#also this is mostly based on comic lore don’t come in here with that they were her TAs nonsense

[ken-katayanagi]

I’ve read your google docs of the katayanagi twins’ fashion. Super interesting stuff and I love it as both a fashion enthusiast and fan of the siblings. Your document really emphasizes the distinction between those two even with the very little info we have on them (kyle’s style could be late 80s japanese pop while ken’s style could be more leaning towards visual kei). Also matches their personalities (ramona mentioned kyle is the hothead of the two, so I guess the pretty and proper bad boy kind of look fits him)

Something about your endnote fascinates me, however. You mentioned something about the twins’ relationship being strained but then strengthened after ramona’s betrayal. Would you implore more on the idea? I’m now invested in it very much…. thank you and have a good day

Thank you!!! I mostly based my looks off this piece of concept art by O’Malley, which makes me think the personalities the twins had in their few anime appearances were just parts that weren’t as well communicated in Vol. 5

(I think that little doddle next to the crossed out “they’re not even Japanese” emphasizes that visual kei comparison you made)

But as for the second bit, I think the twins weren’t exactly on great terms, even before Ramona. A decent part of this has to do with my own personal head cannons surrounding Kyle and how I perceived his and Ramona’s relationship with alcohol, but also with just how different the twins seem to be under the surface. They seem like they would run in almost completely opposite social circles and be invested in similarly opposite things.

And it’s honestly really tied to their teens. Basically, their parents kinda unintentionally set up a dynamic where Kyle felt like Ken got away with everything (piercings, weird clothes, going out to band shows and having a more trusting relationship with their parents) and Ken thought Kyle couldn’t get his act together (partying, showing up back home late, getting in fight with their parents). Neither was true as in reality their parents let a lot of stuff with Ken slide that wouldn’t have otherwise because “well at least he’s not drunk” and Kyle was genuinely going through some serious mental shit but not telling anyone so his actions just looked super random and mean spirited. So by the time they get to college, they haven’t really addressed this weird image they have of the other in their heads.

And it explains how Ramona was even able to two time siblings. They’re not going to the same parties, they’re not really talking at length about their lives (since they never mention enough detail to make the other suspicious), they’re probably not really bothering each other much if they share a dorm. Ramona unconsciously sees and plays this divide, knowing they’re not really together enough for her to get caught.

It also emphasizes for me a very emotional aspect for all three of them. Ramona is hot off a messy break up (Roxie), the breakup that ended her first relationship with a women and also seems to be her first attempt at having something…maybe not serious but genuine (it seemed more important than anything with Matt Todd or Lucas). Shes hardly in the headspace to be in a relationship, and maybe after some nights out, she’s terrified and not sure what to do because whoops she’s in two! And the longer it goes on the less Ramona actually wants to fix it because it’s kinda fun in a messed up way, and the twins aren’t bad company…until it all comes crashing down and she’s out the door before they even notice she’s gone. I think Ramona’s relationship with the twins is her at her actual lowest, with her being most at fault for what happened and the least justified in bolting afterwards. This low point is exactly when Gideon finds her, unsure and upset at herself, in exactly the position to manipulate her. (Sorry if this came off a little Ramona bash-y, I love Ramona but this girl makes bad choices)

As for the twins, I think the really strong emotional beat here is the idea of how avoidable it would’ve felt for them. How if they had just been able to set aside their own bullshit, if they had even bothered to connect at all, they could’ve figured it out in a few days, rather than in a few weeks or a few months. Ramona’s betrayal is catalyst for them to sit down and just…talk out a lot of their own personal crap.

But yeah that’s why. Sorry this got super massively long, but I hope you liked it and it wasn’t too ramblely lol.

[the-ace-with-spades]

This, I hope, will eventually be posted on ao3 as a proper fic – current draft title is exhumation — but just in case it will not, gonna post it here and let it stew

Canon Divergence AU with secret Identity and later identity reveal drama

(also this involves the backstory from the Ghost comic because I vaguely remember reading it when I was in high school…)

Soap and Ghost meet before they become Soap and Ghost. Johnny is 20, Ghost is 25, and they’re stationed around the same place but different squads — somewhere not far away from Manchester — and they don’t know they’re both from SAS. They meet when Tommy tries to be supportive of Simon’s newly announced queerness and takes him out to a gay bar on Canal Street. Tommy is the one to chat up Johnny (while Simon, obviously not a fan of crowds or loud places, hides away in the bathroom) with ‘see, my brother this and that’  and ‘if you give my brother a chance, he will this and that’. Believe it or not, once Simon strolls back in with all his social awkwardness, Johnny is actually charmed. Things roll around for a couple of months before they admit to each other they’re in the armed forces.

By the time they find out Simon is of higher rank, they’re already gone for each other. They decide to keep going anyway — it’s legal, as of 2001, and they’re not planning on getting a civil partnership for a while, anyway, so in the end, they keep going. Simon changes his next of kin on file to Johnny, they ‘share’ a flat off base, and Johnny’s met Simon’s mum and brother. He more or less knows the lore of the Riley family, mostly how much of a piece of shite his father was and Tommy’s recently fought addiction, and somehow, Simon feels alive for the first time in his life.

It’s all going so perfect, they’ve been together for almost two years, which isn’t long for most, but feels like forever when you’re in the military. Johnny gives him a ring, a sterling silver one with thistle ornaments and a small garnet centre stone. It’s not a proposal, they can’t get married legally, and they won’t have anything but Simon’s will binding them legally for as long as they’re both in the forces — Simon doesn’t know it, but there’s a matching simple band waiting to slide in with the ring he’s got on his tags, and one day, Johnny plans for him to have a full set.

Simon and his team get send out, Simon tells him it’s going to be a long one, somewhere in one of the Americas — Central or South, if he had to guess by all the self-learning Spanish books that cluttered Simon’s bedside table — and Johnny, well, he’s got a bad feeling but when does he not, with their jobs?

Simon’s team gets back, partially. There’s talk about betrayal from his captain, and he’s painfully absent, Simon’s friends look half-dead and act half-dead and no one is telling Johnny anything. He spends his afternoons with Simon’s mum, taking care of her as best as he can while Simon is gone, even though it was never the plan, and dodges Tommy’s aggressive questions, because he knows goddamn nothing.

Johnny doesn’t give up. He waits.

Simon is gone six months — MIA, officially, but KIA in the words of anyone from the brass — when he emerges back from South America, giving Johnny a new heart and a new life. He comes back different, but Johnny doesn’t care, it’s Simon, it’s still him, and maybe there’s something dead in his eyes, and maybe he spaces out more often than not, and maybe he feels cold in Johnny’s arms, and maybe he doesn’t sleep in the same bed, but it’s still Simon, he just needs to heal and figure out how to keep on living.

And Simon tries — he’s got episodes every day, than every other day, than every week, every other week. He goes to therapy, he spends his days cooking with his mum, spends his days cleaning the whole of their flat again and again, spends his days wandering around Manchester, buying Johnny’s favourite drinks, favourite books, favourite breakfast babs.

He tells Johnny bits and pieces, about what happened, enough that Johnny can put it together in a horrifying if blurred picture, and things start to improve, slowly.

He comes back to their bed. He wakes up before Johnny, makes him breakfast, kisses him on the forehead and struggles with the crosswords from the newspapers he picked on his morning run. He goes out with his former teammates, very short trips but trips nonetheless. He stops being afraid to be alone with his nephew, stops being afraid he'll hurt him. He never quite gets used to the scars, covering them more often than not, not wanting the looks.

Second week of December, ten months after he was brought back to the UK from North America, his psychiatrist signs him off for a phased return to duty. No deployments, only base and training site duties, regular sessions with both the psychiatrist and the psychology for the first four months.

Johnny hasn’t seen his family since before Simon gone MIA — finally feeling okay-ish, Simon tells him to go Scotland for Christmas. He’s got his mum, his brother, his sister-in-law and his nephew, and he’s, weirdly, feeling almost optimistic about life.

Obviously, he can’t be happy for long and shit hits the fan.

On Christmas Day, Johnny gets a call from Greater Manchster Police. He and his sister drive down the country and in the early morning of the Boxing Day, Johnny is showed the tags with the familiar silver ring on it, sooted at the edges and slightly misshapen, melted.

Fifteen minutes after he identifies Simon’s body, they tell him he killed his whole family, probably in a PTSD induced episode, then set their house on fire and killed himself right after, when the trauma-haze went down. They tell him he was lucky not to be there when it happened.

Johnny doesn’t believe it. Simon’s mind’s been bad, but it’d always turn on Simon, not on others, he had too much control to let any episode take him over so much. So he doesn’t care what the police or the public says — he arranges the funeral and Simon is buried with the rest of his family.

Meanwhile, Simon goes on a rampage in Mexico. He kills everyone and anyone he even suspects to be involved with Roba’s people. He leaves a trail of dead people behind him for weeks until finally, the US military catches up — General Shepherd catches up and identifies him. The British Army doesn't know what to do with him — officially, he's dead already, the General Register Office has already issued his death certificate to his NOK, the armed forces had condemned his family's tragedy. His existence is…inconvenient. He is suspected to be either compromised or too unstable to be of use to the Army, even if SAS sees how valuable someone who could single-handedly destroy a whole cartel family and fake his own death could be.

