#I do love what i did for my dnd oc as well with this so I'm happy to share

[mirandaputsherbestbuttforward]

I finally finished making Alice J. Shepard in the DD2 cc!

Obviously the tattoos themselves aren't accurate, just their placements. I did my best with the scars as well, and they're a little scant but otherwise decently representative of what I imagine her to have (minus her lip and eyebrow scar).

I do like the way I could shape her face and I tried to blend it a bit between faceclaims (Antje Traue & Emma D'arcy) and her in-game appearance.

180 cm / 5'10.5"* & 85kgs / 187lbs per the CC - though of course, Shepard has cybernetic implants, so I'd say that probably adds more weight, and since she's at a half inch in height, I went with the taller height measure in the game rather than the shorter one (it's what Shep would want, anyway).

[memento-morri-writes]

I've been thinking a lot about how Rook's reunion with his former mentor, Zara, is going to go, and since I can't predict what the DM is going to have her do or say, I can only dwell on what I know is going to happen. Which happens to include taking off the illusion ring that's been hiding his injuries from her. So have a snippet of the description I have planned for that moment:

tw for description of (mostly healed) injuries

He hesitates, twisting a ring on his finger. Looking at it more closely, she can tell it’s very finely crafted, and must have been very expensive. A large emerald is set into the band. Rook sighs, and pulls the ring off his finger in one quick motion.  Immediately she’s struck by the difference in his appearance as the illusion melts away. He looks awful. His warm, healthy skin fades to a dull and sickly grey. There’s huge bags under his deeply sunken eyes, and his cheeks are hollowed, as though they have been carved out by an overeager sculptor. He looks like he’s recently risen from the grave.  While he was thin before, now she can see his ribs under the skin, and his collarbones are exaggeratedly pronounce. Thin white lines left by dozens upon dozens of recently healed cuts are scattered across his body. On top of that, faded bruises cover most of his visible skin, a mottled mosaic of purple and yellow. They’re clearly days, maybe weeks old, and she can only begin to imagine what they must have looked like when fresh. Bandages are barely visible under his shirt, wrapping around his back, hinting at even more injuries.

[emmodii-mode]

Just finished my first playthrough of BG3. Romanced Lae'zel, but ending up turning into an Illithid because the idea of making Orpheus or Karlach do it didn't sit well with me (or my character).

I told Lae'zel to leave with Orpheus in the end (I heard she wouldn't stay with a ghaik anyway, which she's valid for, but also, it doesn't feel right to ask her to stay when I know how much her people mean to her). And like-

Her face before she flies off---

She looks so heartbroken and sad.

[cerealmonster15]

I have to ask WHY on earth did they turn Flannery into a goldfish??? What did he do to them to make them want to Literally Curse Him??

man. thats a good question. let's see if i have an answer JFKLDSKFLJDS

i'll be real a lot of it was me kinda winging it improv style - i should probs clarify [im not sure how clear i am on artfight lol] that moooost of my non twst characters are like, from a roleplay thing my friend and i do in google docs together kfdsjfl so thats where flannerys from. and then sometimes, plotlines and characters stem from an idea on a whim - like originally i had an idea for flannery to be a lost prince that was turned into a fish by like, enemy hitmen or sometihing.

and tbh that makes more sense than family betrayal LOL but i thiiiiiiiiiink i swapped it to son of a politician and also an influencer [cries lol] because it fit the 'modern au' better. modern fantasy. whatever. also we do have a separate au googledoc universe that IS royalty themed so maybe one day he will be a missing prince there teehee

ok anyway sorry i havent answered your actual question i got distracted lol. so aside from half of it being me coming up with shit on the fly and being kind of bad at storytelling klsjfkdshf the IN UNIVERSE ANSWER is like, flannery kinda just doesnt have a good relationship with his family - his parents suck and flannerys not a "useful asset" and is also the product of infidelity. so it's like, he's not going to be a powerful politician or business guy, he's not good on camera, and also theres this unspoken secret of him being someone else's son <- i think my idea here was like, the father is Aware his wife was having an affair and that flannery isnt his kid but neither of them have Spoken Of It because blah blah keeping up appearances a divorce would be a scandal whatever. you know how it is with traditional family values 😒

and i think i have also just watched a lot of youtube videos covering family vlogger scandals/ also just regular vlogger scandals, and sometimes that shits just wild LOL so i was like ok. politician dad doesnt like or care about this kid, vlogger mom sees his disappearance as months worth of content to milk lol. so they hired someone to Get Rid Of Him - i cant remember if they... planned the fish part. maybe. i guess so? the plan tho was just have him turned into a fish that would probably get eaten and act like he got kidnapped or ran away and then announce hes dead later.

flannery's got an older brother that shows up at his school and is like, a clone of their mom, in that hes like "omg theres this GUY HERE who is PRETENDING to be my DEAD BROTHER i need to live stream this." and then something something their relation was proved and he pivoted immediately to "oh wowwww my poor sweet brother i cant BELIEVE our parents tried to cover you up like this wow i missed u so much let's be besties [lie]"

so anyway. there kind of isnt that a good reason besides drama + theyre in a magical setting and i thought it was fun LOL. flannery's one of my much newer characters so i havent had a lot of time to fully flesh out his character yet. he's a lil one note right now and i need to figure him out a bit more to make him,,,, actually interesting,,, but. 🫡

[eliotbaum]

Hi Eliot! First of all, I wanted to tell you I love your art so so much!! You inspire me so much as an artist and you and Viv are one of the main reasons I'm backing The Book of Devotion Kickstarter!

I am also a DnD player and I wanted to ask you, do you ever feel disconnected from your characters? I am currently playing a campaign set in Ravnica from Magic the Gathering and I absolutely love it (100% recommend as a setting as well) and I love my character Daphne, but for some reason the past few sessions I've been feeling very withdrawn and unhappy with my RP choices, I feel Daphne very far away from me If that makes sense? Have you ever experienced something similar? Would love to hear your thoughts on this!!

Thank you!!

Wah thank you so much!!! 🥺 it's SUCH a fun concept I hope you'll enjoy it! Oh man, I'm sorry to hear you're feeling disconnected. It's such a bummer when something that got us so immersed and invested feels more distant. I've only played one campaign with the same character, so I'm not sure if I can give the best advice here. But yes, I do know the unfortunate phenomena! I'm actually struggling with the same thing right now so maybe we can figure it out togethaa. I'll answer more in-depth under the cut but if anyone else has tips, do feel free to drop them.

So yes, this all sounds familiar. Recently I'm just "going through the motions" of playing a character, without being immersed in them. Even if we still very much enjoy everything about the character or the game. Personally, I tried to pinpoint where this could come from. Is it an ingame thing, or is it something outside? (stress kills my creative drive) Has this campaign been going on for a while, have there been any exciting things happening with Daphne? Have you had fun opportunities for her to shine, was there anything that moved you? Just throwing some questions out there to help the wheels turning. I think bringing this up with your group and DM is also worth considering. Being invested in roleplay and your character is such a major part of the game (to me!) and maybe there's something where everyone can help. Be that giving you opportunities for dramatic or heartfelt moments, or simply hyping each other and their characters up around the game, not even just during sessions. But, onto the actual things that have helped me: I found a song that feels very Kasper to me, and I always try and listen to it before a session to get back into my PC's mindset and get that special spark and feeling back. Deep immersion mode... I also find creating art or writing around the character also very rewarding and exciting. I often see folks write a diary in character, or simply write up how their character felt after a session. I did that for a while after work -- and rereading diary entries with some very dramatic sombre music in the background brought a bit of that connection back, haha. Rereading notes for next sessions, or old ones is also worth a shot. What's your character all about and what's important to them? In the same vein I like to indulge in some Imagining, Daydreaming of past and future RP moments that excite me. Of course, all while listening to dramatic music...

