#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.

[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.

[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

[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! ❤️

[lunarreaper-ut]

Not Undertale related

I re-read the document with info on that Left 4 Dead alternate universe I made and I decided I’d share it here despite it not at all being Undertale related. I’ll put it under the cut if you’re interested! Warning, it’s long as hecc! And I mean... HECCIN long

Imagine the L4D universe after the remaining humans and military regained their foothold to fight the infected, and save themselves. Imagine they were aware of Carriers. Imagine this world wouldn’t just kill off the Carriers, and would treat them like humans (For the most part at least). They would create settlements completely divided, Carriers to their district, uninfected to theirs. The military would have a large amount of influence in these cities. The Carrier district would essentially be slums, or at least extremely poor. They would need to become self-sufficient, as the rest of humanity didn’t care for them or even wished for them to die out. These districts would be encased in walls. Some Carriers would say it’s better than being dead. Others would disagree. 

Now, imagine Carriers went beyond simply being asymptomatic. What if Carriers did mutate? Rather than being simple common infected Carriers, what if (Based on the way the virus mutates depending on certain circumstances), the conditions for the virus to mutate into a specific special infected (Boomer, Smoker, Hunter, etc.) were met, but the Carrier didn’t turn? A new advanced special infected. Still retaining their sentience, still technically human, but much stronger. The military wouldn’t just leave them alone, they’d use them. This would implement Project Carrier. Any special infected Carriers would be rounded up and enlisted in the military. The better they did, the better the Carrier district did. They would, not only receive personal benefits, but would help the Carrier district receive better supplies. Medical supplies, food (as I imagine the Carrier districts would often be low on food), even improved living conditions. Carrier Soldiers would also be used in medical research to create a vaccine to combat the virus.

Despite this, Carrier Soldiers were seen as traitors to their kind, infected that needed to be killed by others, and experiments to the military. They’d be under constant surveillance to ensure they didn’t step out of line. Special infected were already smart enough to outsmart an unprepared soldier (Not that the military would admit that), and a Carrier Soldier was just a mutated human. If they weren’t kept on a tight leash, they could easily overthrow the military with enough careful planning. Thankfully, there were very few special infected Carriers.

This brings in all the technical stuff that I might get wrong. 

The percentages of special infected to regular infected have been confirmed by in-game lore:

Special infected percentages are very low, the highest being 9% (The Hunter), (with Witches being unlisted due to either exceedingly low numbers or inability to safely study), which would mean that most special infected Carriers (Hereby called Special Carriers or SCs), would be Hunters most commonly. Of course I’ll write down theoretical abilities for each type of SC. Unfortunately there’s no information I could find that stated how many survivors were actually Carriers. Of course the in-game playable characters, but that would only amount to 8 (12 if you count the characters exclusive from the L4D survivors) out of all of the encountered NPCs, which of course I could use as a base if it weren’t for “The Sacrifice” comic, which showed the survivors heading to Millhaven and seeing a large amount of bodies being burned. It’s implied that these bodies were Carriers, but it’s also possible that they were simply people who died in millhaven or even common infected that were killed. This skews the numbers a fair bit, so I will use the original 8 survivors and NPCs listed in the wiki.

Rounding numbers up, Uninfected survivors would make up about 87% of the population while Carriers would be 13%. Based on the comics, Carriers are primarily male and the only female survivors would be the daughters of male Carriers. Since there are only 2 female survivors out of the 8, that would make a 25% chance of a female Carrier. This will become important later. Maybe. 

Since we have a rough percentage of how many survivors would be Carriers, how many of them statistically would be SCs? Well thanks to more math, I have that answer. Using the two previous charts, I was able to make this fancy new chart.

Again, due to a lack of data, Witch Carriers can’t be calculated accurately. However. We know that there is a rough percentage of 25% of Carriers being female, (Well, we don’t know that but let's assume it’s true). It can also be observed that some of the special infected seem to be gender restricted. Hunters, Smokers, Chargers, Jockeys, and Tanks all seem to be male restricted with Spitters being female restricted. (The Boomer is the only exception to this rule). If we subtract half of the percentage of Boomers (To make it simple) and the percentage of Spitters, we get a 24.1% of presumably Common female Carriers. 