Enter John Price, who had met Simon during SAS selection and had a bit too soft of a heart. There's a mural agreement — Price will take personal responsibility to keep him on a leash, at least until he proves he is not a liability, and he will remain dead on paper but active in the Army. No one is to know he is alive — not even Johnny, or maybe especially Johnny, who will be the last person anyone will see as a revenge method. Simon Riley's name is redacted from all available documents.

And thus, Ghost, a nameless lieutenant and a walking cautionary tale, is born.

The only thing Ghost has not predicted is that eventually, almost six years after he put Simon into the grave, Johnny will join the 141.

And somehow, Ghost is just Johnny's type, again.

[ezdotjpg]

I have a silly little question about your silly little comic!! I love your versions of the Links so much. Loft is such a mood FOR REAL!!

anywho,

How did you come up with the original concept? If this is somewhat spoilery- then don’t answer it. But i’m more so wondering what let you to go

“i want to make a comic about the silly links accidentally breaking and fucking everything up. also trauma lots of trauma”

Did you come to the understanding of, looking at other peoples AU’s? Or was it something in the games itself? I’m just curious on what your thought process was when brainstorming originally yk?

Also, small bonus question/comment thingy

when making backgrounds- like Zelda and Wilds house or Lofts home with Zelda and Groose- did you base the backgrounds on your own ideas of what the characters would live in? Like if they’d have clutter or silly little notes in the background. I love how your backgrounds are just- chefs kiss- so simple but shows us a glimpse into the characters mental state (as all good rooms do *stares at my messy one*)

that is all, i very much so enjoy your comic. it’s gotten me through the bad Wednesdays of highschool. Keep going!!! i am excited to see it’s conclusion.

waugh thank you so much!!!!!

And I guess the answer to that first question is all of them above? Bonus Links is, of course, an extremely derivative work. LU was my first introduction to the links-meet-au format, so I’d be remiss not to give credit where credit is due! Probably many ideas I’ve absorbed from fics I’ve read, and headcanons I vibe with that come from the wider fandom. The idea for Bonus Link’s actual plot though originally started from my fascination with Skyward Sword’s lore. I know not everyone’s a huge fan of how much that game retconned, Demise’s “curse” in particular, but there’s a lot of ideas in that game that I find REALLY interesting, especially in ways that the game doesn’t really acknowledge at all. How would Skyward Sword Link feel, if he found out he truly didn’t finish the job? That the cycle continues on and on beyond him? That was the jumping off point.

Because it’s a cycle, I get a lot of ideas from like, which Links have experienced similar events, and how their experiences compare and contrast. What becomes history, and what actually happened? And I also use a lot of my own experiences playing the games as inspiration! I’d played as many as I had access to when I started the au in 2021, but I’ve made it my mission to play every single game a Link is featured in before they get introduced in the comic lol. Still got a few more to go, but I’m almost there!

As for the second question, absolutely! If I’m showing someone’s home in the comic, I try really hard to add details that tell you something about them. At the very least, I want them to look lived in lol

like, Slate still having the champion’s weapons on display in his house. Zelda’s mostly taken over the first floor as her workshop, even adding a Sheikah tech furnace somehow. She’s filled her room with pictures she’s taken on the walls. She’s got a sand seal plush from Riju, a Sheikah jacket from Impa. Her workspace is a little cluttered!

On the other hand, Slate’s room upstairs looks a little less personal. He’s got some pictures on the wall, and some plants growing from around hyrule (that Zelda has kind of commandeered for research lol) but otherwise he’s left it how Bolson and co furnished it. If anything, it’s mostly just for storage. He doesn’t actually spend much time sleeping here, but Zelda still doesn’t want to take it from him.

Loft, Groose and Zelda’s room is very cozy ( I should have added more blankets. Imagine like 4 times the amount of pillows and blankets) and tidy, but there’s still a little mess— shoes left out, basket of poorly folded clothes, etc. Cute knickknacks, mostly made by loft and groose! It’s not in this sc but groose’s comb is somewhere I think lol

Idk if iced shared this detail before, but Loft put a lot of effort into designing and carving (probably with some assistance) these columns for the house! Even though carving’s hard for him these days. It was his biggest contribution.

anyway, those are some of my thoughts!! I’m so happy to hear you’ve been enjoying the comic! Thanks for reading!!

[cookii-moon]

so like I made an element post several months ago and. found it today (because I don’t post much right now lol) and was thinking about it so I tried making a chart of how I think elements might be related

I didn’t put the new elements in the “tree” simply because. I think it’d render this entirely irrelevant by the time part 2 comes out. and. I have zero clue how to sort them Ngl.

(Tbh I was very torn on whether to just do elements in general or elements by like elemental masters. Because. the two are very different for me. So I did do an alternative version but I scrapped it cuz it made no sense and I didn’t like it but I’ll show it at the end)

The lines just show there’s some relation between them. Sometimes elements can control eachother, sometimes only one can control the other, etc.

LORE DUMP UNDER THE READ MORE!!!

basically I think that the elements existed in ninjago BEFORE the FSM came into existence. If there was an ocean there has to be a sea floor. If there was a storm there has to be lightning, so on and so forth. The elements always existed and have always been intrinsic parts of ninjago. This might also apply to some of the other realms, specifically the first realm probably also abides by this. Since several native species in ninjago have elemental traits plus. Wojira. it’s probably always been present to some degree, just not usually in humans. So while the original elemental masters of creation may have gotten their powers from the FSM, the elements themselves exist in a lot of places and have always been present in the realm. In fact I think a lot of the “secondary” elemental masters probably got it from the environment somehow like the way water and wind ems seem to have gotten it from wojira (? Tbh I don’t remember much of seabound since I never rewatched it and that part of the lore had tons of plotholes iirc so it was really hard for me to follow)

Gravity, light and time are the most “overarching” elements because they mainly define a lot of the basic principles of the world and so without those elements the others can’t really exist. Especially gravity. Time and gravity are related since time is affected by gravity.

Mind and amber are sort of their own things. Amber is manmade (apparently??? I think I read the comic but I don’t know if it’s still considered canon and I forgot most of it lol ) so it isn’t actually related to any other element even if you would sort of think it was.

mind is really confusing because it’s not really a physical thing or related to any sort of foundational law or… anything, really. It’s just very isolated from the other elements and not really. Connected to any of them. So tbh I’m just gonna shove it with amber in the weird squad.

Also here’s the original list that was based around origins. I think it looks cleaner but it definitely makes a lot less sense.

I mostly scrapped it bc I didn’t like the placements of gravity and stuff or the fact that a lot of related elements weren’t depicted that at.

Sooo yeah that’s the elements chart ig !!! I’ll probably add image descriptions tomorrow I’m too tired

also excuse my extremely poor handwriting

[templeofvengeance]

☽ Welcome to the Temple of Vengeance! Greatest of the Great Gods, Khonshu, presiding. ☾

☽ Inbox: Open ☾

[Indie RP/Ask blog for Khonshu from the MCU's Moon Knight. Set after the show ends by default, but also open to other verses. Open for questions or threads! More info on the blog, or under the cut for mobile users.]

Updated: 11/03/24

Laws of the Temple

☽ BASICS ☾

- MUN STUFF: My name's Kew! She/they, well over 21. No triggers. I don't have DID, any attempt to portray it is based on the show/comics.

- MINORS BE WARNED: I'm not going to be super strict about weeding out minors since I don't expect things to get NSFW around here, but the show Khonshu is from does explore some darker themes for a TV-14 show. I dunno. You've been warned.

- GENERAL RP ETIQUETTE APPLIES: Don't make actions for my character without asking, don't assume past relationships/deep history without asking, don't read my character's mind (unless your character is a telepath, and even then I don't know if that works on gods), etc. - GENERAL CONTENT WARNING FOR: Descriptions of violence, religious stuff, swearing, emotional manipulation, a.bleism (especially surrounding mental health stuff.) I’ll try to tag other things as they come up. - FEEL FREE TO REBLOG MEMES FROM ME. It actually helps me remember to send stuff out. You can also reblog art/headcanons, pretty much anything except RP threads if you're not the other party!

- NOT PRIVATE, BUT SELECTIVE: I sometimes don't follow big multimuses back since I have pretty strict tastes in fandoms, and I don't want to clog my dash with characters I don't know. That doesn't mean I don't want to roleplay with you though! As for selectivity, I reserve the right to say no if things just don't click writing-wise.

- SPOILERS FOR MOON KNIGHT EVERYWHERE. There will be untagged spoilers for both the comics and especially the show. I highly recommend watching the Moon Knight TV show if you haven’t seen it! It got me into comic books and made me interested in the MCU. - That said, I haven’t seen all of the content in the MCU, not even a third of it, so I’m sorry if I get any lore details wrong.

