#I think the fact that I've outlasted a lot of RP partners probably plays a big role in it too

[royal-dragonslayer-ornstein]

///Alright, little update about the status of this blog. As I’ve mentioned before, I’d like to be active over here again at some point, though I most likely won’t be able to start writing here until exams are over (they come after the winter break, so that’s gonna take a while). I’m also not completely sure how motivated or inspired I will be to write new threads here, so I can’t promise anything.

Thinking about what’s keeping me from writing here, I think the main issue is that I haven’t known what to do with the actual main verses for a while. Ornstein’s timeline is a bit of a mess, it’s so spread out and it’s missing so many gaps (and I’m talking about the ever cryptic lore of Dark Souls as well as my own ideas for him) that I feel like there’s too much vagueness in his lifespan for me to properly develop him. His origins in the Age of Dragons, his life throughout the Age of Fire, his task to find Gwyn’s firstborn, whatever is going on with the Old Dragonslayer (I made the choice back then to consider it canon, might have been a mistake but I think I’m not giving up on it just yet) and what happened to him before and during DS3. I’m honestly not sure how to approach this. On the one hand figuring out the details seems like the obvious choice and maybe I can come up with better ideas now than in my prior years, but on the other hand I wonder if it might be best to keep certain stuff vague and not bother giving a half-assed explanation for everything. I’ll have to think about it.

Ornstein’s character is also a bit limiting in the sense that he mostly interacts with the gods of Anor Londo for the majority of his life (which admittedly I’ve grown to consider to be the least interesting time for me to write), he can have a couple of interactions with some human in the middle of a mission but unless this character is a big deal he’s unlikely to interact with them for long. Most of the people whose muses were deities of Anor Londo or related to them became inactive long ago or are currently in hiatus (which to be fair is true for a good portion of the RP fandom) and I do think that having so many stories over the years, even with the same character written by a different person, be cut short prematurely has been a bit discouraging. Not that I don’t understand, I’m not bitter (that’d be pretty selfish of me) about it or anything, it’s just an unfortunate part of every hobby.

So yeah, I definitely want to tackle those verses at some point. DS3 is the one I find to be most appealing to me at the moment because Ornstein can interact with all sorts of muses much more easily, and I find that chapter of his story to be pretty interesting, reconnecting with the world after a long life of being detached and fully dedicated to his duties, being forced to go back to his roots. I wasn’t able to start much stuff in that setting, but then again I didn’t look any further than the RPers I knew at the time (something I still try to fix), so maybe now that I’m opening myself up to more writers things will go more smoothly.

It’s worth mentioning that both of my Villain AUs, Eraser of Mankind and Usurper King, are something I have enjoyed writing a lot more than the main verses in the past years, but I also feel like I’m out of ideas for them. There’s not a lot of people I really got to explore them in depth with, so I’m always willing to do more stuff with it, but at the same time I can’t help but feel like it’s a bit formulaic. I need to think of new ideas to do with those AUs.

Bloodborne Verse is the one I feel most inspired to write lately, though anyone who’s seen the OC I made a new blog for this year could probably have guessed that. I feel a little conflicted that this AU is much better developed and is more coherent than the actual main verses of this blog, and I won’t lie I’ve struggled a bit with that. I’m actually writing this one in a few threads (not in Tumblr) with some friends that aren’t on this website anymore. Now that I’ve approached a whole bunch of other soulsborne and eldritch roleplayers maybe I could start new threads for this verse with Ornstein, though I need to come up with a few ideas.

Weirdly enough, I’m feeling pretty inspired to write his full beast form (oh, and for anyone who isn’t familiar, Ornstein’s beasthood is a very peculiar version of the darkbeast, that follows a cycle of transformation more similar to the traditional stories of lycanthropy, in which it builds up gradually until he transforms and goes berserk, then later when he’s exhausted he turns back human and the cycle begins again). In fact if people are interested I’m considering writing a variety of threads in which he goes on a rampage through Yharnam and having that be his first meeting with any new muses he interacts with. So by all means feel free to message me if the idea interests you.