#outside of the mountain of screencaps from running through all of part 2 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

autumnslance · 3 years

Note

would you be willing to make a masterpost of all your sharlayan research and headcanons? please please please and THANK YOU if you do

I can certainly try! A lot of my info is from what little we have so far, and my own fics are where a lot of my headcanons go to live, with little snippets about various characters here and there in my scattered lore posts, as well as stuff I’ve collected from other players.

Other Resources In Louisoix’s Wake - The twins’ official Calamity short story on the Lodestone. One Name, One Promise - Thancred’s backstory, from Limsa to Sharlayan training to his early assignment in Ul’dah and then early Shadowbringers. Mirke’s Menagerie - A compilation of lore info from in game, lorebooks, panels, interviews, short stories, etc. There are about 4 or 5 Sharlayan-specific posts @mirkemenagerie has made.

Encyclopaedia Eorzea - If you can get your hands on copies (physical officially; digitally is Unofficial so far as I know), I recommend it! They’re both good reads, though EE 1 is the one with a blurb on Sharlayan as a nation.

Posts by Other People - that I have collected Leveva Comment About Archon Loaf - Keeping in mind Sharlayan’s bad cuisine has been canonical for years per lorebook 1. They care more about ease of eating while studying, also seeing culinary arts as an academic field, not a practical daily exercise. Lorebook 1 Astrologian Lore - screencaps from the lorebook. Phaedra’s Teen Scion Sharlayan Antics fic - I am happy to take responsibility for inspiring @phaedra-mero to write this delightful scene.

My Own Posts Red Mage Research - Includes books from Gubal Library. Scion Ages - Pointing out the ages of the Scions, particularly the Archons.

My Fics - Sometimes there’s more HC musings in the Notes and Comments. I try to stay close to canon, at least as it is when the fic was written. Rogue’s Prelude - Multichapter, teen Thancred meets Louisoix, Yda, and Papalymo. Written a year prior to Thancred’s official ShB story above. Aetherology & Skulking Boots-Beginnings - Y’shtola agrees to tutor Thancred in how to speak properly as teenagers in the colony. Chin Up - Yda gives Thancred advice as youths in the colony. Dreams of Home-Lucubration - Yda, Lyse, and Thancred in the colony. Younger Sister - Thancred’s relationships with the Hext sisters over time. In Violet’s Wake-Louisoix’s Children - A Master Matoya PoV from StB patches. There’s a brief chapter with her and Y’mhitra in Dreams of Home, too. Excerpts from other posts - things that ended up as commentary on other threads, with some editing since.

From a thread that started off as about Thancred’s Gear from ARR to HW:

Sharlayan is a nation on an island NW of Eorzea proper; the Sharlayan everyone we know hails from was a colony that became a city-state a few hundred years back and part of the Eorzean Alliance, in the Dravanian Hinterlands, where Idyllshire is now. After the fall of Ala Mhigo and then the Battle of Silvertear Skies, the Forum (their ruling body) decided to abandon the city and return to the motherland, a process that took 5 years before they all just teleported out in a day. Except Matoya, and those archons that worked for Louisoix and that he asked to stay and go to the remaining 3 Alliance cities. This would have been 15 years before ARR/Heavensward.

The Students of Baldesion are also Sharlayan; the Isle of Val, their headquarters, being under that nation’s banner. Sons of St Coinach are another offshoot; Rammbroes (Crystal Tower raid story) was originally part of Louisoix’s Circle of Knowing (who eventually became the Scions), and Y’shtola’s sister Y’mhitra is one of the Sons and part of the Summoner storyline.

Thancred got involved as a youth–by trying to pick Louisoix’s pocket, and impressing the old man with his skills, and so Louisoix brought Thancred back with him to give the kid an opportunity for study. Yda and Lyse escaped Ala Mhigo, and with help from Papalymo, who was part of an effort to help refugees seeking shelter in Sharlayan, they ended up there, and Yda is the one who actually became an archon.

