#I literally looked up mythical animals based on either personality or powers

[bloomxsky]

Fairy animals/Familiars redesigns

⬆️ Mrs. O’Leary- Hellhound(Bloom’s fairy animal/familiar)

⬆️ Alina- Phoenix(Stella’s fairy animal/familiar)

⬆️ Oide- Chinese Dragon(Musa’s fairy animal/familiar)

⬆️ Pallas- Kitsune(Tecna’s fairy animal/familiar)

⬆️ Nerio- Water sprite(Aisha’s family animal/familiar)

⬆️ Anthe- Unicorn(Flora’s fairy animal/familiar)

⬆️ Rehema- Griffin(Roxy’s fairy animal/familiar)

[mmmmalo]

Jade & Bec

[This is an experimental post, exploring the threads between Jade & Bec, which will be updated regularly unto some semblance of completion.]

Are you familiar with the concept of trolls as manifestations? Cool, awesome, here’s a strange edge-case:

Tavros informs Jade that he prevented her death by commanding Bec to redirect a bullet into a villain’s heart. Jade informs Tavros that the “villain” was in fact her Grandpa, and Tavros attempts to defend his misguided heroics with the dignity of a wounded puppy dog. The strangeness: if Tavros is manifesting for Jade, why is he explaining Bec’s motivations for killing Grandpa? After all, Tavros directed Bec to do something Bec was already going to do – both of them are concerned with Jade’s safety. One might conclude that Bec (like Tavros) misjudged (not really) the danger presented by Grandpa (Harley). However, the manifestation of Tavros implies that these motivations also apply to Jade, despite her vocal insistence that Tavros is wrong.

What gives? Here’s a possibility broached in the second half of the conversation:

What if Bec is Jade’s imaginary friend? Tavros’s inexplicable manifestation for two parties would then be explained as voicing the thoughts of a mind divided. This would mean Jade shot Grandpa, albeit with several psychic buffers.

I realize that this would contradict the birth of Bec seen in Jade’s dreams, and that’s certainly not something to be ignored -- but then the trolls acting as psychological manifestations would likewise seem to contradict their existence as alien entities. The uncanny dissonance comes with the territory of dream logic, maybe.

Another reason to think Bec may have always already been a part of Jade: in the same way that cherubs seek to rekindle a primordial union, the kids in Homestuck universally aspire to a reunion. When John seeks to reunite with Dad, their separation analogous to the scratch on Dave’s record, an emblem of his fractured sense of self. John’s distance from (his image of) Dad is met with anxiety, and the urge to unite with that image drives much of his behavior throughout the story. Critically, a consequence of conceiving of this union as a re-union is that John fancies himself as having spawned directly from Dad’s image. (x)(x)(x)

As her riveting anthro treatise indicates, Jade similarly wishes to unite with Bec. The creation of Jadesprite corroborates this, as does the eventual realization of dogtier!Jade. But what could it mean for Jade to think of this as a RE-union? There’s certainly the sense in which Jade romanticizes shedding the trappings of civilization and embracing animal instinct, which can be conceived as having preceded humanity as we know it. In that sense, Jade could be said to be “returning” to a state from which humanity ostensibly divorced itself.

Put in familial terms, you might say humans are descended from beasts. Thus phrased, Jade being raised by a dog seems like a very apt metaphor.

Bec being Jade’s creation would admittedly invert this sense of who is parent and who is child, but there’s precedent for that sort of thing. The metaphor rich soils of Alternia has an upper class defined by the lower class trappings of Juggalo culture, after all. At this point I only want to establish a starting point for considering what it would mean for Bec to have already been Jade.

Main topics for future additions:

Why would Jade want to shoot Grandpa?

What are we to make of Bec’s powers if he is an extension of Jade?

(and of course, further justification for either of these questions being asked)

[5/3/2019] Topic: Jade & Lightning

First, a comment:

zenosanalytic

the parent stuff seems pretty easy, considering that it's de riguer in Homestuck for kids to be the parents of their parents

so like: Bec would both be a creation of Jade, and her primary parental figure. The different would be that, whereas with the B1s&2s it's a literal genetic link, with Jade and Bec it'd be more role-based.

...'difference' rather -__-

Thanks -- that’s further reason to regard that twist as a non-issue, except insofar as it may evince confusion on Jade’s part.

To get into the subject of why Jade would want to shoot Grandpa, it would be worth it to review and reevaluate stuff leading up to this. Namely, Jade’s fear of lightning.

When John entered the Medium, he had several near-falls: slipping on a staircase, launching into the air with his new Pogo-Hammer. Each encounter with the possibility of mortal descent was followed by the appearance of large ogres, who begin their assault after John looks down into the abyss. The ogres are physical manifestations of John’s abstract fear of heights, a fear which began with his fall from the slime pogo, and which Sburb stoked by placing his home on top of a huge spire. (Or perhaps it would be better to say that heights are the aspiration, and falling is the fear)

Subsequent encounters between kids and the monsters on their planets can be similarly understood as reactions to fears exemplified in some early trauma. Rose slams an ogre face-first into the oceans of LOLAR, which reminds her of the drowning of Jaspers. Dave gets his neck slit by an agent, which is an echo of the decapitated apartment building suspended over a bloodpool of lava, itself an echo of the fracturing of Dave’s identity from fraternal emasculation. In each case, the challenges posed by the game are directly sourced from some psychological fixation.

In Jade’s case, the appearance of her first imp is triggered by an aurora that bears a striking resemblance to lightning, giving a fairly direct indication of Jade’s fear. What’s more, the form of this manifestation is a callback to Bec’s first appearance! Naturally, this could be explained as simple callback reminding us the imp has inherited Bec’s powers via prototyping. But insofar as the imp is a manifestation induced by the image of a thunderbolt, the sequence suggests that Jade’s fear of lightning is closely associated with Bec.

