#and i happen to really like dnd as a system and am not super down to 'just switch' as a solution

[belovedblabber]

I’ve gotta say, people reacting to all of this dnd wotc ogl stuff by being super snooty like ‘dnd is a bad system anyway and just try something else’ to be frustrating

[capillaryspice]

Unpopular opinion rant incoming:

I did not enjoy Baldurs Gate 3

Before anything else I will admit I am biased, as strategy turn based games aren't something I'm usually into to begin with. I mostly ended up playing it because my partners and a friend are SUPER into the game and wanted to do a 4 player run. I do have 30 hours on a solo run I tried to get used to the game with, so I have a decent bit of experience with how it's supposed to run as a single player but I'm not judging companion stories or anything because I haven't completed them.

I do understand why people like BG3, and I don't wanna rain on anyone's parade for a very critically acclaimed game, but I do have some thoughts that I just need to get out of my head, so if you like the game and don't wanna hear me complain about it just scroll on ahead. If you do want to hear me complain, I'd love to hear if anyone else has had the same thoughts, because genuinely I've not really had anyone to talk to that hasn't been head-over-heels for it. (Actual thoughts under the cut)

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

With that out of the way, for starters BG3 is a very impressive game. From a technical perspective, from a voice acting quality perspective, the sheer amount of tiny tiny details, etc... it is IMPRESSIVE. Too impressive, I'd almost have to say. Because, despite being impressed by it, I did not have FUN playing the game. For all its details it doesn't draw me in. For all the technical marvel, it's just too janky. It's all of the rules of DND and none of the immersion or fun

I would love to have had a functioning camera position that didn't give me whiplash whenever a new character in the combat of 20+ NPCs decides to do so much as shuffle to the left. It feels like pulling teeth when trying to select/interact with anything, god forbid a reaction happens while you're trying to attack and you just completely lose the action bc the interruption to movement pauses everything and screws u up. I'd love to be able to jump without going through two menu screens and a map to just hop over a gap(I'm never complaining about the Dark Souls jump being too complicated ever again). Also everything moves so slow, I would kill for a fucking Sprint button.

I would have liked anything approaching a streamlined combat system that didn't take a long ass time to set up a move that takes six seconds to play out, and then wait for ten minutes literally doing nothing while the rest of the NPCs in initiative whip the viewpoint around and get it stuck in walls and corpses so I can't even see what's happening while I can't do anything for the rest of the round

A lesser gripe, but just a bizarre choice to not do: Id like to hear the character voice I chose in character creation for cutscenes, instead of just background ambient lines. Like, if the last dragon age game (from 2014 mind you) can have a voiced main character with multiple voice options, this new game that has unique voice lines for every goddamn squirrel on the map and ALREADY PAID VOICE ACTORS TO VOICE THE MAIN CHARACTER TO BEGIN WITH can probably afford to do so. Hell, I'd like some background music that isn't just the tenth rendition of Down By The River in a different key. The bard music is all gorgeous, why couldn't they have reused some of those compositions as ambient music for different locations?

This is a MASSIVE game, and what they've put into it is definitely admirable, but like. Not in the ways that make a game breathable or immersive? The choices in where they've decided to dedicate the anal level of detail seems misguided from a just general player standpoint; There's some gorgeous settings in the game, but I was distracted every time by getting frustrated that I couldn't even get a more-than-vague look at any of the scenery I actually enjoyed because the camera is so limited in its angles. So I can't take a good look around what should be a beautiful temple that I'd love to see closer, but I can individually inspect every moldy apple and tax form on a random dinner table instead. It's a vast open world, but the character models have very clearly defined paths they have to stay within. The amount of unique NPCs is insane, but the mechanics themselves TREAT them as NPCs(i.e., resurrection rules), and they don't react to PCs unless ur doing Violence or Crimes (even og skyrim had NPCs have comments on if u weren't like wearing clothes, for instance). Every shelf and bag and nook and cranny are searchable, but that gets overwhelming very quickly as you have to choose between taking like an hour of real time to clear a cluttered area and possibly find something important but more likely just end up with a bajillion rotten carrots, or move on but have the anxiety of knowing you've possibly missed something vital. There's a million options you can take at any moment with any object or character, but there's rarely anything indicating what will be vital later for general world stuff. But then with the main plot (the Emperor, Raphael, the crèche) it felt very railroaded in the sense that TECHNICALLY you could try and choose between outcomes, but your choices don't actually matter because you die if you choose The Wrong Option (or end up in effectively death sentence combat) and will end up where they want you to go regardless.