This is where it comes mostly up to assumptions and hypotheses.

We know that the Witches are just as, if not rarer, than Tanks which make up only 3% of all infected, and only roughly 8% of all Special Infected. We only see the Tank about 1-2 times (though 2 is rare on Expert) per level in L4D, and the Witch, (Excluding the Sugar Mill), has the same spawn-rate. This would make their rarity at least equal to that of the Tank. This would make both the Tank and the Witch roughly 4% of the Special Infected population, and 0.7% of all Infected. Now normally I’d assume that it would be easy enough to put the percentage of Witch Carriers into the chart, but the problem arises with the percentage of female Carriers, which, as you recall, is only 25% with 0.9% already being accounted for as Spitters and Boomers. It’s highly likely that the majority of the remaining 24.1%  are Common Carriers, due to the circumstances required to become a Special Infected. Becoming a Witch infected is highly assumed to be a result of an altered mental state, (Loss of sanity or Depression), which is far different from the other infected. All the other infected seem to have a physical condition met in order to become said Special Infected, (Health problems, excess of certain chemicals, etc.). 

Now of course you could say, “Well everyone just went through the apocalypse, wouldn’t they all be hella depressed?”, and I would say “Yeah probably.”. However, there is a difference between feeling depressed and clinical depression. It would be a bit far-fetched to assume that all Witches were diagnosed as clinically depressed, but I believe it would make more sense due to the fact that every person can experience depression, but not every person is clinically depressed. Otherwise, I believe there would be a much higher rate of Witch infected if the cause was simply depression on it’s own.

 A study in 2016 showed that about 10.4% of women were found to have depression. (Yeah outdated, I’m sure the number is higher now, but we’re using this one). This can be applied to our charts, however there is no way to tell how much of this percentage lies within the Carrier community. Majority of this percentage is certainly within the Uninfected community, purely based on the low percentage of women within the Carrier community. Only 3.25% of women would be Carriers in this scenario, leaving over 96% of women uninfected. Because of this, statistically, we can assume next to none of the Carrier women are clinically depressed. To keep things simple, I’m going to go with the assumption that less than 0.1% of Carriers become Witch Carriers.

Now that we have all of the statistics out of the way, what exactly would these SCs be like? How extensive are the mutations? I have theories! I’ll continue that in the next post though, since this is already long as hecc... Their abilities are a lot more interesting, so stay tuned!

[maijily]

INTRAAAASSSSSS RELEASE NOTES

Heya Tumblr. How have you been? ;)

It’s time for the Intracodes to be announced~~ But this post is super long so don’t continue unless you want 289347329 years of text

You’ve been warned

GUESS WHAT THE HIATUS IS OVER!!! ...Kinda. There’s still a few things left to do before DC, Omission, and Tumblr can come back to life, but trust that things are moving and it’s only a matter of time before they all start posting again.

BUT FOR NOW, we have intras. I hope you haven’t forgotten about them-- Intra submissions started a few months ago, where anyone could submit an OC who would end up being canon in the world of DC, either in the current lore or a future comic! ARA’s an example of a submission who ended up in DC’s hiatus chapters as a healer outcode, and if you submitted, they’ll show up in one way or another too, some having to do more with the plot than others.

So there were a TON of submissions and only FOUR of them could become intracodes (since intras are ridiculously rare and powerful and all). The REST are either basecodes, outcodes, or outliers, and they’ll all show up in one way or another as interactable characters later on.

--------------------------------

Due to lore secrets, I can’t tell you what your characters will be and what they’ll do. Instead, you’ll know the code type, code role, status, alignment, and power level of each. (Keeping the creators secret for privacy reasons~)

--------------------------------

IF YOU SUBMITTED A CHARACTER, PLEASE please PLEASE keep the following in mind:

((Your submission probably contains secrets to the character, either in backstory, traits, secret intentions, etc. The character belongs to both you and DC, and there may be some traits about your character that the audience doesn’t know. (say your character pretends to be a good guy but is secretly evil). When they show up, it’d be great for no spoilers on your end as well as mine. We’re both sharing a piece of canon here!))