Most of the other senior Scions, so far as I know, are native to Sharlayan, either the motherland or the colony. The Leveilleur twins were born in the Hinterlands Sharlayan, but raised in the motherland, as they were less than a year old when the exodus happened. The university they and Krile attended is the Studium. Becoming an Archon seems to be a separate process not everyone goes through, and is a demonstration of mastery in chosen field(s) of study. That’s the significance of the tattoos some of the Scions have on their necks or faces.

Sharlayan is basically a nation particularly focused on academia; the trouble is, for the last couple decades, it’s been controlled by a faction of isolationists who would rather hoard knowledge and sit in the proverbial ivory tower looking down on non-Sharlayans, claiming others would abuse their knowledge, and that they should simply observe history and not try to affect it. Louisoix, Matoya, and the organizations they associate with (the Circle of Knowing/Scions; Sons of St Coinach, the Students of Baldesion, etc), think that viewpoint is stupid and go against it. A big part of the Astrologian storyline is dealing with Sharlayans who dislike Leveva’s family sharing Sharlayan astrology with outsiders, for example.

What sort of relationship Sharlayan and Ishgard had before the exodus isn’t really detailed much; both were pretty insular and focused on their own issues (like many of Eorzea’s city-states outside of crises), and the Dravanian threat at the time might have kept them pretty separated by land. Sharlayan was responsible for Eorzea’s aetherytes and keeping the aethernets working, though, and it’s suggested they still handle that post-Calamity to some degree. We pay fees for teleports because reconstruction and upkeep is pricey for all of the city-states.

The Isle of Val was the headquarters of the Students of Baldesion, Krile’s family and order, and was a Sharlayan institution. It’s destruction/missing status happened during the ARR patches, and Krile was saved by Hydaelyn as she has the Echo (as an aside: you can hear Minfilia talking to Krile via linkpearl in the background on the Enterprise after rescuing the Scions from Castrum Centri before Ultima, and she constantly refers to and worries about Krile after the Isle of Val goes missing, but then plot happened to Minfilia so we never see them together as friends). The Ascians seemed to have a hand in the Isle’s disappearance…but there’s story about the fate of the Isle of Val and the Students of Baldesion in Stormblood’s Eureka plotline.

As for the Archon Marks, if they do confer social benefits, aside from being an easily seen status symbol for some highly skilled & educated folks, it hasn’t been mentioned yet in concrete terms, though we know the rank has benefits (like access to forbidden lore). Mostly they are a way to tell at a glance who has obtained the rank. It’s like if people with doctorates had a tattoo of their degree symbol on them so you knew just by looking.

As of Shadowbringers 5.4, we know that to become an Archon a thesis is required, and it’s a great deal more work than a Studium graduate’s final thesis. It strikes me that Studium (which some of the Scion Archons also attended) is like undergrad or Masters studies, while Archon is a Doctorate level.

I personally headcanon that the arcane marks confer some minor, slowed visible aging and other vague magical benefits befitting their rank in Sharlayan society. Really, that’s a way for the devs to avoid new models and add to the confusion in 1.0′s intros and the running joke about Y’shtola’s age, BUT let’s come up with an in-world thing, too. There has to be some explanation for Thancred’s perpetual baby face when he’s not RPing a Mountain Hobo ;) Also we really don’t know for sure how old Matoya is. Just old.

Lorebook 2 Notes:

Mikoto Jinba (Return to Ivalice, Save the Queen storylines) worked on aetheric siphon research with Moenbryda, and at 29 is the youngest Raen with the rank of Archon in recent history. It was Jessie’s connections that brought her to Cid’s attention and got her involved in the Return to Ivalice story.

Ejika Tsunjika (Eureka storyline) went to school at the same time as Krile and Leveilleur twins, endorsed by Galuf Baldesion, who Ejika later chose to work under. He’s resentful of Krile and the twins as Ejika himself is of humble origins and had to struggle to get to where he is, yet hides his Archon brands with high collars as he refuses to believe himself unique or exceptional.

#Final Fantasy XIV #Lore #Sharlayan #Archons #Scions of the Seventh Dawn #Anonymous

174 notes · View notes

parvuls · 4 years

Text

fic: in the space between (1/2)

the astronauts/scifi au literally no one asked for. a 3k ficlet of eric bittle thriving in places the world thinks he can’t -- in every single universe.