- KHONSHU IS AN ASSHOLE. Nothing he says reflects my real views about anything. If he’s mean to you, it doesn’t mean I don’t like you or you’ve done something wrong.

- FOR OTHER MARC/STEVEN/JAKE MUSES: By default, I'll play Khonshu like he's connected to your Marc/Steven/Jake. If you want it to be dimension-hopping shenanigans (which I'm super down to do, especially for ones more heavily based on the comics) you'll have to let me know! All these interactions will be on different verses, and I don't plan to have Khonshu be 'mains' with any muses.

- FIGHTS: With extremely rare exceptions, I'm just gonna say no to fight threads. Partly because Khonshu is incorporeal and really can't be hurt or hurt anyone else directly. Mostly because fighting other muses has always stressed me out. If it's something you really want to do, we can talk about it. (This doesn't mean your character can't attack Khonshu ever, it just means it probably won't work.)

☽ MUSE INFO ☾

NAME: Khonshu OTHER NAMES: Chons, Bloody pigeon, Silly old bird (He accepts none of those) PRONOUNS: He/him HEIGHT: Varies, usually around 8-10 feet tall. WEIGHT: N/A (Incorporeal, like a ghost) AGE: Has existed since the dawn of time, so who knows.

- KHONSHU is the Egyptian god of the moon, vengeance, healing and time, among other smaller things. While he is enormously powerful in theory, he’s mostly unable to affect the physical world without use of a mortal AVATAR, dubbed his MOON KNIGHT. Those who agree to be his Avatar are granted superpowers and near-invulnerability, in exchange for agreeing to carry out his mission: Bringing vengeance against those who harm his travelers of the night.

- Khonshu is also somehow a billions-year-old grumpy baby who flips over trash cans when he doesn’t get his way.

- By default, Khonshu's current Avatar is JAKE LOCKLEY, and only Jake Lockley. But, he can also be played before the events of the show, when he (technically) has the triple threat of Jake Lockley, MARC SPECTOR, and STEVEN GRANT.

- Jake will make occasional cameos on this blog, but I wouldn't call this a dual muse. (You can request him in asks if you want.)

- Normally, only his Avatar (or Avatars of other gods) are capable of seeing/hearing Khonshu, but let’s say this blog is a holy space where he can answer your prayers questions. (In threads, we can always BS a reason your character can see Khonshu.)

- This Khonshu is HEAVILY BASED ON THE TV SHOW, which means he lacks a lot of the harsher history his comic book counterpart has. That said, as a god, he is aware of the multiverse and has at least a rough idea of what his counterparts are up to. You can ask about comic stuff, he just might have a different opinion.

- Some comic lore has been added/built upon, namely his fraught history with his father, AMON-RA. (This probably won’t come up much, but it does inform a lot of how I play the character.)

[notebookishtype]

Hello, do you have any recs for star wars books and comics with the best lukeleia content? In my lukeleia era and I really wanna start reading some OT legends stuff but I don’t know where to start.

Stories that take place during, between, and shortly after the Original Trilogy? We are lucky to have decades worth of content set in this time period! It’s the only place we can find things published before the sibling reveal, and/or acknowledging that Luke and Leia were attracted to each other.

✨I’ve included links to every book and comic mentioned below. I don’t think it’s immoral to pirate from a corporation. If you (general) take issue with that, I have bought most items listed at least once, and I would lend it to you if I could.

✨Some of the comics are only available in large collections, you may need to scroll to find the correct issues.

Legends Books

The first that comes to mind is Splinter of the Mind’s Eye. It was published in 1978, Luke and Leia were still love interests, and it takes place after ANH. They crash land on a mining planet and discover there is an Imperial presence there.

Fun Facts:

This story was commissioned to be a low budget sequel if A New Hope flopped.

This novel also inspired some of the canon lore for kyber crystals.

I started an impromptu reread earlier this year, and I did not remember how shippy this book was. This is just four pages into the book:

Splinter of the Mind’s Eye was also adapted into a comic in 1995… and it was still incredibly shippy? I recommend both if you have the time and executive function. If you’re low on focus or time, go with the comic.

I’ve been told the novelization of A New Hope also has the same vibes, and is by the same author. So if you enjoy Splinter thats another place to look.

As far as other novels, we’re mostly looking at crumbs. Off the top of my head I know both Shadows of the Empire and The Truce at Bakura acknowledge their feelings for each other.

Shadows of the Empire:

The Truce at Bakura:

I would only recommend these if you’re interested in the rest of either story.

Shadows is a take on what happened between ESB and ROTJ, published in ‘96. Want to see how the Rebels get the plans for the Second Death Star? Read this. Want to see Darth Vader forced to play politics? Read this. If Han and Leia’s relationship is a no go for you, you might consider skipping it. Content Warning: the antagonist attempts to “seduce” Leia via pheromones. Read: rape. He is a serial rapist.

Truce takes place immediately after ROTJ, and has some great character moments for our heroes, again a lot of focus on Leia and Han. I do, however, choose to view the fact that Luke’s love interest in this book is a young Imperial Senator who we are meant to compare to Leia, through a shippy lense. I cannot escape the idea that Luke is projecting. Otherwise this book is about dinosaur looking aliens using human’s life energy to power their ships.

If you’re interested in checking any of these books out I recommend looking here or here.

Legends Comics

Splinter of the Mind’s Eye (1995)—as mentioned above.

Star Wars Tales (1999-2005) 15, Do or Do Not—Takes place immediately after ROTJ. Luke is processing after the Battle of Endor, and uncertain of his place. His feelings for Leia are acknowledged.

Star Wars (2013) 1-6, In the Shadow of Yavin—Takes pace after ANH. Leia is working with a handpicked X-wing squadron, to expose a spy. Her position in command causes friction between her and Luke. This is one of the few stories really leans into Leia having feelings for Luke.

Star Wars (2013) 15-18, Rebel Girl—Leia accepts a political proposal in exchange for a secure base location. Luke is a jealous brat about it, puts himself in danger, and plans to run away.

Marvel Star Wars (‘77–86)—I haven’t read these yet, but I’ve seen plenty of panels and pages posted on Tumblr that give lukeleia vibes, even some that take place after ROTJ. These have been gathered into several omnibuses. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Disney Comics

Star Wars (2015) 1-6, Skywalker Strikes—After ANH, the gang is infiltrating an Imperial arms factory, Vader shows up, Luke has a crisis. The Luke and Leia interactions are primarily in issues 3 & 4, but it’s a solid story arc.

Star Wars (2015) 33–Actual Publisher’s Summary: The Hero of the Rebellion & the Princess of the Revolution! Luke and Leia finally get some time alone… Unfortunately, it's stranded on a desert island.

The Storms of Crait (2017)—After ANH. Our heroes travel to Crait, in hopes of establishing a base there. Luke is delightfully flustered by a kiss on the cheek from Leia.

Star Wars Adventures (2017) 4 & 5, The Trouble at Tibrin—Leia and Luke are on a diplomatic mission that goes awry. Leia rescues Luke in this one. Acknowledges Luke’s feelings.

Star Wars Adventures Annual 2018, Mind Your Manners—Another diplomatic mission gone wrong. Not all that shippy, but discovered it while making this list, so it felt wrong to leave it off.

Star Wars Adventures (2020) 7 & 8, The Princess and the Bog, A Twin Tale—Leia and Luke are scouting base locations. Luke is terrible at following Leia’s orders, and wants to pet all the animals.

Star Wars Hyperspace Stories (2022) 2–Another search for a base location. There are several cute moments between them in this one.

Deleted Scenes & Behind The Scenes

I know the ask was about books and novels, but I’d also recommend—if you haven’t already—searching for deleted scenes, alternate takes, behind the scenes photos and promo photos, etc. There are goodies from each film, but the most substantial stuff is from/for ESB.

Is That Everything?

I doubt it. There are many other stories that take place in this time frame that I haven’t investigated yet. Here are some that are on my list:

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor (Legends novel)

Heir to the Jedi (Canon novel)

Heart of the Jedi (unpublished Legends novel)

Star Wars (1977-1986) (Legends comics) (mentioned above)

Star Wars (2020) aka Star Wars V3 (Canon comics)

Razor’s Edge & Honor Among Thieves (Legends novel duology)

I’d bet on there being content down the timeline that reads as shippy, but that’s a whole future post.

[flowerchildwren]

Blog intro and Navigation

Hey there my name’s Wren and I’m a hobbyist digital artist. I primarily post OC art but I do post fan art occasionally (don’t get your hopes up). My art tends to feature a lot of saturated colors, I do my best to tag it but if you come across a post that isn’t tagged please let me know. Also as a general courtesy to your follows please tag it as well (I just use the tag “bright colors” without the quotes). My art currently focuses around my characters for my (to be posted) comic, SVR so prepare to see a lot of them.

I go on random reblog sprees where I reblog other's art that I like in newest section of certain tags, if you just want to look at my art I have my main art tag listed below

This blog is generally SFW but there is some gore/body horror/ blood and some of my characters have more revealing outfits, if that kinda stuff isn’t for you I wouldn’t stick around. I tag the first three things with a tw tag so if you want to filter them out make sure you put “tw gore”, “tw body horror” and “tw blood” in your filter list.

