he did; area woman does everything in her power to remember the █████████.
exploring the memory of the world, memories as physical landscapes, memories tied to landscapes, memory bodies, that’s my bullshit and it’s fun to draw. did i expect the boys to be the outlet for this? no. i do not drive the bus i am merely moved by the spirit.
<insert denouement>
thanks for coming to my ted talk. here’s a playlist, as is customary. I don’t know why these two popped out of the thoughtwomb fully formed with 3 albums and a single, but I’m happy for them.
this is a “working” playlist, which means it’s what I listen to when I’m drawing, writing, whatever. There are picks I would defend to my grave and picks that breathed in the general direction of the idea. this one is like, concept songs with a science/psychology theme -> badbrain music -> ambient depression crevice -> ???
enjoy
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