There are precedents for this connection: one is rooted in the idea that the sylladex is itself a medium for the abstract expression of thought. When Jade attempts to draw her Eclectic Bass back into her Pictionary Modus, she instead captures the ghost image of Johnny 5, a sentient robot. This error is not a random occurrence, but rather a short circuit of mental association. Eclectic is two letters apart from electric, and Johnny 5 emerged as a consciousness due to a lightning strike, like a metallic Frankenstein monster. Immediately following this error, Bec appears and zaps Jade back to her room. – the dog is somehow both the interruption of this line of thought and its culmination.

The invocation of Frankenstein allows us to make some sense of the earliest iteration of this pattern: a pumpkin carved with the visage of Bec nearly awakens Jade when the reader tries to drop it on her head. 4 points:

John covered his walls with clowns and rude epithets; Rose scrawled frantic permutations of MEOW; and Dave drew SBAHJ. Each instance involves the kids expressing some kind of subconscious fixation or fear: John and his social anxiety, Rose and the echoes Jaspers’s swan song, Dave and the fever dreams within his art. There are no comparable drawings on the wall of Jade’s home, nor in her room on Prospit, but rather than concluding that Jade is an outlier to the trend, I would contend that Jade carved the face of Bec onto the pumpkin in her sleep instead. This again indicates a dread for Bec buried in Jade’s mind -- or rather, that Bec is an expression of some unspoken dread?

The pumpkin drop is echoed in drunk!Rose’s account of Newton’s mythic realization of the law of gravity. Rose says the proverbial strike of apple-to-noggin is symbolic of inspiration, the sudden intrusion of an idea. The same can be said of the pumpkin as a symbol: recall that the gift that inspired Jade to begin gardening in the first place was pumpkin seeds. So that which threatens to awaken Jade is the idea of Bec, again situating the scene

That the “reader” executes the drop is not arbitrary. It is crucial to the structure of the scene that the impetus for this attempted inspiration comes from beyond the fourth wall, for reasons I will elaborate upon in due time.

The inhabitants of dream bubbles are at times referred to as the dreaming dead, invoking the age old metaphor of death as a long sleep. The corollary is that awakening is akin to coming alive. As the allusion to Frankenstein via Johnny 5 might suggest, the flash of Bec-associated inspiration from beyond bears the possibility of no only awakening Jade, but of bringing her to life.

More lightning talk tomorrow.

[5/6/2019] Topic: Grandpa Harley

Let's skip to the end (and sort out the messy filler afterward): Jade's fear of lightning seems to be linked to a sexual assault at the hands of her grandfather.

An early hint comes by way of another reference to Johnny 5. Having alchemized the thunderstruck robot, Jade finds herself swarmed with notifications from the manifest Eridan. The Prince impresses upon her Ahab's Crosshairs, a weapon which had been previously established as a phallic lightning bolt (x). Knowing that the weapon will somehow make it to her grandson* Jake, Jade muses on the question of who she might have kids with. Eridan in turn balks at the thought of "pink wwigglers comin out a your owwn personal torso" -- a turn of phrase that obviously alienates us from childbirth, but also presents us with the image of worms or maggots wriggling in Jade's body. Rot blends with an image of fecundity, like the scarabs in the Mummy. We don't have the tools to make sense of this overlay of death and birth quite yet, but we will return to it. For now, consider this scene as a collage whose elements we cannot yet organize.

The more overt indication comes via Clubs Deuce. Recall when dream!Jade beat the snot out of CD for stealing the queen's ring, only to reveal that back in reality, Jade's dreambot was beating the stuffing out of dead!Grandpa? The juxtaposition suggests that Jade's violence towards CD in her dream is a displacement of some latent aggression towards Grandpa. Much later, just before Cascade, there is a payoff of sorts for this linkage: another lightning aurora hovers in the distance as Jade prepares for the scratch, and it triggers the return of CD. He drops in from the sky and kills Jade with an explosion of foam, knocking the Genesis Frog into the Forge in the process. The foam is ejaculatory, and the depositing the frog where it may gestate prior to its final descent/ascent to Skaia is an insemination. We infer that CD is playing the role of Grandpa in this display.

In response, Jack kills the shit out of CD, just as Bec killed Grandpa. The retaliation has echoes elsewhere. Recall the gag in which Hussie riffs on the end of the Neverending Story: he rides a white dog-dragon and avenges himself upon some bullies with a blast of stupid green dog barf. (Aside: it is out of the current scope, but worth noting that Hussie and Falkor respectively bear emblems of influence by Vriska and Lord English) The sequence is a silly mirror of Becsprite's annihilation of Jade's imminent meteor (the seed) with an immense blast of green fire. Entry sequences tend to involve some esoteric depiction of a character's trauma, and in this case, the meteor directly represents the "bully", Grandpa. (And perhaps to a lesser extent, bullies like Karkat, who in their own way posed a violent, intrusive threat to her (emotional) well being)

The entry meteor's threatened impact with the earth is but one example of the colliding celestial spheres that seem to haunt Jade. In Descend, Jade's reverie in the golden city is cut short as Jack severs the umbilical chain connecting the moon and planet (child and parent), sending the moon careening into the Battlefield below, crushing Jade. As with the meteors that swarm Skaia like sperm upon an egg, the child-status of the moon renders its crash akin to a seeding. A subsequent collision is more direct: Jake's Hope field versus Jade's green fireball. The entire grimbark scenario was triggered by Jade catching a glimpse of Jake's banana hammock (though of course, on a plot level the transformation was triggered by HIC's mind control). To drive the point home, Jade bemoans her inability to detach her focus from Jake's undies as they duel. As Jade is overpowered, the collision of Hope and Space comes to resemble the visage of Doc Scratch -- this unsettles due both to Scratch's pedophilia, and the way that the mind/body blocking of the scene reinforces the sense of domination from Jake to Jade. Adding insult to injury, the defeated Jade is crushed to death by a long white tower.