Check out my art! (Under the cut!)

My Art: What it says on the tin(post 2020)

Super V Redux: an (upcoming) webcomic about a group of college students navigating their lives as magical girls while trying to stop their world from being destroyed (a reboot/rewrite of Super V)

Super V: The original (and discontinued) Webcomic SVR is based on, featuring: old art, not very good character design, and an unfinished plot by time of starting, You can read it here it’s hosted on Webtoon

Penn’s Tome: A D&D inspired story featuring too much lore (I’ve yet to make a post explaining all of it oops), Mostly just snippets of character interaction and small pieces of story

After The End: Another Discontinued webtoon, you can read it here it is also on webtoon tho. The story is about a woman who sleeps through the entire apocalypse and wakes up with powers and begins aiding in a rebellion to take down an oppressive government. The story is unfinished and the art is old   

Unaffiliated OCs: character’s that don’t have a story behind them or do but it’s old enough that I don’t remember the original name/ it never got past the first or second art piece

References/Tutorials: that’s it that’s the tag (mainly tutorials to reference not pose based references)

The Horrors: okay it’s actually just my art pre-2020 (the first link in the list is post-2020) this is mostly here so I have a quick and easy way to get to it but if you want to look at the art i was making back then go ahead I guess

[hiding-in-the-vault]

Hello I’m Vault

I really like those block men and post lots of art of them! I stick mostly to dsmp content and AUs based off of it, but I’ll sometimes make cc stuff too.

Dream is my favorite, but I also like the rest of dt+!

I don’t like drama, or engaging in any Real Life Issues™ on this account. Just vibes and block men here :]

~

My primary tags:

Vault Arts - All of my art! All of it!

Vault Asks - The vast majority of asks I’ve received

Vault Talks - Longer text posts, ramblings about lore or otherwise

Vault Classics - Some of my favorite artwork

~

I enjoy my silly AUs. Here’s the ones that have stuck around.

No Man’s Land -  Full length comic, ongoing (slow updates ;/). 

The server falls apart and Dream gets unwillingly teleported to a new land to start a new life, where he comes across a fighting arena-- with XD shackled to him.

Power Trio - Mostly miscellaneous comics of whatever scene strikes me.

Despite all of their many issues, Dream, Sapnap, and George find a way to work together. They would be unstoppable if only they would stop arguing.

Cave AU - Primarily individual artwork based on environments and different locations, with lore scattered throughout. 

Something is wrong with the world and its corruption takes form in the earth expanding and warping chaotically, forcing everyone to take shelter underground.

Forest Spirit AU Masterpost - Several interconnected comics and miscellaneous others. On indefinite hiatus

Dream is a forest spirit who has grown accustomed to being hunted by humans. George and Sapnap slowly befriend him and learn of his long and difficult past.

Roulette, my Las Nevadas murder mystery fic!

~

I also help run the Dreblr Minecraft Server!

[battleangelaelita]

Worldbuilding in Cinder, Part 1

I figured I’d give some insights to my worldbuilding choices in my fanfic Cinder for the readers who’ve been following me here on tumblr. Unlike some of my past works, I’ve been trying hard to make the text itself stand on its own without the need for marginalia and notes to hold the reader’s hand. But nonetheless, this is always a fun subject for me to talk about.

Neither this blog nor the fic itself is meant as any sort of criticism of the worldbuilding in the canon show. For the most part, the setting changes I’ve made I’ve tried to either be just lore expansions from the original, or changes to fit the more mature tone of the fic. Because it’s ultimately in service to telling a compelling story.

The Fire Nation

This is probably where I’ve bucked the usual trends the most. Most fanon accentuates the parallels to between the Fire Nation and Japan, particularly the post-Meiji restoration Imperial Japan. There’s nothing wrong with this in itself, but I think there’s a danger in constructing a fantasy culture too closely to any one real world culture. Such depictions can easily fall into caricature, or pull the fantastic setting too close to real world and rob some of the magic of fantasy.

Instead, mostly for my own amusement I drew on the aesthetic connection to South Asian cultures from the show, drawing on India and Hinduism’s immense influence. I chose this because India has been an interest of mine since I was a teenager, so I already had a good knowledge base, and this gave me an impetus to read and learn more.

There’s a lot of disparate artistic influences portrayed in the art, clothing, architecture, food and culture of the Fire Nation. I think it’s fair to say, especially since the comics and the Kyoshi novels, they’ve probably had the most canonical interest, with a lot of cooks in that kitchen. Zuko is the fan-favorite, and as the primary antagonists of the original, so this was natural. In fleshing out the fictional history of the Fire Nation, a parallel to the Indo-Aryan migrations seemed a natural way to tie together that diversity.

As a quick aside, I must vent about my frustration with the 20th century’s most malicious case of cultural appropriation with regard to that word ‘Aryan’--the abuse of ancient Indian culture and symbols by 20th century Nazis has unfortunately made this a perilous exercise, and I have no choice but to write around it. The word ‘swastika’ itself comes from Sanskrit, meaning “conducive to well-being”, part of the very common iconography of sun wheels. ‘Aryan’ was an endonym shared among many peoples across ancient Iran and northern India, and connoted adherence to a shared set of values and way of life, having linguistic roots in words for nobility.

Unfortunately I can’t undo this plundering, nor can I just pretend it never happened, but limitations breed creativity. There’s an upcoming scene where after a hunt with some other young warriors of the Northern Water Tribe, Azula is asked to share a tale of her people, and wanting to use this to exposit on how the Fire Nation came to be a fusion of an Indian and a Japanese inspired culture, I ended up finding some interesting ways to adapt a thread from the Rigveda and Mahābhārata for her tale. And if you can guess what that is, you get a cookie.

This world-building has come to the fore most directly with religion. Hinduism’s deep influence on East Asian religion and culture is often overlooked, but through the expansion of Buddhism into the Sino-sphere, a large number of Hindu gods, cultural practices and values left their mark. Buddhist deities almost invariably correspond directly with a Hindu equivalent, and Buddhism’s influence was perhaps strongest in Japan, where syncretism between Buddhism and native Shinto is so thorough it is often impossible to separate the two traditions.

There’s an added bonus that a Sanskrit substrate also helps explain all the words and names in the Fire Nation that really don’t fit, most fittingly Azula and Azulon’s names. This, I must stress, is just my idle amusement, drawing an etymology through Sanskrit’s sister tongue of Old Persian, the ultimate source of words like ‘azure’/’azul’ in Europe, back into whatever language they speak in the present world of the Avatar.

Language

Another idle amusement I’ve found is how language works in the world of Avatar. And I think there being a dominant lingua franca that has displaced older languages makes a great deal of sense. Because there’s a pretty compelling figure that at least in theory ties all the nations together: the Avatar themself.

Chinese logograms are omnipresent in the show, from the title cards to diegetic text. This makes a great deal of sense. Hanzi in their purest form are pronunciation independent. They convey an idea directly, and so long as sender and receiver know what the symbol is supposed to mean, they can communicate.

This is important because the idea of a Chinese language is sort of a fiction even at present. Local dialects of Mandarin Chinese even now have the kind of variation you’d expect of a culture with 5,000 years of history, in spite of the long record of central governments trying to promote cultural homogeneity in China. These dialects of Mandarin (without even getting into the other Sinitic languages like Cantonese) have major pronunciation and grammatical differences, to the point where they can be as distinct from each other as the Romance languages are from each other or Latin.

Why is one a dialect and another a language? As Yiddish linguist Max Heinrich famously quipped, “a language is a dialect with an army and a navy.”

The dominant Chinese language, Mandarin, gets its name not from any particular ethnic group or region in China, but from a class of functionaries who spoke and wrote it, the guān of Imperial China, who came to be known as mandarins in Europe through a game of linguistic telephone through the Malay language ultimately to to the Sanskrit mantri, meaning counselor or minister, and also sharing the same root as the word mantra. It’s that bureaucracy that kept China functioning as a single state, even as dynasties came and went, the country was conquered by foreign nomads multiple times.

To me, the most obvious reason why at the ‘present’ that the world speaks one language, whatever the local variations, is because its a project done by the Avatar over generations to promote balance in the world. Other languages exist and are even still spoken; the ancestral languages of the Northern and Southern Water Tribes hold deep cultural significance, to the point where in the North in particular it is still used in daily life. In the Fire Nation, the old tongue, a Sanskrit like language, is still a language of the privileged, used for literature, poetry, and religion, even as daily life has more or less switched over to the “common tongue”, though the former has come to be written with hanzi instead, with the once elegant writing system now living on as the furigana-like pronunciation guides and vulgate used by those without full, classical education.

I figure this common language has its origins in the Ba Sing Se upper ring dialect, likely beginning some untold generations ago with an Earth Kingdom Avatar, promoted by their successors--and Earth Kingdom imperialism--to the point that it is a fact of life in present day. Accordingly, it has displaced local languages most thoroughly in the Earth Kingdom itself, the most ethnically diverse of all the four nations by virtue of size and geographic diversity.