Anyway I hope either you did figure it out in the meantime, or this helps just a little. Wishing us all to have fun, be crazy for our little OCs and sharing exciting moments and stories with each other.

[ohnogodpls]

OP your linework! Absolutely gorgeous. Do you make any comics outside fanart? Is there a webcomic out there I can read?

Thank you for the kind words :3

I have had a few instances of almost trying to draw something with a thought of turning it into a web comic... I am a storyteller at heart, dialogue writing, worldbuilding and narration is what I love, in dnd for example. So of course I thought of it, but...

There is so much more I need to learn and get used to before I commit to that. I know a lot of people say "just start and you will learn as you go" but I have a fear that my motivation and investment won't be strong enough to push me through the learnign curve long term, if you get what I mean. So for now I use fanart and my brainworms to learn. I need to get used to rendering, colouring, background drawing and, worst of them all - framing :D So I take it small steps at a time, trying things here and there. I only got comfortable posting things, or well drawing overall, in the past what 3 months or so. Genshin 4.0 really did it to me huh... before that I mostly drew private doodles for ocs or dnd stuff and that too very rarely. And I love seeing how much more efficient, comfortable and proficient I have become with some things :D

So... one day o7

I have a big comic of around... 15 pages that I am working on for Neuvillette and Wriothesley that I hope to get out as a christmas gift of appreciation for all the support I got online. That's my first do or die ahah

TL DR: I want to improve at some things first, but I want to do something non fanart related story driven later. If I do I will let people know

[circuscountdowns]

Hi! Wanted to start off by saying that I LOVE your cotl art its such a huge inspiration to me :D! I recently picked up drawing again and I've unfortunately been upset? envious?! of others' skills and just wanted to ask if you ever experienced this as a fellow artist and if so how do you not do that lol. Sorry for the weird question. I just thought some insight and advice from a fellow artist could helo. BUT I hope you still have a nice day and look forward to any more cotl art or anything you draw really :D!!! (also is okay if you don't answer it is a loaded question I just be in a silly goofy mood lately okay bye!)

oh wow being on the receiving end of a question like this is surreal, I’m honored my work inspires you! Thank u, you’re sweet, it’s not a loaded question at all! Here’s my long reply sorry

so unfortunately that comparing yourself to others thing doesn’t go away ever asdfgjkl. I suffer it every day, it sucks, feels bad. I’ve had industry people tell me they feel this way and they’ll have some of the most gorgeous visdev/boards/animation I’ve ever seen. Disheartening to hear, But! I’m a big believer that comparing your artworks with others is best used as a tool and not a punishment to yourself!

When looking at art you like, try to turn thoughts of, “Man I wish my stuff looked like that, my shit sucks,” to, “What is it that I like about this piece? The line art? The perspective?” Sometimes I’ll see work with thin line art and I’ll get an itch, and I’ll draw something with thin line art. It’s a conscious effort of keepin emotion out of that itch, keeping it as, “I saw art with thin lines, I want to do that. Yay I did that!” Compartmentalize it, the itch was simply to do thin line work, not to remake the piece you were inspired by. And you got a piece of art out of it, and a single piece is progress no matter how small!

If you want to compare, do it methodically! Why does my work look different (never use the words better or worse)! Oh, I see my piece doesn’t follow the rule of thirds, so the framing is different, I’ll be aware of that next time if it bothers me. Or, Oh I see they shade by hatching along with the form, I’ve just been going horizontally, I’ll try that other way!

it’s a learning curve of training yourself, like all corrective behavior.

like, I kinda have the warning feeling of dread when I’m about to compare my work with something, so before the self-deprecating thought can even start I have to think What do I Like about this?

I’m no expert at it, though. Actually getting myself to think this way is a struggle, but I find when I make Thoughtful Observations I level up. Not by a lot most times, but yknow.

and this part is just my personal experience:

Fanart and the internet can be the biggest Art skill killer sometimes. Get offline and cater to the audience that Really matters to your passion: You! I improved the most by spending 2-3 years doing doodles/comics/models for my dnd campaign ocs because I was that obsessed and I simply wanted to have it for me!

and after all that, then there’s the hardest skill of just accepting your work as is.

like, to me, my work is just scribbles. I see other artists’ stuff and go “Man they’re so good at comics and colors, man, why can’t I color?” But do I need to??? I don’t like coloring, do I need to be good at it? This isn’t a career, this is supposed to be fun! I scribble because I like it! I’m glad this persons good at coloring, I don’t need to be! Yay!

if I Want to be good at it, I’ll take the steps to get there! But if not, my scribbles are just fine :) I love black and white and values

I’ve been having that one on repeat for a while. It helps

(acceptance and denial go hand in hand btw lol they sound the same)

I wish there was a little off button for envy, but ah well! I hope that you take comfort in knowing we are all feeling it, and find joy in even the smallest little doodle you make! Have fun stay goofy!

[jaythenugget]

1, 17, and 37 for the BG3 act 1 asks!

HAIII SORRY I TOOK SO LONG im so bad at this sob emoji.... if anyone wants to ask anything about Zeno - here.... (also please feel free to ask about any of my ocs in general i love oc talk)

(1) Tell us about your Tav! Name, class and subclass, race, pronouns. Do you have a headcanon for where they're from? Their family? Are they a Dark Urge? Or did you choose an Origin Character? Was it an easy decision?

There he is!! His name is Zeno, he's a high elf and a grandpa around 300 years old, a rather infamous thief-for-hire and a menace to rich people lmao He's just a guy, no dark urges or anything.

Grumpy and mostly quiet, Zeno prefers working and just hanging out alone, thinking that if you want to do something, better to do it youself. He's not with any guild currently and doesn't operate in any nation in particular, he just kinda goes wherever money takes him.

I wasn't too much into DnD prior to BG3 and I'm kinda still learning about the setting of Forgotten Realms, but I was thinking that prior to this whole thing, maybe when he was much-much younger, he lived in Baldur's Gate and made money as the leader of merchants guild. He was much kinder and open to people back then, but some kind of personal tragedy struck him, which made him to abandon not only his business, but also leave his entire old life behind. From loving, caring, benevolent elf, over the years he turned into somebody completely different - cold, selfish and unsympathetic. Nowadays he's not the type of person to care much about anything if there's no benefit in it for him, but... who knows, maybe there's at least some light left in his stone-cold heart?..

(17) What does your Character think of Withers?

Zeno always thought he was creepy and at first was strongly against him following the party around, though never really attempted to do anything to him or kick him out. In act 2 he might get used to him more, but the entire act one he's just kind of on the edge. He never really had a walking corpse following him around after all haha

(37) Did your Character find the Necromancy of Thay? How are they handling it / planning to handle it?

I'm going to be honest - I never knew about this entire quest until I finished the game ........... 😭 But I looked a little bit into it, and, well, I just think there was a time in Zeno's life when he dabbled a bit into necromancy. Back when he tried to figure out if he can bring someone back to life, someone very important to him. It was pretty dark period in his life and the one he's not proud of, and perhaps that book might've reminded him of that, so he got rid of it after realizing it (though, maybe, some part of him kind of regrets it). Sorry Gale and Astarion, no dark knowledge for you!!!

[zellk]

My question is about Qalaa! She’s got an amazing design in every iteration so I wanted to ask what were your main inspirations for her? Also could you tell us a bit more about her story?

Hi there ! Thank you so much for your kind words about my babygirl ;A; !!! Everything started circa 2014 when I started to play Wakfu again with @shuuzaar and decided to make a red-skinned osamodas. She also now exists in multiple universes (a minotaur or tiefling in DnD, a demon/oni, a dragon, etc etc).

