#But drawing (for me) is about having fun and drawing my beloved favourite characters is fun for me but drawing houses is not fun

[janamensch]

Oh Clever Toad, why have you forsaken us :(

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

Here's another long-winded post about me combing through BG3 early access files in search of Aylin and Isobel tidbits - rummaging that already resulted in this post right here. Let me just say I'm pleased to have brought Aylin Silverblood some attention because, again, I think it's a dope name.

Now, obviously, Isobel and Aylin are both Act 2 characters, and early access only covered Act 1. So anything related to them is partial stuff that wasn't scrubbed from the game files for whatever reason, and a lot of placeholders (these are usually indicated by |the text being in vertical lines|). This all means that sometimes (usually!) there are no nice voice lines indexed by UUID and parseable dialogue trees, and you have to trawl through a giant localisation XML of every bit of text in the game instead. An additional complication is all these stories were in flux, but older bits of writing from deprecated iterations didn't get immediately removed from the files, so it's sometimes hard to tell what belongs to which version.

The biggest luck I've had with regards to these two is the 24/11/2021 version of the game - EA Patch #6 Hotfix #19, aka game version v. 4.1.1.1356845, aka the source of Aylin Silverblood (my beloved). Here's a handy list of the patch and hotfix history, if you're like me and interested in this stuff. I'm actually wrangling files from 5 versions of the game right now, ranging from March 2021 to July 2022 - it's been a fun time. This old datamining post on reddit really helped narrow down the timeframe for me to look into.

Why am I doing this? I genuinely find it fun and interesting! There's some neat writing to be found! I crave more Isobel at all times! And I'm always into WIP and "how the sausage is made" type stuff. Also, tons of cool inspo for fics and headcanons.

Note, because I know that's a popular EA tidbit: this is all from after the Halsin killing Isobel variant was scrapped. This is, in fact, the version where she gets killed and soul trapped by Balthazar, and Aylin gets framed for it.

I'm going to start this off with my favourite part, and that is snippets of an early version of the Aylin/Isobel reunion from 2021. I've done my best to put them in order, but be aware a lot of this is still me speculating.

|[CINE: Nightsong teleports the party to the plaza in front of Last Light. As she looks around trying to familiarize herself, Isobel notices your arrival from the balcony. Her reaction is pure shock, followed by an immediate rush down the stairs.]|

|[CINE: Isobel dashes out of the front of the inn, wide-eyed and out of breath. Nightsong stares at her, stunned.]|

Aylin: |(distant, shocked) Isobel.|

Isobel: |Aylin...|

|[CINE: Nightsong takes an instinctive step towards her but stumbles, collapsing to her knees, eyes blown with pain and disbelief. Isobel closes the distance between them in hasty steps, trying to help Nightsong up, but Nightsong tightly grips at her arms - as if the contact makes everything real.]|

|[CINE: Isobel's eyes fill with tears as she drops down to the ground, throwing her arms around Nightsong's shoulders in a tight embrace. Shaking, almost fearful, Nightsong returns the embrace - the first kind touch she's had in a hundred years.]|

|[CINE: Nightsong draws back from the hug, looking Isobel in the eyes. Isobel helps Nightsong to her feet. As the two of them stand, they keep their hands linked.]|

Aylin: |A hundred years. Isobel, light of my heart, where were you? (choking up) I found your body, I....|

Isobel: |I was dead, Aylin. For so long. It was Balthazar - he trapped my soul, he-|

Player: |[Doesn'tKnowRelationship] You were lovers? Did Ketheric know?|

Aylin: |(jaw tightens) We were lovers. Her father was against it. He saw nothing but future misery. I'm immortal. I would never age, but she would.|

Isobel: |He didn't understand. It doesn't matter when... (fearful, as if worried Aylin's feelings might have changed) ... I still love you so much.|

Aylin: |(her first genuine smile) And I, you. No trial or pain could ever change that. (relaxes a touch) It is why I couldn't leave your body, even when they came. Balthazar and that Sharran witch told your father that I was to blame.|

|And he believed them over you?|

Aylin: |(frowns) He believed what he wanted to believe. Ketheric saw his daughter dead, and he saw someone he wanted to hurt. Shar took that cruel thread, that moment of mortal pain, and used it to corrupt him to the core.|

Aylin: |I was put on trial, and I had no defence. The moment it was over, I was taken down to the temple and... well, you saw what they had done.|

|Isobel presses against Nightsong's side, face tight with worry, running her fingers in slow strokes up and down Nightsong's arm.|

|[CINE: Nightsong tilts her head back towards the player.]|

Aylin: |These heroes saved me. Without them, I'd still be trapped in Balthazar's soul cage, with Ketheric gripping my heart like a leech.|

|[CINE: Isobel's face falls at the mention of her father's name.]|

Isobel: |A *soul cage*? Gods.|

Isobel: |I didn't know. Gods, he didn't say a word to me. I ran away because it was Balthazar that brought me back. As I ran, I heard my father shouting... but I'd seen enough. There was no saving him.|

Aylin: |You are not your father, Isobel. (sad, wry smile) You were the only thing that kept me alive in the dark. When hope began to fade, I simply thought of you.|

Isobel: |[To player] Thank you. (smiles wide) I... I can't possibly thank you enough, for bringing Aylin back to me.|

|Nightsong smiles too, but she's lost looking at Isobel, completely tuning out everyone else around them. Isobel leans in, resting her brow against Nightsong's and closing her eyes, Nightsong's hand clutched to her chest.|

Then, there is an option to press Isobel for details:

|You said the necromancer trapped your soul. Why?| |Was Balthazar the one who killed you, Isobel?|

Isobel: |(hesitant, visibly guilty) I think Aylin would know better than I do. The last thing I remember is a blade in the dark. Too fast to feel pain. Then silence.|

Asking Isobel to go with you to Moonrise was possible at various points, leading to different responses:

Will you come with me to Moonrise? I could use your help. If we're going to stop Ketheric, you have to come with me.

Until there is a way to keep Last Light safe, I cannot leave. All I can do is pray. |Not if everyone is killed at Last Light in my absence. I'll do everything I can to help you from here, but I won't go with you.| |Not if everyone is killed at Last Light in my absence. If someone else could take my place, I would go with you. I swear it.|

|Nightsong is here, she will protect Last Light - let's go to Moonrise, like you promised.| |I want to spend the night with Aylin. Meet me at Moonrise tomorrow.| |Nightsong will protect the people while together we can stop Ketheric.|

Isobel: I... we need to get close to him, don't we? And Aylin can protect Last Light in my absence. Aylin: Isobel, I have just gotten you back. To put yourself in his hands again-

Looks like we would've had a flip of the current Act 2 boss fight, and Isobel would be the ally for the confrontation with Ketheric, not Aylin. Also, that one line right there that is our first indication of Succor™, gotta love it. Sadly, post-reunion I only have:

|TBD: Post Nightsong Reunion.| |How are you and Aylin doing?|

To borrow release version Isobel's stock line: KEEPING VERY WELL, I HOPE? In any case, I'm putting the rest under a cut, featuring options for calling Isobel out on her parentage, Aylin being from Mt. Celestia, and Balthazar being gross - among many other things.