Other fics I’ve read have tacked the opposite direction, giving each culture their own language and finding other ways to explain how our heroes communicate, usually by making them polyglots. It’s certainly a valid approach, but it’s also more work than I’m willing to do when there’s an easier option just staring me in the face.

Having Fun

Like I said before, this stuff has mostly been about me having fun and giving texture to the story I’m writing. It’s not a bible on doing worldbuilding in the Avatar setting, but if you see ideas you like from here or in my fic, by all means don’t be ashamed to borrow. I am doing this as a hobby and see no reason to be defensive about it.

There have been plenty of other blogs on here about how fan culture does tend to approach various cultures in an Orientalizing or Othering fashion, especially the Water Tribe. When I do another one whenever and talk more about some of the worldbuilding I did for the Water Tribe, I’ll touch on that then, with links to the originals which I highly recommend reading. Until then, have a good one.

[demonwield]

     Let’s see. . .this is mostly just for ME but I don’t mind showing this here too cause it helps people have an idea of what the blog has in store. 

CONFIRMED VERSES: 

     Sucrose’s Bodyguard || ‘Honorary’ Knight of Favonius(?) || @bonesugar is the one who helped me compile this verse, as it was Asa’s genius brain to come up with it. This is the first verse for Genshin to be made. Akame is tied to Sucrose as her  guardian, and friend. 

     Project Safeguard || Operator Demon Sword || @exrhlab and @medinventive are the two major tie ins for THESE verses. This is the BASE Arknights verse and really the only ones I will go with. The story is driven BY these two and Akame, but side stories can be made / private sub-verses can be formed, however they will always have these two involved. Saria will be gushed at from Akame by your muse, same with Silence, be warned. Also: Project Safeguard is a DO NOT INTERACT verse - it is the origin verse for Operator Demon Sword and how she comes to be as she is, and is only a ‘read’ through for the blog followers to enjoy and suffer with. 

     Canon Events || Akame ga Kill! / Hinowa ga CRUSH! || Anyone who wants to interact with CANON Akame, you need only ask. This mostly is done with @veroxins but anyone can join.

     Isekai || World Displacement || The start of throwing CANON Akame into new worlds: tends to be an easy ice breaker and underpowers or overpowers her per world. Sorry, that’s not really changeable, but tends to be the easiest way for you to meet her in your world, or, you can drag yourself into her world. 

     Modern || Professional Assassin (Cleaner) || Simple as it sounds: a girl who was dragged into the ASSASSIN life in real life, and it t urned her into a professional hit girl. She uses her ‘youthful’ appearance and her funds to come off as either a COLLEGE STUDENT, or, A BUSINESS PROFESSIONAL to get close to her targets, and executes them. In this verse: all goes. She’s stupidly rich, as her organization gives her a Black Card to use for anything she wants (and she rarely uses it for anything past food, housing temporarily, and whatever she needs for the kill), and the bare necessities. She’s extremely tough, but a bit more. . .down to earth. Her speed, resilience, and strength toned back to be ‘human’ but still ‘abnormal’. 

     Fallen || Demonic Assassin || @unhclyblood‘s own LORE BUILT fallen verse for Akame. Akame has died, and become a fallen one: her soul finally sent to hell, but PLUCKED from the torment to become. . .more. She is a DEMON in full nature now, WEAPONIZED as Lilim’s own personal hand picked guard. The very POWERS OF HELL are bore deep into her soul, as well as MURASAME’S SOUL CURSE has been fully weaponized. It can be asked for to rp in this verse, but it’s mostly private and I would ASK BUBBLES for permission first. 

Verses Being Setup

     Honkai Impact - Next game I am giving a try for after MULTIPLE people keep telling me to sit down and play it for a week. 

     Genshin Impact - I have two verses I am setting up, or even just one big one, that is NOT Akame isekai’d into the world, but born IN TEYVAT herself. More info to come over time. 

     RWBY - I am revising her verse for this, she had one a long time ago but I’ve new thoughts and ideas.

     Tokyo Ghoul - My love for this manga has returned, and as such, I am bringing her verse for this back. But I need to fix up some ideas for it. 

     Marvel / DC Comics - It’s not hard to just isekai her or even THROW HER CANON SELF into this, but i’ve fully special ideas for this all. 

     Bleach - Still designing this with my bleach peeps and especially @sung56sun as she’s the core piece of it. I will probably have 2 or 3 even for this as I have many ideas for Bleach. 

     FFXIV - This one is going to take time as I have much like Bleach 2 or 3 ideas. 

     Tower of Fantasy - To be figured out, but I like the lore and world so far. 

     Assassin of the Sokolova Family - @zorkaya​ and I still have MUCH details to go through before this becomes a full verse, but that’s in the future, one day at a time! (And it’s one of my most exciting ones cause Renata’s world building lore is? So in depth? Holy fuck she’s 10/10.)

[1ore]

(rolls in for the oc meme) number 1 and 29! >:) (rolls out)

1. Your first OC ever?

I'm so glad i still have my art from when I was a babey. I’m not really sure who my first Original Character™ is, but one of the earliest ones to appear in a longform story was Kiki.

(feat. mythbusters.)

She was a Guinar (a group of guinea pig people that I had written extensive lore for) and a dragon rider and I think some kind of shapeshifter? She was based on my RL guinea pig of the time. She also kicked ass extremely, because I was maybe 9 years old and of course she did. She had 3 full notebooks of comics written about her. I still have two of them, but one of them is lost media unfortunately ):

Here she is scamming a dragon for all she's worth. (sorry for the scan quality, these are water damaged. I was heartbroken about it as a kid and ive never recovered)

Funny enough, she was one of the handful of truly “original” characters I had at the time. Most of the comic cast and setting were ripped from whatever piece of media I was obsessed with at the time. Mostly warcraft, because that’s what my brother and mom were playing. I just bonked together whatever I thought was cool like dolls in a dollhouse, without any real regard for the original story.

Looking back, it’s not a far cry from me looking at warhammy and thinking “hmmmmmmmm. Skitarius… kiss.”

anyway. corporate wants you to tell the difference between these two comics. [CW: needles, eye injury, etc. below]

29. Which one of your OCs would go investigate an abandoned house at night without telling anyone they're going?

typical friday night in the Nakamura/Vauntariaq household. Sinuk does this when she blacks out, but not on purpose.

ES, on the other hand, does this on purpose and that’s kind of how they go missing, come to think of it. found X behind the abandoned ranger station.

My earlier story for him was that he was an e-infamous disaster tourist of the shittiest kind, but ehhhh even in satire I don’t like to think about stuff like that, it just pisses me off and makes me sad. I still think they do poor taste urbex stuff though. Alaska funnyman dragged kicking and screaming into having empathy and repairing his relationship with the natural world.

[smolfailure]

FUCK IT, DREAM SMP HOMESTUCK AU

but it's only half shitposts and there are actual Thoughts in there.

You don't need to have read the comic to understand because I tried not to spoil anything major, but it'd help if you knew basic stuff about classpects, SBURB and the hemospectrum.

disclaimer: i'm not a good pixel artist and this is my first actual sprites ever so please be kind to my weird pixels

The Kids:

Tommy

Fundy

Techno

Tubbo

tommy, tubbo and fundy one of the kids because they're the kids in dream smp canon (with fundy being son of wilbur)

techno's there because i want to make a dave strider reference (haha get it because techno's name is also da-- *gets shot) and also because they are both coolguys except instead of using irony, techno has adhd

The Trolls:

Wilbur Soohte (fuschia)

?????? Ehrret (violet)

J????? Shlatt (purple)

Nihacu Niikki (indigo)

Skeppy Diamon (cerulean)

Quacki Tthiey (teal)

Philza Myncra (jade)

Dreame Wastkn (lime disguising as olive)

George Notfou (gold)

Sapphe Nahfpe (bronze)

Badboy Haelow (burgundy)

don't come at me saying only females are allowed to be jades and fuschias; gender is fake and this is an au

more of the AU and the talksprites are under the cut:

Tommy

Lunar sway: Derse. Types in: Red

chaotic. the first person to be introduced.

when he gets introduced instead of the “Zoosmell Pooplord” bit, Tommy is initially going to be the name inputted but then backspaced it and decided that Tommyinnit was better and he was fuming until he’s named Tommy.

Gives me big Blood/Hope vibes. Blood because a lot of the conflict of the dream smp connected to someone breaking his trust or harming the things he cares about, Hope because a lot of the plot of the dream smp stems from Tommy starting shit based on his ideals and what he thinks is right.

the first to instigate fighting against the trolls

bbh contacts him once and tommy keeps cursing until he disconnects from frustration rip

wields Gunkind and his only strife weapon at the beginning is the Vlog gun. He has Gunkind as his strife specibus mainly because he looked up at schlatt and he imitates him.

Fundy

Lunar sway: Prospit. Types in: Orange

it was his idea to play SBURB but only through Dream.

he talks to dream the most among the other trolls fwt stans getcha juice this is the rosemary of the session

dream’s the one giving him exposition about the game so that’s how he knows how to play SBURB.

wilbur trolls fundy once and instantly adopts him.

