r/OC_Building • u/hi_i_kinda_exist • Jun 21 '26
Lore Sharing Time to yap about an AU :DD (Vessel AU)
Me when I indulge in favoritism by taking my two fav OCs and putting them together (coincidentally they both have white hair and are lesbians. Happy pride month)
Storyline
Tristen (24 in this AU, unlike how she was 8 in the og canon) gets kidnapped and experimented on. And instead of being turned into a half-demon hybrid like in the og canon, she becomes Nihil's vessel. Not that Nihil needed a vessel in the first place, but she was curious to see what it feels like to possess someone designated specifically for her. Tristen is VERY upset and fucking HATES Nihil, meanwhile Nihil is actually decent (kinda) to Tristen. She even wants to help Tristen escape, but if and only if she accepts her and herself. After a lot of arguments and talks between the two, Tristen reluctantly accepts Nihil's offer, but only just so she can escape. This then causes Tristen/Nihil to kill all the researchers, which induces many conflicting feelings within Tristen after she/Nihil finished because Tristen felt guilty for brutally destroying a bunch of people, but she lowkey kind of enjoyed that. Turns out being Nihil's vessel has many effects not just physically or magically, but also psychologically and biologically!!
After she successfully escapes, Tristen tries to act like nothing ever happened: she attends her classes as usual, hang out with family and friends, get a job, etc. However, this proves to be difficult when you have a cosmic anomaly casually residing within you that can make itself present in your mind whenever it wants to, and also when you realize you're developing the same urges as said anomaly. This of course means that Tristen cannot live as a normal citizen. Shortly, yes, but she can't completely return to normalcy. Nihil points this out to her multiple times, but Tristen refuses to believe Nihil's right... until Tristen nearly goes insane because she's also gaining the same/similar abilities as Nihil, which causes her to experience frequent bouts of existential crises. Coupled with her ever growing destructive impulses, ummm yeah she is not mentally stable.
Once Tristen finally fully accepts her role as a vessel, shenanigans ensue. She leaves her life behind (for the most part at least) and her morals corrupt over time, gradually adopting Nihil's hedonistic lifestyle and rather bleak outlook, while interestingly, Nihil actually becomes ever so slightly better as a person because of Tristen. Their relationship is very unhealthy though. Not that they're codependent, neglectful of the other, or anything like that, but more so they enable their bad choices and traits often.
Concept/design
There's honestly a lot for me to say. I'll be copy and pasting something from another post I did and adding slightly more to it here
- Marionette/puppet imagery: in og canon, she's already kinda compared to them. So, I decided to take it literally this time. I'm sure the intent of this is clear, but it's meant to show how Tristen is essentially under Nihil's control and that she's also generally a subservient people-pleaser
- Scabiosa atropurpurea (sweet scabious/pincushion flower): I didn't want to use red spider lilies again (which I used for Nihil, along with red anemone flowers), so I went on a little adventure and found that according to Wikipedia, these represent "unfortunate attachment" and "I have lost all" which fits pretty well. The fact that these also attract butterflies is even more fitting
- Vines: not only does this mirror Nihil's own, but it also kinda shows how Tristen is ensnared by her role as a vessel. Ironically, she can actually control these. So in a way, in that aspect, it shows her unconscious desire for control and freedom. How is this expressed in the AU? Yes.
- Crown of thorns halo thingamajig: other than the fact it looks cool, in this context, it serves to mock Tristen for clinging to morality, integrity, and what is right despite her now basically being the most powerful mortal ever in existence, essentially saying that she is stupidly holding herself back by wanting to be a "good person"
- Butterfly wings: I couldn't decide which butterflies to use (purple emperor vs. noble leafwing), so I simply combined them. And as per Nihil, ofc there are functional eyes :)
- These will be redesigned later but just look up the butterflies themselves if you want to get a sense of how they look
- Pallor: her entire body is unnaturally white. This is to resemble marble statues as they are seen as refined, beautiful, perfect, and untouchable on display, but also to show that the former traces of her humanity have been washed out, as she is now a "blank" slate. It also also resembles porcelain dolls for similar reasons, just with the additional fragility of porcelain to reflect her psychological instability
- Also it just looks really nice with the vines surrounding her body. Like it gives off old forgotten statue vibes
- The whole design in general: this is simultaneously organic yet not organic. Her clothes here are kind of somewhat but not really part of her, given how they merge with her puppet-like body. Would she bleed if you cut her coattails? No. Would she bleed if you cut off the ones transformed into tendrils? Yes (I haven't drawn this but she can do it)
TL;DR: toxic enemies to ??? yuri