Yellow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
howtheyshine) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ph_logs2025-08-08 11:10 pm
howtheyshine) wrote in ph_logs2025-08-08 11:10 pm
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly, Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
Who: Yellow, The King In (howtheyshine) & OTA
What: Canon updates are rough, buddies.
When: Early August
Where: The Dock, the woods, see headers!
Warning(s): Eldritch tantrums and horror podcast character trauma.
He keeps himself in check as he finds his way back to the ferry. He doesn't think he fools the creatures he speaks to, the beings who essence he can feel now, in intermittent moments that fade the longer he's on the water. He doesn't bother trying to shape himself into something human. He can feel what he's made of now, too, what this form is made of, the base materia, the corpse of the man he was bound to. Larson. It's like learning he's lived in a house built from bones and human hides.
He tells himself it bothers him because he deserves better than a human corpse.
But the closer he gets to the island, the more the King realizes he's about to see people he forgot existed until hours ago. Hours at most. People from a life coming back to him in slow waves, making him feel and radiate an oppressive sensation, a psychic nausea that he does his best to pretend is intentional.
The shape that exits the ferry towers over the dock, a void wrapped in yellow mist. He sprouts groups of tentacles as he moves, each one unspooling and pulling him forward before fading back into the shadow underneath his yellow film. It's silken, uncanny, a steady glide. Every limb is a blue so deep that looking too long feels like drowning.
He is a monster, and he's going to make sure everyone knows it this time.
ii. lockwood forest - cw animal death (not graphic/off-screen) - OTA
As soon as he can escape town, he does. He goes to the woods first, the chaos of emotion like a whip against his spirit, driving him on and on, sleepless and snarling, a violent shadow that kills two deer and snatches a rabbit off its feet before he catches himself and lets it go. He didn't want to kill it, it's a fucking rabbit, it's beneath him. They're all beneath him. It's all beneath him.
He can feel another presence now, too, when he couldn't before. Kayne, the Kayne-but-Not, the thing that is Nyarlahotep here and became something else somewhere else. He can't feel where it is. He can't feel if it's close or far, if it's watching him or simply exists and he can tell now. But he's afraid of it. He's afraid of it, and there's nowhere to run, and killing animals hasn't made him less afraid. Any more than killing humans did.
But at least out here he's harder to find.
Other than the like, destroyed greenery.
He ends up in Paradesium. It seems like the best place to stay. The hardest spot for mostly-average humans to reach unaided. He haunts the ruins in ever-changing shapes, shifting colors without names. It makes him... homesick. This empty place, these tumbled stones. A monument to something, someone, that he should be equal to. At least.
It's why he does what he does. That thought. The recurring itch that he should be more than this, he should be more than a creature too nervous to stay in one shape lurking in hidden places. The uneasy feeling that this place, too, should be more.
Maybe some will feel it. Probably most won't. But the King in Yellow tries, very briefly, to warp some of the city ruins into something else. The part he chooses was a palace once. He tries to make it into a palace again, a grand and sweeping edifice to the god he's supposed to be. It's like throwing a glass of water onto a bonfire. The power twists out of shape, fractures away from him, leaving pieces of the ruins laced in Illusion. The power shifts and looks for the cracks in the mind of whoever comes near it, almost independent of its summoning god. It adapts to the particular desires and daydreams of the minds it can touch. Each pocket of surreality spills out a draining joy, an ecstatic exhaustion that encourages dreams. Sleep, motherfuckers, and give him somewhere to vent his feelings that won't truly kill anyone. Probably.
iv. wildcard/once upon an event i missed lol
Another idea? A thread you want to continue from my last ancient posts? An event prompt you want to share for me to tag? Want to just straight-up talk through CR things that might have happened because my god I've missed so much and I love y'all's characters, why not skip the awkward introductions?? Have at! I'm also available on plurk, if you'd rather, and the game discord server (nickname Jae).
howtheyshine) & OTAWhat: Canon updates are rough, buddies.
When: Early August
Where: The Dock, the woods, see headers!
Warning(s): Eldritch tantrums and horror podcast character trauma.
i. the docks - cw body horror - OTA
He keeps himself in check as he finds his way back to the ferry. He doesn't think he fools the creatures he speaks to, the beings who essence he can feel now, in intermittent moments that fade the longer he's on the water. He doesn't bother trying to shape himself into something human. He can feel what he's made of now, too, what this form is made of, the base materia, the corpse of the man he was bound to. Larson. It's like learning he's lived in a house built from bones and human hides.
He tells himself it bothers him because he deserves better than a human corpse.
But the closer he gets to the island, the more the King realizes he's about to see people he forgot existed until hours ago. Hours at most. People from a life coming back to him in slow waves, making him feel and radiate an oppressive sensation, a psychic nausea that he does his best to pretend is intentional.
The shape that exits the ferry towers over the dock, a void wrapped in yellow mist. He sprouts groups of tentacles as he moves, each one unspooling and pulling him forward before fading back into the shadow underneath his yellow film. It's silken, uncanny, a steady glide. Every limb is a blue so deep that looking too long feels like drowning.