(part 1 | part 2 | read on ao3)

FABER 15 AIR-TO-GROUND TRANSCRIPTIONS

00 00 00 34 CAPCOM L. DUAN

Just letting you know your trajectory is headed straight into Driucs, Zimmermann. Over.

00 00 00 41 COMMANDER J. ZIMMERMANN

Roger. We copy that, Houston. Changing courses now.

00 00 00 48 CAPCOM L. DUAN

Get on that. Things aren’t looking good ahead. Over.

00 00 00 55 SECOND PILOT B. KNIGHT

Can’t believe you don’t fucking trust this guy. He’s already tense as shit, Lards, you got nothin’ to worry about.

00 00 00 57 SECOND PILOT B. KNIGHT

Over.

00 00 01 06 CAPCOM L. DUAN

Keep it clean on the coms, Faber 15. Administration is already on your case. Over.

00 00 01 12 COMMANDER J. ZIMMERMANN

Roger. You’re welcome to come shut him up. Over.

00 00 01 19 CAPCOM L. DUAN

Wish I could, Zimmermann. Change courses, now. Or I’m stealing a ship and coming to beat your ass.

00 00 01 22 CAPCOM L. DUAN

Off record, Houston. Delete from written transcriptions.

00 00 01 24 CAPCOM L. DUAN

Just get out of dodge, Faber 15. Over.

00 00 01 30 COMMANDER J. ZIMMERMANN

Roger. Trajectory adjusted, should be going around Driucs. Over.

00 00 01 36 CAPCOM L. DUAN

(Music: “It’s About Time”)

Driucs is a ball of hot pink mottled with orange from the sandstorms raging on its surface. Shitty thinks that it’s pretty, wants to screencap the ship’s monitors so he can ask Lardo for a painting of it later. Jack thinks that it’s an unnecessary hazard ringed with a dense asteroid belt, and that all he wants to do is bypass it as quickly as possible without colliding with a mass of solid carbon.

“Chillax,” Shitty says to this, kicking his feet up to the control panel. His toes are edging the radar display, and Jack grinds his teeth, shoves them off without bothering to argue about it once again. He’s so tense that he doesn’t even comment on Shitty’s choice of socks; galaxy printed with tiny marijuana leaves, crisse. “Everything will be A-OK. Always fucking is, Jacko.”

Jack wipes his brow with the back of his hand, shifts his hold on the control wheel and tries to focus on getting them through safely. “You know I hate it when you’re being cavalier.”

The door to the flight deck slides open, and someone exclaims, “Oh, what a view!”. Jack doesn’t need to turn his head; Bittle walks up between the two piloting seats, leans right on the center panel to gaze up at Driucs through the big windows. “It’s absolutely gorgeous, ain’t it? We should make a stop there.”

It’s what he always says. Jack specifically asked Holster to keep Bittle in the sleeping quarters until they’re out of the Merudan System because he’s got no patience for this right now. “It runs a hundred and two degrees, Bittle. We can’t make a stop there.”

Bittle talks about everything like they’re driving Route 66 down to Arizona and landing on a foreign planet is just a stop at Wendy’s for a Vanilla Frosty mid-roadtrip. Some days Jack can’t believe NASA ever let him out of the Solar System; other days, he thinks that maybe they did this so he’d never come back.

Bittle either doesn’t notice Jack’s impatient tone or, most likely, chooses to ignore it completely. “A hundred and two degrees is just another hot day in Georgia,” he huffs, rolling his eyes dramatically. “Goodness, it must stop being winter in Canada sometimes, does it not?”

Shitty snorts. His feet are back on the panel again, scratching against each other absently. “I think he means a hundred and two degrees Celsius, brah.”

Bittle pauses, hovers over Jack’s shoulder for a moment. And then says, “Oh. Well, that is rather warm, indeed.”

