#[ her backstory's also gonna be revamped a little bit too ]

[calronhunt]

can u tell me the new lore of blood brings dawn?

A lot of it's stayed the same honestly lol! The basic premise is the same. Raphael's a prince of hell, Lionel's a paladin for a Sun God, that all stayed the same! A lot of characters have changed and a lot of plot stuff has but the basics are still relatively the same! I'm just gonna. do a bullet list cause that'll be easier for me to do.

Raphael has only 3 older brothers instead of 6! He's only got Gabriel, Cassiel, and Michael now! This is primarily bc keeping track of them and giving them all a little bit to play in the plot was too much and also i didn't even do anything with there being 7 of them. didn't even assign them a deadly sin or anything smh

Raphael is about the same otherwise. He's half human-half demon, he's the youngest child, he got abused so fucking much, he's traumatized to shit. Love him.

All of the "who will get the crown" drama of the original is gone. I simply found it boring and a bit too clunky and juvenile to work

Jett (Raphael's bf at the start of the story) is now a human! Also a very recent change but he's also a little loser abusive boy now. pathetic.

dying gives you a penis that one's important

The Sun God is a woman now (Not trans. I just changed her gender to be a cis woman). this is to give Lionel mommy issues too. it's only fair.

Ariel and Theo (Raphael's mothers) 's relationship sucks so bad and they need to get a fucking divorce

Lionel is also trans now bc I said so. and also maybe has OCD. Basically everything else about his backstory is the same though!

A lot of the stuff regarding god-hood and ascending if anyone even remembers that got changed but i will keep that a secret cause it's BIG SPOILERS

Sigthy (Raphael's father) got a big revamp too. He's like. so much more bonkers yonkers now and I love him.

Magic is way more simplified. basically if you're a descendant of a kid of the Sun God you can do 1 kind of elemental magic. that's it. Demons can create glamours using little crystals but that's it for them too. It's not that important. just know that Ericka can shoot fire out of her mouth if she wants.

[iceicewifey]

AAAAAA ALSO HOW HAVE YOUR OCs BEEN?

I’m going to be very upset if you gave them all a bunch more trauma >:(

SOME HAVE BEEN BETTER THAN OTHERS,,, no major trauma if it helps :3c /hj

god i’m trying to remember what’s different since it’s been a while and everything is just a blur to me hsjjdjd it’s a bit of a list tho so i’m gonna throw it under a cut

˚₊· ͟͟͞➳❥ changed it so shay and nilla eloped in vegas in 1989 after following terry to california (where i hc him to be from) to ““make sure he gets settled back in okay”” — not a total lie since the poor guy was on crutches but yeah :’) they still have the 1991 wedding after getting back in contact with shay’s dad* but they literally could not wait * once her dad gets over himself and isn’t attempting to pick fights with vanilla constantly i should say kxkskxk ˚₊· ͟͟͞➳❥ i know he’s not an oc but i changed up nilla’s backstory a bit; it’s still in progress but i switched new jersey to long island and added a bit of greek and saudi arabian to his heritage since his father was from alexandria originally before relocating to cairo and that’s right by the mediterranean sea — still trying to figure out where to add it in, but i wanna say it’s ways back in great grandparents so his dad was still primarily egyptian, but figured you might be interested being the li’l middle easterner you are /affectionate ;0; ˚₊· ͟͟͞➳❥ currently on the fence as to whether or not mahmoud will full on move from nyc to either cairo or alexandria, or if he’d just go for dual citizenship ˚₊· ͟͟͞➳❥ aaliyah’s on the redesign list, not a whole revamp but just changing a lil bit because i feel like she looks a little too much like vanilla,, but every time i try to redo her hair she comes out looking even more like him hxjskkzks ˚₊· ͟͟͞➳❥ SPEAKING OF KIDS, there’s a third baby now; he’s not in my main canon as i don’t wanna disrupt noel and aaliyah’s dynamic but his name is kasim and he was born in 2002 – he’s the only one with shay’s eye color 👉👈 ˚₊· ͟͟͞➳❥ i might have mentioned shay’s sister shasta following in their dad’s footsteps and becoming a mechanic but i’m still in the process of brainstorming like a detailing and customization shop they’d work at together when they’re older 🥺 shasta’d have to legally own it since she’s the only certified mechanic there and shay’s a high school dropout with a criminal record but shxjdkx i’ll figure that out later. shay does the detailing and airbrushing so it’s all creative stuff that makes her very :) ˚₊· ͟͟͞➳❥ speaking of shay’s dad, him and ozzy become best friends which i think you knew about but memory do be foggy,,, anyway i had loose ends i didn't like so they're eventually roommates when jedd moves back to florida,,, historians would say they were very good friends if you catch my drift hfhfhf ˚₊· ͟͟͞➳❥ my brain was being spectacularly mean to me and i had to drop hol as an f/o for a bit, but he’s back and because of that his and tanya’s lore is getting a bit of a rewrite, they’re in a trailer park in new mexico now instead of just outside of nashville — shay’s ‘i hate tennesee disease’ rubbed off on tan,,, i’ve never been there i have nothing against tennessee i swear JXKKSKD

[summonersupport-a]

guess who’s i’m moving over here

[marshmallowloves]

Might as well post this since I have a feeling I'm gonna be on this kick for a little bit ^^;;

This is Kimmy! She's actually a pretty old Kirby OC of mine - I think I created her somewhere around 2014-ish? It was mostly for the purpose of shipping her with Escargoon, but later I was like "that's actually cringe and she's a bad OC" And so I revamped her backstory and appearance to make her more well-rounded, but ended up making an entirely separate character.

But I have a certain fondness for Kimmy and a newly-rekindled fondness for the sassy snail I shipped her with, so I dug up some old papers of her and decided to redraw her again!

Her appearance is about the same as her first design, and I've kept some parts of her background, but I'm trying to tweak it/add more to fit the anime universe a bit more (and still ship to my heart's content 😂) I'll post what I have of it if anyone wants to see it~

For now, here's a couple tidbits about her:

Kimmy lives in a place called the Golden Woods, a totally non-canonical (as far as I know) place in Dreamland that's a bit of a trek from Cappy Town. Her house is carved out of a very wide tree trunk, and she lives by herself, though she does have a few friends in other parts of the woods.

She’s rather timid but also very kind, always willing to help others (so long as it doesn't hurt anyone) and trying to understand all sides of a story to better help everyone involved. Very much pacifistic and sensitive, but not a doormat - or at least she tries not to be.

She loves to take walks outside of the woods, day or night. During her night walks, she'll wear a cloak to make it harder for any hostile creatures to see her. She also keeps a lantern on her person, just in case.

Her favorite food is apples! While she does love cheese too (like your typical mouse) it's very filling for her, so she can't have much or she'll get a stomachache.

[terezis]

okay she-ra thoughts under the cut (spoilers)

it was all so very good that i don’t even know what to gush about (yes i do) (that kiss???) it is just so fucking wild and marvelous to me that noelle stevenson took such a huge ip and revamped it into such a great fuckin, gay ass love story. bc that’s what it is, huh. is a fuckin GAY ASS LOVE STORY AND IT MADE ME CRY WITH HOW GREAT IT WAS

the second thing i want to gush about is LMAO I STILL REALLY FUCKING LOVE ENTRAPTA/HORDAK... THAT MOMENT AT THE VERY END WAS SO CUTE I WISH THERE’D BEEN MORE... 

between him and wrong hordak i hope entrapta gets an entire harem of clone-based “””lab assistants””” because l m a o... I REALLY LOVED WRONG HORDAK TOO HE WAS SO CUTE...

also that moment in episode 3 where catra saves glimmer is GOD. GOD!!! i’m going to be rewatching that every day for like a fucking month it was the shit i am all about.

also LMAO I REALLY WASN’T SERIOUSLY EXPECTING GLIMMER/BEAU TO BE FOR REAL END GAME THOUGH??? i really thought it was going to be catra and adora and that’s it, but nah they fuckin went there huh. i do not see the appeal but u know what man it’s fine yall do you.

my only complaint is that i can’t believe shadoweaver sacrificed herself for catra??? because i personally had been hoping either she or adora would get to do a murder, but i get why they wouldn’t swing that LOL... at the very least i wasn’t expecting the sacrifice to be so overt. 

i’m not UPSET about it but it did make me a little uncomfortable in the moment, like i don’t think catra really needed her "caring” in the end and tbh if an abusive parental figure sacrificed themselves to save me like that... i’d just be kind of mad. i’d feel gross about it. LMAO. this isn’t a redemption for me imo. oh well

anyways.

THAT KISS THOUGH

i’m just gonna keep adding to this post as i think of things:

edit 1: also i do kind of wish we’d found out just a LITTLE bit more about where adora came from, like i don’t need a backstory for her bio family or whatever but horde prime did kind of say all first ones were extinct? clearly not though because ADORA HAD TO COME FROM SOMEWHERE

like narratively ig it doesn’t matter much especially since it’s stressed so hard that her origins weren’t as important as her Found Family... 

IT’S JUST GONNA BOTHER ME THOUGH... IT SEEMS LIKE SOMETHING YOU DON’T BRING UP UNLESS IT’S GOING TO COME BACK AGAIN LATER... 

edit 4: ok i went back and rewatched part of episode 5 and he does say “some faction must remain” so I GUESS IT’S FINE............ LOL

edit 2: also guys... short haired catra... is so fucking cute

edit 3: i keep coming back with complaints but i promise i really liked it LOL... BUT DAMN I GUESS ANGELLA’S REALLY GONE, HUH??? I REALLY THOUGHT THEY WERE GOING TO BRING HER BACK SINCE SHE’S JUST “TRAPPED IN THE IN-BETWEEN OF A PORTAL” AND NOT “OUTRIGHT DEAD” 

BUT THEY REALLY FRIDGED THAT MOM HUH... LMAO...

edit 5: i just keep thinkin bout how this whole show was definied by catra and adora’s relationship... their SO VERY QUEER RELATIONSHIP... THAT THIS SERIES CULMINATED IN THEM KISSING AND EXCHANGING I LOVE YOUS.......... IT’S SO FUCKIN......... DANG

like we have garnet and we have, like, korrasami... but this feels... More i guess? this time the show was ABOUT them. it was ABOUT this relationship. korrasami always felt rly shoved in at the end, i love it but this feels LOL IDK JUST... MORE! IT’S A LOT!!! IT’S REALLY GOOD AND IMPORTANT TO ME

[weaselbeaselpants]

Hazbin Hotel Review part 2: Mistakes were made please don’t kill me

This pilot is polarizing at the moment. In between the two sides of the anti-fanbase (ppl crying “if you like HH you’re homophobic”, or the BWW with it’s cringey politics), you have lots of fans who are falling over themselves about how good this is. If you love Hazbin unconditionally that’s fine, but here’s the thing:

I like it too.

I’m the kind of person who’s naturally critical, pokes harmless fun at what I like, and is always rewriting and reimagining things within the fandoms I like. I want to be a ‘Hazbin’ fan but I don’t know if I’m allowed to since the fanbase can be so staunchly overprotective and Viv herself has said she doesn’t like criticism, no matter how valid or done in good faith.

Tbh, that’s why the drama revolving around @frootrollup1​ upsets me: the fandom is fine with lumping all criticism or redesign stuff in the realm of ignorant hate, when redesign, rewrites, revamps and other fan dribble are kind of a labor of love onto itself in other fandoms. Guess that’s a talk for later though.

With all this in mind, let me go over my thoughts:

There’s no PROPER establishment of Hell as a place, setting, world, or proper establishment of the characters.

The armor-piercing question Hazbin needs to be asked is this:

“is this a generic version of Hell we should all be familiar with and need no introduction to, OR is this a unique take that requires it’s own rules?”

^ It feels like the latter but we don’t get a good rundown of said rules. Besides that, characters are one note and serve either no purpose or become flies on the wall to other characters’ purpose.