At one point quite early on, Isobel's protection from the shadow curse wasn't a spell, but an ointment:

|Ointment of Selûne| |Ointment Container PLACEHOLDER| |Isobel filled this with precious doses of her sacred Ointment of Selûne.| |First get the ointment from Isobel.| Have you received Isobel's ointment yet? What protection can her ointment offer, exactly? You should see Isobel. If Marcus does crop up, I'd sooner you had her ointment to protect you. Can use that cleric's ointment to get you on your way. But I have to move out - now. Can I get some of your ointment? No more theories! It's time for action. Our secret weapon needs to travel to Moonrise Towers, which means they'll need your ointment. You have the ointment. You have the Gate Stone. Moonrise Towers awaits. Are you sure the ointment will last long enough?

What is now Isobel's Ominous Cough was a gradual weakening that was remarked upon and seemed to be there to create more of a sense of urgency:

I won't claim to know Isobel's craft, but Selûne's light is bright in her. Isobel's tough - though she was tougher at the start. I've rarely seen a cleric so in tune with her goddess, but the curse is taking its toll. The light used to be stronger, Isobel. How much more of this curse can you take? You look paler than death, Isobel. How much more of this curse can you take?

We have some nice concise infodumps on Ketheric:

After Ketheric turned to darkness, the Enclave joined with the Harpers to unseat him and his Sharran cohorts. We marched together, fought together, bled together... and in the end we prevailed.

Only it wasn't the end. Nothing seemed to kill Ketheric himself, so the Harpers decided to seal him in his own tomb, alive. They thought that would be enough. But they hadn't counted on Ketheric unleashing the shadow curse. We watched it drain all light and life away from this place, saw it twist people into abominations. The Harpers lost hope.

Ketheric wove the curse on this land. The moment he was sealed in that tomb, Shar's poison devoured everything in its path.

Fallen paladin. Champion of Shar. He was building an army bent on unholy conquest, but we stopped him. Killed him. Buried him.

It was not enough. General Thorm lives again. He's built a new army, and this time he marches under the banner of the Absolute.

November 2021 is the earliest mention of Aylin I found, mostly marked as not finalised and placeholder dialogue (and that reunion up there). The Nightsong as present in that patch is still very different from what we ended up getting - nobody was killing her, in fact people were coming to get her "kiss", and there was a whole thing where it seems like Shar would directly take control of her and you could help her overcome the curse, or abandon her to it - or kill her. 

Embrace the Nightsong and be sworn to Eternal Shadow.

Anyway, here are her lines (all of these exist as voice files, which is rare for stuff I put in this post - but they're done by a voice actress who doesn't sound like Helen Keeley, our final Aylin VA, so I don't know what to make of it all tbh):

Shar is the Nightsinger, and I am her Nightsong. I am her instrument, transforming the faithful into shadows. I've been here for centuries. Do you know how many priests of Shar came here, full of faith, seeking my kiss? I've been here for centuries. Thousands of Sharrans came here seeking my kiss. I drink their sorrow, their loss, their grief. Then I vomit it back into the world. All of them are shadows now. That is Shar's only reward. But Ketheric returned for my kiss, over and over. You're the first to survive my kiss intact. You're the only one who can help me. Please, you have to help. No one's ever resisted the kiss before. No one has ever resisted my kiss. But you are not merely *one*, are you? That thing in your head must be incredibly powerful to resist a goddess. Perhaps it's also divine in nature. Because a mind can't survive two masters. It breaks us. Shar's attention must be elsewhere. Speak quickly. She's watching now. She's waiting to steal my voice. But it won't last. Please - listen! I was captured by Ketheric Thorm, Shar's chosen. He turned me into this creature. I'm a slave of Shar. She owns me, just like that thing in your head owns you. I want to sing my own song. Not Shar's. Not *Ketheric's*. Find Ketheric. Kill him so I can be free! Slay Ketheric. His wretched existence binds me to this temple. Oh. That made her angry. The Lady returns! She has me again! *Again!* Stop! You've driven her away!

I am not your *spectacle*. Turn away before I strike you blind. Tell them to come and receive my kiss.

Some possible relevant tags, interactions, and outcomes include:

|The soul cage has greatly weakened Nightsong| |Debug: click to save Nightsong (sets the flag to talk to Isobel)| |We sided with Ketheric and doomed Nightsong.| |Companion comment!||But if his power is linked to this Nightsong, there must be a way to unlink it.| |You have taken control of Ketheric's Soul Cage| |You are bound to Ketheric's soul cage, taking his regenerative powers for yourself| |Bound to Soul Cage| |Soul Cage Key| |Soul Cage Research| |The book details the necromancer's research on the soul cage| |There is a glimpse of Isobel's ghost, as she takes her Father with her to the afterlife.| |There is a glimpse of Isobel's ghost terrified and in agony. Both Isobel and Ketheric will disappear.|

At one point Isobel delivers her own, Ketheric's, and Aylin's backstory as "a story", but sadly I can find very little of it, just disjointed fragments:

You seem to know a lot about Ketheric. He was a devout Selûnite who converted to Shar. They say it was Ketheric's purity that drew an angel down from Celestia. You're Isobel Thorm. The daughter who died in that story.

And there seem to be many options to question Isobel about her hiding the truth about her father:

Why are you lying to me, Isobel? Everyone thinks you're dead, Isobel. Tell me the truth, Isobel. Everything. Still, Isobel might have saved us some time had she been honest from the beginning. |Why didn't you tell me what happened from the start, Isobel?|

Ketheric. Don't you mean your father? Ketheric is your father. I know the truth. Ketheric told me at Moonrise. He wants me to bring you home. I need your father to trust me. He wants you back. You sent me after your father - Ketheric. I think we should discuss Ketheric - your father - first. For all you've said about Ketheric, you left out the part where he's your father.

To which I've found some responses:

And would you have trusted her? Ketheric's daughter? Why didn't I tell you that I was murdered, that my soul was locked away for a hundred years? What would I have told her? That my father murdered her fellow Harpers, but that I can surely be trusted?

[Attempt to read Isobel's thoughts.] *You see Ketheric standing before Isobel, although the memory is hazy. His words are unclear, but his tone is not - he is pleading with her.*

Brought back by the same man that killed me. Balthazar. Standing next to my father with a smile on his face.

But I'm not sure it would have mattered. To stand with that man, my father has surrendered to deepest evil.

I would love to know what the whole pleading thing is about, and what Isobel "didn't know" that she claims didn't matter anyway.

My father. After a century, he somehow brought me back. But I saw the monster he had become. I couldn't bear it... I ran. I ran until I found Last Light. It was like a second home to me, once. I've been studying the curse ever since, searching for answers. Trying to restore the damage my father has wrought upon this land. It's possible I may have to sacrifice myself. But this is my father's crime.

And then, there is this nugget I cannot place but that I like: 

|Your father's due will come.|

There is also an option to tell her Nightsong is Aylin (who was, at this point, a full celestial - no mention of being connected to Selûne, though, and in fact, if she was indeed from Mount Celestia as mentioned in the "story", she would not have been):

Isobel: My father's curse still blackens this earth. Have you found anything? Player: A celestial, chained to Ketheric's soul. Player: They called her Nightsong, but she told me her name was Aylin. Isobel: Aylin. She... she's alive. I knew she had to be, I… Player: Ketheric's necromancer took her to Moonrise. Isobel: His necromancer? Gods, you have to free her. Isobel: You have to go to Moonrise and free Aylin. When Ketheric is weak, this can all be over. Isobel: The truth is that I would give anything to see her again, and anything to stop my father. Free her, and you do both. Isobel: At least, the shell of my father. There's nothing left of the man that championed Selûne. Isobel: Find her. Free her. If Ketheric isn't stopped, all of us are doomed.