They picked Bittle up from a tiny space station right by Cleto, where they'd stopped for supplies. The order came from high up in Houston, and was very specific: Bittle was to join them on all ground missions until further notice, and was to lead all communication with nonhum species. They were provided with no background information or justification for expanding Jack’s crew, and Flight Director Hall hung up on Jack when he tried asking.

Bittle, the moment he stepped into the ship through airlock, pulled off his helmet to reveal a head of blonde hair and a radiant smile. His suit had pins of rainbows and bunnies on it next to the American flag, blatantly disobeying uniform regulations. He offered his hand for an enthusiastic handshake despite the bulky EV glove covering it -- without decontaminating first -- and Jack’s first thought was that all of it must be a joke.

But it wasn’t. It’s been three months since orders came and no further notice was given. Instead, every day since has been filled with ceaseless chatter and pop music playing in the communal area and Bittle’s petulant morning complaints about intergalactic coffee being just not the same.

“You’re not even trying,” Shitty tells Jack nearly every night. He’s made a habit of crawling into Jack’s bunk since their first year on the same crew, gives bullshit excuses about how Jack keeps him warm in the cold, cold outer space. It’d be less troublesome if he at least bothered to put some clothes on to save Jack the uncomfortable conversations with Mission Control Center about workplace relations. “Do not motherfuckin’ lie to my face, Zimmermann -- you are not trying, you didn’t try once, Bittle is a tiny Southern bundle of delight and you’d like the shit out of him if you could get over your sorry ass and try.”

But Jack doesn’t want to try. Jack wants to get to his annual performance review and pass with spotless marks, which may as well not happen if Bittle insists on striking conversation with every nonhum race they encounter during the simplest of missions. Jack didn’t leave Earth to make friends, neither with crewmates nor alien species, and he certainly isn’t looking for friends who put his job at risk.

Shitty won’t stop pestering him about it, though, so Jack takes to pushing him out of the bed and shoving a pillow over his ears. It doesn’t make Shitty stop talking, but Jack is good at pretending to fall back asleep.

Evor is five days’ flight past Dricus. Jack assembles a mission brief in the communal area the night before landing, gathers the boys around the large screens covering the rounded center of the ship. The screens are currently displaying all known information about the people of Evor, who are notoriously unfriendly and are especially inhospitable towards humans. There are reasons, Jack figures, but he never looked too deeply into it; he has no intention of contacting them at all.

“Mission goal is to extract soil samples from the mines on the mountainous side of the planet,” Jack says. The images on the screen behind him switch on voice command, are now a rotating photo of said mines. “It’s mostly unpopulated, so there shouldn’t be any run-ins with the locals. Mission estimated time is three hours on Earth clock.”

Ransom shoves his hand into the bag of chips balanced between Holster and him with a contemplating expression. “Sounds like child’s play. We all going in?”

“Yes,” Jack crosses his arms. He’s no doubt that any of the boys would like to stay behind and get a few extra hours of rest, but he doesn’t like taking unneeded risks. There’s strength in numbers, and he feels safer knowing that they have several eyes watching several backs out there. “Solid landing, no risk to the ship, no reason for anyone to stay here. Get your gear ready tonight.”

“Wait, Jack --” it’s Bittle. Of course it’s Bittle. Jack takes a deep breath and turns to him. He’s sitting in a single seat, legs crossed and hands clasped in his lap. “Listen, I’m not sure it’s such a great idea.” Jack’s scowl must be deeper than usual, because Bittle cringes and hurries to explain, “I mean, no offence to your -- mission planning, or. You’re usually great at that. I just mean, the Evor people don’t like strangers, and they sure as heck won’t like us, and they’re a people of warriors, you know, like, they make their money off lending their fighting skills to other armies --”

“Is there a point to this?” Jack cuts him off. It’s not that he doesn’t think Bittle means well, because he’s not blind: Bittle is made of nothing but good intentions and sunshine demeanor. His tendency to babble on and on simply isn’t welcome during mission briefs. Too time-consuming.

“Yes,” Bittle insists. He looks unhappy, a tiny furrow wrinkling at his forehead. “Going in with more than two or three men can be seen as a threat, and I just don’t think --”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jack interrupts, “because if all of you will follow orders there’s no reason for us to come across them or stay on the ground for long enough to be perceived as anything but transients. Leaving crewmates behind is a risk that we won’t be taking.”

