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Literature / Pâté

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"Pâté" is a short story by Wildbow set in the Otherverse, but isn't directly connected to either of the main Web Serial Novels, posted on April 27th, 2022.

Cheryl Whitehorn and Alphonse Nasser, two practitioners working for an organization that does guidebooks for different realms, go to the Shrinefall of Meru, a liminal realm related to Nature to collect information for a project based around crossroads where different realms meet. As Cheryl tries to do that while carting around an obnoxious New Meat partner, shenanigans ensue.


Tropes include:

  • Another Dimension: Pâté takes place in the Shrinefall of Meru, a crossroads located at the intersection of Nature, Spirit, and a literal visceral offshoot of Earth. Its primary inhabitants are crossroads people, humans with animal qualities and features that mostly still count as human enough to not be under the Seal of Solomon. It's also noted that its food and water are deeply infused with Nature and Life energy as a result.
  • Cat Folk: Madan is a humanoid catlike Other known as a Lawkeeper, who Cheryl guesses is in some way related to sphinxes, due to his feline appearance and association with Law and by extension karma.
  • Dimensional Traveler: Cheryl's line of work has her traveling to various realms on the regular.
  • Flesh Golem: Grimsy is a Fleshmongler, an Other from the Deep Warrens made of miscellaneous tumors, boils, meat, and other such viscera capable of making just about anything using meat.
  • Food Porn: Grimsy's dishes are gone over in explicit detail, even the ones made from humans.
    "Iliana's dish was a shallow bowl with the look and aroma of red wine, with a creamy glaze swirled around it. The skin of a human face had been cut into strips, but left positioned so the features were in place- with voids for the eyes and mouth. Grimsy tilted his head and then used the tip of his cleaver, poking the ends of the mouth into a smile."
  • Guyliner: Franz Carter, a male minor practitioner living in the Shrinefell, wears heavy eye makeup.
  • Greasy Spoon: Grimsy's Meathook is a street vendor run by an Other that's basically a living tumor, includes human body parts on the menu, and payment involves being willing to part with literal pounds of your own flesh, but everything on the menu tastes great.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Cheryl eats her dish of human tooth soup without much in the way of hesitation, and even describes it as one of the best things she's ever eaten.
  • Little Bit Beastly: Crossroads people are mixed with animal qualities and features, but the majority remain human enough to not be under the jurisdiction of the Seal of Solomon.
  • Non-Human Head: Iliana is a krayvad, a man-eating Other with the head of a praying mantis and miniature scythes for thumbs.
  • Shared Universe: Set in the same universe as Pact and Pale, but is more or less self-contained.
  • Shout-Out: Grimsy the Fleshmongler is described as sounding like "a garbage disposal mingled with a certain cookie obsessed puppet on children's TV", ie the Cookie Monster.
  • Upper-Class Twit: Alphonse is a practitioner who went to an elite Hogwarts-style school, and is about as obnoxious as you'd expect someone from that background to be.
  • Year Inside, Hour Outside: Discussed when Cheryl asks Franz if the Shrinefall of Meru has slower time compared to the outside world while seeing if there are any catches to staying there long-term.

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