--------------------------------

OK, so now some info before the submissions are released:

Your character is either a basecode, outcode, outlier, or intracode. (this is also in order from least to most powerful).

✦Basecode: Like SK or Cloud. Stuck in a void, their story has been discarded, and they are alone.

✦Outcode: They’ve escaped their void/been rescued, and are living in the wild land of the Interface. They are either living in an outcode community, leading an outcode community, or wandering the interface independently.

✦Outlier: Rare, powerful, and usually feared. Contain powers that outcodes can’t replicate and are often not accepted by the rest of the Interface.

✦Intracode: Gods of the Interface. Live in pain and extreme power. Nearly impossible to kill, and highly destructive and deadly if their power is not kept under control. There are 6 in existence including Digi.

Alright. Reveal time, are you ready?

--------------------------------

THE INTRACODES:

(Gods of the interface. Highly destructive and deadly.)

Name: Cancor Spiderwick Code type: Intracode Status: Hidden Alignment: True Neutral

Power level: 11/10

Name: Rollo Code type: Intracode Code Role: Outsider/Wanderer Status: Free Alignment: ???

Power level: 11/10

Name: Delta Code type: Intracode Code Role: N/A Status: Void-bound Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Power level: 11/10

Name: Millie Code type: Intracode Code Role: Outsider Status: Free Alignment: Chaotic good

Power level: 11/10

Clap it up for the intracodes 👏 👏 👏 We have two chaotic evils (including Digi) so it’ll be a fun ride ;w;

And for the other submissions~~

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BASECODES

(Trapped in their void. They are alone.)

Name: Angel Code type: Basecode Code Role: Isolated Status: Void-Bound Alignment: True Neutral

Power level: 5/10

Name: Ceryk Ardor Code type: Basecode Code Role: Isolated Status: Void-Bound Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Power level: 5/10

Name: Rox Code type: Basecode Code Role: Isolated Status: Void-Bound Alignment: True Neutral

Power level: 5/10

Name: Sophie Code type: Basecode Code Role: Isolated Status: Void-Bound Alignment: Neutral Good

Power level: 5/10

--------------------------------

OUTCODES

(Escaped their void, is living in the wild lands of the Interface.)

Name: Ara Code type: Outcode Code Role: Damage Control Status: Free/Famous Alignment: Chaotic good

Power level: 7/10

Name: Badru Code type: Outcode Code Role: Sector 1, Second in Command Status: Free/Famous Alignment: Chaotic good

Power level: 8/10

Name: Edgeblade Rainbow Code type: Outcode Code Role: Outsider Status: Hidden Alignment: (Is Chaotic Chaotic an alignment)

Power level: 6/10

Name: Emilia Code type: Outcode Code Role: Undercover Status: Hidden Alignment: Chaotic good

Power level: 6/10

Name: Ivan Code type: Outcode Code Role: Leader of Sector 3 Status: Free/Famous Alignment: Lawful Good

Power level: 7/10

Name: Jack Servini Code type: Outcode Code Role: Outsider Status: Hidden Alignment: True neutral

Power level: 6/10

Name: Kirai Code type: Outcode Code Role: Outsider/Wanderer Status: Hidden Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Power level: ???

Name: Liva Code type: Outcode Code Role: Sector 2, Second in Command Status: Free/Famous Alignment: Neutral Good

Power level: 8/10

Name: Luna Code type: Outcode Code Role: Exiled/Outsider Status: Hidden Alignment: Neutral Evil

Power level: ???

Name: Tank Code type: Outcode Code Role: Undercover Status: Free Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Power level: 6/10

Name: The Storyteller Code type: Outcode Code Role: N/A Status: Hidden Alignment: True Neutral

Power level: 10/10

--------------------------------

OUTLIERS

(Rare, powerful, feared. Usually not accepted by others.)