Player: |[Doesn'tKnowName] Aylin? Care to explain?| Isobel: The angel in my story about Ketheric. That was Aylin.

Speaking of Balthazar. Some lines from him:

[Introductory note: please imagine everything Balthazar says spoken with a wheezy voice, as if he's permanently out of breath.]

[I need to retrieve the Nightsong, but the temple is haunted and my minions cannot make it past the trial grounds. I cannot go there until the ghosts have been dealt with. Now that you are here on behalf of Ketheric, you will do all this for me.]

I, Fodder, am here on behalf of General Ketheric Thorm. Down in the depths of this temple writhes his desire. I am to bring it to him.

I created the Nightsong for General Ketheric, many moons... HEAR THAT SHAR? Many moons ago.

*As you hold the necromancer's mocking gaze, you can tell how it starts to dawn on him you are not the mere minion he thought you were.*

Along the way I found some more recent Patch 8 (2022-ish) gross Balthazar lines, some bits of which have actually survived to release:

She was a unique specimen even before I began my work. Aasimar. A god's blood united with mortal flesh.

Such fine clay she was. We grew quite close as I… remoulded her. Now she is General Thorm's shield. Her strength is his to drink upon. His pains are hers to bear.

If I never exceed her, I will still die happy. If I ever do something as gauche as truly dying, that is.

Utterly revolting! Makes my skin crawl! Man deserves a yeeting into the Shadowfell a hundred times over! But in order to not end on a gross note, I leave you with:

Ketheric Thorm. Murderer. Oathbreaker.

Aylin Silverblood. My true name. Nightsong was only ever a curse.

[overtheimaginationwall]

Favorite boss(es) in No Straight Roads?

Least favorite?

(Sincere apologies. I've been holding this one for more than a year in my box, so I hope you don't mind a really late reply ^^")

(Also Happy 3rd Anniversary, NSR!! 🎉)

I will tell ya honestly - they all are my favourites!

Tho if to be more specific I decided to set them up by TOP.

1. Sayu

Oh Sayu, my beloved <3

The Best Virtual Idol and The Reason I bought this game in the first place!

Her music and style of battle was the most fun and dancy! I still vibe to it to this day-

Sooo many references to Internet Culture and Digital Art fills my heart with warmth and gives me determination just like her song itself as well!

Funny Useless Fact: She is the only boss I've beaten on Rank B on my first blind playthrough!

2. DK West

He's OUR MAN, He's THE BEST!

My second favorite and at the same time the hardest for me to beat.

I personally didn't adore RAP genre at first and never seen anyone preform it as an actual entertaining battle until he showed up...

HOLLY MOLLY DESPITE ME BREAKING MY THUMBS WHILE GOING THROUGH THE PAINFUL DODGE GAME - HIM AND ZUKE RAPPING FELT LIKE I'M WATCHING DISNEY-

LIKE-

I STILL HAVE IDEA IN MY HEAD TO MAKE A SORT OF ANIMATIC WITH "FIRST ENCOUNTER" ALONE!!

Anyway, despite damaged fingers - 10/10, would fight again!

Funny Useless Fact: When I was drawing him for the first time I listened to his theme on loop for 4 days straight in order not to get myself distracted or lose motivation, so I finish the piece.

3. Yinu

Oh, sweet child...

I love Yinu and her theme lots even if I'm not that big of a fan of Classical Music. And her backstory...Gosh! It made me cry a lot.

And I'm still feel ashamed of breaking the piano ;;-;;

Love the pace of how music goes with the fight and it feels even better when you get into actual rhythm. There were issues that gladly wore off thanks to practice and fighting this boss over and over.

Tho those slamming cords haunt me whenever I listen to the song off-battle-

Funny Useless Fact: I didn't like her Mother at first but when I read more about her and relationship with Yinu my opinion completely changed. And this is why I would nominate No Straight Roads for The Best Storytelling and Character Design.

4. EVE

Two-faced, tall woman.

Used to be one of my favorites but due to some circumstances I can't look at her the same way I used to but I still adore her as a boss!

I honestly love her style of the fight and music that changes depending on who you play.

Tho fighting her is literally like eating a lemon but eventually you kinda just accept your fate and roll with weird artistic antics happening around you.

And EVE herself as a character is so fascinating. Like this is the moment where I started to see that these aren't just bosses, they are actually characters that tie this little but complex story together bit by bit. And this is why I would nominate No Straight Roads for The Best Storytelling and Character Design AGAIN!

Funny Useless Fact: EVE was supposed to be a next character to have a complete and detailed art of but due to my forgetfulness, difficulties with her design (and many other things) - it was never finished but I hope to get that dusty sketch out of WIP folder someday.

5. Tatiana

The Bitch. The Boss.

I don't really like her music and rhythm but I can forgive that since it is kind of fitting for conflict between her and the BBJ.

She tries to hide her true image throughout the story and the fight but ultimately crumbles cause escaping from the past isn't the best option to improve.

I love her design and personality and I wish there were more villains like her. Strict, simple, stoic and yet well-written.

Funny Useless Fact: I've never drawn Tatiana until NSR announced their release on Steam with addition of Fanat Graffiti Contest that I certainly didn't want to miss out on. It was difficult but I did it and ngl, I am still proud of the results.

6. DJ Subatomic Supernova & 1010/Neon J

I can't really say anything much about both of them. Sorry, guys...

Their designs and personalities are fun and well-made but due to one of them being the first you fight as "tutorial" and the other appears only at the end of a fight. (1010 band doesn't count as an actual boss to me more like a part of it) They didn't struck me much as the others did...

I will say this thou: their backstories are interesting. One is an academy astrology teacher with a goal of achieving the stars and other is a war veteran who just wanted everyone to live in peace and he himself despite everything never stopped his passion for doll-making and making people happy.

Just simply, beautiful...

Cool Science Fact: Their VAs are GOLD!

[riftclaw]

Gonna fill out this questionaire for Curie's upcoming appearance in the @sonic-oc-showdown round starting this weekend! Let me introduce you to my beloved flying radioactive puppy!

✨- How did you come up with the OC’s name?

Curie is named after the radioactive measurement of the curie, and also Maria Skłodowska-Curie. Their name is actually older than this particular iteration of the character, who was originally not a sonic oc and was named Curie as an intentional callback to the name of a character in Homestuck. "The Radiant" is because he glows in the dark, playing on a rarer sonic character naming convention (Fang the Sniper/Hunter).

🌼 - How old are they? (Or approximate age range)

Developmentally and physically, Curie would be roughly in their early to mid twenties. However, they were born in 1923, making them about 86 in their AU's current day (2009). They spent most of their life locked in isolation in a military facility, though, and were only freed and started living life outside a box again in 1995.

🌺- Do they have any love interest(s)?

He's part of a 5 person polycule including my other characters Agent VX, Caprice Amaranth, David Valke and Luka Mosaic. He has different relationships with all of them, having fallen for V, Caprice and Valke while adapting to modern life, and becoming involved with Luka later after they bonded over being giant nerds.

🍕 - What is their favorite food?

Candy, pretty much any type. Crunchy sweets like rock are their favourite.

💼 - What do they do for a living?