BG3 isn't a game I want to spend time playing; it's not a world I can wander around and appreciate the beauty of and get lost in the soundtrack or the environments. The whole combat system is incredibly frustrating to manage, and just feels like Hurry Up And Wait. I'm not gonna knock the romance parts of the game, I've heard good things and haven't gotten far enough in any of em to have an educated opinion on, so really the only thing the game has to offer in spades OTHER than romance is replayability. Which normally I would say is a good thing, but for how long of a game it is and how non immersive the gameplay and world feel, it really just ends up being a game of fucking around and seeing how many things you can get an alternate dialogue for or create new stats around. Like, this is great for completionist folks who love collecting achievements and making the most busted crunchy math-based builds possible, but Baldurs Gate 3 to me just isn't a game I can sit down and have Fun(TM) relaxing and playing.

It's a game that I feel absolutely missed the forest for the trees.

So anyways, essay complete. I've only slept like 6 hours total in the last three days so a lot of this may or may not even make sense. But on so much sleep deprivation finishing this game and realizing I was just frustrated with it instead of actually feeling accomplished for having finished it, it was the final straw and I just needed to get the thoughts down somewhere

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk

[crabs-with-sticks]

There is! But it is very much a dnd style of ttrpg. Band of Blades is powered by the apocalypse, which I just generally prefer running. But! It also has a bunch of mechanics which work specifically for running grey wardens against the blight!

The game is entirely built around the idea of standing against an unceasing army of ~bad shit~, so the structure of the game is based around an army campaign- so it zooms out between the commanders who are running the show and the characters on the ground. These are run in two separate parts of the game, so characters can direct the overall army as well as being on the front line!

Its also quite punishing as a system, and the character sheets are all built around the idea of a slowly spreading corruption. There's multiple forms of damage- harm (hp-ish), stress, and blight. If you max out harm you die from your wounds. If you max out your stress, your character gains a trauma (up to 4 and then they die from it), and your blight slowly creeps up giving you specific types of disadvantages.

So there are specific mechanics for the kind of situation of 'you character nearly died on the mission and so now is paranoid of it happening again'! And like obviously you can do that through rp in a generalist system, but having rules for these kinds of things really help to direct play- especially for people newer to ttrpgs!

(Sorry, I am just going to go on a ttrpg rant here because this stuff is really interesting to me! If I seem like I'm talking down or whatever its just me being neurodivergent)

Because I think the official DA ttrpg is good for more general adventures in Thedas. But the mechanics a game provides you are the glasses through which the story is told. So I think its important to find a system that works for the story you're trying to tell. Like how you can technically play a political intrigue dnd campaign where there is no fighting, but since 90% of your mechanics are based around fighting, it is difficult to make that shift.

Specifically for a blight (a usual blight not one in which op HoF is present) they key parts of that what bring that vibe for me are: 1) slowly spreading corruption in the players, 2) an overwhelming, mindless enemy and 3) brutal, high stakes. Band of Blades has lots of focus towards these three mechanics. But the DA ttrpg has to be a lot more generalist, and I had a quick look, and couldn't find any particularly extensive mechanics/info about how to run the taint in that system.

And Band of Blades rulebook has a lot of guidance specifically for running the types of missions you would expect to see in a blight! I included a screenshot below because damn that's a helpful guide to make things easy on the DM (looking at you Wizards of the Coast).

Like for real, I've DMed both dnd and powered by the apocalypse games...and for dnd it wouldn't be unusual for me to spend maybe 2 hours of prep? For PbtA I would rarely spend more than 40 minutes, if that. I could often do all my planning in 20 minutes.