“You’re my son.” “How does that even work??” “I was one of the people who created your universe. It’s basically the same thing.”

Fundy relents anyway.

Techno

Lunar sway: Derse. Types in: Pink

dave strider but dead-inside voice + rose lalonde english major vibes

he slices the text box when you try to name him "Dave " like in

techno gives me time player vibes (contantly on the move. his skyblock series, his “stays in the pit” monologue,) but also rage vibes (anarchy,  the “theseus” monologue, political alignment is Chaos) alas i am not sure what class

uses Tridentkind and claims "it came from god"

 it was dream, he accidentally transportalized one of wilbur’s weapon while he testing the transportalizer.

Tubbo

Lunar sway: Prospit. Types in: Green

the jade harley of this session. the only thing keeping them from going apeshit. where would they be without him.

but also jade harley in a sense that he seems nice and wholesome but also don’t fuck with them they can mess you up

Heart/Life vibes??? someone good at classpecting help

i put them in prospit bc of the "tubbo third eye" instead of tubbo having a sixth sense or smth, they see the future from the clouds of skaia when they sleep

wields Stress-relieverKind at some point

bonus: everyone’s actual hair colors

Ideas about the Trolls

no i haven’t done their sprites yet bc it would take so much time and i’m not even sure if people wanna see more of this au skjdkdsakdfkl,, but i have Design Ideas.

events of the dsmp revolution are just a FLARP session drawing parallels to how the homestuck trolls had a FLARP session that spoiler alert: destroyed friendships. dtrio, eret, will are involved. eret betrays will's faction and wilbur's still Bitter over that.

on the context of alternia (highbloods and lowbloods) lmanburg and dreamsmp have their roles SWAPPED.  the emancipation theme thing is completely gone since highbloods are in more power than the lowbloods (the dream team) . 

wilbur made a faction called l’manburg because he wants a place where he and his fellow highbloods could make drugs vibe.they take a piece of land that was owned by the dream team. in normal circumstances, they shouldve stood down because lowbloods aren't supposed to start shit with highbloods (especially a group of highbloods that has the alternian heir among them)  but dream turned it into an activism thing about lowblood rights. the story plays as close as possible without tommy or tubbo in it (which is pretty hard ik but this is the best can do).

like in the dreamsmp revolution, dream kinda let wilbur do what he wants but this time he has more reason to because he’s in a lower caste. dream really only fought back when wilbur announced that he’d be building lmanburg on their land and calling it theirs.

eret betrays wilbur by supporting the lowbloods and wilbur and co. technically won but only because he finally called the drones in, as a reference to how lmanburg absolutely got crushed by the dream team in the smp but technically won. l’manburg keeps the piece of land and the dream team scatter away to find a new home.

wilbur soot's a fuschia because a) he's in a position that has a lot of power, b) yknow how he wrote a song about squids and his thing with sally… yeah.

eret's a violet because nobility!! dream looks down on him because he's ambivalent on fighting for lowblood rights when he's in a power to do so "you just sit there, and you look pretty that's it"

also like eridan he has a minor aesthetic mutation (herobrine eyes) that won't classify him as a mutant.

jschlatt is purple because it makes sense thematically because of the gamzee parallels (a. substance abuse b. if you know what happens in act 6, you know this already but spoiler alert, he ruins the main protagonists' lives) also he's a funnyman he deserves the clown caste

 quackity's a teal because he’s a law student. moving on--

 ok but for real it also makes sense thematically because he's the one who wrote the thing that tricked schlatt into agreeing also he gets manipulated by schlatt which also draws parallels to certain events in the comic

skeppy and bbh are BEST FRIENDS despite being highblood and lowblood respectively. initially, skeppy just wanted to bother bbh but they grew to be good friends in time. y’know like how they actually becane friends :D

philza minecraft is a jade because dad friend. also works thematically, because spoiler alert he gets to murder a seadweller for going batshit crazy. 

he also god tiers early. he dies fighting his quick undead denizen (haha baby zombie) but the consorts of his land carry him to his quest bed because he’s treated them all so well.

dream was initially going to be another caste but then i realized that means i have to make his hoodie something other than green which is unacceptable so its a good thing the fact that he's a lime works out

dream was the one who thought of playing sgrub in the first place- initially only planned to have gogy, sap, and bbh in the session but then realized that they four won't be enough so he invited more into his session

he’s also the first to go godtier ez clap blind speedrun not sure what classpect tho

the only reason why dream avoided being culled at birth for being a limeblood is because his rng is That Good. he quickly picked up the fact that he’s not supposed to exist and masqueraded as an oliveblood and kept mostly to himself to avoid suspicion.

george is still colorblind but he has lazer eyes along with it instead. dream lives with him in the same hive since being a mutant means dream doesn’t get a lusus of his own (dnf fans getcha juice “and they were roommates”) 

despite living in the same hive, he never really figures out that dream is a limeblood. possibly because a) he’s colorblind and when he sees dream bleeding he just sees yellow b) he’s just that fucking oblivious and it’s so valid of him.

sapnap’s a bronzeblood mainly because i know he’s the instigator of the pet war with tommy also because i associate him with the color orang in my mind so bronze it is

that’s the end of this long-ass post!! if you have other ideas PLEASE i want to hear them. i don’t know the other streamers i mentioned in here very well so if you have ideas that would be fitting to them like with classpect or lunar sway that would be GREAT. 

the only thing i’m confident about in here are the kids’ lunar sways. i’m not an expert in classpects and homestuck lore so there’s that too!! i just wanted to make this post because adhd means that the idea wouldn’t shut up until i finished it. This initially started as a single shitpost edit of tommyinnit talksprite but then the hiveswap 2 trailer came out and that means i have to combine my two hyperfixations.

also i have ideas about potential quadrants but idk how much of that is breaking some streamers’ boundaries about shipping (even the non romantic quads such as kismesistude, morallegiance and auspisticism) so i decided not to include it.

edit: apparently people want more so i made a discord server as a place to brainstorm!! please pm me to join!

[thankskenpenders]

And so that’s it... nearly 200 issues deep, we’re done with the contributions of original writer Michael Gallagher. I’ve been asked in the past about the possibility of writing an article going over Gallagher’s run, like what I did with Penders. And I might still do that. But for now, here’s a shorter postmortem summarizing my feelings on the work of the original writer for history’s longest-running video game comic

I think it’s easy to look back on Gallagher’s silly old stories with a lot of nostalgia, especially after seeing what the series would become in its Dark Age. I can’t blame anyone who feels this way. I feel that way sometimes, too. It was a simpler time, with short, self-contained stories and a ton of puns, and it was a lot more easily digestible than a lot of the teen melodrama and half-baked sci-fi that followed. But the thing is... that doesn’t mean that Gallagher’s writing was good

Gallagher was always an odd fit for Sonic. I can’t really blame the man for introducing lame concepts like Cal and Al that didn’t fit in with Sonic early on because it’s not like he had much to work with in the early days. The guy was expected to write a monthly comic series based on a couple 16-bit platformers with very little story and some snippets from a cartoon that wasn’t out yet. He also had no way of knowing that his work here would lay the foundation for the longest video game comic ever made. I don’t envy his job. Of course he’d do a goofball story where Sonic travels back to caveman times. It’s not like he had much else to do

But as the series progressed and the cartoons and games gave the comic writers more material to work with, Gallagher didn’t really play along. He gave us a few solid, fun stories like Mecha Madness, but for the most part he was off in his own world, trying to sell us on shoehorned characters like the Forty Fathom Freedom Fighters or the Downunda Freedom Fighters who existed almost exclusively to deliver new flavors of lame pun. One time he even worked with Jim Valentino to make a naval-gazing parody of classic Guardians of the Galaxy so they could make lame puns about a comic they used to write (that very few children in 2001 reading Archie Sonic would be familiar with)

People generally pinpoint Penders as the guy who became obsessed with his own pet characters over the main cast as time went on, but really, Gallagher was just as guilty. And honestly, sometimes Gallagher doing it bugged me more. At least Penders had some prominent characters people actually liked, like Elias, Lara-Su, and Julie-Su, as well as some semblance of an overarching plot to work with. Meanwhile Gallagher was over here trying desperately to get people to care about a group of characters he had created exclusively as a vehicle for trite Australia jokes

Gallagher did introduce a few characters who stuck around, but he doesn’t really deserve much of the credit for that. Most notable would probably be Fiona Fox, who would become a major recurring character under later writers... except Gallagher only really invented her robotic doppelganger that Robotnik tricked Tails into falling in love with that one time. He created Knuckles’ grandfather Athair, the one comic character to somehow make it into a cartoon, but Penders helped out with that lore and did more with the character, meaning most people just assume he’s another Penders echidna. He created Tails’ parents, but Karl and Ian were the ones who actually did stuff with them. And he created the Ancient Walkers, who were kind of neat at first but quickly devolved into a tired plot device, only to be killed off by Ian almost immediately to cut down on the deus ex machinas. If you look at the list of characters Gallagher created, it’s mostly just randos he created for the sake of puns