Things were said and places were shown but we honestly don’t get a good idea of Hell by the end of the pilot. It’s a ritzy(?) place where souls of the damned literally become demons and then get purged. I THINK. I THINK, that’s what the writer’s were going for here. TBH, it feels like they’re skipping ahead and thinking of the show as a finished, fully realized product with developed characters and plots already, and not an introduction to a series/standalone piece.

If I didn’t have some inkling or the lore prior to watching it, I wouldn’t have known that the demons sans-Charlie were once human. Angel says in passing in the car that he’s already dead, but really references to the fact that they were once human are rare.

Now I’m a simple woman - I ain’t picky with mah demonology - But, call me crazy, when I think Hell I don’t think of the people who end up there turning into demons, I think of people going there to be tortured. That’s the hell I’m used to seeing and is prevelant in like every religion that has a hell. Taking a spin on that and making demons the souls of sinners trapped in hell? A-okay, but I NEED MORE. Instead of talking in a car or spending time on this lolsofuny demon turf war, we really needed more time given to the fact that Vaggie, Angel, and others were once human. No, I don’t want a full flashback, but it would give us a better grasp of the mechanics of sin in this world if these two characters told a little bit more themselves than just having some lines offhandedly explaining how everything works. 

EX- How to do revamp of a familiar setting right while still leaving certain details vague? One Word: Hadestown. 

Hadestown doesn’t need to give you all the details of it’s setting cause that’s not the point. You don’t need to know if the workers of Hadestown are literally dead, metaphorically dead, or both or where other gods live. Those aren’t the things we need to know for the musical to progress. What we need to know is Hades’ underworld is a mining colony of doom, that Hades buys peoples souls so the workers can never leave, that Persephone and Hades are on the rocks which is messing up the seasons, and that oop! Eurydice had to go back. Between the commonplace to complex knowledge westerners have of Greek mythology and the revamped Prohibition-era setting, all is explained that we the audience need explained.

I have the feeling Hazbin Hotel wanted the same thing: explain what needs to be explained for the currant plot and leave bits and pieces in the dark. It just didn’t really work.

The flow of the narrative was bad.

So apparently on the PizzaPartyPodcast Vivziepop admitted there were things that were moved around or turned out rushed.

Fair enough but even with that excuse can someone please tell me why they thought it was a good idea to start the story after Angel has already been made a patron of the hotel?

Getting to know not only how the world works first and foremost, but who our main character (Charlie) is and what she is doing (the hotel), would be the easiest way to drop us into the action of the story and get the ball rolling. But instead we start off with an intro song that sort of shows us what this world is like but doesn’t explain anything about who or what we’re seeing until the newscasters come in. Angel’s introduced in this time and the build up and execution of this character is poor, rushed, and feels more like writers fudging around with a character they like than giving us, the audience, a proper introduction*.

After that, I’m sorry to say the spots where the story picks up, drifts off, lulls about, or comes around all kind of melt into this big slurry the characters are drowning in, without any real care for telling a story. BUT THIS IS A STORY!!!

This is not a little menagerie of random characters ala the Pastoral Symphony from Fantasia. This is not a collection of little things just for the fun of it to get to to know these people (it does a bad job at getting you to know these guys). This is a three act structure. I can tell where the intro, rising action, climax, and falling action are SUPPOSED to be, but they don’t stand out, don’t do their job, and melt into the fluff in a way that makes the emotional impact we’re supposed to feel null somehow...

The pacing was bad. 

While some scenes go by far too quickly others go on for faaaaaaar too long. These are the bits that don’t surprise me when I hear this pilot was changed around, cut down, or fudged with a bit.

Scenes like this include Charlie’s back and forth with Katie Killjoy before and after her song, Charlie and Vaggie’s fight in the car, Alastor explaining himself to Charlie and Vaggie trying to talk him out of it, ALL of the Ser Pentious/Cherry Bomb terf fight bits.

Oddly, it feels like these parts are trying REALLY hard to get a point across but they end up being more of a hindrance to this otherwise snappy dialogue and supposedly simple set up. This pilot is 20+ minutes, but the bits we need to endear ourselves to our main cast are squandered on what the writers thought was “fun to write” at the time.

Too many characters, even in a 20 minute pilot. 

Instead of getting a good idea of our leads, everyone is treated with the same level of importance or interest in a world that hasn’t even been fully introduced yet.

The truly important supporting characters to Charlie, Vaggie, Angel, and Alastor are Husk, Katie, and Nifty. Katie provides conflict to the first half of Charlie’s story, while Husk and Nifty are hires by Alastor for the hotel; they establish his power over other demons and his influence on the hotel and it’s success. Sir Pentious and Cherry Bomb needed to be cameos. Their characters should be glorified plot contrivances/resolutions, No More. I ain’t gonna care about a cast of billions from the start. We gotta start small first. Not only do we have four mains, we also have a bunch of little guys who need to eat up screen time...except they absolutely don’t need to and should be simple background cameos for now.

Sir Pentious and Cherry Bomb get as much character time as the four mains even though Angel is underdeveloped and Alastor is overdeveloped. When it comes to storytelling - unconventional or otherwise - priorities, is what this pilot needs.

Angel basically does nothing after Alastor is introduced. 

Of all the characters in Hazbin to get left in the dust (lol) and be underdeveloped, Angel Dust would be my last guess. He’s popular with his creator and with the fandom but because of how the pilot is set up, his character falls to the back-burners and is kind of unnecessary: (Charlie uses him as an experiment to see if she can reform a sinner but he doesn’t hold up, so when Alastor comes into play the focus of Charlie’s plan switches almost entirely to Alastor and Angel is unneeded). If this were two episodes of a series; one about Charlie getting to know and trying to “fix” Angel, and another about Alastor coming in and taking over, that’d be fine. But this is a pilot so the plot and character development is kinda crushed in and neither Angel nor his existence amounts to much of anything.

I honestly forgot Angel was even in the latter half of the pilot. The poor demon-spider whore dies on the way to his home planet.

Not to fan-blurb here but I think it’d be more interesting if the conflict in the latter half wasn’t Vaggie trying to warn Charlie away from Alastor but Angel feeling shown up by Alastor and him being the one protesting to Alastor’s take-over of the hotel. It would have given Angel more to do and would cement him as one of our four leads.

Alastor gets a backstory because he is A) not the character I thought they were going for, or B), they’re jumping the gun on him. Alastor is a maddening character in my book because if he’s the character I thought he was supposed to be - our main villain - then they royally messed up a good villain by explaining his story. If he ISN’T the main villain, than color me confused on what he’s supposed to be. 

It goes without saying that a good villain should remain somewhat mysterious throughout the rising action, which is what the pilot is building up to (I think?). Alastor’s personality makes him an absolutely wonderful villain and probably the most outwardly “demon”-like of anyone in Hell. Him being a rogue demon that scares the inhabitants of Hell should be alluded to, not stated.

Vaggie and Angel get passing “we dead” bg but our villain gets a backstory dumped on him? For the standalone pilot this episode is, his backstory doesn’t do anything for the plot. For the rest of the series, this feels like a big waste to reveal this guy’s history over anyone else. The rest of the HH cast are sorta small stereotypes and cliches that the writers want to endear to us because of what they do and what they go through, though since there’s too many of them they end up just being there. Alastor, on the other hand, is where they hit gold and really have a character who oozes personality and the feel of their show...but they kind of taint him by giving him an unneeded (at this point) history.

Big problem with him not only being explained but him outright stating his intentions with the hotel.

Maybe I’m wrong and Alastor is not the bigbadvillain in a cast of villains...in which case I don’t know what the pilot wants us to think of him or where the show’s going with him. Is he a demonic version of Harold Hill who learns to care about ppl and gets redeemed? Maybe that will change with future episodes....

Hazbin is confusing as a person not privy to the franchise/development prior ,and feels disappointing from the pov of someone getting hyped for these characters. As a follower of the project it feels like a let down to the respective characters and plots we’ve been anticipating. While, as newcomer, it’s hard to care about anyone. My sister, who had far less info on the pilot than me, was watching it the whole time going “who are you?” and by the end said “why should I care?” Really good summary from this IMDB review here:

Little harsh but my thoughts exactly.

TL;DR: The writers need to really rethink how to introduce their world to newcomers AND fans alike. -

There’s so much passion in Hazbin Hotel but I feel it’s misaimed and a prime example of why “write/draw what you like and what sounds ‘fun’!!!!” isn’t a good idea for storytelling.

There’s technically a story in Hazbin Hotel, but because of the bad pacing and lackluster approach to world and character development, for the kind of project that it is, it’s not very good. 

-

Again, for the people in the back: if you think I’m a bully because I happen to be harsh with my criticism, sorry but harsh critique isn’t the same thing as bad faith criticism (CinemaSins, NC, Bad Webcomics Wiki) and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t lump me in with those turds because I don’t love every second of this. I may not be the best writer, but storytelling is my passion and I think this dropped the ball. IT DOESN’T MEAN I HATE IT. - Alternatively, if you love Hazbin unconditionally or disagree with me on these things: great! Like what you like as long as everything’s safe, which it is. Stuff is problematic but hey so is everything look at the stuff I like. Also, if you’re one of those people who unironically says “if you like HH than I’m blocking you teehee unfollow me”, you fittingly have a very special seat in hell set up for you. Don’t threaten my friends cause you don’t like something they like. =)

[hausofbo]

thank you for choosing to fly hyunjoon airlines! i’m lu(he/him) i’m gonna be ur local mun! i reside over here in the est, i’m 19, and i haven’t been in rp in FOREVER, this is kinda a revamp of one of my older muses so you may have seen him with a different name and faceclaim in a different rp, but i’m so excited to bring you guys mr hyunjoon “bowie” kim!! my discord is buzz !!#0882 if you’re like me and not a huge fan of tumblr messaging !! im gonna go ahead and drop bowie’s STATS, WANTED CONNECTIONS, and a LINK to his intro on a page on my blog !! i cannot wait for some plots and threads to get going, so without further ado! here is a bit about my angsty baby !

[ lee minho, twenty ] did you hear? there’s a new addition to the hypehens family! [ bowiesworld ] was starting to get known for [ photography and dance ] and i think they will hit it big this time around as a part of the [ expresso ] squad at hypehens. [ kim hyunjoon ] is known to be [ boisterous & adventurous ] and enjoys [ collecting vintage fashion ]. with their vibes of [ old record stores ] and a style that is unique, i think they are going to take the internet by storm!

backstory

born in quebec city canada to two wealthy fashion designers, he was given nothing but the absolute best in his life.

he’s a little (a lot) spoiled, until his sister, adrienne, came along. then they were both spoiled.

adrienne is his favorite person in the world and he is the absolute biggest sweetheart in the world to her, but she lives in milan with her parents now while he’s in korea

he went to private schools his entire life, opting to stay in quebec while his parents were always traveling. he fell in love with quebec at a young age and never wanted to leave.

his parents raised him and adrienne on both english, french, and korean, also teaching them basics of many languages of where they travelled.

bowie and adrienne both modeled for their parents and were child actors in commercials for big stores like belk.

thats where he found his love for modeling, acting, and more so the cameras.

he would sit behind the scene and watch as the photographers took photos of adrienne and the other models and was constantly questioning them.

he eventually got his own camera and took up photography as a hobby and wanted to make it a career.

he also turned to doing work as on the internet because visual artists are poor as hell, and he fell in love with sharing tips that he’s learned from industry professionals.

along with his love of photography he took up dancing in his older teenage years, and while he’s not the best he is working hard to improve and uses the internet to help him improve and help others learn from his mistakes

personality

taurus, intp, prince devil

a partier by every definition of the word, his poison of choice being alcohol, specifically fireball whiskey and sake.

boisterous & adventerous / irrational & controlling

he’s bold, says whats on his mind and doesn’t mind hurting someones feelings.

while he is bold and rude he’s also charming, he’s a huge flirt. calls everyone pet names (babe, baby, love)

if called out for being too rude he bucks up and gets ready to fight, very defensive

once you get past the hardass asshole he’s actually a very sweet caring friend.

he’s witty and always there if someone needs a shoulder to cry on.