And the good thing about powered by the apocalypse style games is that they are very fiction first! The rules are generally pretty loose, so its super easy to flavour things in any way that you want! So you could absolutely flavour stuff to be like, idk, specific DA spells or whatnot.

Just! Yeah! Powered by the Apocalypse fun! :D (good job sticking through my rant if you're still here lmao)

Looking at the Band of Blades ttrpg....this could so easily be made into a story about grey wardens fighting the blight.....

[sleepy-moron]

El, Superman, and how it relates to her and Will’s involvement in season five

Or really just a collection of parallels I am making and then using them to predict what will likely happen between Will el and vecna in season five!

Once again thinking about Superman’s logo being an alien symbol for hope and how that represents El as a character really well given her role of being the biggest hope against the upside down up until this point. Thinking about how the logo is over Superman’s heart and Mike being the heart in season four. Thinking about how the logo is red and yellow (aka Will and El’s colors) and how heart=hope aka Mike is Will’s hope and Will is the “new hope” to help defeat vecna….. but the Superman connections are stronger than that

El is already inspired by aliens landing on earth media such as E.T. and not only is Superman losing his powers something that has happened in comics, the fake out “death of Superman” storyline is said to have made death in comics meaningless just how El’s death at the end of season one started a precedent for characters having fake deaths in the show. Superman is even from the house of El on krypton. Also Superman being weak to magic is a modern comic thing it does fit with El being defeated by vecna who is a wizard in dnd.

So where does this leave Will as a parallel/Mirror of El? He’s Shazam aka billy batson a character designed to be a Superman expy for another comic publisher! Shazam has a red yellow and white costume with a lightning bolt on his chest, and billy is a young kid who transforms into an adult both with superpowers fitting Will’s lightning and time motifs. The most striking similarity though is how billy gets his powers. Billy stumbles into part of an abandoned subway system and meets a wizard who gives him powers by striking him with lightning after Billy says Shazam. So the upside down and vecna parallels are blatant and Will getting his powers through “magic” tracks with Will also having wizard motifs. But what about vecna?

So one of Superman’s most iconic villains is zod, who prior to the crisis on infinite earths storyline (which happens irl in 1985) is a kryptonian military general (5 star general)who has a grudge against Superman’s father and tries to take over krypton. As punishment zod was imprisoned in a dimension called the phantom zone and was later released and recaptured by Superman after he tried to take over the earth. Which is pretty much Vecna’s whole deal but how does this work to parallel Will/Shazam?

Shazam has a similar concept of a villain with the same powers as a hero in black Adam. Again since the crisis is a 1985 storyline I’m going primarily off pre-crisis versions of the characters. Adam was an earlier champion of the wizard that gave Shazam his powers, but he was ultimately corrupted by the power and transported 5,000 years of travel away from earth, where he finds out he was replaced as champion and becomes a Shazam villain. He gets an origin rework in 94 so that he is a champion of the wizard who gets charmed into becoming evil and gets his powers stored in a necklace, which would eventually be stolen by a descendent of Adam who uses it to become a supervillain and ties to fight Shazam, but the decedent gets his voice and memory taken away preventing him from transforming. The first origin is a match for Henry as an abuse victim who would go on to use his powers to kill his family, the second origin is sort of a reverse of what the mind flayer does to Will in season 2.

Ultimately what I think this predicts for season five is the fact that Henry always intended to just use El as a proxy to get his powers back so he could go on to do more murdering and she realizes Henry is not super trustworthy and punts him into the upside down. Henry realizes he needs another proxy to get out of the upside down and either specifically brings Will into the upside down or after he makes it to the upside down decides on making Will a new proxy to escape the upside down and either awakens latent powers Will has or gives him powers when Will gets affected by the mind flayer. Henry takes away Will’s voice and thus Will has to use Morse code to help the rest of the heroes defeat the mind flayer and close the gate. By the end of season four Henry opens up the gates and after he recovers will likely be capable of actually leaving the upside down and doing more murder. This leaves El and Will in a position where they have to band together because while El is strong you need a wizard to help take down another wizard and also to probably permanently freeze or unfreeze the upside down to kill Henry. Also still think there’s going to be a moment where Mike dies and all hope appears to be lost and Will uses upside down lightning to revive him so Mike’s role as the heart is to quite literally kick Will’s powers into overdrive. Also Vecna is probably going to pretend to be Will at some point and attack El in the hopes that she’ll fight Will but this is not really going to work and we get willel siblings supremacy instead.