It wasn't a very conscious & willed thing but since I put a lot of 'myself' into her (more than all my other OCs, who have more... handpicked bits) so her build started to grow towards the larger / bigger side naturally. I'm definitely not as big, nor tall as her though (I am short and she's like, 209cm tall or sth).

Her general themes / traits are : A kind, soft & gentle soul in a body that is 'made' for killing / hurting easily because of it's size and strength. Feeling inadequate / dysphoria / struggling to accept her body because it doesn't fit what she likes (petite and feminine girls). Struggle to control flares of emotions & physical strength. And being very, oh so very gay about girls and feminine people (this is a very important part ok).

In time I've been slowly collecting pictures of athletes and people that make me think of her and trying to refine how she looks in my head ! Though, like many of my characters, the specifics tends to change depending on how I feel on the moment... sometimes I want her nose a bit more like this or like that... don't be surprised if her gallery isn't the most consistent in terms of facial features :,^)

One thing that definitely DID inspire me for her though are the marks on her body ! They are inspired from scarifications of the Chambri tribe in Papua New Guinea https://bodyartforms.com/blog/sepik-river-scarification.asp)

As for her story, well, my current DnD group where I play her has given me a lot of opportunities to flesh it out a little more >:^D I'll try to keep it short.

Qalaari was born from an unplanned pregnancy. Her mother, Aamira Molandine, was someone with a very weak health due to a blood curse running in her family (more on that later) ; but despite her health she decided to keep the child and see the pregnancy through. Her father, Temhos Croquelune, is a member of a tribe of "beast folk" (this is tweaked and adapted to fit in various universes when I can) and, while enamoured with Aamira, was really not ready to have a child, and to potentially have to raise it alone should Aamira die while giving birth. After yet another argument with her about getting an abortion for her sake and the sake of them both, Temhos ran away during the night and never came back.

~6 month pregnant Aamira found refuge in the Croquelune tribe under Temhos' sister roof, Olgha (who also had a crush on Aamira & both her and her brother tried to court her). The travel took a heavy toll on Aamira's already weak health and yet she somehow miraculously survived the delivery of her (very) big and healthy baby girl Qalaari. Qalaari was raised in a very loving home by Aamira and Olgha, but developped a big resentment towards her blood father, especially since after giving birth, Aamira remained a very sickly person with a broken heart. Aamira died when Qalaari was 13, which kind of forever scared her and worsened her struggles to control her emotions.

Remember the Cursed Blood thing ? Well basically, it's a curse that either 1) eats you alive if your body is too weak to handle it (Aamira's case, which is why she had a weak health from the beginning) OR 2) enhances the physical potential of your body, but tends to make you lose control and become little more than a beast (Qalaari's case). So yeah... she's trying to get better but she has a lot of healing to do with her inner child and that's not easy... especially with the layers of self hatred the cycles of her life are bringing in :^) !

EDIT : I FORGOT TO ADD that Qalaari is currently exiled from the Croquelune tribe. The circle scar on her clavicle is the mark of the exiled, who are sent away from the tribe for 3 years before they can come back. The practice exists to try and get people to grow 'outside of the community' before coming back in it as a slightly different person. The once-exiled people are reintegrated in the tribe when they return if possible. Olgha, Qalaari's aunt-in-law and adoptive parent, has a mark like this! This exile is definitely not the best solution ever but it's been done for so long in the tribe that it's hard to yknow... challenge the system of it.

Anyway if you've read to this point, thank you for listening to me fail miserably to keep this short... Qalaari is one of my dearest OC, so it's really hard not to gush about her in a 3 hours TED Talk everytime...

Thank you for this kind ask ! Hope you'll have a good day :> !

[artharakka]

im very interested in your dnd oc Rhiam, i think its really cool and rarely done to have a trans character actually transition during the course of the game, was it always your intention for her to be trans or did this evolve naturally in the campaign? also i love her design especially the colour pallete with the earthy tones and rich blue accent colours <3

Hi! And thank you because ough I also love Rhiam so much even if (and because) she's my own character 🧡

Rhiam is one of those characters that just starts to live a life of its own, you know? I can plan things for her but some things just feel right or wrong. Because at the beginning I was thinking that "now for a change I'll make a dude character, just a regular humble lad". I think I even said something like that out loud to our DM haha, so it was not planned from the start.

What I did plan quite from the beginning was that Rhiam, coming from the huble countryside, was determined to start a new and less dull life in the city. She wanted to become a proper mage and actually do something with her magic. I think her original plan was to try to become a performer (though she noticed that performing magic tricks to strangers rather than your own siblings is slightly more daunting). So while I didn't know everything about her, I did know that she desired to be something else than a farmer boy. And I knew that she desired to have earrings and jewelry and beautiful outfits. Then at some point we thought with our DM that hmm maybe there's something else besides just not wanting to be a farmer, maybe she desires not to be a boy as well. But yeah, we have also tought that it's funky that it happened gradually and during game like this. I think we got to have conversations and themes we wouldn't have had if I had just made her trans from the start (not that there wouldn't have been anything wrong with that but yeah, this was interesting!) Especially since our group really likes to take time to dwell in little moments and details (for real, our average game session spans over a weekend and lasts mmm around 18-24h in total? with pauses of course) Her final transformation (heh) also happened in a neat transitioning phase as they are currently in a mountain pass between two countries.

Oh and speaking of transformation, I also gave Rhiam alter self spell that she used to try what it would be like to be a girl/woman. And since I have actually made short poems for her every verbal component spell, I used lines that referred to our D&D world's shapeshifting god of the forests Iija Iki-Mettä and asked aid from her. And eventually Iija invited Rhiam to her sacred pond and transed her gender more permanently than what Rhiam alone could do. So I'm now multiclassing her as druid. Another thing I said I wouldn't do since I wanted to try some other class than druid for a change. "This time I will do a man guy boy who is not a druid" I said. "Congrats lil buddy that's the worst anyone's ever done it" I say to myself now (and wouldn't have it any other way <3).

[90shaladriel]

Writing Interview Tag Game

Thanks for tagging me @klynnvakarian !

About Me:

When did you start writing?

In my 30s I definitely made an attempt to write a "novel" and did some world building and a few pages of writing and it didn't go anywhere. Then Late 2022 after Rings of Power season 1 just joining the Haladriel fandom I read so much fic that I thought maybe I could do some as well. Got some encouragement from other haladriel writers (crucial for me)

Are there different genres or themes you enjoy reading other than the ones you write?

I love history and science non-fiction. I mostly am writing in the fantasy fan-fiction space, but I do like sci-fi as my first love.

Is there an author you want to emulate, or are compared to often?

I either consciously or unconsciously imagine I am writing in the voice that Frank Herbert used in the Dune series. Maybe mixed with some George RR Martin and a tinge of Tolkien.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

Vast majority of my writing was on an iPad lying in my bed before sleep when no one needs my attention.

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

I usually write a chapter per month so it's just random thoughts or reminders while reading other fics which inspire me to write a snippet here or there when I have the energy.

The other big muse I've found in recent months was actually listening to or reading Tolkien books: "The Silmarillion", "Beren and Luthien" and "Fall of Gondolin" the beautiful prose and the rich lore just sparks new ideas I want to try to play off of or emulate in my own fics.

Are there any reoccurring themes in your writing? If so do they surprise you?

I always like stories of characters that are beaten down, up against the world, maybe a little unappreciated, but not giving up. Even if they cannot win they try their best and work hard. A lot of sadness too. I don't express much of that sadness IRL so that is a bit surprising.

Characters:

Would you please tell me about your current favorite character?