Curie runs a nuclear power plant and waste disposal business, which is largely a front for making sure he has enough to eat-- because as much as he enjoys candy, his body will only properly digest radioactive materials. Since his business is really only there to keep him fed, he sells power at a loss-- which means it's very affordable and in high demand, giving him the ability to expand his power network and thus bring in more nuclear waste to eat later. He's not in it to make money, though-- outside of his personal R&D efforts, he sinks practically all his profits into charity. His main reactor base and the surrounding city of Bloodwood Grove was built on the Painted-Rocks clan's abandoned land, specifically to help camouflage the habitats of the last living mobosaur herds that the clan once hunted and protected.

🎹 - Do they have any hobbies?

They collect plushies, radioactive knick knacks like uranium glass and watches with radium paint, and Godzilla merchandise, and they love to tinker with technology and study space.

🎯 -What do they do best?

Nuclear physics, probably-- it's something that started out of necessity (because of his unusual diet) but he developed an aptitude for it and genuinely enjoys working on nuclear powered inventions. It's not unusual for him to build experimental reactors for fun.

🥊 -What do they love to do? What do they hate to do?

They love to watch Godzilla movies and play around with unusual tech. They hate being confined to boring meeting rooms or made to deal with unnecessary beauracracy.

❤️ - What is one of your OC’s best memories?

The first time he rolled in the grass after he was freed from the facility he was imprisoned in. The grass wasn't even on Earth/Mobius, but it was grass, and he'd all but forgotten it existed after being locked away for 60+ years.

✂️ - What is one of your OC’s worst memories?

They don't currently have many-- a lot of their most traumatic experiences will occur in the future, such as when the forces/zombot plot occurs. That's not fun for anyone, but especially Curie.

🧊 - Is their current design the first one?

The very first proto-Curie was actually just a heavily au Jade Harley-- who had changed so drastically I "filed off the serial numbers" and made into their own character. His first ever original design was human! He still ate nuclear waste, though. This current iteration of Curie was developed when I was initially setting up my Amalgam au, drawing more on his initial prototype's personality and history than Cain Einley, the other character I split off the same prototype several years back.

🍀 - What originally inspired the OC?

Related to the question above, they spawned from a particularly ridiculous homestuck fanfic that never made it past a disjointed first draft back in the early 10s. If i sink enough development into a canon character that they stop looking/sounding like that character, I split them off, give them a fursona and a new name, and carry on writing my new oc, and Curie is just another in a long line of similar characters who occupy my brainspace.

🌂 - What genre do they belong in?

Science fiction for sure.

💚 - What is your OC’s gender identity and sexuality?

They are agender with a side of transmasc*, and use he or they pronouns interchangeably. Curie is also demisexual-- they need to form an emotional bond with someone before they can develop romantic feelings for them. *My friends and I often refer to them as "none gender with left boy"

🙌 - How many sibling does your OC have?

He had four, but none of them are alive today, and he doesn't remember them anymore. :(

🍎 - What is the OC’s relationship w/their parents like?

They don't remember either of their parents, either, but considering that the guy who made them what they are now was their father, at least one of those relationships was pretty unhealthy.

🧠 - What do you like most about the OC?

On a purely aesthetic level the fact that he glows in the dark will always delight me. It's such a fun trait to play with!

✏️ - How often do you draw/write about the OC?

I draw them decently often, although a lot of what I draw in general doesn't get published. I write about them a lot more, but nothing that's in a state to be shared. They're the secondary main character of Amalgam's whole main storyline!

💎 - Do you ever see yourself killing off the OC?

He does die in the future. Not for a good long while-- mobians in his universe live for 150 years on average, and his peculiar metabolism means he's going to outlive that many times over, but eventually he will power down and fade away. He's got a lot to accomplish on the way there though!

💀 - Does your OC have any phobias?

Claustrophobia for sure.

🍩 -Who is your OC’s arch-nemesis or rival?

In the future he'll be taking the rookie's place in Amalgam's version of the forces/zombot plot (they are combined!), and will be facing up against their version of Infinite. His radioactive blood means he can't get infected by the zombot virus, which puts him in a position of being the best person for a lot of problem solving in this particular plotline.

🎓 - How long have you had the OC?

As "Curie the Radiant", since early 2019. Here's the first ever picture I posted of them, before their personality had finished solidifying!

🍥 - What age were you when you created the OC?

In 2019 I was 29! Although as I said earlier, he has roots in fanfiction/original fiction from before Amalgam became my primary worldbuild, and his prototype form would date to when I was about 23.

[gnawdraw]

my beloved ocs from my story called the callous eternal... this story and these characters are precious 2 me... I have never been able to bring myself to tell the entire story properly. More fun for me to just share or draw what i feel like ..... lalala

I also have a website with some more stuff about them here (autoplay music warning) ... tell me who is ur favourite also pls? thank u..

[lostinthewoodsomewhere]

please do talk about your zane & jesse feelings!!! whenever I see those two in your art I'm always curious as the thought process behind it, bc there's clearly something there! Smth I'm not seeing but want to see 👀👀

Hehe, thank you for asking! This got a little long, but please, come on this journey with me!!

Okay, so I feel I should preface this with saying, as you may have guessed, my favourite Remedy character by far is Jesse, (shocking, I know), and I think a lot of the feelings I have about this are partly filtered through my own understanding and interactions with her as a character (that other people might not feel the same way about), and also my need to put her in all the situations because I just want to :)

So, on the surface level, you've the general importance in AW2 placed on Zane specifically being a Director, which already hits those good parallels, along with the fact we have no idea why Zane was so freaked out by seeing Jesse and Darling on the tv, (which was also the only time in the main game she was either seen or mentioned, which makes this moment stand out to me- and its connection to the AWE DLC). Then there’s Zane meeting Darling, which bring us into head-cannon territory, being that Zane helped Darling make the Dynamite video, which- if he wasn’t already from the AWE DLC stuff- would make him aware of Jesse.

All of which lead to me just having... feelingssssss about them (which are explicitly none-shipping feelings!)

Like, my own sort of head cannon is that this current Zane is sort of a construct, an idea of what a sleezy 60s/70s filmmaker is, which in itself may unfortunately come with a certain level of not being particularly respectful towards women, his role as the filmmaker warping his perception of her. But also, at the end of the day, Jesse is both a very attractive and very powerful person, a combination I could absolutely imagine this Zane trying to purse and exploit for his own end.

However, unlike Darling who would trust him after a compliment and a flirty smile, Jesse- an infinitely more powerful person - would definitely not, and the clash of those personalities is fascinating to me! I need Zane’s sleezy attitude, the thinly veiled threat of danger he gives off to come up against the stubborn ‘fuck you’ energy of Jesse. Threat, tension, two dangerous people at an impasse all wrapped up in Hollywood glamour, sharp suits, pretty dresses, cocktail in hand! Do you see the vision???  

And aesthetically, I just want to draw more of them being glamourous in suits together (or, at least draw Jesse wearing a full suit…), just two powerful beings being powerful, you know? But I need their power displayed as excess, extravagance, an aesthetic all caught up in the filmmakers lens, does that make sense????

(I also just really like drawing Jesse in suits, imagining her fully embracing the ‘look’ of her role as Director, giving in to the glamour of it all on some level, which is partly how I see post cannon Jesse, (Director’s suit my beloved), and partly just me projecting my love of clothes onto her honestly…)

(On a sillier note, they’re the kind of people who are enemies -because Zane is an absolute bastard, and Jesse is having none of it -, but I could also imagine it being fun to see them team-up because they had to, imagine the banter!)