[annikuh]

ANNIKUH PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT JAX TJE BLORBO FROM YOUR HEAD 🤲🏾🤲🏾

you, my friend, are going to live a million beautiful lifetimes and go to heaven. im gonna put it under the cut bc its a little long but oh my god i love jax so much.

Jax is one of my dnd characters!!! they're a nepherit, which is essentially an immortal body snatcher.

*abt the nepherits, the only way they survive is by changing from body to body, and they're only able to take over ones that are currently alive...so naturally they're unpopular. they were created by this evil necromancer who raised a bunch of people from the dead to create an army of supersoldiers to take over the world, but the nepherits took his ass down. however, while thats great for the world, the nepherits end up wandering aimlessly and hopelessly like physical ghosts bc the one purpose they had is null and void.

most nepherits live on one island, isolated from the rest of the world, but jax travels all over the place. to offset the hate that they get as a nepherit (bc it is somewhat easy to tell who is one*), they've gotten really good at learning how to talk to people and make friends, so they have a knack for winning over people quickly--or at least neutralizing a conflict. they're a great traveling companion, too; they have great survival skills and they're awesome at fighting.

they have some fun quirks that i really like! they like to take small bones of extraordinary monsters they've killed, so they have a bag full of exotic bones they carry with them. they're really good at whittling, too, so when they run out of money, they'll make a bunch of little decorative statues, go to a rich town, and upcharge the hell out of them bc they know the rich ladies go crazy for them. they also have a huge journal! like people, their memories fade after a while, so they carry around a journal to make notes of cool or important things to remember at a later time. they've got a secret library full of journals with information about people and events from the beginning of some civilizations. the issue is that they SUCK at taking notes. they always write something down in shorthand and assume they'll remember what they wrote, but they literally never do. its very funny to me, but it means they'll experience the same things over and over and always forget what happened last time.

^^^related to this, they had recently found a drawing of them and an elf woman** tucked super far back in their journal and had no idea who she was, but they started tearing up when they saw it, so they started a personal journey to figure out who this clearly-important woman was. they were slowly piecing some things together, but still knew close to nothing. one time, they were exploring a big beautiful room in a sewer system and saw it had their writing on parts of the walls. one door said "do not open, darkness inside," and they were like "this means nothing to me, i am so bad at note taking lol." so they open the door, and inside is a room full of human skeletons surrounding one skeleton sitting upright decorated in flowers and a hair scarf, and every one of their memories of the room came flooding back: it was the skeleton of their elf friend. they'd made the same mistake of finding her before, forgot they left the note, and came back and relived the same trauma of seeing their dead friend for the third time. horrid, right? i love making myself cry. (i could go into so much more about this elf friend, but this is already so long lmao).

it's really easy for jax to get angry and wrapped up in what they miss out on because of who they are, and they have a ton of existential crises. they're very dependent on the relationships they make, but they always outlive all of their friends, and they very rarely get to feel any physical contact because nepherit-inhabited bodies are constantly icy (even in hot weather, touching their skin is uncomfortable rather than refreshing). even when they make a new friend, there's still a barrier because so many of the troubles that jax has are impossible to experience the same way they do. like, yeah its hard for humans to lose friends, but humans will never have the experience of losing all of their friends forever. they get lonely a lot because of it and feel abandoned by the gods. and, of course, its impossibly difficult to handle the recurring trauma of changing bodies. after so many thousands of years of built up anger, they're prone to horrid doom-spirals and self-destructive behavior.

but! one thing i love about them is that they've still found ways to make their existence worth something, when other nepherits succumb to the agony of their existence or embrace their origins as killing machines out for revenge. jax has the "genetic" bloodlust that they all do, but they use it to protect and not to instigate. they've managed to find some sort of purpose by helping make others' lives easier, whether it's hunting down an eldritch horror, pet sitting while a friend takes a long trip for work, giving some decent advice, or raising someone's child (canon). they've got a lot of time--way more than the humans around them--so they like to do something proactive with it!!!

again im kissing u a million times for inquiring bc the only people i get to talk to this much about jax is my partner and my therapist lmao. theres a ton ive left out, im sure, but they're just so cool and i love them.