Tough call - probably the Lady of Light, Galadriel based on the ROP - characterization

Which of your characters would you be friends with in real life?

Hmm, I'm not sure if I would be best friends but I think I would get along with Ereddâz, my Orc OC from A Lord and his Builder.

I think Galadriel would ignore me and Sauron would send me to his dungeons to be a thrall.

Which characters would you dislike the most if you met them?

Melkor from my First Fire in the Void fic

Do you notice any reoccurring themes/traits in your characters?

I touched on it above, I think I like writing characters that believe they are doing the right thing. I do not like writing characters that are specifically and intentionally bad. Even my villains have plausible motivations or perspectives to justify their actions.

How do you picture your characters?

Most of my writing is currently around the Rings of Power cast and that style.

I am dabbling with non-ROP fics, like First Fire in the Void and there I pictured Mairon based on a lot of fanart that basically draws him like a pretty woman with long red hair lol.

My Writing:

What’s your reason for writing?

A creative outlet. For years and years I would day dream my own stories, going back to when I was a kid, I was also a pretty decent DnD DM making up my own campaigns. I've often had dreams of telling stories by creating video games (I am a software dev professionally) but I usually get stuck on the actual technology side of creating a game and can never get to the creative side. By writing fic, I was able to just get my ideas out there without being held back by the lack of skills in other areas (game dev, art, making a story interactive and still make sense)

Is there any specific comment or type of comment from readers that you find particularly motivating?

Ive gotten a few amazing comments that say this is their favorite fic and I can't believe it since I just write one of many thousands of fics so I feel honored, and for my WIPs a little pressured, to produce more at that level.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

I want to write stories other people like, I do think about how can I make a story original in a way no one else does? What's a premise no one else has or could be done differently?

But really I am mostly writing stories that I like?

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

I think putting my characters through emotionally charged or traumatic events where they have realistic responses or reactions that I or I think readers might relate to emotionally.

How do you feel about your own writing?

I read other writing and it feels so polished and natural. I often feel like I am "emulating good writing" rather than being a good writer myself. I like my stories and plots but I am not always impressed by the words on the page after writing them. Sometimes I just give up during editing and just post and people seem to like it enough.

When you write are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, do you write purely for yourself, or is it a mix of both?

AS I was saying I do think about the readers and I'm surely influenced by what I see in the community and what people respond to but every single idea is a kind of "wouldn't this be cool" idea I have myself first and then I judge how much I think other people would also find it to be cool or enjoyable. That part I sometimes guess at or things resonate with others that I didn't expect

No pressure tags!

@eowyn7023 @demonscantgothere @cliffdivingsblog @pursuitseternal @theriverwild

[jo-harrington]

Limbo (An As Above, So Below Story)

**This can be read in tandem with As Above, So Below or as a stand alone. Contains minor spoilers for Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory.**

Summary: Wayne Munson did the best he could, and still found himself in Limbo.

Word Count: 2.5k

Characters: Wayne Munson, Eddie Munson, "Reefer" Rick Lipton

Warnings/Themes: Allusions to Eddie in an established relationship/breakup with Reader/OC (you), Kas!Eddie Munson, Religious Themes, Fate vs. Free Will, Death and Injury, Mentions of Major Character Deaths, Grief, Mourning, Discussion of the Upside Down, Supernatural Encounters, Angst, Violence, Action Sequences, Gore, Biblical and Other Literary/Media References

Note: So...well I guess it's no surprise that our favorite uncle is going to be making an appearance in As Above, So Below. There aren't any spoilers in here unless you know where to look. If you're reading this as a stand alone consider this Wayne's journey as he loses Eddie and gets him back again. Even if he isn't entirely the same as he used to be.

Thank you to @breddiemunson and @chestylarouxx for reading what I sent you, enabling me, and supporting me in my Wayne endeavors.

This series is not for the faint of heart, nor is it something that was written with a general audience in mind. Please check the above warnings and ask yourself if you are in the correct headspace to proceed. I am happy to answer any questions via PM or Ask.

You can find my masterlist here.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

"That boy made me realize, for a while at least, that my parents were wrong, and I didn't have to be like them." - J.X. Burros

Whatever happened before—whatever his life had been—no longer mattered the moment Wayne Munson got the call from the Sheriff's office on that fateful day in September of '76.

It had woken him up from a dead sleep, and then all of a sudden he had a funeral to plan and a kid to raise.

Not just any kid.

His nephew, his buddy, his boy.

Eddie.

Wayne didn't know how to raise a kid though. Didn’t know how to fix lunches or talk to teachers or all the things his sister-in-law had made look effortless.

She sacrificed though to make it happen. And if Wayne was any good at any one thing…it was sacrifice.

So he did what he knew, did the best he could. And worried internally all the while keeping that signature stoic Munson exterior.

Would Eddie be safe? Would he be loved? Would he have everything he needed?

Together they weathered storms, patched up cuts and bruises, and taught and learned lessons to one another.

Practiced patience and respect; love and forgiveness.

It was an unfamiliar kind of relationship, certainly not the kind he and his brother had with their parents. But it was the least he could do for Eddie, a boy who had already lost so much. A boy who he saw so much of himself in.

He should have gotten him out of Hawkins, should have had a fresh start elsewhere.

Should have done something to stop all of the suffering before it started.

Call it intuition.

There were no real signs.

But Wayne knew that something was wrong the moment he pulled up to the trailer after a long and tedious Friday night shift.

The van hadn't moved from its spot from the night before--a little too close to the mailbox--but Eddie being late for school or skipping class altogether wasn't anything new.

The door was left ajar--also not new, if Eddie was too eager after a night of DnD to get back home and write notes for the next session while thoughts were still fresh in his head--and any other time it would mean a lecture that he wouldn't be too keen on, because Eddie truly knew better.

But there was just something in the air, and as Wayne crept up the front steps warily, it caused the hair on his arms to stand up on end.

Heartbreak.

He knew the stench of it when he set foot inside.

Saw the empty beer bottles on the counter by the sink and a mug that he'd accidentally broken on the floor by the couch. The fragments of the mug sat alongside a discarded silver chain that Wayne recognized used to sit around your neck.

The boy that was hidden away in the depths of his bedroom wasn't the same as the one he had just seen 24 hours ago.

Wayne himself had been in those shoes plenty of times in his life. It happened more often when he realized that his feelings weren't reciprocated but the one time he just couldn't be with someone he'd felt the greatest connection with...it had hardened him.

No use in delaying the inevitable.

He stood at Eddie's door and knocked carefully, ready to give him all the patience that he deserved.

Because he knew that he wasn't gonna get his nephew back for awhile.

The FEMA check was a staggering number.

And it went to waste one headstone at a time.

He and Rick had cried the first time they'd gone to visit Eddie's grave--Rick fresh out of County--and found the cracked granite monument in pieces in the grass.

It had been crushed, the corners of the pieces chipped. Someone had taken a chisel or a screwdriver and carved a line through the dedication.

Edward J. Munson

Beloved Son, Nephew, and Friend.

The next time it looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer through it.

And the time after that, the headstone was just gone.

Each time without fail, Wayne would call the little Monument business in Muncie and order a new one. Once a month if not more. They recognized his voice by July.

"Don't waste the money," Rick said with a comforting hand patting his back as they both shed silent tears the fifth or sixth time. "He wouldn't have wanted you to...obsess over him like this. He would have wanted you to do something cool. Road trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Or surfing in California."

"I'm too old to surf."

"At least take some time off work. He started dealing so you'd stop working so much god damn overtime."

But what else was Wayne supposed to do with Eddie gone?