All this would seem to have been foreshadowed by Dave's comment on the earth being under assault by planet fucking Jupiter; the invocation of Zeus connects his comically absurd doomsday scenario to Jade's fear of lightning.

Next topic -- motifs connected to imbuing inert matter with the breath of life, and how they relate to Jade's sense of agency.

[tumblunni]

.

Man i was just thinking again about that idea i had for a cliche gijinka app card game where the gijinkas are all Interesting Bugs instead of weird sexy anime george washington.

I've kinda got quite attatched to my idea for a leech gijinka as a super cuddly white mage who just happens to look emo and scary. And they'd be a great opportunity for nonbinary representation cos in real life leeches don't have binary sexes anyway. But i cant decide between whether i want them to look like a full plague doctor mask thing or a more cliche cutesy nurse but theyre like super tall and look like the monster girl from the ring so they get sad that people always run away before they can help them! So then i was thinking "hey, alternate skins!" Not like in the other games ive played where there's always one canon skin and all the others require hours of grinding and/or real money to buy. But just that there's like three or so randomized versions of the base character with all the same stats but a different costume. Just to spice up the pool of options a bit! Or maybe it could even be more than just the costume and you can get entirely different reinterpretations of that job class? Like the medusa jellyfish could be either a young kid or a grandpa!

Oh and i'm not really sure how to name this or anything? Cos its not really a clear category of animals, its not all insects or all worms or whatever. More like just..all the animals that are unfairly hated but have Cool Biology Facts that i can babble at u to maybe make u like them more. So i dunno.. Pests? Creepy crawlies? Some entirely made up fantasy term for them?

Also i think the setting will definately be jrpg fantasy! Just a world where all these critters are actually funky people on a comedically bad D&D quest. I wonder who the villains could be tho? Maybe theyre gijinkas of more commonly loved cute animals? Or like.. Not gijinkas but monsterfied versions? Hilariously over the top evil fluffums! hamsters are this setting's dragons! And i dunno maybe the ultimate dark lord is a dog with a cat for a royal vizier or something, cos theyre the kings of popularity.

This could also make it actually make sense why the Clione character could be a beserker like in real life! Cos theyre the most un-hated rare sea slug for looking cute, but their actual personality is big scary predator. But in this universe being seen as cute by humans = evil, so the Clione's fighty doom personality would make perfect sense! Im not sure if i should make them like a tormented Shadow esque antihero or a paladin-looking knight who has a dark streak or maybe even a viking? Cos in videogames theyre like the epitome of 'loves fighting but is still a nice hugs guy'. And it'd be neat to have a chubby buff clione instead of the more cliche bishie gijinka. But then i mean theyre literally nicknamed 'sea angels' or 'sea fairies' depending on country so yeah? Oh or maybe that could mean i make them an elf or an angel but theyre still mega buff! Viking guy with lil chibi wings and halo!

Also randomly i think that Slug will be the other nonbinary character along with Leech. Cos well there's a lot of bugs who dont fit the human gender binary but i'd probably be a bit too obnoxious if i had like 90% enbies and noone else. I always think about like 'if this is my first game project i need to go at a small and reasonable pace with all the Big LGBT Feels', yknow? But then every idea i do is always my first game project cos ive never completed any of them yet XD

Anyway i think Slug would be a more fashionable bishie kind of androgenous character, while Leech is a relateable cuddly socially awkward one who wears a mask. But definately also looks stylish in their own way, and i'm sure Slug is always complimenting them and trying to bolster their spirits! Aside from being super fashionable i also think maybe Slug would be a wandering bard? Cos somehow slow animal -> lazy human -> free spirited instead to be less cliche -> bard. Also the whole 'bard rolls to seduce every boss' meme, lol! So Slug is a very nyeheheh tricksy flirty adventuring song person who aint take nobody's shit. Instead of being sleepy they sleep on the concept of low self confidence! Full and powerful pride at all times!!! Goal in life is to be beautiful AF and handsome AF and make everyone swoon at your feet and also recite an epic poetry so cool that your enemies straight up die from the sick burn. Tho i mean i don't think anyone could actually ACHIEVE that, lol! It might be obnoxious if i actually have a character who's basically 'enby people are literally perfect in all ways'. So i just think Slug is a big ol dork who's like the Gaston archetype of the comically overconfident flirt, but like a good and heroic version who actually respects when people say no to their advances. And is also a great BFF to Leech and tries to help them get out of their shell, because well of course Slug is out of theirs XD

Also actually i dunno whether they should all just be named after the animal or have thier own names but the animal is mentioned on their profile as a job class name or something? Cos it might get awkward once we get to more specific obscure bugs with longer names or ones who only really have a scientific genus name. I'd feel like i'd have to make them all wizards cos their names sound like spells! Oh MAYBE THEYRE SPELLS!! Like each character could chant their own scientific name when they use their ultimate attack??

Oh and maybe Slug and Leech could be just based on the species in general but have their alternate costumes themed after more specific rare subspecies? Like Slug could have nudibranch themed costumes cos the vibrant colours would fit such an elegant fashioniste~ And leech could just be an opportunity to talk about how there's subspecies of leech that dont drink blood, though this character is based on the ones that do because otherwise they wouldnt really have a unique job class, lol. Maybe their rarest alt costume is a fashionable orange ensemble that symbolizes both Slug taking them out for a night on the town in their finest to feel more comfortabke in their self confidence, and also just the fact there's an orange tropical leech. Its kinda funny cos there isnt such a huge range of different colours for leeches, its mostly just different barely visible patterns and a spectrum from greenish brown to brownish black, lol. And then suddenly a bunch of wildly different red and orange ones! And nothing in between! Really does seem like a surprise makeover from your bestie, yknow?