[katribou]

I just gotta say, I don't know much about Splatoon (since I don't have any way to play it), but I love the characters you've made. They're all very lovable in different ways. If you haven't answered this question before, what was your inspiration for their personalities and designs?

aww thank you so much!! this is gonna be long because i like explaining processes when i can especially with PICTURES!! so…

my squids are pretty straightforward. i designed dottie just with gear available in the game because i liked it and i used her as a little stand-in to illustrate shenanigans i came across while playing the game. her salty personality grew out of the fact that i used to get pretty bitter while playing splatoon, and also back in the day people used to??? hate on the fact that i mained the inkbrush??? for some reason?? guess it was too quirky… early splatoon days were wild pfft

stripes came about on a whim, since all the gear that dottie wears had a matching counterpart ingame, i decided to make a character that was everything she is but opposited. so, a squid with her ink/eye color inverted that is just always in good spirits. i dont get so mad at splatoon anymore really, so i guess he’s become a good stand-in too! i had a friend say they illustrate what it’s like to play splatoon so well because of that duality, which is a pretty nice unintended side effect :’^)

my octos were a more longterm process… so of course for a long while all we knew about octolings were that they were kind of just all soldiers you gotta fight that look like this:

and though we didnt really know much about octos as a species in the game i, like many people, made octo characters. dude octolings didn’t exist yet, so i just kind of winged it on the lad’s hair and just gave the gal tied-up tentacles. and also since i apparently have a matchy-matchy theme just made the gal’s getup white. (this is the first time i drew them… god that 2015 art)

i figured they were soldiers too since that’s all we knew them to be, so as you can see they basically wear the splat1 armor. i differentiated them a bit by giving them leather jackets which are also something you can wear in the game, just because it seemed to fit their aesthetic hah:

(though theirs are a lot more shredded up and torn because of use and also they have that #rebel vibe pfft)

ANYWAY i didnt do much with them because we didnt have a lot of octo lore plus i wasn’t really pushed to make up any for them partially out of fear of having it all like, retconned if we DID get conflicting lore so i kind of pushed them aside and did nothing with em. till we got the new octo expansion recently!! where u play as a lad who looks like one of these

so obviously with all this new octo info i was inspired to go back to my poor neglected octos to touch them up a fair bit:

darius didnt change much, i just gave him the updated splat2 armor (tbh from the start i just always knew i wanted to make him look like a thot, just cuz fkdjlgf. also considering the game always noticeably but unsurprisingly covers up dudes more smh) sherry, who i finally gave a name, i changed up more. i changed her hair a bit just so it was aCTUALLY FUN TO DRAW and also as you can see i just gave her the octo expansion player character gear except white since that color was her #brand.

personalitywise, i’ll be honest with you, when i originally made them i literally just wanted to make them the anti-dottie-and-stripes so i ripped off my own squids personalites for them. darius scowls like dottie, sherry is loopy as stripes (speaking of which YUP it’s no coincidence their names also start with D and S…)

while revamping darius and sherry tho i didnt want them to be too carbon copy of my squids otherwise i feel like they’d get boring. the thing that rescued me there was some of the octo backstory we were given… which made me reconsider more deeply why each of them may have the dispositions they do. so i aged them up and thought them through. darius’s saltiness is less temper in the way it is with dottie, but more fueled by his resentment of the squidrace that’s kind of left his kind in the dirt. on the other hand, sherry’s loopiness and sleepiness became a result of the fact that she’s one of the many octolings that have been brainwashed and whatnot. also on top of that i gave her alcoholism as a result of how bad the octos have it LMAO sorry sherry

BUT YEAH those are my cephalopod secrets!! hope that was insightful or entertaining to at least someone! nintendo has honestly done such a great job with their world that it’s so fun and rewarding to make up stuff based within it 👏

[domesticangel]

ok ive been wanting to do an OC redraw/redesign for a while now and uh, well here it is !!! top is obv the revamp and bottom is these three’s original designs ,,, the bottom pic is 9 years old (holy smokes) so i made them during my middle school emo/scene phase when i was like 12 so thats why they're.........Like That lmao but left to right in both pics is jude, elliot, and skipper!!! this was? so fun honestly

ummm lots of info/backstory about them under the cut lol

so in the original pic/designs… if I remember correctly jude and skipper were in police academy training to be cops and elliot was some punk ass kid theyd end up seeing around a lot cause he was in and out of holding for Delinquent Things, and ofc they magically became friends. Im pretty sure they were all 16/17 when I first made them which makes no sense at all (teen cops??? Ok) but like when ur 12, teenagers are Practically Adults BUT none of that is Canon TM anymore. In their redesign they range from early to late 20’s; I usually peg jude around 26-27, elliot is probably 23-24, and skipper is 21.

jude was the very first oc I ever made so shes always had a special place in my heart… I started churning out rapid fire ocs when I was in middle school that id toss when I was bored with em but shes the one that always stuck around!! Shes been a big honkin lesbian ever since her conception, so id use her a lot to express BabyGay feelings I didn’t really know how else to process. design wise I kinda just simplified her look; I have no fucking clue why she used to have an eyepatch and cat ears (I mean, I do, its because I was a weeb) but I got rid of those along with the scene hair and gave her longer hair with more natural waves and some freckles from spending a lot of time in the sun. her gray eyes and hair were always kind of her signature, so those got to stay! She mostly just wears anything that’s easy enough to move around and get work done in; tank tops, loose long skirts, etc. think futch hippy. anyways jude is now just a simple plant witch who uses her skills and connection with the elements to run a modest local farm, and even though shes fairly content in her lifestyle, she wants nothing more than a gf/wife that she can work hard to give a good life to :3c shes a hopeless romantic and has a bad habit of falling a little bit in love with every woman she meets, but shes mad shy when it comes to flirting, so more often than not shes just a sweaty ball of pining and infatuation. Whenever shes feeling some type of way about a girl she either obsessively takes on projects around the farm or house to distract herself or rants to her plants about how shes too afraid to express her feelings. RIP useless lesbian jude. Anyway shes the oldest of the trio, so shes very protective of elliot and skipper in a mother hen kind of way. She gets embarrassed when she realizes shes lecturing them like a cranky old maid, but they secretly don’t really mind it and often come to her for general life advice. I think her sign would be Taurus :3c (and probably an air moon since she’s kind of a space cadet)

elliot was REALLY FUN to redesign bc I honestly just wanted him to look like one of those people who had a HUGE scene phase way back when and just… never completely grew out of it lmao so I gave him the two-tone mullet he deserves, grown out roots hes definitely not gonna bother to re-bleach and re-dye, and piercing scars under his lip from where he used to have some tacky ass snakebites that he probably had to take out to get a job or something lol. he couldn’t completely give up piercings though, so the labret and gauges got to stay. Dudes not COMPLETELY stuck in 2007, but he does still enjoy a lot of the OG emo/punk bands and the fantasy of making it big in his own band and touring the country in a fashionably clunky van. He doesn’t exactly have a band, but hes working on that. Hes halfway decent on vocals and a guitar so he spends a lot of time combing through the local college town he lives and works in in hopes of finding some people who’d wanna play some gigs with him. But in the mean time, he works as a barista in a local café, which usually hooks him up by letting him do some acoustic sets at night every now and again. Hes a very warm and upbeat person, and will happily engage and talk the ear off of anyone close enough for him to do so, stranger or otherwise. He also regularly reminds jude and skipper how much he loves both of them and how glad he is that theyre all friends; He doesn’t really have much in the way of embarrassment or apprehension when it comes to what hes feeling. Hes the official unofficial “plan-maker” of the friend group and is able to bring them all together for quality time, because hes not at all passive like jude or skipper, and… usually has the most free time out of all of them lol. elliot is pure Leo and that’s about all there is to that

And finally, congratulations to skipper, who against all odds, looked normal enough that I didn’t really have to change anything at all about his design! Just had to ditch the uniform for your typical Tired Gay mustard sweaters. Skipper is an English major in his sophomore year of college who, like most people in their 20’s in liberal arts programs, is desperately trying to figure out what he wants out of life and also doesn’t know what sleeping or self-care is. He really enjoys writing, but doesn’t really know if he wants to do it for a living or if he even could. He grew up with pretty cold and distant parents, so on top of knowing they don’t really approve of his major, he pretty much always operates under the assumption that if hes not working himself to death hes not justifying the space hes taking up or the air hes breathing. Emotionally speaking hes more emo than elliot will ever be and his blood is probably 75% caffeine. He having kind of a rough time tbh but hes gritting it out in hopes that things become more clear eventually. He’d be way worse off if he didn’t have jude or elliot, who hes more thankful for than he can ever bring himself to express. They were essentially his first real, close friends, and despite skipper being incapable of asking for help, they always seem to know when he needs someone to talk to or even just a brief distraction; Jude has an open door policy for her farm and will let him come over and cuddle some rabbits or sit and talk over tea on her porch whenever he needs to, and elliot cant remember the last time hes made skipper pay for anything he ordered from the café, or the last time he even had to ask skipper what he wanted. Because hes the youngest of the three its sometimes their instinct to protect him, which embarrasses skipper out of his mind, but he knows they mean well. Hes the physical embodiment of Just Doing His Best and is a stone cold Capricorn

They’re still besties but basically met just from living in the same town; jude and elliot met when jude started providing the café’s local roast from the coffee beans she grew on her farm so elliot saw her fairly regularly and of course was like Oh Friend? Jude always liked how forthcoming elliot was as it complimented her generally reserved nature, and elliot always thought living on a farm and growing your own food was pretty punk rock and therefore pretty dang cool in his book. They both got to know skipper because he came to the café every. single. day. to ingest ungodly amounts of espresso and study all day, and when elliot took an interest in skipper, jude suggested he invite him to one of his gigs since the poor guy kinda looked like he needed a break. Skipper initially kind of politely shot elliot down, but jude took a chance and found skipper later to tell him how much itd mean to elliot, and that if it made him feel better she’d go with him, since going to events like this was different for her too. skipper apprehensively agreed at that point, and the rest is history !!! they all kinda hit it off after that

tl;dr

[ask-the-yugoslavbunch]

OC Tag

Tagged by @quiescentwriting ! Like a while back ahahaha

I’ll be talking about all my oc’s here in general when I can, but focusing on Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia.

1) What was the first element of your OC that you remember considering (name, appearance, backstory, etc.?)

Appearance aha I’m a visual person, so first thing I do when creating a character is draw them out and create everything else from that.

Or, well, their country actually??? But appearance was first thing down.

2) Did you design them with any other characters/OCs from their universe in mind?

Well, they are fandom oc’s so yes aha More specifically, I wanted Slovenia to have a connection to Austria to symbolize that long rule (Slo’s purple eyes) and his hair curl mimic’s Slovakia’s, Bos has a skin tone more similar to Turkey for that connection, Cro’s eyes are golden brown and green for his connection to N Italy and Hungary, and within my oc’s Serbia and Voj have always had the same shade of green eyes.

3) How did you choose their name?

Don’t even get me started on how long it took to settle on Serbia’s human name.

First it was Vuk because I liked the sound of it and felt wolf as a name meaning fit real well, but after a bit I was like “hmmm, why does an aph Serbia named Vuk sound familiar’ and remembered Yugotalia. So I changed Vuk even though it was my top choice because I didn’t want people coming in my inbox like ‘WHY U STEALING FROM TIX.’ Sooo, I changed it to something else and used one of the many Vuk-related last names instead. Picked a new name (which I don't remember anymore) but then googled it with his last name and like.....an article in Serbian about a grave robber came up so I changed that name.... Went through two more names I didn’t like before settling on Novak.

Also I 100% did not choose it because of the tennis player. I actually originally actively ignored it and went with Vuk because choosing a name of a celebrity is eh, but I was so fed up trying to find a name that I forgot about him and went with Novak (which sounded good to my ears) and like......2 months later the Olympics happened and I was looking up tennis scores and saw Djokovic’s name and just went ‘GODAMNIT’ But didn’t change it again ahaha

For Bosnia, I didn’t actually want to go with Lejla because I don’t really like choosing the most common names, but Lejla/Layla in all spellings has been one of my fav names since forever so Lejla it is.