He worked, filled his free time with shitty TV and old pictures that Rick had squirreled away the closet of the bedroom that Wayne had taken residence in. Dinners at the Hendersons once a week where Claudia would send them home with too many leftovers and Dustin would tentatively explain a new D&D campaign.

It should have made his heart hurt but instead brought him comfort.

It was good to be reminded of the goodness that Eddie left behind, instead of the wickedness that his stained reputation seemed to bring out of everyone else.

And he kept replacing that damned headstone.

Until he stopped.

For almost a decade, they'd been friends and, for all intents and purposes, partners in raising Eddie.

When his sister-in-law had passed, Wayne had never asked for help, but Rick was quick to step up to the plate, despite the weight of his own world that he carried on his shoulders.

Pickups when Eddie was sick? Rick took care of them so Wayne could sleep.

And if Eddie was ever faking some illness to get out of a test or homework he hadn't remembered, then Rick took care of that too. Usually in a more fun and forgiving way than Wayne would.

Rick had been at Corroded Coffin's first "concert" at the Hideout, when they were still new and bad, fresh off their debut at the Hawkins Middle School talent show. He'd hauled out his old tube color camera so Wayne could watch it over the weekend.

There hadn't been any sound, but Wayne had been grateful to see Eddie's confident strumming and singing nonetheless.

And Wayne had been there for Rick time and again in return. When the shellshock got too bad and the voices were too loud, Wayne made the long drive to Indianapolis for Rick to pick up whatever he needed to chase the demons away.

Once Eddie was gone, they'd leaned on each other. The only ones who understood the loss the other experienced. Different...but still the same.

That's why it gutted Wayne as he watched Rick get cut down, torn apart by teeth and claws. Neck snapped, blood splattered, soul rent from his being, sent from this world onto the next.

He would have died to save Rick.

But he didn't.

The only thing that kept Wayne going were the hands attached to those claws.

Hands that spent hours practicing Fade to Black.

He knew the mouth that held those teeth. A mouth that spewed Cap'n Crunch as it failed to contain laughter at Saturday morning cartoons as he came home from a Friday Night double.

Knew the hair that dripped that blood. He was the last person to give it a trim, but not too much Uncle Wayne. It won't be metal enough for the concert on the 8th if you cut it too short. Can you believe it? Ozzy and Metallica. Fuck it's gonna be a great show. Shit...I mean shit.

And as eyes as dark as the abyss turned to Wayne and they stared at one another, Wayne's devastation was replaced by hope.

Because Rick might have been Wayne's friend, his brother.

But Eddie was Wayne's blood.

And Eddie was still alive.

The act of crossing into a new dimension was becoming something Wayne was used to mentally, but physically he didn't think he'd ever adjust.

His knees creaked as he crawled through the cavernous maw of the gate, his back ached as he pulled himself through the other side and he found his footing on the toxic soil, and his lungs wheezed momentarily as he took his first gulp of the strange atmosphere.

"You need to stop smoking if you're gonna come here every day," A familiar voice reached his ears and the aches and pains faded. "The air burns enough without tar-filled lungs."

"Well I only need to come here every day until we can get you home," Wayne groused and pivoted to find Eddie leaning against one of the trees at the edge of the beach.

"I'm working on it," Eddie deadpanned.

Wayne was quick to close the distance and pull him into a hug like he had for the last week.

Eddie wasn't as jarring a sight to see as he had been a few short weeks ago. Somehow, he'd made himself normal again; Wayne hadn't realized how until he heard the gut-wrenching screams as Eddie tore his body back apart once he thought Wayne was back on the other side.

"You don't have to do that on my behalf," Wayne insisted. "I'm just happy to see you. Happy you're here."

"I like it better this way," Eddie had shrugged as he tore off the broken old t-shirt for a new one that Wayne had brought. "I like my old body better. Makes me feel like I'm still myself."

That was really all this was, an effort to help Eddie feel like himself while he was stuck here.

Every day Wayne made the trek with a new change of clothes, a few new cassettes or a book for Eddie to read. Usually some food, Eddie's favorites, that largely went untouched. He wished he could bring more, just to see the joy on Eddie's face, but the crossing was a strain on his body. It required a different kind of strength than he was used to after years of manual labor.

Not just physical strength, but the fortification of the soul.

He didn't know how Eddie could have survived the past few weeks, let alone the past year and a half.

"What have you got for me today?" Eddie grinned. His fangs glistened with the ominous lightning in the distance and Wayne couldn't help but smile back at the enthusiasm.

"Got a special treat for you," Wayne heaved the knapsack from over his shoulder and dropped it to the ground.

"You said that yesterday when you brought my copy of The Hobbit," Eddie laughed. "And the day before that, when you brought Sweetheart."

"Can't let you get rusty." He unzipped the bag and reached in. "No, this is something else. I don't know what you've been doing with those Twinkies and cupcakes but uh...I figured this might be more to your liking."

He pulled out the dented old brown and orange thermos that his sister-in-law used to send Eddie to school with, a remnant of the days where Bradley's Big Buy let you choose a special prize if you spent over a certain amount on groceries.

"I, uh, am not really in a Chef Boyardee mood either, Uncle Wayne." Eddie unscrewed the top of the thermos and then froze as the scent hit him. His eyes shot up at Wayne in question, pupils dilated in an unnatural way.

"Go ahead, son," he nodded. "I know you're hungry."

"Where?" Eddie couldn't help but lick his lips. "Who?"

"I can't do it all the time." Wayne patted the crook of his elbow. "But when I can, I will."

Eddie shook his head but made no move to close the thermos. Wayne watched something happen behind his eyes though, an internal battle. There were little twitches beneath his skin, along his jaw, to his lips.

"I can drink from the others," he muttered, more to himself than Wayne. "Send them out and feed when they come back."

He worried his lips with those fangs that seemed to get longer and sharper.

"Please," he practically whimpered, in a tone that was practically unrecognizable. "Please."

"Please Eddie," Wayne nodded in encouragement. "You need it more than I do right now. Not like I can put it back."

"No!" Eddie slammed the lid back on, metal denting further beneath his strong grip. "Don't do that again Wayne. Never."

There was a venomous warning beneath his words and a barely audible crackle and hiss of something dangerous, something inhuman, and Wayne had no choice but to oblige.

"I only wanted to help."'

"Seeing you every day is more help than you could possibly imagine," Eddie explained darkly. "I don't need the blood. If I drank it...who knows what I could do. I'll be fine. Just trust me. Please."

"Alright," Wayne nodded.

They did what they usually did when Wayne visited. Talked about their days, a strange monotonous routine that felt like a semblance of the life they used to live, but it was welcome.

They always ignored the elephant in the room: the attacks on Hawkins, the growing number of dead thanks to the creatures of the Upside Down and their insatiable hunger.

Eddie had tried to explain once, tried to apologize, but Wayne would hear nothing of it.

"This is just the reality of it now," he comforted Eddie that first day after Vecna was destroyed. "Until we can get you out. Then you and I are getting the hell out of Hawkins and never looking back."

Finally it was time for Wayne to head home, back to Rick's, back to the house where he had nothing but his memories and hope. He gave Eddie one last hug before he started for the gate to begin his descent once more.

"Hey Uncle Wayne?" Eddie called after him and he turned back. Wayne watched the changes in his eyes. The pleading, the flashes of desperation, the softness that he knew his nephew was capable of. "I love you, you know that right?"

The way he said it put a chill in Wayne's heart. There was something about it; a foreboding darkness. A finality. They were words that were rarely said in the Munson household...but when they were said, the meaning was heavy...immense.

Wayne didn't quite know how to respond, though, to the weight that Eddie's words carried.

So he just said the obvious.

"Of course, son," Wayne nodded. "I love you too."