“But --”

“End of story, Bittle,” Jack says, and it’s louder, meaner than it usually would be. He can see Shitty frowning at him from the corner of his eye, can see Holster glaring into his handful of chips. He gets that they feel overprotective of Bittle, being the smallest and the newest, but if Bittle wants to be part of the crew he’s got to either get with the program or quit. Jack can’t lower his professionalism standards just because Bittle might be offended. “Any more questions?”

There’s silence, so Jack adjourns the brief and turns away. He can hear, muttered from somewhere behind him, “Yeah, what crawled up your ass?”. He chooses to ignore it and focus on turning off the screens, instead of giving it enough thought to start doubting himself.

The worst thing is: Jack can’t figure out how the hell Bittle got there.

“I think he has a degree in like, sociology or something, man,” Holster told him a few weeks after Bittle had come aboard, while they were waiting outside the showers and listening to Bittle’s off-key rendition of a song that’d been in the radio maybe a decade before. “A master’s, I think, definitely no doctorate.”

Holster actually really liked Bittle, right off the bat; they all did, bar Jack, which just made the whole situation even more irritating. But they hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep that night and Bittle’s singing was truly awful, so Holster was probably feeling less kind than usual.

“Shitty’s got four PhDs,” Jack said, banging his head back against the wall, abstractedly thinking that a concussion might make the singing stop. “Ransom’s getting his second one now. While in space. You don’t think it’s fucked that some undereducated humanities kid from nowhere, Georgia is going through the cosmos like he’s on a third grade school trip?”

Because Bittle was terrible at physics, and he paled visibly whenever someone started talking about biomechanics, and Jack had once caught him snoozing while Ransom had been fervently explaining the primary composition of Krer’s atmosphere. The most insulting part of it all, probably, was that NASA used to demand a STEM degree to even qualify for a program, and Bittle barely had a dubious understanding of astronomy, while traveling space.

Of course, the moment the words were out of Jack’s mouth the singing stopped and the bathroom door slid open, Bittle standing behind it. He was wrapped in a towel, beads of water still lingering on his temple, dripping down his cheekbones. His face was red, blotchy, but the hard expression on his face made Jack think that the color wasn’t necessarily from the water temperature.

“Excuse me,” he said, voice uncharacteristically cold. His shoulder knocked into Jack’s when he passed them, leaving behind a wet patch on Jack’s shirt. Bittle was small, and the door was adequately sized, and there were a good two meters between Holster and Jack, which left the obvious conclusion that it was most definitely on purpose.

Holster followed his departure with bleary eyes, shifting the bundle of clothes in his hands guiltily. “I think he heard you, bro.”

Jack rubbed at the wet patch with his right hand. “No kidding,” he grunted, and couldn’t really find it in himself to care.

Bittle seems wary from the moment they step foot on the jagged surface of Evor. Holster and Ransom force their way into the space by his sides, bracketing him like two towering bodyguards. They do their best at trying to get him to lighten up while climbing up to the mines; the crew figured out that they all played hockey at some point of high school, so Holster is animatedly explaining the rules of zero-G hockey, all of which he’s made up himself.

“And sometimes we do full out matches when we meet other ships,” Ransom says, struggling with the unfamiliar gravity force to hoist himself up a big rock. “But a few months ago we were on Islikaru and there was this Russian crew, and this dude, Alexei, oh my god --”

A few small stones tumbling downhill bump into Jack’s boot, drawing his attention away from Ransom’s voice, and he mutes the coms to listen closely for any noises. There’s a rumbling coming from the other side of the mountain. It sounds like -- oncoming thunders, maybe, or a little like --

“Prepare for attack,” Jack turns the coms back on immediately, dives in front of Shitty to block the crew’s path up to the mines. Shitty stumbles, catches himself with one knee and both palms flat on the ground. “Abandon mission, now! Back to the ship!”