Oh and then when i was thinking about other potential relationships between different magic bug people, i thought of Daddy Longlegs! Cos thats a name confusingly given to multiple bugs of wildly different species who're all mistaken for spiders when they really arent. And this mythical nonexistant daddy longlegs spider also has the myth of having 'the strongest poison but its fangs are too short to bite you' which is COMPLETE nonsense based on nothibg cos how would it even survive in the wild if it cant hunt? But its a real cool myth so it could be an awesome excuse to make them have a move that gambles on either an instant kill or a self debuff. ALSO THEY ARE MARRIED

I was thinking they could be a duo of fabulous zorro-looking assassin dudes who were sent to assassinate each other but instead fell in love and quit the business for good. Like 'you made me want to live again, and the only reason i threw my life away on this job was cos i wanted to die'. And to atone for all the bad mercenary stuff theyd done in the past, now theyre robin hood esque mercenaries who take jobs with world-saving hero groups like our protagonists. And they work for free as long as the cause is just! And they wish they could settle down someday and dream about having children of their own, but they feel like they dont deserve it after all that theyve done. They'd be a rare goofy bugmans that actually have a real emotional backstory! So anyway they're fancy fencing guys who're both the same class but maybe slightly different variants with different stat builds or abilities? More specialized and all. Like maybe one is speedy but weaker and one is slower but stronger? Or one relies more on luck based attacks and one is a consistant damage dealer but has a lower max damage cap? Or even one is status effects and one is attack and really even though they have the same job name theyre wildly different interpretations of it. Fitting for the entomology mistake husbands! I want them to be balanced so that they have special bonuses together but are still viable to use separately if your party setup only requires one of them. Also randomly i think their names would be Albedo and Rubedo? I was originally gonna make Rubedo the name of the leech cos i mean alchemy words and plague masks and all. But then it doesnt really SOUND like an alchemy word, it sounds like a fancy handsome dancer name. And then i started thinking about the cute once-sad-now-happy young assassin dads fighting together so well that it looks like one big dance between them, rather than a battle. And i got REAL EMOTIONAL over goddamn bug gijinkas! Man my heart is made of paper and mush!! Oh and maybe they have combo attacks together but also with all of the party members that are younger? Like special dad instinct combo! A built in ability that they automatically shield the kids from enemy attacks. YOU HIRED A MERCENARY BUT YOU RECEIVED A NICE MARRIED COUPLE WHO PROMPTLY ADOPT YOU. Oh and maybe their alternate costumes could just be each other's costumes? Like they'd already be wearing matching red and white versions of the same thing, but then albino dad wears ginger dad's version and vice versa. Or maybe their alt costumes are different complimentary colour pairs like black and gold or blue and pink? And maybe their ultra rare special costume is Big Cute Dorky Argyle Dad Sweaters! It must be capitalized cos it is IMPORTANT!

Oh and then i was also thinking about the idea i had before of bugs with a queen hive structure being like the workers are the common unit and the breeders and queens and such are rarer variants? But the workers are the only ones actually good in a fight, the others are just for collectables sake. Rare but useless, just like how the real queen bee is so big that she cant leave the hive, and never figjts a day in her life unless the kingdom has already fallen. So maybe queen bee is still unlockable as a rare character but she's just a support that makes worker bee stronger? Like you get a lil event of worker's boss coming to honor her with a knighthood for her good service, allowing her to upgrade her job class. Tho i think she still fights with construction work equipment, now its just like a golden jewelled shovel XD

[moltensunlight]

okay because apparently i’ve put more thought into this than even i thought i had, here’s my take on a Harvest Moon au, and y’all know this is gonna be a klance one - literally half (if not more) of this au is based off a romance option in More Friends of Mineral Town

okay so i’m basing this au (pretty loosely honestly) off my personal favorite harvest moon game (b/c it’s actually the only one i ever played lmao): Friends of Mineral Town/More Friends of Mineral Town, and if anyone actually ends up reading this and wants to know more of a summary about the game itself to understand what’s happening in this au then i’ll happily get into that -- but for now while i’m assuming that i’m just talking to myself, 

Firstly, Lance impulse-buying a farm for this au is honestly so Relatable 

Secondly, listen in the game there’s this guy named Cliff who recently moved to town too and he doesn’t have any family and he’s really quiet and kind of a loner and you have to befriend him within the first year of the game or else he literally leaves town forever -- and i can’t remember everything but i’m pretty sure of all the romance options for dudes he’s the one that loves nature the most and i just - does this all not just scream Keith????? 

plus the pastor of the church in the game asks you to make friends with this guy because he has a hard time making friends himself and with a mentor figure like that how can you nOT immediately be inspired to throw a little broganes in the mix here, but okay messing around with storylines to make it 100000 times more applicable to the Lumberjack Keith Living in the Mountains aesthetic that i want: 

Shiro’s a military veteran that moved to this tiny town and built himself a little cottage in the mountains for optimal Rest and Relaxation

he serves as the lumberjack in the town, operating his woodworking business from his mountain cottage

Shiro’s cousin Keith moves in with him for Unknown Reasons not too long before Lance moves to town

Keith helps Shiro with his orders to build/carve stuff for the other townspeople

he’s super closed-off and has no idea how to handle social situations but he Tries

he probably comes off a little rude at first but once the townspeople learn (probably either from Shiro or firsthand experience) that he’s really just an awkward sweetheart they quickly warm up to him

not that this makes Keith any less awkward around people but it does earn the townspeople the occasional grateful smile when they respond to his lack of people-skills with kindness 