And then the flash was gone and in its place there was something foreign and spitting, something that, Wayne wondered as he trekked back to Hawkins, might have always been there in the depths, waiting to be released.

Maybe not just in Eddie.

But in everyone.

"The thought of abandoning [him] to save himself was never an option.[ ]He would defend them [both] until his end." - Wendy Owens, The Guardians Crown

[mynqzo]

Sorry if this is a strange question but what are your DND characters up to now? I have to say I grew a bit attached to your OCS & games and it's been a while since you mentioned anything about it (I think? I haven't been online much djdjdjsk) and obviously it's fine if you don't wanna share! Love your art btw!! Hope you're having a great day

oh em gee thank you for asking about them theyve been running around my mind recently ouggh

to not make this post a novel lemme do small summary, so essentially-

mersi is in the shadowfell right now with the party because he (stupidly a while ago) made a raven queen deal to find the missing pieces of a powerful magical violin that he did find but refused to give over so he lied about not finding, little does he know if he does not fulfill the raven queens promise he is at risk of losing his most intimate memories so to not do that he and the party went to Avernus to get sand from the river Styx to give to the raven queen as a gift in exchange for her not taking mersi's memories (ehehe)

micah and the party were previously down in an undergrown cathedral that worshipped micah's god ichthus, and fyi micah is the king of a kingdom that no longer exists because it lost a war and then was destroyed and sunk down in the ocean yada yada. they discovered some mysteries, went back up and partook in a festival that was all about fist fighting each other and now are on their way to board a ship (not theirs) to go to the capital of notos (the place they are right now) to find a guy

isofka and the gang have made it to the feywild (well prismeer to be specific) aka just landed in the last session and is now ready to go and find their missing belongings, but also isofka is having marital problems?? (crowd gasp) (btw if u didn't know isofka is engaged to dumonte one of the other pc's and also has a thing with oscar whos also another pc, a whole polyamorous thing essentially). he wants to find his missing lover who was taken and is locked away in prismeer and also uh survive the epic highs and lows of interpersonal drama

vasils mini campain ended with the party making it out of the bad place (tm) like the shadowfell but different and fought a big dragon which was cool, this was a while ago so err memories are a bit egh right now but he is having a religious crisis as we speak since he decided to abandon his goddess (goddess of rot and decay and he is a plague genasi u get the whole thang) so yea

grim is having a great (not) time as the gang plan to go to the otherworld aka the world of fey, because that means he is that much closer to encountering his old evil boss that had him imprisoned for 200 years its a whole thing. he has a powerful ancient artifact which is an bracelet with an eye that contains a guy in it who talks to him, its a whole thing you get it. and uh the fear of being captured and having your freedom stripped away plagues him! also he has a kind-of-boyfriend named aaron

[firebastardextraordinaire]

OOOH OC FUN FACTS!! Thanks to darling @lilarus for tagging me! i tagggg @lucien-lachance @loderlied @theladygrim @cheesychickenwings and @ray-elgatodormido

I think I’m going to astonish everyone by choosing Vinari over Jura for this lmao (if only bc all of you already know so much about Jura lol)

So naturally some of you already know that Vinvin is my main character for my original work Fallacy of the Damned but she’s also been supplanted as one of my official dnd/forgotten realms blorbos too!

So onto the fun facts about Faerunian Vinari/Dirge! I'm putting it under a readmore bc holy shit this is long af and kinda got out of hand bc i've only ever really talked to Ari about Faerunian Vinari i think lmao

- Vinari (chosen name for a while) was born Dirge to a human sorceror/cleric of Myrkul and the heir to the Drow Bhaalist Clan of the Vidrus, both sects who lived in Waterdeep (well the Vidrus lived in the UpperDark under Waterdeep technically) and thus Dirge Vidrus was raised in both Myrkul and Bhaal’s churches (with a hint of Lolth too. Lolth begrudgingly shares the Vidrus the Bhaal but only because she kinda likes the funky little upjumped human. They’ve bonded over a mutual love of death and murder and apparently breeding horrific and evil monster children)

- Dirge’s official classes are Shadow Sorcerer (which she got from dad, who got one of Myrkul’s evil hugs full of necrotic energy that nearly fucking killed him but apparently did not affect his ability to have children. Or maybe it DID but Myrkul was like, yknow what I’ll allow it this time bc he needs more worshippers anyway and Gods can be freaks when it comes to their clerics breeding habits) and Phantom Rogue (which is a subclass that many rogues can pick up from a variety of ways from sleeping in graveyards or training in/by death god cults or by liches.) in Dirge’s case, the phantom subclass cane naturally as a result of being a shadow sorceror AND being raised by the clergy of TWO gods of death. (I’d def recommend looking at these two 5e classes because they are literally SO fun) she also has a couple levels in warlock, but not because she made a pact with a patron, but because she IS her own patron. (Since in 5e you can have a powerful undead as a patron, I see no reason she can’t be her OWN patron once her magic gets powerful enough) she’s a pact of the blade warlock and her pact weapon is a dagger, which I’m about to talk about next!

- her dagger was created by and given to her by Myrkul himself. Because Myrkulites are followers of the god of the dead and don’t fear dying themselves, and consider getting one of their God’s necrosis filled hugs that are almost certain to kill them, and if they survive horribly fuck them up for life to be the highest honor, i think they definitely have a bunch of different rituals and just other kind of stupid shit that will easily kill them that they do for clout, honor, and as rites of passage. One of which being getting one of Myrkul’s evil hugs. ANOTHER is going through one of the thousands of portals to Hades and the realm of the dead to try and meet Myrkul in person. Generally speaking, this is not the wisest thing to do considering the realm of the dead is not a very friendly or safe place to be if youre alive, especially when you consider the fact that to even GET there, you have to go swimming through the Water of Forgetfulness, which drain people (living and dead) of both memory and emotions the longer they're exposed to it. Vinari passed the series of saving throws to keep her memories. She didn't do so well on the saving throws to keep her emotions, but she did make it there and back with her mind (and body) in tact, and Myrkul was both mildly impressed and amused by the fact she'd acomplished this that he gave her the dagger that serves as both her pact weapon (and thus arcane focus) and her main instrument of murder.

it has a LOT of very VERY unfriendly effects, which isn't exactly surprising considering it was made by the god of the dead for an assassin. The main ones being dealing extra necrotic damage on sneak attacks, critical hits, and attacks made while obscured but the super NASTY effect it has is that wounds inflicted by it can't be healed with magic, in fact, healing magic will inflict necrotic damage INSTEAD of healing, so they have to be allowed to heal naturally, unless a mage casts Remove Curse. .....and if they don't cast remove curse with a level 7 spell slot or higher, THEY get hit with a second, counter curse! and have to roll a constitution saving throw against some necrotic damage lol.

and the thing is that the dagger is a long, thin, and slender blade designed for slipping into weak spots in armor and piercing vital organs or severing important arteries, aka meant for fast and quick assassinations. Which means that assuming the victim survives the initial attack, they're probably not going to survive for VERY LONG afterwards without immediate help from a cleric, who better hope that A. pass their arcana check to realize the wounds are cursed and that trying to heal them without removing the curse will only kill the poor bastard faster! and then B. pass a SECOND arcana check to realize that its a very POWERFUL curse and if they don't cast an appropriately powerful remove curse spell and try to go cheap with it, it's not going to end well for THEM either! and then C. better hope that they're actually POWERFUL ENOUGH to cast the spell with the high enough level spell slot needed to avoid the counter curse!

all in all, it is definitely not a weapon that one would want wielded against them lmao

- MOVING ON, Vin's story in Faerun is actually split into two parts. The first taking place during the Time of Troubles, where she's running around as a mercenary by day and assassin by night, and she ends up Joining Midnight and Kelemvor's party to go rescue Mystra from Bane (though naturally none of them have any idea thats what theyre even DOING until they get there) and Even though Kel's got his bit of sexism going on at the beginning (in that he didn't want midnight going at all to begin with either) it's actually Cyric who vouches for Vinari's skills and convinces Kelemvor to let her go too because Cyric and Vinari were casually hanging out and doing merc work together before meeting Kelemvor. Pretty much no one finds out/knows for sure that Vin's a fucking BHAALIST until book two and three. Cyric gets it confirmed by Bane in book two, and he outes her to the party in book three.