Slovenia was a good boy, it didn’t take me too long to settle on Primož.

Cro was almost as bad as Serbia in finding a name. Nothing sounded right to me? And Sounding Right is a big part in choosing names for me so he went nameless quite a while. Eventually settled on Krešimir because it sounded the least bad.....I love it now though, he’s forever Krešo in my head.

4) In developing their backstory, what elements of the world they live in played the most influential parts?

Well. I mean the being countries bit? I’m not totally sure how to answer this.

5) Is there any significance behind their hair colour?

They all have brown hair because that’s the most common color in their countries.

Fun fact for Slo: he originally had a darker hair color, but then I realized that uh.....it was a reallyyyyy similar shade of brown I used for Slovakia and like I’m not that mean, so I lightened his hair.

6) Is there any significance behind their eye colour?

None for Bos, besides it being the most common color. I’m also pretty sure I picked green for Serbia because I wanted him to stand out among the other oc’s as I don't think any other male Serbia has green eyes.

Slo, as mentioned above, has purple eyes to connect him to Austria to signify the loooong time Slovenia was under Austrian rule.

And, again, mentioned above for Cro it’s a connection to both N Italy and Hungary.

7) Is there any significance behind their height?

They’re all really, really tall because this area has some of the tallest people in the world! Slovenia is the shortest of the men because they have the shortest height, but he’s still closer to 6 foot than he isn’t.

8) What (if anything) do you relate to within their character/story?

Not gonna lie, hope I don’t relate much to them because yikes, they are not human beings and have done Some Things. But uuuuh, Serb and Cro’s confidence, Slo’s love of literature, Bos’s fashion sense.

9) Are they based off of you, in some way?

I mean, what oc isn’t really? These guys aren’t based on me much though. At most, I’m super feminine and like super feminine characters being unashamedly feminine and created Bosnia with that in mind when I revamped her as a girl.

10) Did you know what the OC’s sexuality would be at the time of their creation?

Yes/No. I have complicated headcanon’s about the nature of nation’s gender and sexuality in the hetalia verse, so I already knew those, but sexualities in like human au’s is always fluid and changing for these guys. Or in the case of Slo, just straight up doesn’t exist.

11) What have you found to be most difficult about creating art for your OC (any form of art: Writing, drawing, edits, etc.)?

Nothing really? Writing maybe, if I had to pick.

12) How far past the canon events that take place in their world have you extended their story, if at all?

Well. I can’t see the future so not very P:

13) If you had to narrow it down to 2 things that you MUST keep in mind while working with your OC, what would those things be?

Serb: He’s incredibly complicated. Fun, extroverted guy is a cover for all sorts of much deeper inner thoughts.

Cro: He has a quick temper that can get bad, but is usually pretty jovial and joking. He’s more brawn than brains, but is still pretty intuitive.

Slo: He wants what other people have so always acts “proper.” He’s also a bit more mentally young than you would expect.

Bos: She is the gentlest, friendliest person you’ll ever meet. She’s also a simmering ball of anger and resentment deep inside.

14) What is something about your OC that can make you laugh?

They are all dorks so, so much sdhfjksd

Bos totally never had a crush on Turkey nope. Serbia’s secret love of Turkish soap operas. Kid!Croatia being down to fight anything. Turning Slo into a meme every few months on this blog.

15) What is something about your OC can make you cry?

Uuuuuh, all of their histories? And having to figure out how to incorporate that into a single person who faced all that trauma? Not a happy little corner here...

16) Is there some element you regret adding to your OC or their story?

Nnnnnnno. Most of the stuff I would regret, I never officially added to their stories and kept it in my head.

17) What is the most recent thing you’ve discovered about your OC?

Oh gosh. Slovenia, I’ve decided, keeps bees. That’s the only one I can think of at the moment ;;

18) What is your favourite fact about your OC?

Croatia spent a few years as a kid as a pirate.

Slovenia writes poetry but is embarrassed to admit he does.

Bosnia was an absolute little shit as a kid.

Serbia absolutely loves soap opera’s and chick flicks and the like and will do anything to keep that a secret.

[bbclesmis]

Collider: Lily Collins on ‘Les Miserables’, Isolating Herself to Play Fantine, and ‘Tolkien’

From award-winning screenwriter Andrew Davies, the latest dramatic adaptation of Les Misérables (airing on Masterpiece on PBS) is a six-part epic story that delves deep into the many layers of Victor Hugo’s story. Exploring the cat-and-mouse relationship between Jean Valjean (Dominic West) and Javert (David Oyelowo) with a modern relevancy in its powerful themes, plotting and characterizations, all set against the backdrop of France at a time of civil unrest.

During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, actress Lily Collins (who plays the tragic seamstress Fantine) talked about the incredible experience she had making Les Misérables, the unexpected way they shot the episodes, why it was a gift to get to explore all of the characters so much deeper with the extra hours to tell this story, her first introduction to the story, and staying in Europe to explore some of the surrounding areas once the shoot wrapped. She also talked about her experience making Tolkien and what a huge The Lord of the Rings fan she is, as well as her desire to do comedy, even though it makes her nervous.

Collider:  You’ve certainly been amassing a very interesting collection of characters.

LILY COLLINS:  Oh, thank you! I know. My friends are like, “Couldn’t you maybe just do a comedy?” And yes, it’s a dream. I wanna do a comedy. Something more lighthearted, for a second, would be nice.

Is comedy something that you’ve actually tried to actively seek out?

COLLINS:  No, it’s something that I now am wanting to put out there. I would love to do a comedy. I love comedies. I love old school comedies, and new comedies. In order to appreciate the darker stories, it’s always nice to have the lighter. My friends hear about all of these filming experiences, where I’m off on these different locations, shooting these characters that have tragic stories, or that have tragedy but end in positivity, and they’re like, “Just do a film that we can go to, on a Saturday night, and watch and laugh about it.” One day, I’ll get there.

Does comedy make you nervous?

COLLINS:  Yes. There are so many different forms of comedy. There are so many ways to make someone laugh, and sometimes things are not funny. It’s a different world. But just like being surrounded by David [Oyelowo] and Dominic [West] on [Les Misérables], to be surrounded by the best comedians would only teach me more. I feel like it would maybe help raise my game, with the ability to improv. When you’re faced with anyone at the top of their game, it makes you wanna be better. It also just helps you be more in the moment ‘cause you’re not worried about what they’re thinking. They’re just on it, and that really helps. With [Les Mis], some of the dramatic moments, where my character is having to flail for her life and begging for her life on the floor, I can’t think about any of the peripheral distraction. You just have to be so focused in on the other person, when that person is giving you everything. Whether that’s in comedy or drama, it’s a huge gift ‘cause then it allows you to just give of yourself, so much more. It’s a blessing. Comedy is just a different beast, but it’s still a beast that I wanna be able to be a part of.

When you finished this, what did you go do?

COLLINS:  It’s interesting, in the beginning, I was really quite frustrated with the order that we were shooting this in, but then, I actually ended up loving it. I did Tolkien, in the end of 2017. Then, I did the table read for this in January 2018, went straight home to L.A. and packed, and then went off to Kentucky and did Bundy (Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile). Then, I went back to L.A. and had three days, unpacked and re-packed, and then went to Brussels and started shooting this. I had no idea where I was, but I honestly think that helped so much. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile was dark, so going from that mind-set into this one was really helpful ‘cause it wasn’t like I was shooting some comedy and had to backtrack, all of a sudden. My second day of filming on this was the deathbed scene in Episode 3. I literally started at the end of Fantine’s life, in the dead of winter, and then go back in the summer, where I then had Episode 1, when you meet her, and she’s young, naive and falling in love. At first, I thought, “Oh, my god, I’m starting this at the end. No pressure there. I don’t even know where I’ve come from, to know where I’m ending.” I didn’t think that was ideal. But then, it actually turned out to be perfect ‘cause not only was it minus temperatures and snowing, and she’s wearing minimal clothing, but I looked so sick and decrepit. I had never really spend that much time in Brussels, so I was feeling all of these feelings that Fantine would have been feeling, which was brilliant. I try to use my surroundings and my feelings for the betterment of the character, and I got to take it all the way to the end and see the worst, before stepping away for about a month and going back in the summer, when it was 95 degrees, and sunny and beautiful. When I went back, I got to shoot all of her beginning, and because I knew how bad it got, I got to make the happy side 10 million times happier, just to show the distinct polarities between the two. I think starting in the middle would’ve been the worst because not knowing where you started or where you’re ended would mean that you wouldn’t know how far to take it. I was so happy to end in the summer, on a happier note, because I was more back to myself than I would have been, if I’d ended with the death sequences. I was already in Europe, so I just stayed in Europe and took a little vacation with a friend of mine. We went to Italy, and attended a film festival and just detoxed a little bit. And then, I went back to L.A.

It seems like it would have been so hard to end with her death, and then have to walk away.

COLLINS:  It would have been too finite. I would have needed to completely revamp myself and come back to some reality. But because I had that break, in between, to go back home before going back in the summer, I was able to become excited to go back, knowing it would just be a completely different environment. I was gonna have friends because Fantine has friends, so there were gonna be younger people that I could go exploring Brussels with. Also, during the summer, I found out that you can just take trains and hop around to different castles and explore Brussels for the beauty of what Belgium has to offer, as opposed to holding myself away and being somewhat depressed because Fantine was depressed. I didn’t want people visiting. I was like, “I love you mom, but please don’t come visit me because I think [the isolation] is actually really helping.” She’s alone in the world, so I was like, “I’m just gonna hole away, for a second.” It required that.

It sounds like a pretty incredible experience, overall.

COLLINS:  I grew up in Europe, but I never had that experience of backpacking around Europe, or taking a train somewhere, just because. On this, I made a friend for life in the hair and make-up department, and when the schedule permitted or on weekends, we would just take a bag and get on the train in the morning and go to Antwerp, Bruges or Ghent, and visit castles and cathedrals, or just go eat somewhere different, and then come back. It was a version of just hopping around Europe with a backpack. I went to England, and I went to France. The fact that, within an hour and a half, you could be in a different country, and they didn’t even ask for my passport, was amazing. I really felt like I got to have this epic adventure while shooting an epic adventure. It was great.

When you have so many extra hours to explore this story, does it seem like such a gift, as an actor, to get to go so much deeper than we typically get to see in film versions?

COLLINS:  Oh, yeah. It’s written in the novel, but you’ve only really heard about her falling in love and having a child through a song lyric. With this not being a musical version, it enabled us to see more of the drama. It’s a six-parter, so you get many more hours with the ability to show more, especially for Fantine. In the film version, you usually cut into her life, half-way through when she’s already working in the factory. I was excited because Tom [Shankland], our director, was very much about inserting bits of myself into Fantine. What does her naive, youthful, more loving side, at the beginning, look like? When she’s meeting this guy, what does is that scene like? When she has Cosette, what is she like as a mother? How does she hold her baby? How does she calm her down? Those were all these things that we got to discuss and decide together. At least we’re not singing, so you can’t have that comparison. We haven’t really seen any of these scenes before. To me, that was actually really exciting. There’s more screen time to figure out who she is. All of that would’ve been backstory, which is great, but I got to live it out. I think that also allows the audience to have more empathy for her, at the end, when you’ve seen her get left. You’ve seen those moments where she’s hopeful, so the audience will be like, “No. Don’t open the door. Don’t go in the dark. Don’t go into the dungeon. Don’t fall for him ‘cause he’s gonna leave you.” Because we all know the story so well, to allow the audience to have more empathy for her, at the end, is made stronger by the fact that they get to fall in love with her, at the beginning. That allowed me to know where I was going, and where I had been, in order to have those deep polarities, and to create such an arc for a character. It’s six episodes, and I die in Episode 3. Even though she’s only in half, what you’re left with of her has to help propel Jean Valjean, for the rest of the story, so you need to see all of those sides of her, that provided for that lightness in her, just to believe the story, as much as you can.

