Raison D'etre

raison d'etre

No yuri today fellas

Fellas I might actually have to make an instagram account 🫡

It is FINALLY time to talk about Winter and her rebellion! This took me several days so I have zero idea how coherent it is! Sorry 😃

So, Winter spent numerous of her teenage years running a terrorist organization. As a result, she is no longer allowed in Roarhaven and so runs a rebellion against some of the stronger god factions (mainly Mevolent and Valkyrie, somewhat the Darquesse cult) with a gang of people who are left over from the terrorist group.

Winter is the leader, and Alter is second-in-command. I’m debating whether or not they should be dating and I’m leaning towards yes, but I also lowkey refuse to write romance so we’ll see where it goes. Alter was also the guy who convinced Winter to join the group and eventually run it, so he does feel some responsibility for the events that went down because of it. Also, constantly nearly dying has made him a lot less Nazi-coded, so at least that’s a plus.

Aside from Alter, Malice is also there (still in energy form) and basically acts like Winter’s shadow by giving advice, following her around everywhere, and making sure that nobody is trying to sneak up and kill Winter. Malice is directly the reason why the Faceless Ones escaped from their prison, but she realized that they weren’t going to help her and instead decided that it would be more vindicating to help Winter defeat Valkyrie.

Somebody who is not there is Mia. She and Winter both joined the organization at together (although for different reasons) and Mia ended up sticking around to support Winter when she took over. Eventually the bone wand exploded and turned Valkyrie into a god, yadda yadda, but the whole thing ended with Winter being sort of…cut off? From her sister, her parents, from the Sanctuary and Roarhaven as a whole…pretty much everything except for her little organization. And so when Valkyrie started acting weird and the Faceless Ones escaped, Winter decided to dedicate what little she had left to fighting her sister. This was going alright until a fight between the two groups where Anton was cornered and using his gist, and Mia tried to step in to protect somebody else, causing the gist to grab her and maul her to death before anyone could stop it.

Winter has since made it a goal to kill Anton Shudder in vengeance for what happened. Like, she loathes his continued existence to a Skulduggery/Nefarian level. Anton, on the other hand, did not actually know who Mia was but felt absolutely awful (and still does) about the fact that he killed a teenager who was trying to save her friend.

Since the organization and everyone in it was kicked out of Roarhaven, they have continued their lack of association with the Irish Sanctuary and move around a lot, not really having a single main base. I do think that they would spend a fair bit of time in America though, where there are fewer gods to fight and therefore less constant danger. Winter also regularly gets into territory skirmishes with Valkyrie over who gets to maintain control of the Grimwood House, although Winter doesn’t know what’s down there. She just knows that she wants Valkyrie to stay the hell away from it. Valkyrie, on the other hand, wants to create more god-killers to use on people like Mevolent but has a hard time with it because neither she nor Skulduggery can go down there on account of the fact that they would get torn apart by magic-sensing monsters. Also, they’re a tad nervous about waking up the dragon. Valkyrie is half considering trying to use it as a pet. But Winter knows none of this, she just spends a lot of time trying to stop Valkyrie from getting whatever’s down there.

In fact, the rebellion as a whole does a lot of that. Their purpose is to try and kill as many gods as possible to return the world to peace, with Winter (who has the god-killer spear) at the head of it. Aside from Valkyrie and Skulduggery, the rebellion also regularly gets into fights with Mevolent’s troops. They do, however, avoid going near the Sanctuary for various reasons, including the understanding that their existence near Roarhaven would disturb its place as a relatively peaceful haven.

And Winter herself? Lots of issues. Valkyrie becoming a god and then regularly defeating Winter’s rebellion in fights has really not had a great effect on her already bad self-esteem. She’s also now had to live her life for years without her sister to look up to, which is especially hard because Valkyrie was a huge role model for her her entire life. She also still has periodic breakdowns regarding Cadaverous Gant as well as something that Cadaver Cain did to her (specifically betraying and then shooting her. And saying that Valkyrie was superior to her for not trusting him). Winter is also very cut-off from her parents because they’re mortals who’re hiding in Roarhaven at best and dead at worst. Lastly, Winter has a bit of a complex relationship with Skulduggery because she now knows slightly more the extent to which he took advantage of Valkyrie as a kid, but she also remembers him protecting her from Cadaverous and him just…being a background figure in her life for a long time. Skulduggery would probably kill her if not for the fact that Valkyrie would be sad about it.

In short, Winter has many issues that I think would be interesting to write about, and if I ever write this out as a fic it will be written partially from her perspective.

Season of War AU masterlist:

Original premise

Valkyrie and Mevolent’s dynamic

Eyepatch Nefarian

Color Palette Challenge! Send me a palette and a character and I'll draw them ^.^

Feel free to reblog/use any of these for your own projects, but please don't repost!

Fandoms I’m comfortable with requests for are in the tags!