But to make a long story short, when Cyric (well not him actually, his sentient sword) kills Bhaal in the third book, Midnight teleported the party away from the ensuing blast from the death of the god. Well, MOST of the party. Unfortunately for Vin, she was on the OTHER side of Bhaal from the party watching the fighting go down because she's stuck between a rock and a hard place here because she likes the party and doesnt want them to die, but at the same time, the god of murder is one of the LAST gods you ever want to betray (or them think you betrayed them)

so yeah, Vinari does NOT get teleported to safety with everyone else, and she very nearly gets blown to fucking smithereens when Bhaal dies. but she doesn't! (though she doesn't know its because in his final moments Bhaal did some quick spellwork to shield her from the majority of the blast because he needs her alive for one of his MANY contingency plans) but even though she doesn't die, she's fucking nearly dead for almost the rest of book because while the rest of the party is dealing with myrkul's shit, she's fucking floating down the winding river. which is now polluted with Bhaal's blood and divine essence. which means she's taking a veryyyyy long bath soaking in and absorbing the fucking god of death's divine power! So by the time she recovers enough to pull her sorry ass out of the fucking river, she's very much NOT the same person that she was before she nearly got blown to pieces.

so yeah she ends up hightailing it to the closest divine staircase to try and figure out what all has happened while she was microdosing being dead, and gets there right in time to see Midnight and Cyrics chat with Ao about the tablets and becoming gods.

remember that Cyric is the one who (supposedly) killed Bhaal, whose divine essence Vin has spent the last two to three weeks soaking in.

I'm sure you can guess exactly what happens next. and if not ill tell you anyway. Vinari promptly fucking kills cyric right in front of the God of Gods. By throwing her dagger with perfect aim and lodging it right in Cyric's throat from fifty feet away.

Of course, Ao LET her do this bc he's well aware of the fact that she's upjumped on Bhaal's divine essence and he wanted to see if she'd prove herself a worthy successor to him, and which in immediately killing Cyric on sight, she did.

Of course, Ao just immediately revives Cyric bc he DOES still intend to make him a god, its just instead of getting all the dead three's portfolios, he's losing death to Vinari.

so yeah, Vinari becomes the new god of Death! Also she starts going by Dirge again when she becomes a god and ends up sticking with it. Speaking of her godhood, it lasts about 10 years because i'm one of the "actually bg2 revived bhaal just fine and according to his plan, he was just incredibly antisocial and didn't bother telling anyone he was back in action again for another 100 years" truthers, and of course as soon as Bhaal was alive again and walking into his old, now Dirge's throne room, she was more than happy to see him and give him all his power back (which is EXACTLY what he thought she'd do and why the last thing he did before dying was ensuring that SHE didn't) So now Bhaal is the god of murder again, and Dirge, now just a rank 0 quasideity, heads back to Faerun to start renacting his will so he can regain more of his power faster.

Which leads to Dirge being around and causing trouble in bg3, but this is already long enough so i won't go into that lmao.

But here have some pictures of her mortal forms before and after becoming a god. She chooses to take the form of a human in the after because being a half drow is REALLY inconvenient to getting around places lmao

[madbadash]

🎵🎵🎵 Album tag game 🎵🎵🎵

rules: share the albums that you can listen to nonstop. those lightning in a bottle-albums that scratch ur brain just right. every single track, an absolute banger. u could not skip one if u tried. no notes. stunning, show-stopping, immaculate. ur no-skip albums.

🔎 bonus & optional (but imo, v fun) rules: 1) add a track rec for us to listen to! AND 2) share ur favorite line(s) from that track! 👀

Now lowkey I'm cheating here because I don't really listen to albums in full and I would probably would skip at max like one song on each of these albums but I wanna participate in the game so I make the rules.

ANYWAYS thank you @bluecoolr for the tag

I will Tag @probably-a-plant-thing @bobeatspie300 @thelemoncoffee @boxtyphoon @toborusk and a cover all if you wanna do it do it!! Also these are all very low no pressure tags.

Billie Ellish- When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We All Do?

Penelope Scott-Public Void

Mother Mother-Inside

Chonny Jash-The Will Wood Power Hour

Eliza Anastasic-The Grand Relics

Billie was my number one artist on Spotify for like 2 or 3 years in a row and she hasn't left my top 5 since I started listening to her. I fucking LOVE ilomilo

Lyrics: So, where did you go? I should know, but it's cold And I don't wanna be lonely So tell me you'll come home Even if it's just a lie

The fact I get all my music from Tiktok is showing ANYWAYS Penelope Scott has some bangin ass music. I actually associate this song with Steven, and if Bob is down and people are interested I can totally go into why.

Lyrics:You fuckers know it's all built on lies But the beast refuses to die And so I guess well neither can I

Mother Mother is the most basic gay people music but DO I CARE??? NOOOOO!!!!! I can and will add both Haylofts into Oc Playlists! Anyways this bitch got a funky rhythm and I like the way they sing. Also this is probably the album with the most skips but I make the rules I don't care I'mma put it anyways

Lyrics: I'm thinking, "Oh, my God, what a chatty creature" It just kept talking and talking and talking all around in a circle I said, "Hey, little guy, I think it's time to go now"

CHONNY I AM GONNA KISS YOU SO HARD OH MY GOD. YOU, ONE OF MY FAVORITE ARTISTS, COVERING WILL WOOD??? MY OTHER TOP ARTIST. I AM CRAZY AND DERANGED

Now I do think you should listen to both versions of Thermodynamic Lawyer but I really like the lyric changes Chonny does so do whatever you want.

Lyrics:He'll rationalize rhymes 'til the T's and the I's Are re-crossed and re-dotted to a blur Blacks out his eyes, hides the lines, flays his thighs 'Til the-, they think that "he" is their "her"

Ok ok now hear me out. Hear me out here I know it's fucking weird but listen to me. Hear me the fuck out.

This is a fan-Album based on the Podcast The Adventure Zone Balance. Everyone should listen to Balance. It's a funny DND podcast. It is earnest, and stupid and funny and it has made me cry and if you don't have 69 hours to throw to this podcast (with the first 6 episodes being a bit rough as it's their first time playing) I HIGHLY recommend listening to their Current Arc: Vs Dracula. They all know what they're doing and they're doing it hilariously

Rant over. These songs are based on 7 magical objects that are collected by our main characters. These songs also include some clips from the podcast. I'm gonna rec the first one because its the least spoiler-y.

Lyrics: I'm a weapon of mass destruction That can literally fit on your hand So what are you waiting for? I'm thralling as hard as I can Go ahead and put me on- Gloves do not have long attention spans!

[theladysherlock]

talk shop tuesday! incredible coincidence - i wanted to ask you more about your dnd OCs, and you posted a new art piece with one of them! continuing the theme: could you tell more about your dnd OCs and how they came to be?

Ohhhh you have opened Pandora's Box my friend!! I could talk about this topic all day.

Basically there's two parts to this: my approach to DnD in general, and in-depth explanations of the characters. I'm going to put this under a Read More to save everyone's Dash.