Lance and Keith actually don’t meet for a while after Lance buys the farm actually 

Before Lance can even think about having animals on his land he’s got to weed-eat the heck out of the place, and that’s putting it lightly because damn this place hasn’t seen any sort of care for y e a r s at this point and calling it “overgrown” is the understatement of the year -- but basically this doesn’t really require any woodworking yet

plus Keith doesn’t really ever go into town unless it’s for a job, so between Lance spending most of his time wrasslin’ with mother nature and Keith basically refusing to leave the mountains they’re constantly missing each other

they hear of the other’s existence sure, but it’s basically one of those ‘everyone knows this person and talks about them but i haven’t seen them even oNCE and i’m not entirely convinced this isn’t just a giant prank’ situations 

Lance is the new talk of the town what with him being the first person to buy the farm and then actually stick around in  a g e s, but Keith always takes the path to and from town that’s on the other side of a hill from the farm, and basically never really gets a chance to #confirm this gossip  

Everyone tells Lance that if he needs any repairs done or when he wants to fix up the barn & animal pens then he should go talk to Shiro and Keith

Lance has actually met Shiro a couple times now (who has also confirmed the existence of this Keith person) but somehow Keith becomes like the one person in the entire town that Lance has yet to meet

Eventually this is resolved after a pretty gnarly storm rolls through and leaves Lance’s roof with at least five different leaks and Lance has to go to Shiro for help

Keith is actually out when Lance pays the little mountain cottage a visit (Lance seriously doubts the guy’s existence at this point)

There are more storms coming soon and Shiro suggests getting the leaks repaired early the next day, to which Lance agrees, entirely forgetting that “early” in this town actually means “the asscrack of dawn” until Shiro shakes his hand with a comment of “Great, I’ll see you at 6 in the morning then.” and by then he’s already agreed he can’t just back out

Which means that the next day he’s scrambling to make himself look somewhat presentable when he wakes up to a knock on his door (sleeping right through the five alarms he’d set for himself) and flings open the door to greet Shiro- only it’s not Shiro

It takes an embarrassingly long time for Lance’s brain to start working again and when it does of course the first thing out of his mouth is about as eloquent as he feels, “You’re not Shiro.”

Lance isn’t entirely sure how to read the other guy’s face, he can’t tell if he’s pissed off from his comment or incredulous at Lance’s incredible powers of observation- “Congratulations, you have eyes.” - okay maybe a bit of both but really though who has that level of wit this early in the morning?? that should be illegal 

“I’m Keith. I’m here to fix your roof.” - and this is how Lance learns that the Mythical Keith is actually Real

Basically it’s not the best meeting and Lance is kinda put off that he got dragged so hard before his brain was even functioning properly for the day

Plus it’s like whatever circumstances had kept them from meeting in the first place are just gone now because he starts seeing Keith everywhere

Okay goin’ into lightning round here b/c this is already 10 years longer than I was expecting and i still need to write a short paper due tomorrow

Basically Lance starts getting more of the buildings on his land fixed up, which requires Keith (and sometimes Shiro) to be there

(You KNOW Shiro has Keith go help Lance instead of being there himself because he knows Lance and Keith are about the same age and this is a great opportunity for Keith to make a friend)

Keith gets to witness Lance still trying to get used to early morning wake-up times, and while initially it was kind of frustrating as they come to know each other a bit better it becomes Endlessly Amusing

They wind up developing this snarky banter with each other because of it, and even though they’re under the pretense of dragging each other eventually one of them will say something that gets them both laughing

Basically they wind up having a lot more fun than either of them expects to, and this of course do not go unnoticed by the town and probably leads to a lot of comments on it as the nosy neighbors (read: Hunk) try to get them good good deets on the situation

Now while I am making it all sound like fun and games here (which it certainly is, this au has gotta be just as feel-good and chill as the game is), Keith is definitely still mostly quiet and removed from everyone 

Lance probably finds him in the mountains by himself a lot when Lance goes up there to forage or mine

At the end of the day I want it to be this super chill and kind of wistful and feelgood au where Lance slowly learns about this mysterious boy with a mysterious and sad past that lives in the mountains with his cousin

and Lance comes to be a real source of happiness and friendship and support for Keith, which leads to Keith opening up more to the townspeople and making even more friends (Pidge, Hunk, Allura, Coran -- which I already have some ideas for them but I’ll get to that Later)

and Keith kind of unintentionally helps Lance figure out who he is as a person (something Lance felt like he lost while living in the city)

and man i just want a soft good story about two boys helping each other figure out their place in the world and what it means to belong somewhere, but Harvest Moon edition

This concludes my unintentional Essay on a harvest moon au thank you all for coming to my ted talk i hope everyone has a good night 

[manicalicorn-art]

2017 Writing Round-Up

source: https://trey.dreamwidth.org/584.html

Total year-long word count: 16,200

Word count by fandom: 

BnHA: 12858

Assassin’s Creed: 2562

Original: 780

Fics completed: 3 oneshots

Works-in-progress: 2

This year I wrote and posted:

He Woke to Fire chapter 2

Rocket

What Goes Around chapters 1 thru 4

Wind

Slut Shaming

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?

Way, way more. I only started on He Woke To Fire last year, expecting it to be a short two-shot. Now not only has it evolved into a 4+ chapter fic, I also got into BnHA and have been inundated with new fic ideas and have actually, for the first time in my life, started organising and planning my fics in earnest. I only expected to write one (1) short little chapter for HWtF this year, and like. Look at that.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?