Name: Neri, Leandro Code type: Outliers Code Role: Assassins (Sector 2) Status: Free Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Power level: 9/10

Name: Storm Lycan Code type: Outlier Code Role: Leader of Sector 1 Status: Free Alignment: (Evil Evil should be an alignment)

Power level: 9/10

Name: Liam Code type: Outlier Code Role: Undercover Status: ??? Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Power level: (Varies from 5/10-10/10)

Name: Tacir Code type: Outlier Code Role: Outsider/Famous Status: Hidden Alignment: Neutral Good

Power level: 10/10

--------------------------------

OTHER

(Too lore heavy to reveal)

Name: Lyssa Code type: ??? Code Role: ??? Status: Free/??? Alignment: ???

Power level: ???

Name: Tao Lycaon Code type: ??? Code Role: Exiled/??? Status: Free/??? Alignment: Neutral evil

Power level: ???

Name: “The Sailor” Code type: ??? Code Role: Famous/??? Status: ??? Alignment: (Varies from Chaotic Good to Chaotic Evil)

Power level: ???

--------------------------------

WAIT DID YOU THINK WE’RE DONE!??!?! Nope time for questions for those who submitted.

Q/A:

✦What does the status mean for the character?:

Free = They can roam the interface as they please.

Hidden = They are running/hiding from someone/something.

Void-Bound = Accounts mostly for basecodes. They’re trapped in a void.

✦What does the code role mean for the character?:

Undercover = Likely spies/assassins. They are pretending to be something that they aren’t.

Exiled = They were banished from a community they were previously in.

Outsider = They are outside of the main communities of the Interface and live independently.

Wanderer = They don’t have a set home and travel/explore the Interface.

Isolated = Accounts mostly for basecodes. They are secluded from all and can’t escape.

Leader/Second command of [insert Sector] = Has a leadership position in Sector 1-3, all outcode communities.

Famous = They are of high power/influence, known by all.

N/A = None of the above/probably a secret honestly

✦How much is planned about my character?: It’s a little different for each, as some are more developed for the plot than others. But for the most part, all of them currently have a set DC backstory, morals, and role to play in the overall storyline. They’re all included and have relationships with the new main character and each other.

✦This is great and all, but when can I see my character?: I... I really don’t know yet!! There will be many comics following DC, all interactive and character-based. Your submission will be included in one way or another, either as a main character, antagonist, or side character. Those stories just aren’t planned out yet, but I promise your character is there.

✦Yeah, but how long will it take for me to see them in-comic?: That... Depends entirely on how long it takes to make the new comics and actually implement your character. It won’t be a matter of years, but there might have to be some patience involved with how long it takes to make these things.

✦Can my character die or kill other characters?: Yep! None of them are dead yet, but none of you have plot immunity. None. And some of you are all chaotic evil assassins, so just... Keep that in mind.

✦Can I still change my character/request changes?: Yes. If you’re truly unhappy with how your character looks right now or later on, please tell me and I’ll try to change things. They belong to both of us and you will always have a say in what happens to them.

✦Am I being credited?: Absolutely. Either in the credits at the end, description, and/or conversation with the next audience, you’ll be credited for your character all the way.

✦This looks cool, can I submit a character now?: Depends. Tell me your plans and I’ll see if I can fit them in. If not, you’ll have to accept no for an answer. I want to accept characters all the time because of how flexible DC is but there’s a lot of complications involved.

✦This is really long can I stop reading now?: YES. YOU READ THROUGH IT ALL. CONGRATS.

✦I made a submission but it isn’t on here...: WAIT WHAT???? If you made and sent a submission in which I gave you a response and it’s NOT on here, PLEASE tell me immediately through Tumblr/Discord DMs and I will drop everything to get them and apologize for 55 spam messages

I can’t stress to you enough how amazing this was or how brilliant you all are at character creation. Some of you have absolutely incredible ideas and made some golden characters, all of which seriously helped out DC and the cast for future comics. You’re all endlessly talented and it was an honor getting to work with you and add your ideas to this project!! Thank you for making this successful and giving it a chance. I’ll see you soon.