I hope this explains the vision, sorry it got so long and all over the place!! I’m still trying to cement all my feelings, so there's probably stuff I'm missing, but this was super fun to put together and has solidified a lot of things!! It’s definitely half cannon, half my own interests, born from this wonderful speculation period where anything could happen, so I thoroughly expect all my feelings to be made meaningless by cannon 🙃.

Also, not to like shamelessly plug my work here, but I do have a fanfic of them meeting that kind of goes into some of these feeling… {x}

And a playlist... for the vibes… {x}

Thanks again!

[space-writes]

wip questions tag

jumping on the excuse to do this from @ceph-the-ghost-writer (post here). it’s been a minute, but I really want to do this for claws honestly, as a little treat~

What was the first part of your WIP that you created?

The characters - Vivien and Rainier are based on the modern AU versions of Vizaeth and Pharaun from my Obsession fic series, so they were the entry point for the story. I guess also wet was kind of a first foray into the story; it’s Viz/Pharaun modern AU fic, but it sort of has the Vibes that later became claws.

If your story was a TV show, what would the intro song be?

I’d want it to be a dark cover of a love song, like the Happy Together cover by Filter I have on my wip-playlist. Something that originally is very sweet and loving, turned sinister.

Who are your favourite character(s) and why?

Vivien my beloved <3 <3 <3

He’s the main character, and I just love everything about him. He’s got the most specific worldview I’ve written (aside from Vizaeth) and he’s got very particular ways of seeing and interpreting the world that are so fascinating to me. His dichotomy of victim/villain is so juicy, and his high emotions make his reactions to everything 10x more interesting.

Plus he’s a transmasc nightmare murderboy, which is my favourite, AND he’s a scrubby little punk/goth kid. All around delicious.

What other pieces of media could share a fanbase with your WIP?

NBC Hannibal would have a fun amount of fan crossover, I think. Maybe Interview with the Vampire. claws has a lot of messy queers in it, i think those fandoms would have fun with them.

What has been your biggest struggle while writing your WIP?

Getting it drafted without worry too much about realism - resisting the urge to go research instead of write. It’s drafted now, and I have a lot of problems to solve with it now, so that’s the new struggled - fixing all the issues discovery drafting for the first time in over a decade has cause me :p

Are there any animals in your story?

Spiders! Lots and lots of spiders! Which is going to be so much fun to research for accuracy, because I don’t actually enjoy spiders very much in real life. I’m better with them than I used to be, but yeah. This is a very arachnophilic book and I…am not that.

How do your characters get around?

claws is in a modern setting, so they use contemporary transport - cars mostly feature. Rainier has a too-expensive BMW with a vanity plate because he’s That Kind of Asshole.

What parts of your WIP are you working on right now?

Currently it’s marinating, so next steps are: reading/devouring lots of Relevant Media to help with vibes, doing research for areas of the book I just kind hand-waved (some science things, aforementioned spiders, various medical bits and pieces…there’s a lot), and later re-outlining it for a neater first draft out of the messy zero draft I have right now.

What aspects of your WIP do you think will draw people in?

the fact that it’s messy queer horror about toxic love. judging by the comments on my wip intro, that’s the thing people seem to like! i do also hope that the characters will captivate readers as much as they’ve captivated me. i’d love for people to be as obsessed with Vivien and Rainier’s fucked-up deal as I am.

claws taglist: @belovedviolence @foxboyclit @coven-archives @noblebs @mjjune @revenantlore @sarandipitywrites @k--havok @asterhaze @verba-writing @indecentpause @bootstrapparadoxed (ask to be +/-) (and stealing from ceph, feel free to count this as a tag as well if you want to talk about your wip!)

no-pressure tagging @winterandwords @mjjune and @viscerawrites

Blank questions beneath the cut

CUT

What was the first part of your WIP that you created?

If your story was a TV show, what would the intro song be?

Who are your favourite character(s) and why?

What other pieces of media could share a fan base with your WIP?

What has been your biggest struggle while writing your WIP?

Are there any animals in your story?

How do your characters get around?

What part of your WIP are you working on right now?

What aspects of your WIP do you think will draw people in?

[iworshipsappho]

hii could you tell me a bit more about ceres if you don't mind? :] idk if you've talked about your oc before but I must've missed it and I'm curious now :]]]]

OMG HIHIHIIII

I LOVE TALKING ABOUT CERES!!!!!!! fuck yeah >:33

well i havent really spoken about him much online seeing as to the fact that most of my thoughts and rambles concerning them is usually sent in rapid fire succession to my beloved @foxtriestobiteandmaimandkilland <33

BUT i'm always happy to talk about ceres :33

ok so basically i got obseesed with dnd a few months or so back and Ceres is my first ever proper oc!!! i love them so muchhh fr. at first they started off as an extension of myself but as the weeks passed he grew into her own character and it was sooo cool!!! so they started in my mind as a gnome rogue in a very atla-esque world but nowwww i have sort of rethought their backstory and more or less settled on an earth genasi paladin for their race and class, but im now debating the paladin part... we'll see :'))

unfortunately, while i have a lot of fluctuating thought about them, i love that btw it makes me think and ponder (basically writing but without writing ykn), i cant draw for the life of me</3 neither am i able to describe ceres enough for someone to draw them for me fskgjskgh

so rn ceres is still very much a baby oc WHOM I LOVE VVVVV MUCHHH but yeag, not properly fleshed out yet BUT im looooving all the research im putting into this its all so incredibly FUN and joyful and etc etc <33333

OH SHIT I ALMOST FORGOR the origin of their name!!!!!! so from the beginning i wanted ceres to have a connect with the earth and its elements!!! their hobbies are wood working and stone carving!!! i have a lil pintrest board and everything. anyways so, im a huge greek mythology nerd yeah? so i obviously named them after demeter, but the roman version. i am also very obsessed with our solar system and ceres is one my favourite dawrf planet, right in the asteroid belt between mars and jupiter... so yeag, cool name with origins from two of my erliest ever interests :>>

💜

[distant-screaming]

Thank you for the tag @waitmyturtles beloved <33 glad to be considered part of the ephemerality squad despite being inactive recently :')

Current time: 10:14am

Current activity: having lunch with friends!

Currently thinking about: morning rehearsal... I need to work on the new piece we got today!

Current favourite song: asking my favourite anything is so cruel </3 anyway either CHANGGWI by Ahn Ye Eun, Psycho by Mia Rodriguez or ICHIDAIJI by POLKADOT STINGRAY!

Currently reading: oooh, last night I finished Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke and I LOVED it, so fun! I adore reading atypical formats and the book itself was so good. I'm going to start The Death I Gave Him by Em X. Liu later tonight - it looks good!

Currently watching: Home School (ended on ep 14 yesterday and I am only strengthening my poly agenda), Hidden Agenda (Louis and AJ have my whole heart <3) and Racket Boys with my mom (it's such a heartwarming show I love it so much!).