Fandom: BnHA!! I actually got into it because I saw an artist that I followed from another fandom drawing tododeku fanart and I was like ???? I’ve seen the split-hair guy around what show is this? and that was the first actual post that I saw having the title of the anime on it. I didn’t expect to fall as in love with it as I did, because I’ve been getting tired of shounen tropes, but BnHA has some really fresh takes on ideas and is quite self-aware/genre-savvy/trope-subverting on many fronts so I enjoyed it immensely.

Pairing: TodoBaku. I haven’t actually posted any todobakus, but I have been writing quite a few snippets here and there.    As mentioned above I got into BnHA fully prepared to ship tododeku.    Bakugou was introduced and I was like “Hah rival character I’m sure there’s BakuDekus out there” and I was right, and I did like it, because I like rivalships, so that was expected.    Then while browsing BakuDekus I found KiriBakus and read a few and I was like “cute but why” so I went on watching the anime and reading the manga expecting to start shipping the KiriBakus any day now but I was,,,, still not shipping both tododeku and kiribaku.    On the other hand, the Sports Fest happened and I had a sudden ‘oh hey imagine todobaku lol’ and then immediately after went ‘!!!oh hEY IMAGINE TODOBAKU!!!’ and here we are lmao.

I wrote fluff. I’m not kidding, this was the weirdest direction I’ve ever taken my writing. I’ve been a consummate angst slut ever since I fuckin knew how to read, and while I do read the Simple Fluff stories every now and again, they’ve never been things that truly made me happy as a reader. So the fact that I’m writing what’s basically a pure-hearted friendship fic is... mind-boggling to me, both as a reader and a writer.

What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?

   Oh... this one’s hard, but I guess He Woke to Fire wins that spot. For one, it’s angst, and I’m an angst whore.    For another, it’s a canon-divergence centred around the death of the main character before the story even began, which has seriously been fascinating (and it also gave me a long existential crisis at one point) to contemplate.    Further, the substitute main character is a canon character who got like, two speaking lines and half a minute of screentime before dying unceremoniously, so it’s really given me a real mental workout trying to flesh out his character.    Lastly, there’s a lot of psychological, ideological, and philosophical themes in original canon that by necessity needed to be addressed and recontextualised in order to suit this new AU, and I think I handled it fairly well so I’m really proud of that!

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Writing fluff. As mentioned, I have literally never touched fluff ever in my (admittedly sparse) writing history. It has posed an interesting challenge in the form of needing to really think about ways to throw complications in the plot and resolving them without emotionally or physically traumatising the characters in any significant measure.

Character voice switching and a large cast. Really getting into multiple characters’ heads, understanding their personalities, strengths and weaknesses, asking myself ‘why is this character taking up this narrative role and not this other one?’ and trying to overcome biases for my faves. It’s not really an epic, and the background characters remain in the background even if they do do things, but I think I’ve gotten a little better at a more holistic approach to writing multiple characters.

Your best story of this year: hhHHHH He Woke to Fire. Makes me so happy.

Your most popular story of this year: (Based on AO3 stat numbers) that would be What Goes Around with 271 Kudos, 33 comment threads, 54 bookmarks, 112 subscriptions, and 2053 hits. I am... speechless. Thank you all so much.

Story of yours most under-appreciated by the universe, in your opinion:

Rocket. C’mon guys. Why have the parallels between Uraraka’s anti-gravity powers and Bakugou’s blasting powers and outer space travel never been talked about? Bakugou’s a literal human rocketship; why would he ever be afraid of Uraraka’s Quirk????

Most fun story to write:

... I had to resist the urge to simply answer this with ‘writing is not fun’ because I get writer’s block really really quickly. I second-guess every plot point as soon as I put it down and I struggle through every line. I write because I want need these stories to exist, not because I enjoy the process of writing. BUT I won’t be a cop-out so I’ll make an actual selection here: Rocket, because fight scenes are fun to imagine. Even if the point of this fight scene was that it wasn’t much of a fight.

Story with the single sexiest moment: The legend of Altaïr’s soul and the djinn beneath the waves in He Woke to Fire. I don’t care if ‘sexiest’ here was meant to refer to literal sexual themes I’m just taking it as ‘moment that made me the happiest’. The invention of this single legend allowed me to talk about a lot of aspects of Altaïr (his immense combat prowess, his cold personality, his fear of water, his death by suffocation) in metaphorical and mythical ways throughout the story and I’m very happy I came up with it by myself.

Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story: Thing is, I am well aware of how fucking messed up my imagination can get, so there’s literally nothing I can come up with that would surprise me or anyone who knows me. He Woke to Fire is the most thematically heavy and graphic one I have published I guess.

Story that shifted your own perceptions of the characters: HWtF again.    Like I said, it actually gave me an existential crisis that lasted practically a whole year because I realised halfway through that I was writing the story as though Kadar was just a cuter Altaïr, which he is obviously not.    So I had to go back and replan the entire fic again which then made me introduce Maria as a major character, then I had another crisis because I actually hate the way Maria has been portrayed and treated in canon (and a lot of fanon too for that matter). So I had to really sit down and think about a way to reinvent her in a satisfactory manner for this fic.    I’m still not entirely sure that I’ve got it, for either of them, but goddamn have I had to try.

Hardest story to write: HWtF, see above.

Biggest disappointment: The third chapter of What Goes Around. The writing there feels so stilted and forced, and a lot of the rhythm/word flows/pacing is very repetitive. Despite knowing exactly what I wanted to have happen, I struggled through the entire chapter and it shows.