And that’s really what most of it comes down to. Lame puns. I’m totally down for Sonic stories that go for a silly tone. I love Sonic Boom as much as the next fan, and I’ve been having a blast with the extremely goofy Sonic X comics. I’m not a cartoon snob who won’t watch a show that doesn’t have action and drama and lore, I’m out here watching shows like Apple & Onion. But while Gallagher could write good jokes sometimes, he mostly relied on groanworthy newspaper strip-level puns. (I guess it’s fitting, considering he’s related to both the guy who created Heathcliff AND his successor who makes those comics about the Garbage Ape.) I love me a good pun from time to time, and a lot of Gallagher’s are funnier when shared out of context, but when a story is just wall to wall puns it becomes agonizing. Puns should be a spice, not a main ingredient. And when Gallagher got a chance to follow an ACTUAL newspaper comic strip format in the Off Panel, he fared even worse. It was so rare for the Off Panels he wrote to actually be any funny

He WAS genuinely funny at times, though. I’ll give him credit for that. I don’t want it to seem like I hated ALL of his stories. (He did impress me with at least one political joke that’s sadly still relevant today, and in hindsight there’s something really funny on a meta level about the dark and gritty return of Cal and Al.) I think his best work came when he was paired with better artists. Scott Shaw’s more energetic Sonics really helped sell the cartoony comedy in the original miniseries, and obviously Spaziante’s work on Mecha Madness made that story legendary. When he was stuck with the less exciting Manak or Mawhinney, though, not so much

Beyond the puns, there was also this undercurrent of nastiness, meanness, and general grossness in his stories that I don’t see as many fans pick up on. This was mainly evident in the many odd decisions he made with the female cast

We had his take on Sally, who was treated as little more than Sonic’s annoying, moody, bossy girlfriend who bickered with him, sat on a big throne, and occasionally got to be a damsel in distress. He added Bunnie to the cast early on, but it felt like he didn’t have many ideas for what to do with her except make her the butt of jokes about her being a southern belle, including literally making her say “the South shall rise again!” We had Barby Koala’s extremely creepy flirting with Tails, who was half her age. We had that tone deaf Off-Panel joke about turning the special dedicated to the female readers into a swimsuit special (which isn’t far off from what everyone else actually did). And we also had that baffling story where Dulcy killed her mother. I have NO idea what the fuck he thought he was going for with that one.

It wasn’t just the girls, though--Antoine was somehow even more of a punching bag in Gallagher’s early stories than he was on SatAM. At least in the cartoon Sonic was responding to Antoine’s’ massive ego when he poked fun at him. In the early comics, Sonic would constantly rag on Antoine at any opportunity he got. It was VERY distracting in the early issues, and it made his Sonic come off as way more of a jerk

Later writers would often talk about needing to fix certain characters. Penders, for all his countless insufferable faults, used his early stories to steer Sally towards the version of the character fans knew from SatAM. (He then ruined Sally in his own special way, but, you know.) Just about every writer who touched him spent years and years trying to fix Antoine and make readers stop hating him. The unspoken part here is that the original incarnations of these characters that everyone had to work so hard to fix... were Gallagher’s

Again, Gallagher didn’t have an easy job as the first writer on this series, and most of his stories were... fine. Nothing I’d recommend to non-fans, but they had their moments. They make for an amusing read for their sheer absurdity. But a lot of it ranged from not very good to outright bad. We’ll always cut him some slack for having so little to work off of when he started and for writing stories that were, in hindsight, better (or at least less grating) than a lot of the melodramatic schlock that came later. I’ll always have some nostalgia for those simpler times. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Gallagher’s stuff was ever all that good

But I can’t hate the guy too much, because he gave me the greatest Sonic character of all time

[demi-shoggoth]

2021 Reading Log, pt. 11

51. Monstrous Compendium: Dark Sun Appendix by TSR inc. The first book of Dark Sun based monsters. I think I overall liked the second one better. Many of the monsters here are more environmental hazards, but that comes with how monster writeups worked in 2nd edition. This book stresses the harsh, gritty nature of Athas to an almost comical degree. All the monsters are the deadliest and fiercest, and nothing is considered to be cute and cuddly. That said, there’s a lot of imagination on display, and I bet that this book was a breath of fresh (dry desert) air to GMs in the early 90s. Dark Sun doesn’t feel like other D&D.

52. How to Die in Space by Paul M. Sutter, PhD. I expected to like this book quite a bit, based on its cheeky title and its topic, dangerous astronomical phenomena. Unfortunately, the tone of the book is less dryly funny and more mean-spirited. In its guise as a travel guide for oblivious astronauts, the author makes frequent zingers about its reader’s intelligence, weight and mother. I do not like to be bullied by my books, thank you. A book with an antagonistic tone with the reader requires a delicate touch (see Unmentionable for an example where I think it works). The book is organized smartly, going from local threats (asteroids, solar flares) to ones of enormous cosmological scales (quasars, supermassive black holes) to the purely theoretical (cosmic strings, wormholes). Each chapter begins with an original epigram written in terrible blank verse (all supposedly stemming from The Rhyme of the Ancient Astronaut, but despite this differing wildly in tone, perspective and meter). And the book is horribly edited. Not just spelling mistakes, but switching words like “longer” and “shorter” or “millions” and “billions”, errors that actively hinder the understanding of the topic. Instead of reading this book, you would be better served by looking up the table of contents, then doing Wikipedia searches for each of them.

53. Pathfinder Second Edition: Bestiary 3 design leads Lyz Liddell and Mark Seifter. After my disappointment with Bestiary 2, this is a big step up. Less of this book is reprints than either of the previous 2nd Edition Pathfinder Bestiaries, with a lot of creativity in the new monsters both mechanically and conceptually. Like the brainchild, a living urban legend that gains abilities based on what the party believes about it, or the squirming swill, the undead leftovers from a hag’s cauldron that yield a potion when slain. The monsters that are conversions have more new abilities and expanded lore from their Pathfinder 1e equivalents. Some of the mechanics are more literally minded than I would like (there’s a kuchisake-onna in the book, and her “am I pretty” routine is multiple actions, involving saves and everything), but that is to be expected in such a rules-heavy system.

54. A Brief History of Misogyny by Jack Holland. This is the last book written by Holland, a reporter living in Northern Ireland during the Troubles—he died of cancer during editing, and the foreword is written by his daughter. The book focuses mostly on misogyny in the West, only talking about other cultures in the context of Victorian colonialism and modern fundamentalism (written in 2002, there’s a lot of discussion of the Taliban as a misogyny-driven state). The book is impassioned and brutally honest about the breadth and scope of misogyny as a human rights violation, and how it seems ubiquitous and excused compared to other bigotries. It is also deeply anti-religious (the last book I read that hated Christianity this much was written by Philip Pullman). It’s definitely not perfect—the author is a firm believer in gender essentialism, asexuality is viewed as an aberration, and trans people don’t exist in the narrative. Challenging and worth reading, but not the definitive word on the subject.

55. The Bird Way by Jennifer Ackerman. This is something of a sequel to the same author’s The Genius of Birds. While that book focused more on bird neurobiology, this book is all about behavior. Bird communication, deception, play, sexual selection and reproductive behaviors are all examined here, with a focus on current research. A running theme of the book is that much of what were considered generalities about birds were shaped by sexist (male biologists focusing on male birds) and geographic (American and European scientists focusing on their local birds) biases. As such, this book spends much of its time in the tropics and/or Australia. Multiple references are made to Where Song Began, a book about the evolution of birds in Australia I’ve been meaning to track down. Both highly informative and very fun to read.

[tomatograter]

How do ya capture the "voice" of homestuck characters so well? Besides studying the comic, is there any other media you consume to really get in their head?

First off: Thanks, i’m happy you enjoy my stuff! Secondly… there ARE a few steps i take to the madness.

I basically come from a Dungeon master/Open-world roleplay management background, so when approaching HS cast voices and trying to understand a character to write a story for them i usually take into account 1.INSPIRATIONS, 2.INTERESTS & due to homestuck’s nature, 3.INTERPRETATIONS (As opposed to “player intent”- Hussie’s work is an amalgam of himself and the public input.)

Rereading their logs/sections always helps when you’re trying to figure out their language, pacing, and a bit of their temperament, but getting too lost on mimicking their messages as-is without looking into the character itself may risk leaving them ringing hollow or repetitive (specially for the section of the public that may be more familiar with this character than you are. This is something that may matter to you or not, if you WANT this work to appeal to a specific public or are just messing around.) Because it may just come down to mindless quirk indulgence. In my experience, readers are more forgiving & enthralled by creators who, while not following the specifics of a character’s quirk to a T maintain a sense of internal logic that is congruent with what is shown throughout their appearances. Some AU’s specifically remix, remove or substitute these aspects, and the reason why people usually don’t complain about it is that “it makes sense- given (x) and (x) context.” Like kidswap aus, etc. 