Current favourite character: AAAA making me pick favorites again! They're all my beloveds, hmm.... okay, Palm for sure, he's one of my all time blorbos! Also currently spinning White from Home School in my brain at exponential speeds, I love her :)

Current WIP: okay, so:

Metas - I have a nlmg meta cooking in my drafts that I will eventually post but I need time to finish writing, and an old soundwin one

Fics - currently? absolutely nothing, your girl is Tired after writing 62 fics (count em!) for October so I'm taking a short break ((but I doubt I'll be able to stay away for long sjfkdk))

Art - working on crocheting a pillow for my sister! I'm using one of her doodles (she draws) to tapestry crochet, so the front of the pillow will look like this:

but lilac purple!

And, finally, tags - @jojotichakorn @akawrites000 @cornflowershade @soundwin @vegasandhishedgehog @mutlishipperfangirl @ieatwoodchips @welcome-to-the-shit-library and anyone else who sees this! <3

[voidlingduck]

Redesigning Jester

I've been working on trying to pull my story about Kings Court into something coherent and presentable, and as I've been going through that process I've been realising that I need to redesign some of the characters!

The first character I've been reworking is my beloved Jester! Here is their original design:

I did really enjoy this design! But as time has gone on there have become certain pain points, and as the story has developed there are things I want to incorporate more strongly into the design. You can see a detailed breakdown of the re-design goals and process below the cut!

The mask - it needs to be a feature, not an afterthought.

As much skin as possible should be hidden, I want to play into the Jester as an anonymous and mysterious entity.

Simplify - the four tail coats are far too unweildy, and the pants proved annoyingly intricate with repeated drawing.

Ensure that the design is fun and exciting to draw in motion! Jester flops around a lot.

Incorporate an additional motif to reflect role in the court.

I began the process by looking for inspiration and reference material, particularly for the mask. I collected a variety of reference images onto a pinterest board to use for inspiration and then got to sketching! Here are some of the initial exploratory sketches.

After the sketching process, I started working on some more finalised concepts taking what I had explored in the sketches, exploring the ways to combine shape and colour, and also getting feedback from friends.

I then did a set of concepts all next to each other taking some of the ideas I had liked from these concepts as well as trying to add in some new things.

Silhouette was a major consideration throughout these concepts - as well as experimenting with the mask design. The first and second designs proved the most popular, and also worked as my favourites. And so moving forward I decided to combine elements from them both. Namely:

Collar shape from design 1 - it's dynamic, fun, and interesting!

Hood based design from 2 - I like the framing of the hood.

Two pronged vs Three Pronged design from 1 - Easier to draw repeatedly and manipulate in dynamic ways, I think it gives a more dynamic flow to the design as opposed to the triple prong potentially being a bit more static.

Thigh high boots from 2 - my friends like them and I like the way they make the legs look long.

I also knew that I wanted to make sure that the design I came up with fit with the design of another character - Jack, and also play with poses to see it in motion, so for the next tests, I decided to work on them both simultaneously and have some fun drawing them interacting!

As you can see, I had settles fairly well on the overall shape of the design, but still made some minor tweaks between images - mostly to do with the placement of the colour blocking. I also changed the mask design here from the previous iterations as they felt too cluttered and overpowered, and I also really enjoyed the design from the makeup Jester had in his original design, and realised it could transfer effectively to the mask design! Another thing that changed is I removed the crown motif I had started to develop, and tried to focus more strongly on incorporating an eye motif. This was a change made as I sat and considered the lore and symbolic implications, and I ultimately decided it worked best if Jester had the eyes and Jack had the crowns. King and Queen will likely have both when I get around to redesigning them! I still have some more playing around to do to settle into the final design before I make a proper reference sheet, as I'm definitley finding drawing the design in context helpful to get a sense of how it operates in practice and streamlining. I'm currently working on a mini PMV project featuring Jester which will hopefully help me solidify the design! But I'm feeling pretty happy with it so far.

I want to do more discussions of my design/redesign process in future as I find it really helpful and interesting to organise my thoughts like this. It's also exciting to see the progression all laid out, I'll probably do a similar thing for Jack soon!

[proshippers-against-censorship]

Serverstuck anon again, I found the announcement for that weird name ban.... it's a long one so buckle up:

Pt1 "@/everyone Hey fellas! It's no-fun big boss man time, here to say "no fun!" Recently, we've had an overload of character submissions with human words for names. This has always been against the rules, but due to lax rulings by the team in the past, a few characters have slipped through the cracks. I want to tell everyone we no longer accept characters whos names are troll names! This includes…

Human names on trolls (Oscarr Isaack)

English words (Lizard Kisser)

Words from non-English languages (Cheval Jambon)

Attempts to cleverly fool the mods by changing the spelling the word in a way that still sounds like the words (Lizerd Kissur) It is, unfortunately, kind of immersion breaking to walk into a thread to see a character called Peanut Butter just chilling, which breaks our Setting Breaking rule. We will henceforth not read submissions with rulebreaking names. Can't think of a name? Change some consonants! Our beloved Lizerd Kissur doesn't work, but let's substitute some letters, and hey, Vizert Gissur works pretty nice! If you have a character with a name like this, it'd be pretty cool if you changed it, but we won't enforce it. We accepted it, and you're all good! Here's a meme my dad sent me."

Pt 2 "Hey @/everyone ! A follow up announcement to yesterday's name ruling. I've seen a few people get confused about intention, so we're clarifying what is and isn't meant by our "no words" rule! In short, the "no words" rule could probably be more accurately put as "no words… unless they're obscure". A lot of the character submissions we were rejecting were words that were instantly recognisable (Vampyr, Tohbie, Garcon as equivalent examples). These names are very quickly recognisable as to their meaning— they're either mispellings of recognisable words, or common words in recognisable languages. What is okay, however, are English words nobody's ever going to say in regular conversation.

For example, want to name your librarian who makes a lot of footnotes "Ibidem"? Cool, no problem. Your character who specialises in string instruments is called "Buzuki"? Yeah, go for it. I guarantee nobody reading this knows what either of those are without googling it— and THAT'S the key here. We all know Eridan, Nepeta, Aradia, etc, that canon Homestuck characters have names derived from other words. But generally, these names are very obscure, and you are more likely than not going to not recognise them when you see them for the first time.

It's been pointed out that a lot of existing characters had names like these accepted, both on the mod team and off it. Some are entirely accidental— the Princess, for example, is named Anette, which was meant to be a pun of Marionette, but is also a French name. Other times, it's obviously intended, like Irstax the IRS Tax troll. "Mods!" I hear you cry. "Why is this allowed? Why are the mods allowed to do this, but not us? You are fiends, moderators! You have no honour, and Valhalla will spit you out when you die!" First off, yeah. Second off, it's very true that there's lots of existing characters with names like that.

The reason for the inconsistency is much more innocuous than a coordinated favouritism campaign though: not all the mods were on the same page about name rules. What was fine to some wasn't to others, so it was kind of luck of the draw as to whether your name got accepted or not depending on the mod going through your application. The rule being more closely enforced came up after the mods sat down, discussed it with one another after we noticed a lot of characters with these types of names, and decided this was the best way to handle the server, to be fairer to everyone. The mods are just as bound to them as anyone else, and we're not going to force any existing trolls to change names; we're just going to be a little stricter on characters named Funnie Joekes or the likes.

Again: classic, obscure word Homestuck names like Eridan, Bombyx or Jezail are fine! We never said they weren't. In fact, I encourage them to have etymology! Just make sure there's effort put into them to keep the setting Homestuck feeling."

Lizzerd Kissur is one of the most Homestuck sounding names I've ever heard, tbh.