Biggest surprise: Second chapter of WGA, that I wrote in the same sitting as the first chapter, that I wrote in the same sitting as the second chapter of HWtF. It was the easiest time of writing that I have ever had in my life ever and I didn’t even have to think - except for like, once, when I forgot to mention a detail I thought I had already written but I hadn’t actually so I had to backtrack a couple lines. And usually when I write that fast and fluidly, I’ll come back and read it later and find holes and logic errors and sections of senselessness but nope. It’s completely coherent. I have never written like that before or since.

Most unintentionally telling story: Probably What Goes Around.    I generally try to mention every single student of 1A at least once, and Todoroki’s part in the story was supposed to be limited to that single incident with Tsuyu and then he was done. But he’s kept popping back in in subsequent chapters like a creepy stalker because my ridiculous TodoBaku-shipping heart just wants them to interact more goddamnit.    Now I’ve just accepted that in the WGA canon, Todoroki has a crush on Bakugou and is actually following him around like a lovesick puppy and Bakugou just hasn’t really noticed.

Favorite opening line(s): From Wind: A wind. There’s a wind that blows across the land, a soft sigh on the bright sand.

Favorite closing line(s): From He Woke to Fire: “You’re not real,” Malik says with heartbreak in his voice. “I’m not,” the vision of Altaïr says with Altaïr’s voice, sounding surprised Malik could tell. Then with eyes glowing gold, reaches out a hand to caress Malik’s face, “but you could be happy here with me.” Tears slip down Malik’s cheek as he leans forward to catch ‘Altaïr’s lips in a kiss. “I couldn’t,” he says, voice breaking, arms wrapped bone-crushingly tight around ‘Altaïr’, “but by Allah I wish I could.”

Favorite 5 line(s) from anywhere: From What Goes Around: Katsuki took his food seriously. His old man had what his mum called the ‘art student diet’ where he, if left to his own devices, would just eat four boxes of chicken nuggets at three AM in the morning and completely forgo lunch and dinner, and it pissed her off to no end. So she had Katsuki trained to cook as well as she could (if not better) so that he could force his dumbass dad to eat a decent meal every once in a while whenever she had to go out for a shoot. Sixteen years of life and nearly ten whole years of (violent) culinary training later, Katsuki figured he knew his way around food. Whatever this… stuff was? Not food. He had to close the fridge door and spend a few minutes just breathing because no. Just. Holy shit, no.

This one’s my favourite because it’s me calling myself (and several other people I know *cough*) out for our garbage ‘art student diet’ while also talking about the BakuParents.

Top 5 scenes from anywhere you would choose to have illustrated:

He Woke to Fire:  Altaïr gasping and dying in the sealed cavern, desperately trying to claw his way out till his fingernails are bloody, then scratched off, the dying firelight and the scattered corpses around him.

He Woke to Fire: Kadar clinging gracelessly like a worm to a rafter, looking over at Altaïr in the high narrow room, and seeing birds in cages.

He Woke to Fire: A badass Kadar with hardened eyes, wielding the eagle-pommel sword - Altaïr’s sword.

What Goes Around: Bakugou, so sleepy he can barely keep himself upright, exhausted and rumpled from hard work, giving a jittery Kaminari a one-armed hug until he calms down and feels comfortable in his own skin again.

Rocket: I would love to see this entire ‘fight’ animated but in particular, the part where Bakugou is just grumpily drifting along in the air waiting to be declared the winner.

Fic-writing goals for next year:

Finish HWtF and WGA. They’re my first proper multi-chapters and I do actually kind of know how they’re supposed to end as well as sort of how to get there, so I really want to see them through (as well as not being a dick and leaving my readers hanging)

bktd week. I actually have all the lore and outlines ready, and the outlines have (almost) all the dialogue already written. So hopefully I can actually see it through, and on time for the week.

Start working through my Endless Prompt List which is mostly self-prompts. I’ve taken screenshots of my yelling in great detail about many many ideas and filed them neatly away in the hopes that I actually get around to writing them. My final year in university starts in the second half of 2018, and I’ll be busy with my graduation projection and other important school work, and preparing my animation portfolios and showreels for future employment, and I’ll hopefully be able to get an internship which will be really taxing... So I don’t have very high hopes in terms of my writing for the next two years. Writing’s only a hobby that’s just simply neither important nor urgent in the grand scheme of my life so it’ll have to take a backseat.

[dailycharacteroption]

Mythic Mania: Guardian part 2

Abilities

 So what exactly can a guardian do with their abilities? Today, we’ll do a quick run through the mythic powers of a guardian.

 Guardians can take a hit and keep on coming, and few places is this more apparent than the possible base abilities associated with them. The first of which allows them not only to absorb a powerful blow without being harmed, but also benefiting from enhanced resistance to all harm for a short while afterwards.

Others, particularly those with bestial or spiritual companions, can infuse them with incredible vigor, allowing them to move and strike with uncanny speed.

Those guardians that feel the need to protect others instead sometimes have the ability to enhance their defensive abilities to protect themselves or their charge, and imbue the attack’s recipient with the vigor to strike back with deadly accuracy.

Beyond that, guardians gain many abilities as they grow in mythic power. For example, some are just as hardened in mind as they are in body, becoming nearly unassailable, mentally.

Others develop more than one of the signature starting abilities associated with this path.

Disease can barely touch some guardians, who seem to never get sick or recover from such illness at an accelerated rate.

Armor becomes like a second skin to these warriors, allowing them to move flexibly, even in the heaviest armors. (This could actually be used for an arcane caster build that can wear heavy armor, though I can’t say I recommend it for all but the most martial classes.)

Others lend a bit of power to their armor itself, causing it to provide even more protection.

Where others see grievous wounds as a threat to their lives, some guardians only see it as an opportunity, striking back to unsettle their foe and upset their moment of triumph.