Another thing about Quirks is that they can very easily be broken. Having a grasp of how quirk rules affect a character based on their emotional state and how it changes over time is more valuable than internalizing a hard set of rules that never changes. (Ex: Sollux’ quirk evolves over time. So does Aradia’s, as she changes bodies. June’s quirk takes on Vriska-like qualities after they begin chatting, Vriska uses 8’s and exclamation points more liberally and/or nonsensically when she’s angry/distressed/desperate, Jake’s transatlantic slang and embellishment of speech is mostly at the backseat unless he’s pretending/anxious/overwhelmed, otherwise he’s pretty simple.) Knowing how to break a quirk is just as good as knowing how to write it - traditional prose in fics *may not use quirks at all*, but they’re so good at grasping the particular intonation a character uses when stringing words together at a given situation that you don’t mind that at all. It’s a smooth adaptation.

[GREAT RESOURCE: this google drive has a compilation of all logs between characters in Homestuck separated by participants but usually only lists them on one-on-one basis, so you may wanna look at groupchats in the original comic. I think the epilogues section may be still unfinished. I forget who originally posted it on twitter but i know they have a dedicated tumblr, i’ll edit this if someone can name their blog]

“INSPIRATIONS” are usually how i define character personalities by their distinct mix of archetypes. This is the “PROTAGONIST”, “GOTH GIRL”, “SILLY GIRL”, “COOL GUY”, “WEIRDO”, “GAMER GIRL”, “CODING WANNABE” and other such little buzzwords that HS will throw around in reference to each of its characters, and that usually, but not always, function as a setup to subvert the expectations based on that character come a certain point in the story. Where does the character you’re trying to write fall into, when you try to describe them in these terms? Does their story humour this definition, reject it, destroy it, or evolve it? Does this seem like a genuine fact about them, or a facade? Why do you think that is? (Asking questions is my preferred way of pulling apart and understanding a character, this may work differently for you.)

“INTERESTS” is where i look into for that chunky, fatty, well-grilled meat that goes in the middle of a character’s text. Homestuck characters are defined by what they like, what they aspire to be, and what they fail at becoming(& how that shapes their actions going forwards). Interacting with the media they like may not always be the way, but having a general idea of how it functions and what it means to them is usually very helpful. I was already familiar with a lot of things my favorite characters enjoy, and thus it was easier for me to get attached to them. I also had to watch a lot of shitty movies sometimes. You win some, you lose some.

EX: It’s easier to write Dave’s pov if you have a good grasp of the pop culture & economics he so often references. (What he likes) It’s easier to write Rose’s pov when you’ve searched a bit of armchair psychology wikipedia definitions and familiarized yourself with the genre and existential questions usually involved in Eldritch Horror, and how it evolved outside of Lovecraft. (What she aspires to be like) It’s easier to write Jake when you understand his persona is a collage of juvenile and outdated archetypes taken from action flicks & shitty mainstream comicbooks, that he ultimately fails to ever live up to and hinders his development as a kid at odds with self-imposed traditional masculinity, dreading to publicize the big “Gay” word. (What he fails at becoming)

It’s always useful to ask yourself “Why does this character like (x)” and what that particular thing may say about them. It doesn’t have to be a big groundbreaking revelation, just put yourself into their shoes and try to reverse engineer what you’re presented about them vs their environment, personal issues, and you might just find yourself understanding why they do what they do. 

“Karkat probably likes cheesy romantic comedies because they’re peak middleclass normalass media for someone who’s ostracized from troll society and is purposefully a shithead to keep people away”

“Terezi probably likes dragons because they’re FUCKING COOL but also whoops here’s all this historic lore about Redglare and their lusus and a tragic sense of JUST1C3”

“Aradia probably grapples with the concept of mortality and the ephemeral nature of life, so she’s really into the morbid observation of disasters & archeology & bones, i guess? Is this because she died really young? Oh. Maybe yeah.”

But if you find the above too hard to access on your own, that’s where 

INTERPRETATIONS come in to make this process smoother in the case you just wanna write an extended cast thing and frankly you could not give less of a shit about (x)’s lore, you just want to have a sense of what people like about them, and why people read about them, and how you can purposefully adapt that into your text so socmedia user halfucker69 isn’t crying on your mentions for 11 whole threaded comments about how you did their babyboybaby wrong. I can’t exactly point to you where you can FIND meta because this highly depends on the character, and sometimes you just have to make your own food, but you’ll be good if you try to look into creators who post about these characters, whose thoughts or fan media seem to be congruent with your idea of said character or solid enough that you can easily see how it’s been developed from point A to point B. Interact with more fanworks. Find out what works for you and what doesn’t. “Character study” is a whole genre of fanfic, if you don’t wanna go for shippy stuff - but a lot of “shippy stuff” has its own valuable edge to seeing how people internalize a character, and shouldn’t be as easily dismissable as it is. Again, you’ll have to rely on your own sense of internal logic here - you can’t take EVERY work as the universal truth, but trying stuff out will give you a better sense of who you think this character is.

Then you have to get around trying to write it, which is easier said than done. A lot of times writing about a character will lead you to understanding them better, and you may even find yourself disagreeing with things past-you said when you were first beginning to think about them, and that’s ok. You only get better at writing by asking better questions and then writing some more. Take your time with it. I hope this helps!

[izzybadapple]

Mr Forrest I trust your tastes, can I get some comic recommendations from you? I'm mostly looking for indie/standalone/non-marvel/non-dc stuff, but I won't say no to a good superhero comic (as long as it doesn't require ancestral knowledge of the superhero lore)

Oh sure! I don’t read comics very often so I’m by no means an expert but there are a few I like very much. Here’s some non-superhero recs I’ve read/finished within the last few years that I thought were really good (warning, some of these contain gore and sexual themes but I’ll be sure to tell you which ones):

This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki & Mariko Tamaki

I read it in Spanish under Aquel Verano but it’s the same thing. Coming of age thing about two teenage girls (forgot their names) during a single summer in some little bumfuck town. Contains themes of miscarriage and sexual assault, but other than that it’s a good read that I’d recommend for everyone above 13. I don’t remember much else other than that, but I do remember that it made me cry. I’ll have to give it another read soon.

Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

This series is definitely meant for mature audiences. Contains pretty much everything under the sun: graphic sex, gore, cursing in every panel, etc. But… it’s very good. I do have a few gripes about the mode of storytelling but I can’t exactly air them out without majorly spoiling the story. However, it’s definitely a solid series that I’d recommend to pretty much everybody. Saga is a space opera about two idiots raising a bastard they weren’t supposed to have because they’re from two races on opposite sides of a giant intergalactic war. They meet a lot of cool characters and aliens along the way and stuff… I’ve based two OCs directly off Marko and Alana (the two protags). The series is currently on hiatus so I’d say now is definitely a good time to pick it up without getting overwhelmed with constant updates.

Paper Girls by Brian K Vaughan and Cliff Chiang

Four little delinquent shits from the 80s are transported to the dreadful year of 2016. Hell ensues. There’s aliens involved. Also, it’s kinda gay. I’ve seen the series be credited for how progressive it is, so if that’s a selling point for you then this book certainly has it. I can’t think of any mature themes in it besides cussing and maybe gore, but if you read OPM (which…. I’m guessing you have because that’s like 99% of my followers) you can surely handle Paper Girls.

And yeah that’s about it. There’s also other series I like, like Fables and TWD and other shit but it’s been so long since I’ve read them, I don’t think I can give an informed recommendation given how much I’ve forgotten.

I’d also recommend Akira, which technically isn’t a comic book (it’s a manga but who really cares), by Katsuhiro Otomo.

My favorite series ever…. This is the best mode of cyberpunk if there ever was one. In fact, I’d argue it practically invented the genre, or at least perfected it. Akira is about a group of teenage shitheads (….a common theme with my recommendations, I realize) in a biker gang who lose one of their own to a military experiment. Shit happens, people die, there’s motorcycles, and the characters are really likeable. Gore, sexual themes (but nothing graphic), cussing, and existentialism. A great read if you’ve got time for 2000 pages of lovely storytelling.

Now, this one isn’t non-superhero, but given that it’s a standalone limited series that you can read with minimal knowledge of the main characters, I’d like to recommend Mister Miracle, by Tom King and Mitch Gerads.

I’d say it was arguably one of the greatest comics available in 2019. Now, Tom King is pretty hit or miss with his writing but when he hits he really knocks its out of the park. Mister Miracle has been my favorite superhero since I was like 11 and I was so excited to hear that he’d be getting a limited series all to his own and I was definitely not let down. There’s a neat little exposition at the beginning so even if you’re not familiar with the guy, you’ll still have a good understanding of the story and characters before going into it. The protagonist is Scott Free, certified malewife to his 8-foot tall warrior wife Barda, and this is about their time recovering after a life of abuse and torture by their adoptive “parents” on the planet Apokolips. Definitely a cathartic read for me. That’s about as much as I can mention without spoiling anything. It’s only about 12 issues and you can read the whole thing in a single afternoon, but it’s worth it.

Yeah that’s it. Thanks for asking! ❤️