[chessdaze]

Three Wishes Institute - A TWST fanschool

Reposting this as I’ve changed my URL which broke all the links in my previous lore post, and since I’ve gotten a lot of new followers lately and wanted them to be able to read it properly.

First off, as a concept, Three Wishes is a fanschool for twisted wonderland that involves characters that are considered ‘side’ or ‘background’ or even ‘comic relief’ characters from disney franchises. Right now I only have 6 dorms, and characters range from being on both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ sides of a story.

Here’s the lore rundown for the main school itself and a brief summary on the dorms and characters I will be designing for them. Under readmore cause this is HELLA long and I don’t want to make people scroll for forever:

The overall story of Three Wishes:

The Headmistress and Master, Amelia Bell and Reed Dearly (based on Anita and Roger from 101 dalmatians), only recently got the school property. Before them, the school was known to be really rundown, a failure, and pretty much on the verge of closing. While it was a school for magic, it was like all the magic was zapped out of the school itself. It was filled with delinquents and very few students who actually cared. Most dropped out if anything.

Amelia was a teacher at the school for a little over a year and the only teacher that students really respected and bothered showing up to class for. She hated seeing the school in the state it was in and tried pleading with the headmistress of the school to try and change things - however was constantly told it was too late and that the school would be closing. It did, and Amelia had to look for jobs elsewhere. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that she could have done more and found herself drawn back to the crumbling school on more than one occasion. She decided to sneak in one day to see if she could find a hint of anything from the old headmistress - who had disappeared without a trace - to see if she could get in contact with her. This wasn’t her idea of course, but her (boyfriend at the time) Reed’s.

Eventually they did track down the headmistress and found her terribly ill. Amelia insisted that the two of them care for her, despite all that the headmistress had done to shun Amelia beforehand. They did, and during that time Amelia explained the hopes she had previously had for the school - she said how she wanted a school that anyone could feel welcome to apply, and not have some special ceremony for acceptance (like the carriages for NRC). She believed people could be equals and that as a magical community they should all help one another. The old headmistress was moved by Amelia’s words and when she back to health she revealed herself to be a powerful sorceress (the enchantress from Beauty and the Beast. No design as of now). She explained she had been looking for a worthy successor for the school and her magic but didn’t find Amelia fitting at the time, but saw the kindness in Amelia’s heart and offered her the deed to the school and the surrounding grounds. She wanted to see what Amelia would do with the school and was interested if she could really bring a community together like she explained. Then, she disappeared.

Amelia and Reed worked to renovate the school, taking nearly 2 years on the project. Amelia comes from a wealthy family, but even then funds were not endless, so a lot of fundraising was done to also raise awareness for the reopening school. At first there wasn’t much interest but it slowly got more and more traction. With donations and family money, they were able to complete the school. The two of them also got engaged during this time. Even with them rebuilding the mainschool and doing some maintenance on the dorms themselves, there are some secrets that even the two of them are still learning, as the sorceress took off before giving them the full details on the school itself.

The school’s aim is to not only teach its students magic, but the foundation of being a good person, being helpful and selfless. The school holds a lot of community and fundraising events, and there is even a mandatory volunteering class where students have to spend a certain amount of hours volunteering for a local community service. This school hopes to bridge the gap between the elite and average magic users, showing that deep down everyone is human and deserving of respect and a chance to grow.

This school doesn't have completely different areas for the dorms and it's all actually located on a large campus ground.The main school building is about 4 stories, there's a greenhouse and an auditorium in separate buildings.

The dorms are all two or three stories and are all relatively distant from each other, enough to give each dorm a good spot of land around it. Think a mansion with a large yard. When passing through the front gate for the dorm there's magic that makes it appear in a slightly different scenery - so the students don't always have the school looming in the background and can relax. The dorm's scenery is different between each dorm and it can change with each 'dorm representative'.