*nepherits carry over consistent physical traits, and jax makes it p easy to spot them bc they got one style they really like and stick to it lmaoo. this is them from an earlier body. same hair fluff; same classic nepherit hair, eye, and skin color; and those classic colors babey lets go

** this is the little drawing of them and their elf friend, Syvis, they found in their journal, also from another body. she's such a queen and i adore her endlessly. i need more drawings of her bc shes beautiful, this doesn't do her justice at all.

[formerlyanon]

3 for all of your DND characters, and 9 and 12 for Lottie!

3) Lav - I went in a bit heavy on the backstory and actually am altering things a smidge so they can have a different arc summary if that makes sense. Nothing actually being retconned from the campaign since we've yet to get to their story beats! but the dm already gave me a blank check to change whatever i want. Nothing mechanics wise is gonna change.

Flare - I love his backstory and i already reused him for a new campaign, but fleshed out what I had (scion of dispater that works for the nine hells version of an ABC doing wildlife conservation to ensure spell components flourish). The new dm ADORES his backstory too and asked good questions to make what i already had fit her stuff. I had to switch from revised ranger to basic for this campaign.

Lottie - lmao i kinda do have to change her entire build if I ever wanna play her again, as it's been exactly two years last week since my group met. The character concept is 'inigo montoya meets elle woods' but I played her in a non 5e system and im like one of 10 people that likes playing those so I'll have to rework her build entirely to make her make sense (highly charismatic and flirty, can talk or seduce her way out of anything, never says no to eldritch shit offering her power, wields a rapier but styled very specifically as a sabre).

9) Lottie is possessive and rich and fully believes in the divine right of kings to rule. Her party members are her people and you do not fuck with her people. She liked that the sentient raven player favored her shoulder as a perch. She was on decent but bratty terms with the samurai and aided him in purifying his direwolf. The merperson respected her but thought she was a bitch, both good and bad. The thief did not understand her and resented being made to dress up for occasions but gladly took her letters of recommendation to get hired to investigate creepy houses.

She looked out for them but never actually got to be honest and ask anything of them. You look out for the people you lead. You give orders but you don't cause them undue stress. She never reached the point of sharing her burdens and her past.

12) Lottie did not expect to care about people, in her own fucked up way. I the player kept pushing us into worse situations socially and physically to try to force a reckoning but we kept surpassing obstacles, which trust me actually frustrated* the super experienced dm. He thought it was funny and realized what I was doing, to my understanding, because I wanted Lottie to fall hard, and he rose to the challenge. But the more time passed before she slipped, the more she got to care about the party. It would have made comeuppance actually sink in, to realize she had to think about the safety and care of these people also putting their lives on the line, before they actually formally started helping her on HER quest. And we were really close to that reckoning, of her awakening to the fact that she needed help and perhaps could ask that of these poverty stricken freaks, in her quest for revenge where she was completely fine with ending up dead in a ditch should that mean she gets what she wanted. She was close to actually facing that due to the party, and I wish I could see more of it.

*At one point I talked an enemy out of having access to her major deus ex machina bioweapons and convinced her to walk down the hall to the parlor instead to talk. She agreed and the dm started walking her down. I corrected him, saying 'nah she walks 10 feet and Lottie stabs her in the back.' After the battle I asked him if he was mad I foiled his demon molotovs and he shouted back YES, DAMN YOU while laughing, and the entire rest of the room got quiet as the party realized for the first time that night what had almost happened, and that I'd simply maneuvered us out of it without them being aware of any danger

[ma-lark-ey]

Grant Headcannons cause I want to talk about him DESPERATELY 

- Grant has a lot of online friends, he arguably has the most friends outside of the Doodlers because he’s in a bunch of Discord servers. He’ll forget it’s not normal for your absolute Ride or Die to live in a whole ass other country. It baffled him when TJ told him once he’d never really had online friends. He talks about all his cool internet friends so much because he loves them all very much. 