What was your first introduction to Les Mis?

COLLINS:  Being in school and going to the library. I used to go to the library a lot, to do research for projects, before the internet was really big. Wikipedia was not a valid source for your bibliography then, so you needed to go to the library and source it. I was always at the library, and Les Mis was always there. You can’t miss it. It’s so massive, but it’s also such a classical story that’s well-renowned. You’d hear about it in school, especially talking about the French Revolution and post-revolutionary France. It’s so historical and it’s based in so much history, that it was impossible not to know about it. And then, growing up in the West End and seeing the musical, it’s the longest running musical. And then, it was in the States. So, if you’re a lover of literature and entertainment, in whatever capacity, it’s impossible not to know what Les Mis is. And I had friends in the musical movie, so I had heard about that and their experience doing it. I just never knew that it would ever come around to me. Had I known that, in elementary school and high school, I probably would have done more highlighting and taking notes. Knowing and deeply respecting it, but never expecting to be in it, was the best attitude to have. I felt like I had grown up around it, but at the same time, knew very little of what my character would go through, at least from the beginning. It was a really nice introduction to it, in a new way. So, I felt like it had always been there, and yet there was still so much to learn, that I could almost start from the ground up with Tom. He didn’t overly encourage watching any of the previous renditions again. It was really novel-based, with deep discussions about how we felt the scenes should go.

While it’s such an epic story that must be a dream to tackle, it also seems terrifying.

COLLINS:  Yeah, there definitely was an anxiety portion of it, just because I always wanna give 110%, with whatever I do. This character required the physicality and the emotion of 110%, all the time, especially in the later part of her life. So, I was really excited to see where I would be able to go with it, just to know what I’m capable of, but also to allow the character to live and breathe, in a new way. It’s something that I will never forget shooting. Everything about it is just so stunning. Some moments are like paintings. It’s just beautiful. I’m really happy with it.

What was your experience making Tolkien like?

COLLINS:  That was actually really fun. I’m a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. I love anything magical, like The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and any of that. I’m like, “Just give me a marathon.” But, I didn’t know much about Tolkien. I had actually auditioned for one of the elven characters in the last The Lord of the Rings films, but I obviously didn’t get it. It’s ironic that I ended up playing the woman that inspired the elven characters and the elven queen. I’ve been a huge fan of Nicholas Hoult for years. I’ve known him socially, and he’s just such a wonderful person. So, when I heard that he was doing it, I was interested. And our director, Dome [Karukoski], is such a visionary and so passionate about what he does. With the aesthetics that he wanted to bring to this movie, I thought the way that he was gonna blend the fantasy world of Tolkien and the reality of his life was such an interesting marriage. It could have gone in many different ways and been either too fantasy-based, or it didn’t weave the two correctly. But the way that he wanted to tell it was so inspiring that I thought, “This is the way that I’d want to tell the story.” And it’s Fox Searchlight and their taste in movies is so interesting. The way that they tell these stories behind the stories about authors is so fascinating. As a kid that grew up reading, I hope reading doesn’t ever die out. Reading is becoming less and less of a thing for kids, in terms of holding a book, and I remember holding books, and going to the library and just immersing myself in these worlds. The Lord of the Rings was a huge part of that ‘cause it had so much fantasy. So, to be able to bring it to a new audience, in a way of better understanding where it all came from, humanizes the stories in a way that we haven’t seen before. And we got to shoot in Liverpool, which was really fun. I’d never been up there. We also had a really fun cast, with a lot of young people that are fascinating. It was a really fun period drama. Les Mis is quite dramatic. With this, you really get to see a young couple that’s growing up and figuring out who they are, and encouraging one another to embrace those quirks that people don’t normally understand. There’s a lot that can be understood through Tolkien about today’s society. It’s a very modern story, just set in a different time.

Les Misérables airs on Sunday nights on Masterpiece on PBS.

x

[voidscattered]

BLOG REVAMP IS UP AND RUNNING

Since the only major difference is the backstory, I’m gonna put it up here for you all. I would’ve made it shorter but I honestly couldn’t find a way to without cutting out important stuff. Feel free to ask Gaster any questions you have, and if he doesn’t know the answer I’ll answer them for him!

I know it’s long, but please read this!

Background:

In the early 1600s, Gaster was created in a Muscogee Creek village by a man named Chelokeeilitchee (Chekilli). Due to the nature of creating a monster, Gaster had a soul bond with Chekilli. This gave them a constant feeling of how the other was doing and a general idea of where they were. They lived peacefully for the first 24 years of his life. Grillby was created a year after Gaster by Chekilli’s sister and helped her with her work while Gaster helped Chekilli with his, sometimes experimenting with magic or trading with the Europeans. He started learning English through this, but didn’t become fluent in it until the Underground.

The War Between Monsters and Humans started in the European colonies and spread into the Native American civilizations. Most natives fought alongside the monsters, though some fought against. With antimagic on the human’s side, though, monsters were eradicated quickly. The survivors were captured, bound with diluted antimagic so they couldn’t cast magic yet still survived, and thrown behind the barrier. Gaster and Grillby were captured by a faction of humans called the Monster Hunters, known for torturing their captors. They both still have scars from it, though they hide them well. The only ones Gaster hasn’t been able to hide are the cracks on his face. It also brought him to the point of such extreme distress and agitation that it broke the soul bond with Chekilli, which was very much the worst pain he'd ever experienced and probably ever will. He wears his scarf to hide the scars from the injury that triggered it.

Most of the trapped monsters died beneath the mountain from lack of magical energy from the sun. The ones that survived never strayed far from the few holes that allowed light in. As the population started to grow and there became less and less space for the amount of light, Gaster came up with the idea to make the Core as a way to provide magical energy to everyone in the Underground so they wouldn’t have to worry about staying near the sun. While the project was a success overall, future experiments to try and reach other universes accidentally created an opening to the void beneath the Core. It spread quickly, but he and his assistants managed to contain it before it spread too far. This destabilized the Core, resulting in a much lower output of magical energy and unpredictable fluctuations.

Gaster had previously experimented with determination, going so far as to inject some into himself to see what would happen. This widened the cracks on his face even more and he immediately stopped. His mental health after the War was never good, but he’d been in a particularly low point when, through experiments (a couple of which involved cutting out the holes in his hands), he discovered that a combination of determination and magic might stabilize the Core. It wasn’t perfect, but he figured that maybe if a consciousness was there to strengthen the determination, it would work. Convincing himself it was solely to save the residents of the Underground, he dropped Sans and Papyrus (who he’d adopted after their parents were dusted by a fallen human) off with Grillby, and he dropped himself into the Core and the void. The reaction dragged in the assistants that were there at the time, though they had a much closer hold on reality than he did. The only reason Gaster had any connection to his world in the first place was because, in a panic, he cast a spell that connected his life force to Sans’. His right eye was blinded and he would die if Sans did, but he could lend Sans his power, communicate with him through feelings, and Sans wouldn’t die if he did.

Now:

Despite being able to see all possible time paths in the universe, including a few ways that he might be able to get out of the void (not that he could do much to influence people's actions to go in that direction), his escape caught him entirely off guard, because it had nothing to do with his universe at all. In another universe, something went wrong to a certain Tardis mid-flight and she slipped into the void. Gaster and the (Tenth) Doctor immediately hit it off, and upon discovering his situation, the Doctor managed to get the Tardis out and into the skeleton’s universe. Along the way to figure out how to get Gaster out of the void as well as make sure the Core will stay stabilized, he met and made friends with Sans, Papyrus, and Alphys. He met Flowey and convinced him he’d find a way to get him a soul, thereby forming a truce.

After getting Gaster out of the void, the Doctor tried his hand at breaking the barrier and the resets. Gaster, Sans, and Papyrus, with Flowey inside but not joining them, helped the Doctor drive the Tardis into the fourth dimension. There the Doctor managed to succeed in breaking the barrier and resets, but when trying to get back to the third dimension, they went into a completely different universe instead.

In the three weeks of dimension hopping before managing to find their way back home, they visited many different universes, including Underswap, Handplates, another universe similar to Gaster’s, a universe similar to the Doctor’s, the Marvel universe (Tony Stark and Gaster do not get along), Detective Conan, and Fullmetal Alchemist. They became good friends with the Pines in the Gravity Falls universe and Hiccup and some dragons in the How to Train Your Dragon universe due to being stuck in each of those worlds for extended periods of time. Along the way, the Doctor actually managed to accidentally reform Flowey’s soul, and he shifted between his flower form and goat form a couple times depending on his mood before his soul fully formed and settled on the goat form. He can now change between forms at will.

After getting the skeletons back home and hanging out for a little, the Doctor got back to his universe with Asriel joining him. While traveling they picked up Jack Harkness and discovered Jenny and they became a little family unit (and the Doctor, as well as Jack, finally got some freaking therapy cuz they honestly really need it). Everyone kept in contact via interdimensional phones made in the Gravity Falls universe. The Doctor regenerated during this time.

A year after being dropped off, with the Doctor and Ford's help on design, Gaster finished creating a portal, allowing them all to visit each other again. However, along the way there was a mishap with a regulating panel on the portal and voidal radiation flooded the room. Gaster managed to stop it, but in the process some of the radiation got into his body and bonded with it. As such, he now glitches out if he gets startled or agitated. If not careful, he could glitch straight back into the void. If careful, he can intentionally glitch himself out to avoid an attack.

Given that monsters were freed a year before Frisk would've fallen into the Underground, Chara was never awoken. However, the first time the Tardis family came back to the Undertale universe, they all went on a tour on the main path in the Underground. The Doctor entered the room Chara was buried in before Frisk (who was also on the tour) did, and his levels of determination were high enough for him to be the one to accidentally pick up Chara instead, though that wouldn't be discovered for six more months. Around this time, Gaster reunited with Chekilli and he and the skelebros moved in with him. They also ran into some alternate versions of themselves and helped them get back home to their universe via the portal.

. . . Many other things happened after that but there are no clean ways to group them. Gaster and Sans started up therapy and both ended up getting service animals (Sans' as emotional support, Gaster's as emotional support and to wake him up if he starts glitching in the middle of the night due to nightmares). Gaster got ambushed by the same people who had kidnapped and tortured him before (life extension spells) and gave him cracks to almost mirror his other ones before the Doctor rescued him. A lot of relationship building between everyone, but especially Gaster, the Doctor, Jack, and River Song. The Doctor and Jack officially being in a relationship and the Doctor actually proposing to him. Plans to get Chara an actual body. Bill freaking stealing the body they were going to get because he tricked them into a deal (he was previously trapped in a laptop in the Tardis). Due to the fact that the body was intended to be possessed by and bonded to a spirit anyway, though, Bill wasn't able to leave and lost his powers, essentially becoming human. He now sulks in the Tardis and is carefully kept away from anyone he could easily manipulate or hurt.

There was also one point when, due to how close and touchy feely Gaster and the Doctor were with each other, multiple people, including friends and family, confused them for being in love with each other, which confused them themselves for a bit about how they were feeling and they actually went on a date to test it out and it all felt wrong so they vehemently decide they were not even close to being in love. A surefire way to fluster Gaster from embarrassment is to mention the fact that a kiss did happen during this time (in fact, it was the defining factor that made them realize no they do not want this).

At one point when they discovered that the alternate version of the Doctor had started using "they" pronouns instead of "he" (the alt Tardis fam discovered that timelords don't really have a concept of gender due to being able to switch sexes and gender not really being a thing among them, so the Doctor honestly doesn't really care what pronouns people use, and the family wanted to use neutral pronouns for them to respect their culture the best they could and the Doctor ended up actually liking and somewhat preferring the pronoun change for that reason), they decided to do the same thing.

With how close Gaster and the Doctor had gotten and with magic infiltrating the Doctor's soul, they eventually formed a rare natural soul bond. So rare that there are only really a hundred of them on the Earth at any given moment. Natural ones (ie not resulting from creating a monster) only form between the closest of people. Due to it bringing up some trauma in both of them (Gaster being terrified that the bond will break again and the Doctor having to deal with how similar it is to a timelord mental bond, which they can never have anymore), they're currently still figuring out how to navigate it.