Using their bodies as living capacitors, some can turn the energy-based attack of their foes against them, using some of the energy from a past blow to empower their own strikes.

Unstoppable juggernauts, very few can stop a guardian on the charge, bursting past ally and foe alike to get to their target.

A guardian could be bypassed by projectile weapons, but through sheer force of will or their imposing nature, these warriors can prove the more tempting target.

While some guardians have healing powers from their profession, others get by through absorbing the wounds of others, taking harm into themselves to aid allies.

Only a fool would drop their guard in the reach of a guardian, for their reprisals are particularly accurate and deadly.

Drawing on mythic power, these protectors can close their wounds, regenerating all but the most grievous harm.

Every aspect of a guardian seems to scream protection, even literally screaming. A guardian’s call of warning rarely goes unheeded, giving others the opportunity to avoid harm.

Like the proverbial immovable object, guardians are very difficult to destabilize or move once they’ve planted their feet.

Certain guardians with a talent for tracking, will often develop the ability to track foes with a touch or strike, allowing them to read their abilities and hunt them, sensing their presence.

While they may not have the speed of others, guardians make up for it in endurance, able to travel even while tired, and without fatigue.

The spirit of these warriors is so powerful that effects that warp the form, appearance, or will, can be overcome with a surge of mythic force, shaking them off with a shout.

Stoicism breeds patience and thoughtfulness, and in their contemplation guardians can often remember all sorts of details about their foes, and use that information against them, even communicating  those details mentally to others.

Surviving also means learning, and guardians are rarely defenseless against similar monstrous abilities used in recent memory.

The amount these warriors can carry is truly exceptional, hauling massive amounts of weight around.

Oftentimes, the companions of a guardian also share in the mythic power they wield, able to perform daring deeds as well.

Guardian paladins and those who can lay on hands and perform mercies always succeed in healing afflictions caused by mundane forces, and they can even break supernatural curses with their touch as well.

Druidic guardians can channel their shapeshifting abilities, allowing entire groups to become beasts.

Additionally, other such druids can partially shapeshift, allowing them to benefit from both a bestial form and from humanoid traits as well.

It can take a lot to keep a guardian down, and various effects last for a much shorter amount of time for them.

It’s always a tragedy when an animal companion, mount, or familiar dies, but these guardians know rituals to make their beloved beasts live again.

A precise shot from afar can knock objects out of the hands of their foes, given the right skills.

The stoic and mighty guardians don’t take death as a final answer, and are able to use nearly any healing spell to quickly revive the recently deceased, assuming they make it in time.

Counterattacks are the bread and butter of most guardians, and none should underestimate their uncanny reach when striking back.

Rather than allow themselves to come to harm sometimes it is better for these guardians to transfer the brunt of a deadly blow to their shield, which some learn to do.

Linking their minds to a scent allows some guardians to better track a target, even divining its status.

The might of these warriors is so great that foes fleeing them or run down by them have little chance of actually escaping.

Their tenacity also allows them to hold on to foes who attempt to escape their grasp using teleportation, either holding them there, or following along with them.

With a powerful impact or sweeping strike, guardians can propel foes back from themselves.

Like mighty Antaeus, some guardians gain strength from the earth and can radiate it to allies, warding them with a durability that only adamantine can pierce.

Others are so durable that only truly epic weapons can pierce their hide.

They can then learn to share this with their animal companions and other such creatures.

A blocking parry can be a more active form of defense, and these warriors have an uncanny knack for it.

With incredible might, they can even toss massive stones and objects, and catch the same, almost like a giant.

With incredible skill and a bit of mythic reality-bending, guardians can learn to parry spells, deflecting magical projectiles harmlessly.

Sometimes an encounter requires their own personal touch, and these warriors learn to possess their companions to better guide their actions and utilize their mythic might.

Their companions can also shrug off blows that would give pause to lesser beasts.

Even mounting injuries cannot keep these warriors down, and they fight to their last breath.

They also learn the art of reversal, turning an opponent’s combat techniques against them.\

Some even seem to ignore the extraordinary conditions of the harshest planar realms and material locations, and extend that protection to others who stick close to them.

Powerful guardians seem to cling to life for minutes after falling, allowing them to be healed back to revivification.

Eventually, many companion-bearing guardians infuse their guardian with enough mythic power to grant them abilities of their own.

Few can pass a guardian unscathed, and they learn how to trip up foes that try to move past them.

Many guardians even become totally immune to certain conditions that would otherwise weaken them in various ways.

Truly becoming immovable, some guardians can exude a stance of raw indomitability, resisting nearly all harm for a short while as long as they do not move.

Sometimes, even when stakes are dire and ruination lies close at hand, these guardians come through, resisting effects that by rights they should have succumbed to.

Some guardians feel the need to protect others so greatly that distance nor is severity any barrier to them taking a blow for an ally.

The ultimate enemy is time, as they say, but some guardians learn how to resist it, going into a state of hibernation for extended periods in order to wait for a specific even to unfold.

Many can also absorb some of the damage that befalls their allies, reducing their injury

Debilitation is another common tool for undermining defensive warriors, but some guardians safeguard body, mind, or both, to better recover from such tactics.

Naturally, there are also some universal abilities that guardians benefit from greatly, such as display of constitution, and strength; Extra mythic power; Longevity; Mythic Spellcasting if you are playing a casting class; Mythic Sustenance; Enhanced Ability; Fearless; Pure Body; Pure Destiny; Pure Senses, all three for even more immunities; Sleepless; and Unchanging.

Finally, the most powerful guardians are just simply hard to kill, non-mythical foes finding their spells and attacks to be insufficient to bring them down.

 And that is it for the various guardian abilities from Mythic Adventures and other sources! Tomorrow we’ll look into what classes benefit the most from their power!