A dozen of Evor warriors descend from beyond the peak of the mountain, closing in on them faster than they can run. Jack’s crew doesn’t carry weapons. The Evor warriors are big, look like an odd mix of a gorilla and an elephant that’d be classified as some sort of reptile. Ostie de tabarnak, Jack knows next to nothing about them, and definitely nothing about how to beat them in a fight three-on-one.

“We’d never make it back on time!” Shitty yells, clambering to his feet and shoving the rest of the boys back down the mountain anyway. He’s right, but Jack has no backup plans and less than no time to come up with any. This was not supposed to happen, there was no reason for this to happen. They’ve been on Evor ten minutes, not even that.

Bittle jumps from between Holster and Ransom, scrambling up to reach Jack. He grabs Jack’s arm, face white and rapid breaths fogging up the visor. His expression is just as terrified as the rest of them, but Jack has never seen him this determined. It makes his feature look sharper, less angelic. “Let me go talk to them! Jack, let me --”

“What?” Jack rips his arm away, tries to shove Bittle back towards the ship as fast as he can. “Bittle, are you insane, they’re coming to attack us --!”

“Because we seem like a threat!” Bittle yells. The volume of his voice catches Jack by surprise, gets him to stop racing down for a moment just long enough to remember that Bittle said the same thing at the previous night’s mission brief. That Bittle must be holding himself back from screaming, I told you so, and now look where we are. “Let me go talk to them, I can explain the situation --”

“No! They’ll attack you before you get a word out --”

“They won’t! I understand their culture, the way they work -- Jack, you just -- you gotta let me try!”

“You’ll die --”

“Oh, Lord, we’re gonna die either way, so what’ve you got to lose, Zimmermann? You gotta trust me to have your back! ”

Jack stops. His breathing is loud in his ears, heart pounding. Shitty, Holster and Ransom are ten meters down the mountain, staring at Bittle and he wide-eyed, waiting for a decision. The Evor people are fast, and they look furious; they’re ninety or maybe a hundred meters away, and closing the gap with every second. Jack swallows, tramps down the panic rising in his throat.

“Go,” he says finally, voice gravelly. “Go, Bittle.”

Bittle gives him one last wild look, and runs towards imminent death.

FABER 15 CREW GROUND-TO-GROUND TRANSCRIPTIONS

00 00 02 04 CAPCOM L. DUAN

Faber 15, Faber 15, this is Houston. Over.

00 00 02 06 CAPCOM L. DUAN

Faber 15, this is Houston. What is going on. Over.

00 00 02 09 CAPCOM L. DUAN

Faber 15, this is Houston. Answer me. Over.

00 00 02 11 CAPCOM L. DUAN

Goddamnit boys, what happened!

00 00 02 14 COMMANDER J. ZIMMERMANN

Houston, this is Faber 15 returning to ship. Over.

00 00 02 17 CAPCOM L. DUAN

Jesus Christ, Jack. Tell me what happened.

00 00 02 21 SECOND PILOT B. KNIGHT

Jesus’ got nothing to do with this, Lardo. This was all Eric R. Bittle.

00 00 02 25 COMMANDER J. ZIMMERMANN

Mission didn’t go as planned. Sending you a full report as soon as we’re back on board. Over.

00 00 02 29 CAPCOM L. DUAN

Roger. Tell me everyone’s okay, Zimmermann. Over.

00 00 02 34 SECOND PILOT B. KNIGHT

Alive and kickin’. Can’t get rid of us that easy. But seriously, tell whoever sent us Bittle that I’m getting them a fruit basket whenever I’m back on Earth.

00 00 02 38 CAPCOM L. DUAN

Roger. I’ll tell them to expect that. Get that report done ASAP, Zimmermann. And never do this to me again. Over.

00 00 02 42 COMMANDER J. ZIMMERMANN

Roger, Houston. Out.

The boys all separate into their quarters as soon as they’re back in the ship, their postures slumping and their hair damp with cold sweat. Jack stays behind, twists the airlock chamber shut. It feels like his entire body is heavier than usual, and it isn’t because of the ship’s gravity.