There aren't really dorm 'leaders' as there are representatives. Normally about two or three for each dorm - though can only be one if the person proves themselves to be capable / no one else is voted. Each dorm will have a meeting once a month to go over things that the dorm needs to address either internally or with the school or other dorms, and then the representatives bring those concerns to a meeting with the school's staff and other dorm representatives. Think more like a student council and class presidents. The representatives make almost all decisions together. Reps are voted for each year within a dorm, and the voting is taken pretty seriously.

The dorm rep duties outside of the meetings is mostly just like a college RA. They make sure people are following the rules, help solve problems between students in their dorm, plan and hold events, etc.

The dorms:

While students are separated into dorms in this school, the headmaster and mistress try to stress the fact that they are all one community. Friendly rivalry is encouraged but ultimately the matter of dorms is just where the students end up living and placing them near people who can better help those around them. The two in charge don’t want the dorms to become too competitive or to alienated from one another - so there’s actually a lot of cross dorm events and even friends staying over at other friends dorms for days on end at times.

As a note, as long as it’s not inappropriate, students are encouraged to wear anything they want as their ‘dorm uniform’. Standard school uniforms are required on the main campus but as Headmaster Reed puts it - there’s no reason for them to tell the students what to wear in their own house. Plus, the school isn’t as well funded as most other private schools, so not having a lot of uniforms to keep up with is better for them in the long run. They don’t even have a formal ceremonial robe like NRC does, but I will be posting about the uniforms in a different post.

Now onto the dorms themselves.

Cinderella dorm: Nightingale Founded on the hard work and dedication of a princess’s companions, members of this dorm are no strangers to teamwork and getting the job done. It’s said that there’s no miracle students in this dorm can’t pull off in a short amount of time. Members of this dorm are close and they will drop anything they’re doing to help another. 

Read the profiles for the students apart of this dorm here!

Snow White: Diamanttobar Founded on the tradition and devotion of miners, members of this dorm specialize in working long hours and putting 100% into everything they do.They might be hard to win over, but once you have their companionship little will shake their loyalty. Students here notice the smaller details and are said to be able to craft nearly anything.  

Read the profiles for the students apart of this dorm here!

Aladdin: Wondrous Founded on the cleverness and protective instincts of a royal couple’s most trusted confidants, members of this dorm sometimes have questionable methods but overall have hearts of gold. Students in this dorm are proactive in calling out unfair rules and try to work for changes and reforms to improve the lives of those around them.

Read the profiles for the students apart of this dorm here!

Mulan: Guardian Founded on the honor and strength of dragons, students of this dorm are known to follow a code of honor and are very protective of one another. They are great with helping other student’s physical and mental well beings, acting as trainers and confidants.

Read the profiles for the students apart of this dorm here!

AiW: Lapinhole Founded on the curiosity and madness of a queen’s subjects, members of this dorm are known to be eccentric and creative. A lot of students in this dorm are mysterious and have a strange method of helping others, but even through the confusion a lot of students rely on students from this dorm for a little more fun in their lives.

Read the profiles for the students apart of this dorm here!

Beauty and the Beast: Servireu Founded on the faith and loyalty of a Beast Prince’s servants, members of this dorm are known to be generous, not judgemental, and helpful to those around them. A lot of these students are at the top of their classes and are known for being excellent tutors for others. Though a little eccentric, they obviously mean well and have good intentions.

Read the profiles for the students apart of this dorm here!

Annnnddd that’s it! I plan to possibly redo my dorm lore dump post aswell as make a separate post for the uniforms once I have them designed. also the staff will be getting their own posts aswell when I finish their designs too.

