Day 5: Royalty + Escape

arcane au where their biggest problem is exam season !! (part 1)

no love is too deep

Bianca wants to help parent the baby. Unfortunately she can’t resist the urge to kick

hey cis people! now more than ever gender-nonconforming behavior is an act of resistance! and it's one anyone can engage in!

My mildly unhinged MLP x The Legend of Spyro crossover

1/2

When I tell you I was pissing my pants laughing at this.

“This wallpaper is so cute, we could live here” ME IN A NUTSHELL I have ADHD (I’m medicated for it) but when I’m off it this is me 😭

In Two Years, He will be the same age as when they started to scrutinize Biden's age being not competent enough anymore to hold the house. Hold that over his head.

I wish I could animate better cause I'd turn the villain attack comic into an animation, I feel like that would be the ideal medium for it, but I will try my best to bring it to life in comic format

bonus:

:inhales and slams hands on the desk: akechi. palace. pitch.

disclaimer: the setting for this is all about vibes and aesthetics, it kinda got away from me when i started hashing out the plot around it two months ago so now we're here. in hell. (i'll probably have to make a secondary post i made wayyy too many concepts,)

yes i made an ost for this idea, here is a youtube playlist of chill european jazz

AU details under the cut-

Akechi Goro's palace is "Ampitheatrum Doloris”.

KEYWORDS: Akechi Goro, Tokyo Highcourt, Amphitheater

Akechi's psyche is a massive collection of locked doors, puzzles, and contradictions. He wants to be seen but not understood—heard but never known, ect. This makes his palace infiltration a waking nightmare (affectionate).

His palace is made up of five main layers. They each mirror a stage of grief:

1) There is the outer layer of with the appearance of a Venice-esque water canal maze, there is a door that must be opened to reach the entrance to infiltrate the second layer underneath the amphitheater. The puzzle's actually pretty sentimental and revolves around Akechi's interest in literature.

(This layer is depression, Goro mourns what he lost and the fact that the choices he made for the sake of revenge ultimately led to nowhere. This is reflected in how desolate/meandering the outer layer feels, it is the largest and most time consuming part of the palace for this reason. It takes weeks to finish. AKA, Akira and Morgana have a terrible, no good, very bad month of May.) 

2) The Labyrinth under the amphitheater; it is full of shadows for the arena champion to use as fodder for the enjoyment of the masses. ‘Loki’ resides here—this layer’s theme loosely plays on the Minotaur myth. 

The only way to escape is through a pulley/elevator mechanism which leads to the surface after shattering the Champion’s chains by force. Loki taunts in Old Norse, but gives Akira (and the party by extension) genuine hints on how to escape.

(This layer is anger, Goro is always angry, about the hand he’s been dealt, the futility of his own actions, and the fact that his life has always been a dead end, written in the stars.)

3) The Audience Stands; full of human cognitions and Akechi’s former clients and fans, despite everything, like Sae, he sees them as ‘people’ and is disgusted by them. Their compliments are shallow and empty, surface level like Goro’s facade. Cognition Sae is delegated to a middle manager-type role, and leads Akira and Co. through puzzles.

Different cognitions from Akechi’s shitshow of a childhood throw riddles based around philosophy and the nature of justice at the party, if the answer is ‘wrong’, there’s a mini-boss fight. Answering everything correctly yields a prize—a key, this process is made difficult by all of Robin’s ‘hints’ (which the Thieves can directly ask for) being lies.

(Bargaining. Goro always thought he could still salvage his revenge despite his enemy being essentially invincible, even now deep down he thinks he can salvage all the effort and sacrifices he put in.)

4) The Stage; Robin Hood appears proper instead of in cameo appearances, this is the lead actor's stage. To earn the right to stand with him, Akira has to have to prove his worth in one-on-one combat while showing the crowd a rousing show. The goal is to use the key obtained in the bargaining layer to unlock the Performer's cuffs.

(Denial, Goro doesn’t believe he needs or deserves saving or a life outside of his revenge, he believes there is no other way forward.)

Hereward and the 'treasure' are in the Imperial box area, which I'll save for part 2 of this I think! The second half of this'll have less focus on the environments and more on general plot and character design.