When he looks up, he finds that Bittle’s still there; there’s an uncomfortable pause when they both hesitate by the passageway. Bittle’s back is turned to Jack, muscles tense beneath the dark fabric of his undershirt, but his head is tilted over his shoulder, searching for Jack’s eyes. His face is closed off, looks as blank as it can get. Jack’s hands clench into fists by his side and it makes the rubber of the gloves creak. He works his jaw as he tries to find the right words to say.

“That was --” he begins, and then swallows with difficulty. Bittle doesn’t turn to fully face him, only lifts his gaze until their eyes lock together. There’s spots of furious red high on his cheeks, his mouth pressed thin. Jack has no idea how to translate this information into any sort of social clue. “You. Euh. That was good, Bittle. Good work.”

Bittle’s mouth parts, his eyebrows knitting together, but his chin drops down so his expression is hidden from Jack’s view before he can try to read into it further. His right hand, leaning on the passage frame and keeping him in the mid-motion of leaving, tightens almost imperceptibly.

“Thanks, Commander,” Bittle says finally. His voice is steady, neutral. He’s still facing away. “Just doing my job.”

He carries on walking away, then, like his pause in the passageway never occurred at all. The insulating door slides closed behind him, and Jack is left standing in his gear, staring at the white expanses of the walls. He has this sinking feeling that he made a critical misstep has no idea how to undo.

#zimbits #omgcp #omgcheckplease #zimbits fic #i don't even have words to defend myself i'm sorry #pavfics #check please!#jack x bitty #THIS IS LITERALLY A DRABBLE OK

129 notes · View notes

greetingsfromthebottomofthewell · 7 years

Photo

NES GODZILLA CREEPYPASTA - CHAPTER 2: PATHOS

[directory]

so that’s when it started to get weird.

[source] [triggers]

Pathos was the same as Jupiter in layout, except the board was dark blue rather than green. The first thing I noticed was that all the usual level icons had been replaced by a blue rock and some kind of orange honeycomb shape.

There was one icon that had part of the Jungle Icon shape, but I didn't pay much thought to it. I checked the other side of the board to see the new monster. Instead of Hedorah, it was Biollante.

But that couldn't have been right. "Godzilla vs Biollante" didn't come out until 1989, and this game was made 1988. Perhaps Toho put Biollante in the game to build excitement for the movie next year, but changed their minds? I tried to rationalize the game's abnormalities any way I could, but this would prove to be futile.

Pathos' map song was the first new song I heard in the game. Like most of the new songs it was hard to describe, I'll try.

It started out slow and suspenseful, much slower than any song in the game. But every twelve seconds or so there would be a loud clashing sound, and the tempo changed. It was like the composer randomly played parts from five different songs with the same instruments.

I moved Godzilla over to one of the many blue rock icons that had replaced the jungle icons and started the level. The level resembled a blue mountain range with a blood red planet in the sky. But there was something odd about the mountains, they had a "shredded paper" look to them. I thought at first maybe the glitch had affected it, but it looked far too intentional.

I quickly noticed something else about this new level: There were no enemies, at all. Not even any obstacles.

I should also mention that this was were the point meter started to become glitched beyond comprehension. But it didn't bother me much, I never keep up with game points.

So without having to focus on anything, I listened to the music while walking through the level unopposed. The music had a sorrowful feel to it. It would have been rather pleasant, had I heard it in a normal game.

The level went on for three screens, but with no obstacles around I finished it very quickly. I tried other levels of the same type to see if any enemies appear, but there were none. There was little else to be seen in the blue mountains, so I tried the other level type.

I started one of the orange levels, and my eyes were assaulted with a grotesque background of tumorous orange eyes. The "sky" was the same as the ground, so I I assumed the game was indicating that this level takes place in a cave.

The only enemies here were Matango Spawn, but as you can see the little bastards were everywhere. The music certainly didn't help, with a mixture of screeching sounds and loud drum beats that sounded like a monster's theme in a horror film. After completing it, I tried to avoid playing through anymore of these levels whenever I could.

The map was short so it was only a few minutes before I was headed towards a rematch with Gezora and Moguera. But this time, their sprites and attack patterns were vastly different.