More will be added as important events come up.

[dancingwithdylan21]

Stripped - Part 2

Summary: Being a high powered publicist, the reader is hired to work with the destructive rock star Dylan O’Brien. Her task is to revamp his difficult image from the ground up. Will the reader succeed? Or will she get sucked into his crazy life?

Pairing: rockstar!Dylan x Reader

Word Count: 2,381

Part 1

~

“You must be out of your damn mind, beautiful.” Dylan’s sudden shift in attitude catches you off guard, the smugness oozing out of him giving you goosebumps.

Why does this infuriating man have to be sexy as hell? And why does he have to be your client?! You continue to focus on Dylan who’s now licking his kissable lips and it’s driving you insane. You need to shut this down. Now.

“Give me your phone.” You sternly command springing up from the couch. Within seconds you’re standing in front of the intoxicating man with your palm held out.

“Excuse me.” Dylan immediately growls slipping back into his anger filled persona.

“Hand over your phone, Dylan.” You repeat loudly, successfully holding back an eye roll.

“And why would I do that?”

“Cutting off communication. Remember? You’ll get it back eventually.”

“Just do it, man. I’ll text the important people, tell them to contact me if they need to reach you.” Tyler adds as he stands up to stretch his legs around the room.

“This is happening whether you like it or not. Just go with the flow and make it easier on all of us. Ok?” You add.

“It’s password protected ya know. You won’t be able to snoop on my ass.” Dylan huffs with aggravation, then unwillingly pulls his iPhone from his jeans front pocket.

“Oh darn. My master plan is foiled.” You sass back, not able to stop the giggle that follows. Tyler joins in himself, ignoring the unimpressed puss on the rock star’s face.

“So what’s the plan?” Tyler asks quietly, looking apprehensive but also hopeful.

You bring your attention back to Dylan who’s sporting a pout as he sinks himself deeper into the couch. He’s doing his best to watch the Friends rerun on TV but you can tell he’s too distracted at the moment.

“Let’s go talk on the balcony, Ty.” You quickly open up the glass slider door and settle into one of the cloth covered chairs. You can hear muffled grumblings from the two men until Tyler stalks outside shutting the slider behind him.

“What did you get me into, dude?” You ask slightly amused as you watch Dylan through the glass door. Talk about glorified babysitting.

“Trust me, I know. The thing that kills me is that he’s a good guy, he just…he does bad shit.” Tyler replies dragging his hand down his face. The poor guy looks exhausted and you realize that this plan needs to work not just for O’Brien but for everyone in his life.

“I just told him that he’s gonna be cut off from everyone and everything. An addict would be panicking and freaking the fuck out. Wanting to score as much shit as they can instead he’s sulking like a little kid.”

“Dylan doesn’t get high as much as you’d think. At least not with the hard stuff.” Tyler wearily admits fumbling with the hem of his collared shirt.

“What…”

“Dyl uses to distract himself when shit gets to be too much inside of his head. It happens sporadically. The bastard is lucky enough that it hasn’t turned into an addiction yet.”

“Then why the rehab?” You wonder skeptically.  

“To stop his antics. O’Brien is a stubborn fucker, Y/N. He won’t listen to anyone. I needed a way of keeping him under control. And rehab did that.”

“Tyler...“

"I know, I know. But listen…I’ve known Dylan for fifteen years. He gets into these destructive phases where any and all common sense flies out the fucking window. I know the signs by now and he was on the verge like six months ago. Hence his most recent stint in rehab.”

You can sense Tyler’s sudden hesitation, he searches your face like he’s debating if he should continue on or not. He’s praying that you make good on your word instead of abandoning this whole arrangement.

“I remember reports of him overdosing like a year ago. Was that true?” You ask curiously.

“Unfortunately. It was the anniversary of his mom’s death. He was already super stressed to begin with, everything became overwhelming and he went crazy.” Tyler sighs heavily flashing back to that awful night.

He found his friend’s bloody, unconscious body lying in a heap of broken glass. Of all the places O’Brien could have passed out, he ends up crashing down onto a glass coffee table.

“I know it wasn’t deliberate. But I also know…at the time he would’ve been fine with whatever the outcome.”

“Jesus Christ, Tyler. Please tell me you at least know the root of all this?”

“Mostly family problems. His dad specifically. They’ve had a volatile relationship ever since Dylan’s mom Lisa died. He was 18 when it happened.”

“I guess I can add daddy issues to the list.” You add softly making Tyler sadly nod his head in response.

“The poor bastard’s been dealing with the guilt and bullshit from his father for almost 12 years now. Honestly I don’t blame him for wanting a break from it.”

“Guilt about what?” You sneak a peek at Dylan to see that he’s now fast asleep. He’s slouched down further onto the couch and propped his boots up on a nearby ottoman. He looks so peaceful that you momentarily forget that he’s a pain in the ass. The moment passes though when you hear what Tyler’s about to say.

“His dad blames him for Lisa’s death and he thinks his son doesn’t deserve all of his success. It’s why Dylan has a love/hate relationship with his career. He’s passionate about it but then the remorse sets in and he almost wants to destroy it.”

“Shit. Was it…I mean…did he…” You stumble out not expecting that answer.

“Yes it was his fault but it was an accident. It’s not my place to get into details, hopefully you’ll get him to open up eventually.”

Well this is just fucking dandy. You’ve dealt with difficult situations before with your job but this one takes the cake. The fact that you have a personal history with one of the people involved makes this harder. And it definitely piles on more pressure than usual.

Deciding you’ve found out enough backstory for now, you and Tyler start nailing down details for this ridiculous operation. He fills you in on where the rockstar likes to go to relax and you have the perfect place in mind. You know this whole process will be tough enough for Dylan, so there’s no way in hell he’s going to another hotel. Too many temptations.

Heading back into the hotel room, you notice Dylan is now wide awake and shoving fruit loops into his mouth. Oh how this man kills you.

“Ok dude…we leave first thing tomorrow morning. So pack everything up that you need because you’re not coming back here.” You inform him, blocking his view of the TV screen.

“Huh?” Dylan mumbles with his mouth full, looking adorably perplexed by your words. Although his innocent act doesn’t last long once he realizes you’re on to his game.

“Do me a favor, O’Brien. Stay. Here. Do not leave this hotel room until I come and get you tomorrow. And no visitors either. Your disappearing act starts now.”

“Yeah that doesn’t work for me.” He waves you off with a defiant smile then continues eating his cereal.

“Don’t worry, Y/N. I’ll keep an eye on him.” Tyler shoots you a wink and it makes Dylan throw his head back while moaning theatrically. Drama queen.

You say your goodbyes then rush home and get to work. You don’t have much time to get your preparations in order. Fortunately this isn’t your first rodeo and you have plenty of connections that can help out in a pinch.

Your friend Veronica, who’s a realtor, sends you info on rentals that have immediate availability. You find one that sounds like a winner then continue to get ready for this lovely adventure you’re about to endure.

~

The next mornings sun shines too soon and you seriously regret checking your phone. You have a google alert setup for Dylan’s name, so anytime the fucker makes headlines you get notified. And you’ve been notified a shit ton since you fell asleep last night.

Not only did the difficult rock star go out last night, his drunken ass hit a plethora of bars and clubs in LA. The evidence of it is littered everywhere online. Thanks so much for the help, Tyler.

Apparently Dylan’s god damn chaperone needs a chaperone himself. Fucking men. They never listen. You gave one simple instruction and Dylan couldn’t keep his annoying self in line. And Tyler…well Tyler’s gonna get a god damn earful once you see him.  

You stroll lazily up to your client’s hotel room door with Starbucks in hand. After a couple of knocks, the door swings open to reveal a very large bald man who’s sizing you up.

“Victor?” You giggle remembering Tyler’s description of Dylan’s driver. Apparently he looks like a Rottweiler but has a heart of gold like a Golden Retriever.

“Yes, ma'am but you can call me Vic.” He holds out his hand. “And you must be, Y/N. Come on in.”

You trail behind Vic into the other room and what’s before you is almost comical. There’s a hungover rock star sitting next to a nervous looking manager and they both look pretty miserable.

“Hello, boys. You ready to get this shitshow on the road?” You question fighting back a yawn.

Tyler looks ready to speak but suddenly decides against it, instead he just nods in your direction. Dylan barely grunts a response, yanking his worn Mets baseball cap down further onto his head.

Everyone finally piles into Vic’s dark SUV to settle in for the long ride. Of course he’s the only one who knows where you’re all headed. You decide it’s better to keep the other two in the dark for the time being.

You let the quiet car ride go on for a bit. Mostly because you want your coffee to kick in before mentioning last night. Although the stupid cup of java is not strong enough because you’re still fucking sleepy. Screw it.

“So tell me what happened last night, people. Cause it sure as hell wasn’t what we agreed on.” You glance between the two handsome men getting different reactions from each.

“For the record, I didn’t agree to shit.” Dylan interjects earning himself a dirty expression.

“It’s my fault. I fell asleep.” Tyler looks like a poor wounded animal and you almost feel bad for him. Almost.

“You had one job, man.” You groan flicking the side of his head with your finger.

“And you…” You quickly twist yourself around towards the backseat to where Dylan’s sitting.

“Your drunken ass got around everywhere last night huh? There’s a ton of pictures circulating online right now. All of which you’re clearly shitfaced!" You exclaim as a huge grin graces Dylan’s face.

“I was thirsty, Y/N.”

“Dylan…”

“Oh relax. No one saw me punch a douche bag named Brett in the VIP lounge at Hyde. I did good.” He says proudly.

“Son of a bitch! You were supposed to stay home, O’Brien.”  Ugh. It’s too early for this shit.

“Oops.”

“Oops? You can take your oops and shove it up your ass, pretty boy.” You narrow your eyes in his direction.

“Aw you think I’m pretty?” Dylan retorts without missing a beat.

“Piss off.” You mutter grumpily shifting back around in your seat.

“Well Y/N’s definitely a morning person.” Dylan cackles, making sure to file this useful tidbit away for the future.

“Where we going?” Tyler wonders out loud.

“You’ll see soon.”

“I need my beauty sleep. Wake me up when we get there.” Dylan mumbles stretching out in the backseat.

The tension that was once in the car has disappeared and you decide to lean your head back and rest as well. You actually get some shut eye but it’s rudely interrupted by a panicked hand shaking you.

“Is this…is that a lake?” Tyler’s shocked reaction continues as he whips his head around to look at everything we drive by.

“You’re a smart one.” You deadpan.

“But…”

“Shhh. Don’t wake Dylan up yet.” You whisper as Vic turns onto a long dirt road that leads to the house you picked out.

Tyler’s eyes are now bugging out of his skull and he looks ready to jump out of the moving car. For the love of god. These guys are so friggin high maintenance.

Once the car is thrown into park, you gingerly exit through the passenger side door. Tyler follows suit and waves you over to move away from the car. This should be good.

“This is a lake house!” Tyler does his best to keep his voice low while gesturing around wildly.

“And? You said he likes being by the water.”

“The ocean, Y/N. Don’t play stupid. I vetoed the lake house idea. They remind Dyl of the one his family had growing up. He refuses to go near one.”

“Yes I’m aware.” You shrug casually.

“Are you insane?”

“Probably. Regardless Dylan needs to face this shit, Tyler. Clearly the way he’s been coping isn’t working for him.”

“I know but…”

“O’Brien is a grown man. He can handle it…he’ll have to.”

“What the fuck?!” Oh shit. The beast is awake. You twirl around to see Dylan fuming as he takes in his tranquil surroundings.

“Welcome to your new place of residence.” You saunter over to him, pretending that rage isn’t painted on his features. Normally you’d be intimidated as fuck but you’re still too half asleep to care right now.

“You’ve gone too far, L/N. I’m officially done with this bullshit. You’re fired.” He seethes through gritted teeth.

“Nope. Tyler hired me.” You counter with sly smile.