- He wears a TON of kandi, also makes so much. 

- Making kandi is a relaxer for him. There’s so much structure to it and also so much room for his expression. He loves making singles for his friends to wear, and he’ll sit for five hours working on a big cuff project. 

- He wears  bunch because the weight of it helps calm him down and keep his anxiety levels pretty lowkey. He still has attacks, but the weight of the beads it grounding.

- He hates rollercoasters, trampolines, and other similar things that re meant to bring you off the ground. He doesn’t like feeling like he’s floating, it reminds him of being in the chimera, since in the chimera he was forced to float round inside it from the hydrophobic boots. 

- Grant was diagnosed with PTSD shortly after Faerun, and it quickly became a hinderence to his regular life. He could function, but not well. A lot of stuff caused more damage than it needed to, so Darryl and Carol started putting together ideas on how to help Grant. 

- He was put in therapy on meds soon after, but it proved to not help enough after  year or two and he slowly devolved back to the bad mental state he was in when he first came back. 

- Henry suggested they get Grant a service dog after noticing that if Grant was going to have a flashback or episode or whatever, it would triggered by something that commonly happens outside of the house (loud bangs, overly crowded spaces, getting shoved or otherwise pushed around, sensory overload, etc.) Darryl really liked this idea, since he wanted an excuse to get a dog and the idea of it being able to help Grant made it all the more tempting. Carol was on the fence, because she’d heard horror stories of what service dog handler’s had to deal with in public and didn’t want her teenage and emotionally fragile son to have to deal with that. 

- Carol caved after Grant got pulled out of school two days in a row from anxiety attacks. 

- They didn’t get the dog for almost another year after that, between getting the money together and getting the dog the proper training to get him certified as at least in training, but soon they had a young greyhound named Bigly. A PTSD support animal (in training) 

- Of course Grant nd his dog are inseparable. They’re a pair. Even when Grant knows he won’t need Bigly at a location, he brings him because it’s a safety blanket at this point, 

- Grant sleeps with two weighted blankets and probably Bigly on top of him, because again, heavy weight helps him feel more grounded and keeps him calmer. 

- He also listens to Minecraft soundtracks or history podcasts to fall asleep to. 

- Grant collects Minecraft plushes and Darryl sometimes picks him up random ones in the store, and whether he already has it or not, it makes him very happy to know his dad thinks about his interests. 

- He owns one of those massive Minecraft bee pillows/plushes and DOES sleep with it every night. It’s name is Honey-ington. 

- Him and Paeden are super close, and he quickly adopted the role of big brother when they got out of Faerun. 

- Him and Paeden snuggle all the time. All the time. It’s rare they hang out with each other and don’t cuddle. 

- This man drinks Mountain Dew like it’s holy water. Henry has tried to tell him how bad it is for him, Grant does not give  shit

- HE HAS BRACES. 

- He does Twitch streams and has a decent following. 

- He’s a faceless streamer and uses the alias ‘Creeper’ like the Minecraft mob. 

- Grant wants to be a video game developer when he’s older, but he also really enjoys making music. Maybe a video game music composer? 

- Him and Darryl really work on their relationship after Faerun. 

- Some days he just really feels like shit and can’t get out of bed. Darryl doesn’t press him to, brings him food and drinks. Sometimes Darryl will come sit in his room with him and watch  movie with him just so he’s not alone with Bigly. 

- Grant has two older siblings, one ten years older (Daniel) and one twleve years older (Jackie). 

- Grant’s room can get absolutely atrocious when he’s in a slump. Just downright nasty. When it gets bad, TJ will come over and ‘help’ him clean, which is mostly Grant sitting on the bed holding Honey-ington while Bigly snuggles him and Terry works on cleaning the room to a tolerable level. He never organizes, cause he knows Grant enjoys organizing and it helps him feel better, so he’ll always drag Grant up once they get to organizes. 