[autisticgirliesbracket]

What makes Nepeta Leijon from Homestuck the autistic girlie ever of all time? Here's what the people have to say:

Nepeta-related asks/reblogs: x This post will be updated after each round!

Image ID in alt text and under the readmore.

[Image ID. White slide with a screenshot of Nepeta in the bottom left corner, she is biting her hat. She is surrounded by text boxes which read,

"I have the tism and i gave it to her. Her special interests are relationships and hunting!!! Also cats!!!! Cat girl! Beloved!"

"Nepeta has multiple special interests, most notably roleplaying as a "purrbeast" (cat) and analyzing every potential quadrant pairing between her friend group (shipping but hard mode). She always wears an oversized coat and a cat face hat. She openly mentions that she doesn't really get or care about social rules, especially ones pertaining to the blood color caste system. And most importantly: I love her. Therefore she has the Tism."

"feral cat girl who lives in a cave. she roleplays 24/7 with all her friends (many ungrateful of her epic roleplaying skills) definitely a furry. pretends to be a cat all the time. the most autistic behavior if ive ever seen it (/positive)"

"she's obsessed with shipping, paints on her walls with her bare hands (fun sensory experience) she loves playing with yarn and string, she's literally referred to as autistic by another character at one point"

"Constantly dressed as her favourite animal (a cat, which is a very 'tism favourite animal to have as a previous Warrior Cats Autistic Girlie myself). She types with :33 at the beginning of every message, uses cat puns, and roleplays with others obsessively to communicate even if they're not necessarily playing along. She even uses claws as her weapon. One of THE most cat-obsessed Autistic Girlies ever. All my Autistic convention friends loved cosplaying her. The call of the 'Tism was too strong."

"she's a shipping-obsessed catgirl who roleplays all the time and has like one actual friend, who's also autistic (talking about equius). i'll be honest, it's a good thing you said "only one per piece of media" because otherwise there'd be a lot more homestuck characters (like almost a third of the characters, it's insane). but i had to choose the *most* fitting one so nepeta it is!"

"multiple characters do refer to her as autistic (derogatory), for one, but she lives in a cave and everyone thinks she's strange and she likes to think about what kinds of relationships her friends might have and draw them on the walls and she wears a big comfy coat and kitty paw slippers and a comfy blue hat and she likes cats and her mom is a cat and she loves rp and has one best friend who nobody else really gets but her"

"her special interest is shipping and also she has weird girl swag . she has fun doing silly rps with her online friends and also she lives in the woods and is a skilled hunter but that doesnt have anything to do with the autism i just think its cool. she stims by chewing on her hat :3 also shes a cat girl 👍 shes canonically autistic btw :D"

"Stims via hat, flapping and pressure hugs from equis. Hyperfixated on shipping (me too) is a cat girl (cats are autistic creatures) and also lacks a lot of social skills (i.e her insistence on roleplaying despite other trolls being annoyed by her)"

"nepeta is unaware of social cues, has an obsession (read: special interest) with romance and shipping, is a literal catgirl, “:3”, and she always wears her blue comfort hat!!!"

"Biting! She loves cats so much that she roleplays as one and dresses like one and incorporates it into her personality and typing quirk! Look at how she dresses... comfy.... !!! She's also got the sort of vibe where other people treat her as annoying for her interests but she has trouble picking up on that (sorry nep they're being mean to you 😔)" End ID.]

[probablyahazard]

Tagged by @nuclear-cowboy my beloved to do 15 questions, 15 mutuals so here we go

Were you named after anyone? My first name is stolen from a dnd character and a podcast character. My middle name is veeeery technically from a kpop idol? (its an english name tho, latin origin) a friend called me by his name as a joke once. I proceeded to ignore the massive amount of gender euphoria it gave me for like a year in a half. But the name means lucky so I was like 'ha yeah I'll keep it'

When was the last time cried? Idk dude like 24 hours ago? will probably cry later tho. I cry a lot.

Do you have kids? Ha, fuck no. I'm a baby. Also for other......reasons.

Do you use sarcasm alot? Yes? I think? Enough that people used to comment on how sarcastic I was?

What’s the first thing you notice about people? Is it cheating if I just say vibes? idk if i had to hazard (ha) a guess I'd say like either the way they carry themselves or how much they speak.

What’s your eye colour? Brown but like deep brown almost black looking brown type shit.

Any special talents? I'm one of those bitches who's just super good at memorizing quotes. is it practically useful? no. But it's fun. I memorize whole movies for funsies.

Scary movies or happy endings? Both? It depends on my mood? As a kid i was very into scary movies but as I get older and the world happens I appreciate happy endings more which.....ahhh.... ya know?

Where were you born? Aotearoa

What are your hobbies? Reading (so much fucking reading), drawing, writing, dnd and dming (tho that actually happens once in a blue moon), imagining little scenarios. idk dude existing

Do you have any pets? Not currently, I used to have a cat.

What sports do you play/have played? I did fencing for like 5 years, that was my main thing. Idk not really a sports person. as a kid I did miniball, touch rugby, and gym but not of those ever stuck. I always wanted to play football (soccer not the other one) but eh.

How tall are you? short.... (*whispers* like 5'1)

Favourite subject in school? Classics my beloved <3333 also drama and english. and like in theory I liked the content for my art history class but I hated the way we were taught so

Dream job? I do not dream of labor. also I have a lot of fears about not being able to hold a full time job without destroying myself for...Reasons. But like hypothetically I'd love to be a classicist or a graphic designer. or an actor but like ahhhh no.

Tagging the mutuals, sorry. This is probably not like 15 and obviously you don’t have to do this, it’s chill if you just ignore this. anyways, ur all really cool and I hope ur having a good day <3

@ghostgrrll @badfaithbanana @raemae-15 @nightlynymph @watermelon-converse @coffeeshopghost @future-banned-book-recipient @confused-wizard @angelic-flower-universe @merriweather-underground

[focusontheheart]

Meet the Team - Cor, Social Media

Say hi to our Social Media Lead, Cor, who's handling our social accounts! You can find her on: Tumblr: @thunderjawsandlightning

Hello! I’m Cor, a meta analysis nerd at heart with a magpie brain focused on collecting specific amounts of information together into compilation documents in my spare time, especially character dialogue.  I’ve only been creating for the Horizon fandom for a couple years now, but have been consuming fics for far longer, shortly after I started playing the HZD Complete Edition.  I am constantly inspired by my fandom fellows and our chats about Nil and Aloy's character meta, some of which have prompted me to pick up writing again for the first time since a single writing class I took in my first year of university.  Currently, I’m an aspiring writer with too many WIPs and ideas piling up, with the dream of writing a Niloy character study longfic or an original poetry-and-prose anthology in the future. 

Q&A

What is a favourite piece of work you've done  (i.e. completed, working on, in concept), OR what is something you’ve always wanted to create for fandom? 

My beloved pet project (that is in a constant state of WIP) “Of Blood, Steel & Sand” is a character study of Nil and the things in his life that have defined him that I really need to finish, and I have several in-concept ideas for a Horizon daemon!au fic that I am always thinking about.

I also have transcripts of GAIA Cast episodes and some other compilation docs on my tumblr!

What are some of your favourite tropes (to read, write, draw, etc)?

Always a fan of nonchalant injuries + “but i could have lost you” for the emotional angst, and redemption arcs where the the characters are set up from the beginning as narrative foils and parallels.

What is an unexpected thing or fun fact about you?