“Oh he’s fired too.” Dylan shoots back before laying his whiskey brown eyes on his manger.

“You’re fired!” He loudly shouts at Tyler before turning his gaze to his driver.  

“And you’re fired!” The rockstar points at Vic then starts to furiously pace back and forth.

“Dylan…”

“Everyone’s fired!” He barks practically stomping the hard ground with his work boot.

“And here I thought you were gonna overreact.” You smirk knowingly. “Thanks for proving me wrong, O’Brien."

~

Masterlist 

[dancingalone21]

Stripped - Part 2

Summary: Being a high powered publicist, the reader is hired to work with the destructive rock star Jensen Ackles. Her task is to revamp his difficult image from the ground up. Will the reader succeed? Or will she get sucked into his crazy life? 

Pairing: rockstar!Jensen x Reader

Word Count: 2,429

Part 1

“You must be out of your damn mind, beautiful.” Jensen’s sudden shift in attitude catches you off guard, the smugness oozing out of him giving you goosebumps.

Why does this infuriating man have to be sexy as hell? And why does he have to be your client?! You continue to focus on Jensen who's now licking his kissable lips and it’s driving you insane. You need to shut this down. Now.

"Give me your phone." You sternly command springing up from the couch. Within seconds you're standing in front of the intoxicating man with your palm held out.

"Excuse me." Jensen immediately growls slipping back into his anger filled persona.

"Hand over your phone, Jensen." You repeat loudly, successfully holding back an eye roll.

"And why would I do that?"

"Cutting off communication. Remember? You'll get it back eventually."

"Just do it, man. I'll text the important people, tell them to contact me if they need to reach you." Matt adds as he stands up to stretch his legs around the room.

"This is happening whether you like it or not. Just go with the flow and make it easier on all of us. Ok?"

"It's password protected ya know. You won't be able to snoop on my ass." Jensen huffs with aggravation, then unwillingly pulls his iPhone from his jeans front pocket.

"Oh darn. My master plan is foiled." You sass back, not able to stop the giggle that follows. Matt joins in himself, ignoring the unimpressed puss on the rock star's face.

"So what's the plan?" Matt asks quietly, looking apprehensive but also hopeful.

You bring your attention back to Jensen who's sporting a pout as he sinks himself deeper into the couch. He's doing his best to watch the Seinfeld rerun on TV but you can tell he's too distracted at the moment.

"Let's go talk on the balcony, Matty." You quickly open up the glass slider door and settle into one of the cloth covered chairs. You can hear muffled grumblings from the two men until Matt stalks outside shutting the slider behind him.

"What did you get me into, dude?" You ask slightly amused as you watch Jensen through the glass door. Talk about glorified babysitting.

"Trust me, I know. The thing that kills me is that he's a good guy, he just...he does bad shit." Matt replies dragging his hand down his face. The poor guy looks exhausted and you realize that this plan needs to work not just for Ackles but for everyone in his life.

"I just told him that he's gonna be cut off from everyone and everything. An addict would be panicking and freaking the fuck out. Wanting to score as much shit as they can instead he's sulking like a little kid."

"Jensen doesn't get high as much as you'd think. At least not with the hard stuff." Matt wearily admits fumbling with the hem of his collared shirt.

"What..."

"Jay uses to distract himself when shit gets to be too much inside of his head. It happens sporadically. The bastard is lucky enough that it hasn't turned into an addiction yet."

“Um. Then why the rehab?” You wonder skeptically.  

“To stop his antics. Ackles is a stubborn fucker, Y/N. He won’t listen to anyone. I needed a way of keeping him under control. And rehab did that.”

“Matt."

"I know, I know. But listen...I've known Jensen for fifteen years. He gets into these destructive phases where any and all common sense flies out the fucking window. I know the signs by now and he was on the verge like six months ago. Hence his most recent stint in rehab."

You can sense Matt's sudden hesitation, he searches your face like he's debating if he should continue on or not. He's praying that you make good on your word instead of abandoning this whole arrangement.

"I remember reports of him overdosing like a year ago. Was that true?" You ask curiously.

"Unfortunately. It was the anniversary of his mom's death. He was already super stressed to begin with, everything became overwhelming and he went crazy." Matt sighs heavily flashing back to that awful night.

He found his friend's bloody, unconscious body lying in a heap of broken glass. Of all the places Jensen could have passed out, he ends up crashing down into a glass coffee table.

"I know it wasn't deliberate. But I also know...at the time he would've been fine with whatever the outcome."

"Jesus Christ, Matt. Please tell me you at least know the root of all this?"

"Mostly family problems. His dad specifically. They've had a volatile relationship ever since Jensen's mom Donna died. He was 18 when it happened."

"I guess I can add daddy issues to the list." You add softly making Matt sadly nod his head in response.

"The poor bastard's been dealing with the guilt and bullshit from his father for almost 12 years now. Honestly I don't blame him for wanting a break from it."

"Guilt about what?" You sneak a peek at Jensen to see that he's now fast asleep. He's slouched down further onto the couch and propped his boots up on a nearby ottoman. He looks so peaceful that you momentarily forget that he's a pain in the ass. The moment passes though when you hear what Matt's about to say.

"His dad blames him for Donna's death and he thinks his son doesn't deserve all of his success. It's why Jensen has a love/hate relationship with his career. He's passionate about it but then the remorse sets in and he almost wants to destroy it."

"Shit. Was it...I mean...did he..." You stumble out not expecting that answer.

"Yes it was his fault but it was an accident. It's not my place to get into details, hopefully you'll get him to open up eventually."

Well this is just fucking dandy. You've dealt with difficult situations before with your job but this one takes the cake. The fact that you have a personal history with one of the people involved makes this harder. And it definitely piles on more pressure than usual.

Deciding you've found out enough backstory for now, you and Matt start nailing down details for this ridiculous operation. He fills you in on where Jensen likes to go to relax and you have the perfect place in mind. You know this whole process will be tough enough for Jensen, so there's no way in hell he's going to another hotel. Too many temptations.

Heading back into the hotel room, you notice Jensen is now wide awake and shoving fruit loops into his mouth. Oh how this man kills you.

"Ok dude...we leave first thing tomorrow morning. So pack everything up that you need because you're not coming back here." You inform him, blocking his view of the TV screen.

"Huh?" Jensen mumbles with his mouth full, looking adorably perplexed by your words. Although his innocent act doesn't last long once he realizes you're on to his game.

"Do me a favor, Ackles. Stay. Here. Do not leave this hotel room until I come and get you tomorrow. And no visitors either. Your disappearing act starts now."

"Yeah that doesn't work for me." He waves you off with a defiant smile then continues eating his cereal.

"Don't worry, Y/N. I'll keep an eye on him." Matt shoots you a wink and it makes Jensen throw his head back while moaning theatrically. Drama queen.

You say your goodbyes then rush home and get to work. You don't have much time to get your preparations in order. Fortunately this isn't your first rodeo and you have plenty of connections that can help out in a pinch.

Your friend Veronica, who's a realtor, sends you info on rentals that have immediate availability. You find one that sounds like a winner then continue to get ready for this lovely adventure you're about to endure.

~

The next mornings sun shines too soon and you seriously regret checking your phone. You have a google alert setup for Jensen's name, so anytime the fucker makes headlines you get notified. And you've been notified a shit ton since you fell asleep last night.

Not only did the difficult rock star go out last night, his drunken ass hit a plethora of bars and clubs in LA. The evidence of it is littered everywhere online. Thanks so much for the help, Matt.

Apparently Jensen's god damn chaperone needs a chaperone himself. Fucking men. They never listen. You gave one simple instruction and Jensen couldn't keep his annoying self in line. And Matt...well Matt's gonna get a god damn earful once you see him.  

You stroll lazily up to Jensen's hotel room door with Starbucks in hand. After a couple of knocks, the door swings open to reveal a very large bald man who's sizing you up.

"Clif?" You giggle remembering Matt's description of Jensen's driver. Apparently he looks like a Rottweiler but has a heart of gold like a Golden Retriever.

"Yes, ma'am. And you must be, Y/N. Come on in."

You trail behind Clif into the other room and what's before you is almost comical. There's a hungover rock star sitting next to a nervous looking manager and they both look pretty miserable.

"Hello, boys. You ready to get this shitshow on the road?" You question fighting back a yawn.

Matt looks ready to speak but suddenly decides against it, instead he just nods in your direction. Jensen barely grunts a response, yanking his baseball cap down further onto his head.

Everyone finally piles into Clif's SUV to settle in for the ride. Of course he's the only one who knows where you're all headed. You decide it's better to keep the other two in the dark for the time being.

You let the quiet car ride go on for a bit. Mostly because you want your coffee to kick in before mentioning last night. Although the stupid cup of java is not strong enough because you're still fucking sleepy. Screw it.

"So tell me what happened last night, people. Cause it sure as hell wasn't what we agreed on." You glance between the two handsome men getting different reactions from each.

"For the record, I didn't agree to shit." Jensen interjects earning himself a dirty expression.

"It's my fault. I fell asleep." Matt looks like a poor wounded animal and you almost feel bad for him. Almost.

"You had one job, man." You groan flicking the side of his head with your finger.

"And you..." You quickly twist yourself around towards the backseat to where Jensen's sitting.

"Your drunken ass got around everywhere last night huh? There's a ton of pictures circulating online right now. I think this one is my personal favorite." You hold out your iPhone to show the photo and a huge grin graces Jensen's face.

"Kaleo! They're my boys, man."

"Jensen..."

"Oh relax. No one saw me punch a douche bag named Brett in the VIP lounge at Hyde. I did good." He says proudly.

"Son of a bitch! You were supposed to stay home, Ackles."  Ugh. It's too early for this shit.

"Oops."

"Oops? You can take your oops and shove it up your ass, pretty boy." You narrow your eyes in his direction.

"Aw you think I'm pretty?" Jensen retorts without missing a beat.

"Piss off." You mutter grumpily shifting back around in your seat.

"Well Y/N's definitely a morning person." Jensen cackles, making sure to file this useful tidbit away for the future.

"Where we going?" Matt wonders out loud.

"You'll see soon."

"I need my beauty sleep. Wake me up when we get there." Jensen mumbles stretching out in the backseat.

The tension that was once in the car has disappeared and you decide to lean your head back and rest as well. You actually get some shut eye but it's rudely interrupted by a panicked hand shaking you.

"Is this...is that a lake?" Matt's shocked reaction continues as he whips his head around to look at everything we drive by.

"You're a smart one." You deadpan.

"But..."

"Shhh. Don't wake Jensen up yet." You whisper as Clif turns onto a long dirt road that leads to the house you picked out.

Matt's eyes are now bugging out of his skull and he looks ready to jump out of the moving car. For the love of god. These guys are so friggin high maintenance.

Once the car is thrown into park, you gingerly exit through the passenger side door. Matt follows suit and waves you over to move away from the car. This should be good.

"This is a lake house!" Matt does his best to keep his voice low while gesturing around wildly.

"And? You said he likes being by the water."

"The ocean, Y/N. Don't play stupid. I vetoed the lake house idea. They remind Jay of the one his family had growing up. He refuses to go near one."

"Yes I'm aware." You shrug casually.

"Are you insane?"

"Probably. Regardless Jensen needs to face this shit, Matt. Clearly the way he's been coping isn't working for him."

"I know but..."

"Ackles is a grown man. He can handle it...he'll have to."

"What the fuck?!" Oh shit. The beast is awake. You twirl around to see Jensen fuming as he takes in his tranquil surroundings.

"Welcome to your new place of residence." You saunter over to him, pretending that rage isn't painted on his features. Normally you'd be intimidated as fuck but you're still too half asleep to care right now.

"You've gone too far, L/N. I'm officially done with this bullshit. You're fired." He seethes through gritted teeth.

"Nope. Matt hired me." You counter with sly smile.

"Oh he's fired too." Jensen shoots back before laying his eyes on his manger.

"You're fired!" He loudly shouts at Matt before turning his gaze to his driver.  

"And you're fired!" Jensen points at Clif then starts to furiously pace back and forth.