He is a monster, and he's going to make sure everyone knows it this time.
ii. lockwood forest - cw animal death (not graphic/off-screen) - OTA
As soon as he can escape town, he does. He goes to the woods first, the chaos of emotion like a whip against his spirit, driving him on and on, sleepless and snarling, a violent shadow that kills two deer and snatches a rabbit off its feet before he catches himself and lets it go. He didn't want to kill it, it's a fucking rabbit, it's beneath him. They're all beneath him. It's all beneath him.
He can feel another presence now, too, when he couldn't before. Kayne, the Kayne-but-Not, the thing that is Nyarlahotep here and became something else somewhere else. He can't feel where it is. He can't feel if it's close or far, if it's watching him or simply exists and he can tell now. But he's afraid of it. He's afraid of it, and there's nowhere to run, and killing animals hasn't made him less afraid. Any more than killing humans did.
But at least out here he's harder to find.
Other than the like, destroyed greenery.
iii. paradesium - cw mental manipulation/potentially altered mental states - OTA
He ends up in Paradesium. It seems like the best place to stay. The hardest spot for mostly-average humans to reach unaided. He haunts the ruins in ever-changing shapes, shifting colors without names. It makes him... homesick. This empty place, these tumbled stones. A monument to something, someone, that he should be equal to. At least.
It's why he does what he does. That thought. The recurring itch that he should be more than this, he should be more than a creature too nervous to stay in one shape lurking in hidden places. The uneasy feeling that this place, too, should be more.
Maybe some will feel it. Probably most won't. But the King in Yellow tries, very briefly, to warp some of the city ruins into something else. The part he chooses was a palace once. He tries to make it into a palace again, a grand and sweeping edifice to the god he's supposed to be. It's like throwing a glass of water onto a bonfire. The power twists out of shape, fractures away from him, leaving pieces of the ruins laced in Illusion. The power shifts and looks for the cracks in the mind of whoever comes near it, almost independent of its summoning god. It adapts to the particular desires and daydreams of the minds it can touch. Each pocket of surreality spills out a draining joy, an ecstatic exhaustion that encourages dreams. Sleep, motherfuckers, and give him somewhere to vent his feelings that won't truly kill anyone. Probably.
iv. wildcard/once upon an event i missed lol
Another idea? A thread you want to continue from my last ancient posts? An event prompt you want to share for me to tag? Want to just straight-up talk through CR things that might have happened because my god I've missed so much and I love y'all's characters, why not skip the awkward introductions?? Have at! I'm also available on plurk, if you'd rather, and the game discord server (nickname Jae).
no subject
Gwen squeals in wordless delight as Sally scoops her up with one arm like a sack of flour and barrels shoeless down the hill, having left her Oxfords on the picnic blanket where she'd taken them off to sit. Stockings can be washed.
She doesn't think. With her free arm, she pulls whatever he has that can be considered a torso close to her, and hugs him tightly.
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"Let- Unhand me, human."
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(Is there a chance this isn't her Yellow? Of course. The Arthur Lester that spent some time here wasn't the same man that Crichton once knew. But something about the way Gwen recognizes him says something to her.)
It's only when she registers the fearful shouting of the person Yellow is threatening that she pulls away. "Oh--- Yellow, let him go!"
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"Only if you get... get away from me."
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Slowly, he lets go instead.
Larson's voice mocks him from the shadows of his anxiety. All hail the King in Yellow. Look at what you are without me.
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For a moment, Sally just stares at Yellow, in a moment of silent decision. There's concern in her eyes, and something else that could almost be mistaken for suspicion. But no, that's not right.
It's a challenge.
Decision made, Sally sets Gwen down. And Gwen runs straight to Yellow. She knows her trust is not misplaced.
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He hugs her like a porcelain doll, wanting her close and barely daring to touch her at the same time. Yellow squeezes his eyes shut so he doesn't have to look at anyone.
"Get her away from me."
He's not making a demand. It's more like someone warning their neighbor that they're in a bomb vest.
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Goodness, she sounds like her own mother sometimes.
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There were a few times, before he got taken away--before he forgot all of this--where he came very close to calling Sally 'mom.' He gets close now, too. But where embarrassment stopped him before, something else stops him now.
"Please- Please. I don't want to hurt anyone."
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Closer now. She reaches out, fingers gently finding his arm.
"I missed you, too. Crichton and I looked everywhere. I come here with Gwen every day, hoping you'll come home, and you did, and I just---" Sally takes a sharp breath, blinking away tears. "Please. I missed you. I just want to hold my son. Even if you never want me to do it again after that, I..."
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Yellow almost says as much, but then wonders what that will accomplish. Nothing, really. It won't make him more deserving or make Sally want to hug him less. Not if he doesn't tell her why. Why he doesn't deserve that.
He sags against her instead, still holding Gwen like he might shatter her at any given moment. Let Sally have what she wants. It matters more than what he deserves.
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"Let's go home," she murmurs. "Let's just... talk. You can tell me what happened while you were gone."
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Yellow hides his face against Sally's shoulder, which is awkward to do while holding his little sister like she is in a bomb vest.
{I can't. I can't tell you. I don't want- I can't.}