I have a circa 100 year old hand-crank sewing machine that I sometimes use to make my own clothes.

What has been your favourite thing about working on this project so far?

It has been such a delight seeing the community creativity! And getting a peek into people’s brainstorming process for a narrative collaboration has been so fascinating and inspiring, I am feeling the itch to write again.

[darlin-djarin]

what are your favourite Din Djarin headcanons? :D

RAHGHHHH YA HABIBI AD-DIN "ABU GROGU" DJARIN

ok so i'm a BIG deaf din truther. that boy is deaf, no doubt. he uses his helmet as an aid and he's learned tusken sign language from the armorer (who i've fully accepted as a tusken raider or something similar). he can read lips, but whenever he takes the helmet off, he can't hear much of anything, which is why he's so confused when the imperial started talking to him, etc etc. i have another huge post about deaf din and all of that stuff, so i'm not gonna go into it, but deaf din is something i hold so dear and close to my heart.

i also definitely think he's autistic, in some way. i've talked about it a lot with some of my autistic and neurodivergent mutuals and we've all come to the conclusion that he's definitely neurodivergent. a lot of people, i've noticed, have found comfort in his character and personality because they relate to him a lot on that sort of level. his mannerisms and his interactions with other people is something a lot of autistic people can relate to, and i think that's wonderful!

another headcanon i personally enjoy is the aroace one. he may or may not seek out romantic or sexual attractions, sure, but i think the most important thing in his life is grogu, and he doesn't really have time to settle down with someone else. even though i enjoy him in certain ships and whatnot, i still thoroughly believe that din should just stay as just a father to grogu, and romance isn't and shouldn't be a main point in the show.

i also love trans/nb din!! whether he's transmasc or gnc or whatever, i like the idea of din, and mandalorians in general, initiating absolute genderfuckery. mandalorians are very gender inclusive and completely neutral. mando'a doesn't have gendered pronouns or terms. i think mandalorians' concepts of gender and gender roles are very fluid, and don't hold a lot of meaning. for some reason, favloni made the women in s3 have y-visors and men have t-visors which is the stupidest fucking thing i've ever seen. like. what. and anyway, i think din and other mandos would be super ambiguous with their gender anyway, not caring how they present because it doesn't matter. there's this little concept me and a mutual enjoy (to poke a lil fun at favloni) that whenever din feels a little more femme, he switches his helmet from a t-visor into a y-visor LMFAOO 😭 anyway, trans/gnc din my beloved

i think one of the last of my fav headcanons would be that din is very arab coded- indigenous as well. i know i project a lot as an arab onto other characters but just something about din gives me the idea that he'd be a very good equivalent to an arab indigenous man, palestinian maybe. the idea is just very comforting to me, even if people don't really agree. i draw a lot of comparisons between his culture and religion to my culture and religion, which is where i guess the headcanon came from. still, it's one of my favorite headcanons that i love to stick by whenever i can

THANK YOU so much for asking me!! din djarin is just my guy 🫶🫶 i love him so much and i love talking about him, esp about his culture and character. so glad you asked!

[whataboutmyfries]

Spilled ink

oh my GOSH it has been a hot minute since I wrote these lovely boys!! so here I am, coming at you with small details for fictional kisses oknutzy style!!! headcanoned about this a while ago in the sw discord and it hasn't left my mind since so here we are! characters are by the wonderful @lumosinlove featuring art by my lovely friend @tobi-tobi-tobi who somehow manages to look into my brain with every single one of their pieces and this one was no different :)

enjoy!

~

1.Whispering ''kiss me'' to your lover

Right, so I’ve been thinking about LionFish reading and annotating a book together non stop :’) 

The two of them get cosy and comfy with their different coloured pens, smiling goofily at each other as they crack open the book, jumping into a brand new adventure together. 

If you were to go look at the book after they were done with it, there’s all these little signs of love over every inch of available space.

There’s wobbly tear spots that are outlined and doodled around where the words hit just a little bit too close to home 

Sticky notes over the typewriter ink where the feeling were too big for the page to hold

Leo draws little fishes swimming across the margins and it makes Finn a lovely-dovey mess; Every. Single. Time.

Naturally Lolo sees Finn scribbling in one of his precious books, gets curious, and decides to give this whole annotating thing a go.

One day Lolo just hands Finn a book with a scribbled note inside the cover saying 'hey, i read this and it made me think of you xx' and the first thing Finn notices is that the top right corner is like a centimetre or so thicker than the rest of the book from where Lolo's dog-eared all his favourite parts and Finn english major O Hara’s eye just twitches as he tries his best to not implode

He loves it. He cries. 

It’s this book of heartwrenching, delightfully emotional poetry about love and pining. And Logan’s scribbles about Harvard, and Finn, and finding him and Leo, and finding himself through them are so vulnerable and heartfelt that the only time Finn can read the book without sobbing his eyes out for hours is if he’s wrapped up in his Logan, head resting on Logan’s strong chest so he can lean up and whisper a hoarse “kiss me” when the memories are too big and too much to handle. 

It’s one of Finn’s most prized possessions. 

Leo annotating for Finn on the other hand…..

Picture if you will: What if Leo's current read is some historical fiction book and when he hands it to finn it's basically more than twice its original size and won't even close anymore from the sheer volume of sticky notes that Leo's put in there pointing out historical inaccuracies or just dropping cute lil history facts

Finn is a mess of heart eyes and undying love as he works his way through the behemoth of the book, and it still holds a treasured place on his bookshelf 

Yet another of his most prized possessions 

Fun fact: It’s only when they get into reading together that Leo finds out that Finn will use anything as a bookmark 

One day he comes home to find the household cat’s (king’s) face smooshed gently between the pages of Finn’s latest paperback, his whiskers peeking out the pages as he sleeps

Leo can’t decide between snapping a picture and laughing his ass off (he does both) 

Of course, in an effort to get their beloved Lolo into reading, the boys decide to annotate a book for him together, potentially giving him an incentive to read it. 

They find a brilliant thriller/horror+romance book that they think Logan would enjoy and they spend hours poring over it (even though it gives leo the heebie jeebies at times) and annotating it for Lolo, Logan's super confused as to why his boyfriends are reading the same book at the same time, like ???? this is so dumb? Why don’t they just take turns? it's it awkward to have to wait for the other person to finish reading? wouldn't it be easier to do it one by one? but when they're both finally finished writing all over it and making it perfect for their boy (there's absent-minded doodles of fleur-de-lis all over the margins in the purple pen that Leo used and little stick-figure drawing of the three of them in Finn's orange ink. It clashes horribly (Logan loves it). they give to him all wrapped up and pretty and Lolo tears up a little

When Logan's reading it, he can't help but laugh at the cacophony of purple and orange on every square inch of available space and the book quickly becomes his most prized possession. He knows it's a horror book and it's supposed to be scary and stuff, but how is he supposed to be scared when there's stick figure Finn with the most floofy hair brandishing a sword against a monster that doesn't look even remotely like the thing described in the book as he holds stick-figure logan in astronomically muscly arms?

Sometimes when Leo can't sleep, Logan grabs the book and reads to Leo, though Leo usually loathes thrillers/horror books. He's lying with his head pillowed on Logan's chest listening to the rumble of his sleep-hoarse voice as Lolo does silly voices for Leo and Finn's annotations and that's how Leo reads the book start to finish without being scared

Just them being happy and in love and the intricate rituals of storytelling <3