“Jensen...”

"Everyone's fired!" He barks practically stomping the hard ground with his work boot.

"And here I thought you were gonna overreact.” You smirk knowingly. “Thanks for proving me wrong, Ackles." 

~

[lesbiansnoopy]

BTS Review

Spoilers for LIS the original story. 

I will do my best to avoid major spoilers for BTS itself. 

So, this was gonna be a long thing but here’s my biggest problems and to answer the big questions. 

Is it worth the price vs play time? 

This is my time including some resets (including one that was before a 5 minute scene like 3 times) and a crash so my real time was probably closer to 8-9 hours. I also have all of the achievements outside of 2 in the first episode I will later get.  I played it through my friend’s library and it was the special edition that’ll cost you about 25 bucks vs vanilla which is 17.

I personally think that if you are gonna spring for the game you might as well get the bonus episode (The clothing options for the bonus are not worth it) but you should buy it on sale. The full 25 isn’t enough for an episode that SHOULD be in the vanilla game anyway. 

Should I play this game? 

This depends on what you are expecting. Are you expecting answers to how Max got her powers, what happened to Rachel, if there’s a twist of “RACHEL IS ALIVE” then no. 

If you wanted a backstory of how Rachel and Chloe met while also seeing Chloe’s side of things and how they became girlfriends then yes, definitely. This game isn’t for those wanting lore, this game is for those who fell in love with the characters. If you want answers then I’m sorry because this game got none. 

I think the worst part is one that people who I think have replayed the original LIS know very well. Every choice felt meaningless. Every fight with David, every moment with Rachel, every NPC who I know isn’t in the main game I had to interact with made me feel like every “big issue” had no real pressure. It wasn’t like I could kill Rachel or Chloe faster. Like I could change the events of the story. it was all set. 

The Game Itself 

Graphics wise, the game is a step below LIS. I think it had more to do with a tighter budget and schedule to get out games, but the animations are jerky and unnatural at times. While the original game wasn’t perfect, you had small details like Max bouncing while talking. This game didn’t have that. 

It took me a minute to get used to the voice acting, but once I did I didn’t notice it. Sure, it isn’t the BEST I have heard in my life but it’s bearable. If you haven’t played/listened to the original in awhile I doubt you would even notice it. 

The controls for selecting dialogue has changed so you have a button mapped to it vs the drag feature which is something I enjoyed A LOT. Chloe’s controls on the other hand were a little wonky. I think this ties into the animations budget, but her motions didn’t feel natural. She didn’t turn or move right. They also added a bit where the objective is on your hand and that is just the most half assed thing i have seen in my life. 

The final additions are revamps of features from the old game. The journal is still there although you now “write to max”, and the phone you get texts on is an older model. 

Since Chloe doesn’t take photos you use your marker to graffiti on walls and objects. Instead of rewinding time to get what you want, you argue. The check points also make resetting really tortuous so if you mess up something get ready to go through all those unskippable (yep) cut scenes.

The Plot+Characters

What plot Ok so a rundown  Ep1: Meet Rachel  Ep2: Shipping Ep3: Oh fuck we need an actual plot for people who bought this game, quick, half assedly add more scenes of Chloe being abused! Also throw Rachel in there too because we didn’t hurt her ENOUGH apparently.  That’s it. That’s the series. I’m not even kidding, none of the “plot” you end up getting has no affect or even adds to the story unless you absolutely are dying to know more about Rachel. There is no “big twist” (Ok there is one but like...I clocked it in ep 1 lmao and it’s not a twist that affect the main series) there is no answers, it’s just the Rachel Amber Dating Sim with MORE scenes of Chloe being abused. 

This game also tries to make all those people who have abused Chloe from the main game (Pointedly: Frank, Nathan, and David) into “morally grey ones”. They try to give them excuses and it happens over and over and over again. David is a soldier so who cares if he emotionally and physical abuses Chloe. Frank “saved her” so who cares that he is literal human garbage. Even fucking Nathan has his “But my Dadddd’ story line brought up! I don’t get it and I hated it. 

There’s also a running dialogue of how Chloe is(n’t) coping with her Dad’s death. You have visions with him and weird Red Room from twin peaks-esque riddles with it. I think that most of the scenes are a smokescreen that did nothing to add to the plot but say fake deep shit to make you think this is all gonna pay out in some actual plot or reveals. It doesn’t. You won’t ever understand it. Don’t even try. 

Final Thoughts  

I’m gonna be honest. I really didn’t like Before The Storm. It didn’t improve on anything I had issues with in the original series.

First off, how they treat the wlw couple, Rachel and Chloe are abused and hurt during this entire series. Rachel. Is. Dead. I was HOPING that we had a twist of it wasn’t Rachel in that grave, but we didn’t get it. I’m not counting this as a spoiler because there isn’t anything to spoil. Before you even press play they have already killed off a wlw character. 

As for how they handle the romance, I personally see their relationship as one that isn’t the healthiest. They are extremely codependent on each other, and later on Rachel cheats/plans to leave Chloe behind. Something that I truly believe would have killed Chloe. The game even tells you repeatedly that Rachel is someone who is going to burn Chloe out. I don’t know if this was meant for us to be happy the ending is she is with Max but....it isn’t good enough! 

Overall

If you are desperate for more information on Chloe’s tragic backstory, how her and Rachel become an item, and some Rachel backstory then pick this game up on sale. If you want anything at all answered then pray that maybe the “bonus episode” (That should be in the main game instead of a money grubbing gimmick) sheds something but I’m not holding my breath. Other than that, skip it and watch a playthrough on youtube. 

[slicinghood]

2 Years of SpiderWaifuIsBestWaifu!

As you guys probably guessed, this is the follow up to my previous post! And I have two topics I gotta talk about, so let’s get to it!

First of all, as the title says, today marks the second year since this blog’s creation! Though, the thing is that it wasn’t always RP-oriented. I’ll go over a bit of the history this blog amassed in the two years it’s been around. So if you’re interested, join me on a trip down memory lane! If not, skip ahead to the section that says “This Blog’s Future”, because that’s where the important announcement is at.

How This Mess Came To Be

I don’t know if I ever told this story here, but originally this was a personal made only to follow a few specific people, hence the unconventional URL (which was only a joke at first since I didn’t really plan on posting anything, but it grew on me immensely with time and now I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of it dfklgjg).

After a few days of lurking and following random UT-related art blogs and such, I came across a few people RPing, though I didn’t really know what RP was at the time. (90% of my life until then had been spent on the brazillian side of the internet, where RP wasn’t exactly common or known. So when I found blogs dedicated to characters interacting with eachother and answering asks, needless to say I was quite intrigued!)

After that, I decided that, despite my limited english skills back then, I would try joining in. And who better to start with than my favorite canon Undertale character, Muffet?

“Yes, I still exist!”

I don’t remember much of my earlier RPs, other than broken english and terrible, terrible punctuation. Ironically enough, I learned how to properly write by doing one-liner interactions with some other peeps on IC streams, which eventually lead to longer RPs and me catching up with the language. Well, that alongside massive amounts of character development, buuuut that’s a topic for another day. Somewhere during that time, I came across the release of a little fangame that grabbed my attention.

You might know it! it’s called Undertale Red. I downloaded it on release day, and played it about 5 times in a row just to see all the dialogue variations and little interactions I could get with the mysterious yet charming hooded monster with a short temper. A character with a personality strongly established during the course of a single fight, with fun mechanics (which could equate to fun writing if adapted correctly), and some details which almost instantly brought my interest to both the character’s design and her then-mysterious backstory. I had stumbled upon quite something. That’s when I decided to give writing for her a try, switching out from Muffet during one of the aforementioned IC streams. I was worried if I could even use someone else’s character like that, but luckily a FAQ about Red was already underway, and another Anon sent an ask inquiring about making a roleplay blog for her, with a positive response from the author. (I wonder if there’s another Red still out there!) Cut to a few days later, and my blog was made a multimuse, adding a certain nerd to the roster, which is undoubtedly the ‘star’ of this blog to this day.

“Guess who?”

Also, a small fun fact, this blog has two deleted muses. The first of which was...

Everyone’s favorite human. They were removed because I wasn’t entirely happy with my portrayal of them, and they only ever had a single IC interaction in the blog’s entire lifespan. The big ‘plot twist’ (which at the time wasn’t as common as it is now) was the reveal of their true nature as a Souless Pacifist, which would probably lead into some interesting interactions to say the least. Still, that plot got turned into a 11 month long D&D campaign me and a few friends ran a while back. Now this Frisk is completely hecking dead and deleted from the world itself. Oof.

And the second deleted muse, this one only a few months ago, was...

Kinshi! My first full-fledged OC, who got to see the light of day for a while in that same D&D campaign. I tried bringing her original iteration to the blog, but needless to say it didn’t exactly work out. She was kinda shoehorned into the plot and I kept her way too vague, even if I didn’t plan on revealing all of her information at the start. The original plan was for her to belong to a different timeline, one that was doomed to be deleted thanks to a neglectful player, and she was obviously looking for a solution by exploring other worlds and attempting to understand the nature of timelines better. Her story would have two outcomes, both bittersweet endings, with the sacrifice of her own soul to hold the timeline together, or its complete destruction with Kinshi herself escaping to a different world, unscathed but regretful.  ... which now that I write it out, sounds extremely cheesy and boring. I’m glad I didn’t go with that. However, that deletion and scrapped events didn’t signify the end for her! She’s recently got a full makeover backstory-wise and works as a cook at the Underground-famous restaurant, The Wishing Well! The timeline stuff got completely removed, and now she’s just a really grumpy monster who likes her job way more than she lets on. Hop over to The Wishing Well’s Discord server if you want to interact with her sometime!

Aaaand that’s about all! Of course, I left quite a lot of stuff out, but I either don’t recall it well or I didn’t find it interesting enough to mention here. Besides, this post’s already long as it is. Moving on to the second topic I wanted to talk about here!

This Blog’s Future

Already went over a few issues in this post, and this is basically the outcome of that. I managed to get in contact with Taxiderby over Twitter yesterday, and after a brief conversation, got the all-clear to make Red into a fandomless character! Of course, I’ll be crediting them properly as I always have, though that’s a given with this sorta thing. Now, I know that’s a big change, but all in all, it’s not gonna be something negative. Here’s what it’s gonna affect:

What’s Gonna Happen:

Undertale will not be Red’s main verse anymore, and she will be adapted to an inespecific fandomless verse. However, the Undertale variant, along with a few others I plan to add, will be sticking around. I’ve been in this fandom since the first year of its existence, and I plan on staying ‘till the end. Just gotta branch out a bit more!

A possible change to the URL, making her Undertale verse with the current URL into a sideblog, or the other way around. I’m still unsure on this, though. Who knows, maybe I’ll just keep everything in the same blog for ease of access. We’ll see.

Not really important, but a complete revamp to my tag system. it’s commonplace in multifandom blogs, so if you don’t want to see a specific verse of Red, you can just blacklist the tag.

More interactions, hopefully! This is a big step I’m taking to make sure everyone’s least favorite doll will be around as long as possible!

What’s NOT Gonna Happen:

Any change to the character development in her UT verse. Everything will carry on the same as usual, especially with the Vanitas event going on!

Any major changes to Red’s personality/appearance/species/age. No matter the verse, she’s a doll. I don’t have any plans to make her a human, nor I ever will. (Obviously not counting M!As here, like that one time she got turned into a Dullahan.)

Any major changes to the rules. Other than some updates here and there (since those rules are old as dirt and I haven’t touched them up in a while), everything regarding rules is the same.

It’s gonna take a while until I get around to setting everything up for fandomless Red. So for now, Undertale is still the main verse, and nothing has changed yet. Buuut I already look forward to finding out where this development will take this blog and the character herself!

Anyway, thank you all for-...

Wait, what’s tha-

-New mun faceclaim coming through! I’ll alternate between this one and the old one sometimes. Anyway, as I was saying...

Thank you all for the support throughout these two years! And here’s hoping for a succesful third year of SpiderWaifuIsBestWaifu!