- The only friend Grant takes his weighted blankets off his bed from when they spend the night is Lark. But it’s okay because they have the system that Lark can and will sleep on top of Grant for Optimum Snuggle(tm) AND Grant’s comfort. (Lark can’t handle the weight of the blankets because of the pyramid incident) 

- Grant watches a lot of anime, his favorite is Blue Exorcist. 

- He likes reading fanfiction and has at least six ao3 tabs always open in his phone. Why? Because if he’s in public and gets anxious, he can just *opens up comfort character fic* 

- Grant listens to Left at London all the time

- this mans has SO MANY Spotify playlists 

- He uses Reddit

- Mans also has Pinterest. 

- HE’S A DUNGEON MASTER, PLEASE. LET THIS MAN RUN A DND CAMPAIGN 

- His comfort ship is Klance and he constantly curses whatever sick fuck thought that’d be a funny joke to play on him. 

- He also DOES kin Keith. 

- One time Nick told him to drop his kinlist and he blocked the motherfucker for two days out of spite. 

- He either is in bed by 9:30 or awake till 5 AM, no middle ground. 

That’s all I have for tonight because Mommy’s telling me to go to sleep and I’m a good kid

[solesurvivorpaigeargot]

I absolutely LOVE Sketchy Saturdays and I always look forward to them!! As for my question(s)? What made you decide to start doing it(I'm glad you do but I was just curious!)?

Hoooo boi the Sketchy Saturday Origin Story: I suppose there's two versions.

The short version reads " Moving stress, deployment depression, and isolation VS. my utter determination to DO SOMETHING whilst trapped in my home " -- Sketchy Saturday was the result of that title fight, so I guess the fandom won in the end? XD

The long version, however... Well, buckle up, cause this is gonna be a ride.

It may surprise y'all to know that two years I was eyeballs-deep in the South Park fandom. The blog still exists; my mainblog, JustCallMeButtlord, built to interact with the audience of my fanfictions-- the New Kid Stories, called NKS for short [gonna be porting those to Ao3 soon, just gotta figure out what robo-reader I'm gonna use to make a quick n dirty podfic out of the series as well as help me hunt down typos my eyes galze over]. The first 'season' of stories had ended, 8 completed fics, and I was puttering about with a bonus holiday story that was several months out of season. Not that I CARED because I was on GUAM where seasons don't exist and my time blindness gets even worse becasue without seasons changing it feels like time never progrsses even after being on the island for three cocksucking years.

I don't hate Guam, I am just not built for constant heat. I am a snow creature; I like below-freezing temperatures so I can layer up in fuzzy, fluffy things and drink hot drinks and cuddle loved ones and/or furry animals. It's a lovely island, I adored my first week there... I just wasn't made to live there.

HIlariously, NKS started out of the stress of moving to Guam. Two years and 8 fics later, the place we were renting was no longer within our price range and my hubby and I were forced to move onto base. Under the leader whom I refuse to name, military pay was given a precentage raise... but it was ripped out of bonuses and OCONUS pay. OCONUS is what a military member is paid when they're stationed Outisde the CONtinental United States. This usually means overseas bases like Japan, but it also means Hawaii, aaaaaand... GUAM. So that percentage pay increase for the military at large meant belt-tightening for every service member abroad, and we were forced to move onto base.

In case y'all haven't noticed by now, I'm a raging socialist with some issued with authority. I DO NOT LIKE EXISTING ON BASE. I do not like existing in a place where the national anthem plays twice a day, every day, at 6 AM and then again whenever the hell sundown is that day. And there's an unspoken rule no one tells you that when it plays you're supposed to stop what you're doing, face the nearest set of speakers playing the song, and stare in that direction with your hand over your heart until its over. That, if you're driving, you have to put on your emergency flashers and pull over. No one tells you this. NO ONE TELLS YOU THIS.

And then, before we had secured a place on base but we had set a move out date for the rental house, the Pandemic happened. While we were between homes. The base is talking full lockdown, Guam authorities want to shut down the island but businesses are terrified of not getting the tourist season business, we don't even know if we'll be allowed to move on to base.