[reaperkaneki]

and now for my opinions on the individual routes! this is gonna get long so bear with me.

i played through the initial routes in the order of riku (blue) -> amakusa (green) -> yosuga (purple) -> kuroba (black). you could probably swap yosuga and kuroba depending on preference, or even insert tokisada between the two as a breather since purple and black have fairly heavy themes.

again, the game is romance-heavy compared to past localized otome. the structure is like this: the first half of a route is dedicated to ‘how the characters fall for each other’, the second is dedicated to ‘who objects to this relationship and also what horrible little facet of the game’s broken caste-based society are we concentrating on today’. so, romance -> antagonism and lore.

i would for sure recommend doing riku first, since his route has the least amount of spoilers for the other routes. at the very least i would definitely not do yosugas route before his because that has some revelations on the antagonist of riku’s route. i went in expecting riku to be my least favorite, but he was super cute and i ended up liking him way more than anticipated. i want to bully him a little bit. again, great for a first route.

i’ll go ahead and say that i didn’t like tokisada’s route very much. he’s only seventeen, so younger than olympia by a year, so he’s very youthful and fun at first and i enjoyed the first half of his route. his character arc is fine in theory; unfortunately, he didn’t really do it for me. he has a lot of complexes that are relatable, and a lot of genuine flaws that make sense given his trauma, but his route seemed to drag on forever and i was constantly caught between going ‘okay, this is an unhealthy but understandable and realistic trauma behavior, i should give him the benefit of the doubt’ and ‘wait this is an otome and i am not a therapist, i want to grab this little twink by the shoulders and shake him’. oh, one surprising thing though: he has a lot of kisses. for the youngest member of the cast, who definitely has no prior experience, he sure does have a lot of service? which is immediately killed by the fact that he calls olympia onee-san aaaaaAAAAAAA NOT DURING THE SPICY SCENES ARE YOU KIDDING ME.

yosuga is more plot-heavy of a route than i expected. all of the routes have some aspect of ‘certain things happened in the past that were covered up for the sake of maintaining the status quo on the island’ but other than the final two, this one has the most flavor of ‘are you sure you want to know’? while the romance was barely there compared to, say, tokisada’s where he drags you on dates for the first half of the route, i think i liked the antagonist in his route the most—they’re complex and while most antagonists in this game have suffered under some aspect of the island’s caste system and strict societal obligations, i felt the most sympathy here.

i expected either kuroba or akaza, maybe even yosuga, to be my favorite when the game was announced solely based on character design and seiyuu, and was a little hesitant when kuroba was described as an older brother type character. then i played the game and basically spent the three routes i did first pining after him. yes, he’s reliable and good with kids, but he’s actually the flirty jokester type with a serious side, and in many of the routes he plays an excellent wingman. truly the brosiest of bros. now that i’ve got my biased opinion of kuroba out of the way, his actual route? i’ve got mixed feelings. on one hand, the date scenes are really fun. kuroba grappling with ethical concerns as a doctor was handled well imo. on the other, the relationship goes through a lot of ups and downs. there are some moments where i wanted to shake him (and olympia!) by the shoulders because they’re both very. hm. guys. seriously. and lastly but most unfortunately there’s some scenes that. well. heavy content warning. sexual violence. not great. it mostly pulls together in the end, albeit somewhat messily.

speaking of plot heavy, himuka’s route is revelation after revelation about the world they live in. which is why it’s locked. (i actually thought while playing it, “what could akaza’s route possibly reveal that himuka’s hasn’t?”) but since i’m trying to keep this mostly spoiler-free, i’ll talk abt himuka himself. i liked him! he’s cute. he gives me orlok piofiore vibes. he’s very intense and socially awkward, and definitely puts olympia up on a pedestal that she doesn’t want to be on. he has very little self esteem, does a thankless job, and is self sacrificing. in short, he’s very, very similar to olympia in some respects, and utterly foreign in others, which makes him a good parallel for her.