Part One: Dungeons and Dragons

So the thing I love most about DnD (and other TTRPGs) is that it's a collaborative game. I'm not responsible for the entirety of the story, I bring my character to the table and everyone else brings their characters and between us, the DM, and the dice, we figure out where the story is going. I enjoy it so much more than trying to come up with everything on my own. And I love that people can surprise me!! @mothmansbigfatass and @ahawkmet (my irl friends and in most of the campaigns I play) can attest, apparently I'm a lot of fun to watch during revelations because I always have a big reaction.

So when making a dnd character, it's important for me to know 1. What the world we'll be playing in is like, and 2. What everyone else is doing. Again, it's a collaborative game, so I want to make sure that I'm playing nice with the DM's world. AND often the setting itself will give me an idea (see Ethan: the game is set at a community college. What's a college stereotype that would be fun to play?). Ideally, the character I make would have a really hard time being plopped into a different campaign and have it still make sense. Secondly, it's more fun for me to play a class that will fill out the party. For example, if we already have a cleric, I don't also need to play a religious character. Those story beats are covered by someone else, I don't want to be competing with another person for cool moments.

Once those two things are settled, character creation is determined by what seems fun to play and what would be interesting aesthetically. I like to keep the backstory light to see what happens as we start playing, and then I can fill it in bit by bit later. Sometimes that bites me in the ass, though (see Ethan: I didn't give him birth parents and then they were incredibly important to the plot). I tend to have a general idea about who they are and what they're like, and then I always get surprised by what they actually end up acting like once we start playing. It's fun for me to figure them out along the way!

The last thing I wanna say about DnD (for now) is that I love everyone else's characters just as much. I just draw mine more because, well, they're mine. I feel weird putting their guys in situations and guessing how they'd react because they aren't my little guys. I much prefer working collaboratively with the other players (like an RP thread) to just writing a story on my own.

Part Two: Ethan

Where to even start with my boy. A bunch of my work friends got together to start a DnD game, and I hadn't played with most of them before so I wasn't sure what to expect. I also did not think the game would last very long, since most campaigns tend to fizzle out after a few sessions. So I made kind of a joke character with extremely little backstory: He's a half-orc, since I hadn't played that race before, he's a bard who is the captain of the local community college's Improv Team, he's "the kind of guy to play wonderwall at a party but you're not mad about it", and I said he's adopted by two men, neither of whom were his biological parents, and he wasn't particularly interested in tracking down his bio parents. This last point is for two reasons: one, I was trying to avoid just duplicating a Dimension 20's Gorgug, a half-orc who was adopted by gnomes and spent the whole first season trying to find his dad; and two, I was pushing an "Adopted parents are not less than biological parents" agenda.

My DM took this personally (affectionate). First session, I was given a clue about his birth parents' identities. From then on, Ethan was dragged kicking and screaming into being the unofficial main character of the campaign. His mom was one of our favorite NPCs, a kickass pirate with a truly tragic backstory who would always jump to help us out of a scrape. His biological dad was the human embodiment of Pride who had took on the form of Fantasy Harrison Ford and was an extremely famous actor in-world. Our BBEG was his uncle, the embodiment of Greed. Every plot point became very personal and it was a lot of fun. I also loved putting him through the wringer, so between me and the DM the poor guy couldn't catch a break.

Part of the dice telling the story, I rolled so bad all the time when I played Ethan. It didn't matter which dice I used, I just rolled really bad, which was not something that normally happened with me. So that was fun to incorporate into his character as we played-- he was insecure about his own abilities compared to the extremely powerful characters he was surrounded by (we had a 20 ft Earth Titan who was an extremely powerful Druid, Emeshka you will always be famous). So he became a more three-dimensional and actualized character the more we played.

He's extremely easy to put in situations and his character design is pretty solid, so I end up drawing him the most. My perfect little guy.

(Anything about him I've tagged either "Ethan" or "Big Yarr Energy" if you want to find more)

Part Three: Mina

After the campaign with Ethan wrapped up, we started a new one in a Cthulhu-inspired setting. My goal with making Mina was to do as close to a 180 as I could from Ethan. While Ethan was a friendly and charming but bad at most things, Mina is a competent and intelligent Druid who's blunt and overworked and doesn't quite know how to meaningfully engage with her party members (but she tries, bless her). Druid was one of the classes I hadn't played yet and I've been making my way through the list of available classes. The One-With-Nature stuff isn't super interesting to me as a player, but I found a homebrew subclass that was based more in Big Cities and as an Architecture Nerd that was much more my speed. Also, I hadn't played an Aasimar before, so that seemed like fun. From all that, I pulled together her whole deal: She was from a bloodline of guardian angels who were sent to protect different villages and towns, and she's gone from her mother's small town to being the guardian of a city of several million people and it's overwhelming. She's lonely and she's jaded and she's got severe Gifted Kid Syndrome and she's got her head on a swivel to make sure her party members are okay even if they don't like her very much and I love her.

I didn't give her a lot of tragic backstory because there are a lot of us playing and I wanted to have a character who could push the plot forward with her actions, instead of having a "now let's stop and talk about my life!!" moment every session that seemed to happen with Ethan. Give everyone else some time to have cool moments, you know? And by GOD are there some cool moments. My fellow players are so good at making compelling characters. Ask @mothmansbigfatass about Nelly if you get a chance.

We're still playing this campaign, although we're nearing the end of it. There's still space for some big moments for Mina in the game, though I'm hoping our DM lets me save hers for last. She's the kind of character to make sure everyone else is okay before taking care of herself, so it feels appropriate. I'm excited to see where Mina ends up. She's definitely a character I'll go back and write/draw a lot afterwards, though. Part of being in a group this size means there's a lot of stuff that just won't get covered. I'll have a lot of material to play with for my own work once we get to the next campaign.

(Anything about Mina I've tagged either "Mina" or "Cthulhu Crimes" if you want to find more)

Part Four: Jess

Jess is a character that isn't from DnD but is a TTRPG character of mine, and I like her so I'm going to talk about her too. Jess is a cautionary tale in Knowing Your Audience.

Jess is from a different group of players than Ethan and Mina. Our DM for that game is notorious for wanting to give us Big, Shonen-Style fight scenes and an insane level of power creep. Character interactions are fine, but his true passion is making us look like Goku.

Jess was... not built to look like Goku. In this world you could identify different types of magic users by their focus, and I wanted her whole schtick to be about deception. She looked like a wizard when she was actually a monk, she looked like a dumb blonde girl when she was extremely smart and good at stealing things, she's a dancer but her primary fighting style was based on capoeira, etc. Also part of why Jess sticks with me as a favorite character is the way I had her powers work was so fun and visually interesting that I haven't been able to shake it. Basically her superpower was that she could snatch bits of other people's powers and use them herself, and you could tell which ones she had because they would fill out spectral stained glass wings with specific colors.

Jess was (and still is, frankly) too complicated for the game our DM wanted to run. Immediately any hope of her being a chronic liar was dashed as her powers did not manifest in a way that could possibly pass off as being a wizard. So instead of being sneaky, Jess became very angry. She was quick to point out injustices in the world we were in. She beat up creeps, she yelled at bigots, she stole powers from macho superheroes trying to one-up her. She had to get a lot less complicated for the story we were in, but the complicated version of her still lives in my head and I like to see what she's up to from time to time.

(I don't think I have anything tagged for Jess, unfortunately)

TL; DR:

TTRPG characters are fun because they let me do my favorite thing creatively, which is bounce ideas off of other people. I typically design them based on the setting, party needs, character tropes that I think are interesting, and just general vibes. Most importantly, though, I don't have a fleshed out character without the input of the other players.