I fought Moguera first. Moguera's replacement was a flying machine with a slight resemblance to a Pascagoula alien. It was a bit like fighting Mothra, only it moved with a lot more grace. It attacked by spinning its front tentacle like a corkscrew, and it still had an eye beam, except now it fired from the drill.

This lanky aberration had replaced Gezora, and the new beast was more of a challenge. It would run and jump at a fast pace, constantly swinging its arms around making it hard to get close, and of course it tried to pin me in the corner with as much annoying resolve as ever. I defeated it using a combination of tail whips and heat beam spamming.

I defeated them and was going to fight Titanosaurus, but when I started the fight Titanosaurus was nowhere to be seen, and the game simply went back to the map with the Titanosaurus piece now missing.

There was no one left to fight now but Biollante, so I eagerly started the battle.

I was quite surprised that Biollante started the fight in her Rose Form. She was immobile and used tentacles to keep me away from the main body, which took the most damage.

As expected, she turned into her Final Form after taking enough damage. The sprite looked pretty damn good for 8-bit.

The battle technique was the same, except now Biollante could move, albeit slower than any other monster. Being hit by the tentacles did more damage now, and Biollante could do an acid spit, which I managed to avoid by jumping in the screencap:

Not much more difficult to beat than Titanosaurus, it only took two rounds. But when Biollante was gone, The music had stopped, and there was a new icon replacing the base:

This icon wasn't there before I beat Biollante. It resembled a red tribal mask, and I had a feeling of dread when I saw it. But it since it replaced the base, it must be the only way to exit Pathos. I moved Godzilla to the square and started the level.

It was a hellish looking place with no sky, and a flickering fire in the background. The fire looked far more advanced than anything I've seen on the NES. There was "music", in the form of a slow, steady drum sound resembling a heartbeat.

All the text on the top of the screen, and the life bar, were gone. In their place was a single bit of text in the middle of the screen that said "RUN".

My feeling of dread had intensified. I cautiously walked through the level, but like the blue mountains there were no enemies. I paced around for a minute before thinking "Run? ...from what?"

The first time it hit me, I didn't even see it.

I heard a noise outside my room and turned back to see if something fell, and when I looked back Godzilla was dying. I figured it must have just been a glitch, but I wasn't going to play through the game without Godzilla so I restarted the game and went to the password screen.

Have I ever mentioned how creepy the password screen music is? If you've played the game, you know what I mean. It doesn't at all fit the mood of the game, it's more like something from a horror game. Maybe they made it like that so kids wouldn't cheat.

I was quite annoyed at this point, because I thought I was going to have to fight all the monsters again. But that didn't happen. The game started me off right where I was before I started the red face level. So I tried again, making sure to pay attention this time.

That's when heard a low bellowing sound, and then I saw it. This....thing.

Do you know that feeling your body has when you feel like you're in extreme danger? You start to recoil and tense up as the adrenaline flows through your veins, and your nerves start to feel very cold?

That's the feeling I had when I took this screencap.

I haven't seen all the Godzilla movies, but I'm pretty damn sure THIS was never in any of them. It had to be something the creators made up. But what kind of sick fuck would put THIS in a children's game?

By sheer dumb luck, or perhaps the adrenaline boost, I managed to run fast enough to get away from it. It ran very fast, so much so that if you saw it you were almost certainly going to die. And when I say "die", I mean your monster gets killed instantly if the creature touches them.

Once I had gone back to the map, I was so afraid that I was extremely tempted to just shut the game off and try to pretend this never happened. I couldn't believe what I had just seen, it couldn't have been real.

And even if I wanted to continue, I still had to get Mothra through this chase level. But as I stayed inactive on the map screen for a few minutes, my fear was replaced by burning curiosity. What the hell had just happened? What was the rest of the game like? I only had to beat this level with Mothra and then it was onto the next world.

But when I moved Mothra to the red face, the game registered it as me beating the level. I was quite relieved. I tried to prepare myself for the next world: "Trance".

[previous] | [next]

#horror #scary #scary stories #creepypasta #nosleep #nes godzilla creepypasta #pathos #stories

1 note · View note