akaza is obviously the ‘main guy’. it’s very hard to discuss his route without spoiling anything. i’ll do my best. he’s known as the iron mask, a nickname kuroba gave him as a joke but it stuck. he’s so serious it almost borders on the comical. he’s aggressive in his pursuit of olympia because she tends to avoid his romantic advances out of…. stubbornness and spite; she had a bad first impression of him because he declared he would marry her out of obligation if she couldn’t find a husband and that pissed her off majorly. this would come off as skeevy and ymmv but i think it’s handled decently well because it’s clear very early on in even the common route that olympia understands that akaza is not a bad person, he’s actually a very good, reliable man who hates injustice. akaza is fairly gentlemanly despite being pushy abt getting her to give him a chance—he explicitly talks abt consent a few times and that he won’t touch or kiss her without her permission. he’s blank faced and monotone but a good cook and a romantic at heart. the rest of his route? without spoilers, again, it’s hard. his antagonist is a hit or miss i think. some people might dislike that they’re inconsistent and hard to understand, and i totally get that, but i liked that said character explicitly states that they’ve got conflicting desires and don’t understand it completely themself. it’s paradoxical and that seems in line with their characterization. WAIT HOLD ON ONE MORE THING: akaza takes off his glasses during date scenes which makes his route a 0/10 booooooo we hate you.

my ranking for the guys based on person preference: kuroba > akaza / riku / himuka > yosuga > tokisada

akaza’s design does it for me over riku and himuka’s, riku’s character is cuter than the other two, and himuka has a certain je ne sais quoi that made me like him more than expected. they’re in the same spot because my favorite of the three changes based on what mood i’m in lol

[loopy777]

Hi! What do you know about official PoV books for the each member of Gaang and Azula Michael Teitelbaum is the one who wrote them?Is what Michael Teitelbaum considered canon or not

Well, the good news is that you don't have to worry about whether these books are canon, because there's no such thing as a canon for the Avatar franchise. Neither Nickelodeon nor the Mike'n'Bryan have ever said anything about a 'canon' or any policies relating to such a thing. As a fandom, we don't need to deal with that kind of stress. We're very lucky that way. The Star Wars fandom has recently been mad because a scene in a comic book was contradicted by a scene in a new cartoon episode, and now they can't enjoy either one. It's very sad.

A better question would be if future Avatar works would take the PoV books into account. And the answer is, "Who knows?" Nickelodeon publishes stuff officially, and then we wait to see if the next published thing is going to contradict it. The Mike and the Bryan have their own ideas, so anything not written by them is more likely to be contradicted, but they also sometimes change their minds about the backstory and character psychology they come up with themselves, and they'll just go ahead and contradict it without a worry. That's how this franchise works, for better or for worse.

Now, as for the books themselves, the wiki has pages for them with all the relevant information:

https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/The_Lost_Scrolls

https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/The_Earth_Kingdom_Chronicles

https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Aang%27s_School_Days

They contain a little worldbuilding lore that isn't present in any other works, but mostly they're just quickie novelizations of some cartoon episodes. No one, not even Michael Teitelbaum himself, has ever talked about these books that I've seen. My impression is that Teitelbaum was just given some scripts -- possibly early versions that don't match the final recording scripts -- and he wrote the adaptations. He might have also had access to the series bible, to aid with writing the characters and world, but no one knows. It's possible that the Mike and the Bryan had to approve the final products, but I think it unlikely.

There are some details in the books that contradict the actual cartoon episodes, but a lot of people like the character stuff in them, so they seem to be fairly popular amongst those who have read them. I think that sounds nice.

If you're worried about whether you can cite the books in things like character analysis or fanfic, I say go ahead, but just make a note of the source. Since there's no canon, we can just say, "The Azula PoV book has some interesting wording that suggests this about her character..." And if people have a problem with it, that's a Them Problem. They can just stick to the cartoon and/or comics, if they want. There's no battles to win, here, so it doesn't matter. I like to go out of my way in my fanfic to sometimes acknowledge the weirder, 'non-canon' stuff, and no one has ever complained.

Sorry if this comes across as patronizing. I don't mean to be. I've just been on the internet too long, and seen too many people define stuff as 'good' or 'bad' based on how it fits into a canon that may or may not even officially exist, and I'm so tired of it. Especially since a lot of the 'canon' stuff is very bad in those franchises. I mean, Rise Of Skywalker is canon to Star Wars. The Promise is approved by the Mike and the Bryan as an Avatar story. If that stuff isn't the final nail in the coffin of 'canon,' I don't know what could be.

I've come to really like the Transformers way of doing things, which is, "No more than is necessary to keep things orderly."