Surprise, I stopped writing for a while... but I picked Fallout 4 back up again. I had been forced into the series years earlier by a toxic relationship, but the game itself hadn't been bad-- just the way I'd been forced to play it by someone who was firmly not in my life anymore. When confronted with character creation, I wasn't sure whom I wanted to make... but decided to go back to an old character. A VERY old character, whom I hadn't thought of since I'd finished ME3 at least 4 years prior, and a character I first conceived of when I was 14-ish... which is now about 15 years ago.

Paige.

I've talked before about how well Paige's story maps onto Fo4, but this was before I knew that. I knew the opening, her losing her kid, and that fit with her-- but something clicked while I was playing and the part of my brain that likes to create started wandering off. Soon enough I've got a couple chapters of a ficlet that I'm TOTALLY just writing as a personal one-shot to de-stress, no way I'm publishing this, I don't wanna get distracted from NKS, I got a whole 'nother season to write! Who cares if no one is reading it anymore because South Park Fandom doesn't like continuous plots.... right?

I was burnt out as hell, the move was looming, the Pandemic was getting worse and everything was getting scarier.

Then the news came through that hubby would be deploying again.

He wasn't supposed to, but the Navy decided the safest place for their sailors was the middle of the ocean, so if you WERENT in quarantine you were going on the boat and you were living there. Didn't matter if your spouse would be alone, unpacking a whole home by themselves.

I had a friend on base. We hung out. I met with my DND group on weekends; we all lived on base now, so we could meet up in like five minutes... and then restrictions tightened. You could be fined up to 5 grand for gathering in groups greater than 5, even outdoors, and detained if suspected of going to a home that wasn't yours. I still met 2 of my friends once a week for walks; get outside, be active, talk to other humans, but besides that? I was locked up alone in a new house in a place that I did NOT like existing in.... with a fresh new hyperfixation developing.

I think it was about a week into the new house that I made the new blog. At first I tried to run it side by side with the South Park stuff, but it wasn't long before all my attention was here... aaaand it also wasn't long before I was confronted with a lot of my own despair; of lockdown, of isolation, of watching a broken system crumble and not being able to DO anything about it, and I started to kinda lose my shit. I fuss-- I can't leave things alone, and I couldn't leave this feeling alone; of being fully and entirely helpless and hopeless.

And then I sketched a thing for a friend, and it made them happy. They were having a rough time, too, and I put something together because I couldn't think of anything else. And it helped. It lifted them up, and it lifted me up, too. Someone else had recently reblogged one of those pallet challenges that floats around Tumblr, and I decided FUCK IT LET'S DO THIS THING AND CALL IT SKETCHY SATURDAY!

Little secret, the very first Sketchy Saturday request? Was me. I was so scared no one would noticed the event, I sent myself the very first request, back when the event still took anons. Soon as that first picture was up:

BANG, suddenly four more; some people off anon. I met people that day, talked to them after the very first Sketchy weekend was over, chatted about the games and characters and art and writing and just... felt human for the first time in a really long while.

I figured I'd hold on to Sketchy Saturday until the deployment was over-- once hubby was back, I'd decide whether I was keeping it or not... but he came back, and I was still super into it, and he was supportive, sooooo I kept going! And then we did Sketchy Secret Santa, and people loved it, and my volunteers are excited about being Sketchy Elves and Secret Helpers and just OH MY GOD I DID A THING GUYS. I DID A THING-- that was just me all December and January long lmafo.

AND JANUARY! Because AH HECK, WE MOVING AGAIN! Because hubby finally got orders, and OH MY GOD we're going back to WA... but it's still a move half-way around the globe, and I was SURE I'd have to shut down the event for a month while we got our shit in order and NOPE, because here come the volunteers from Sketchy Secret Santa, and they wanna fill in all month long! Like... I didn't even ask for that shit, guys. They offered it so the event wouldn't have to take a gap.

Jesus I'm getting teary just remembering it.

So yeah. Sketchy Saturday is here because I got really lonely and stressed out while Fallout 4 provided me with some... catharsis for my situation, and then a pandemic happened.

And then y'all happened, and I'm still here. :D

[lastcrystalwitch]

4/15/2021

So the term Earth Angel found me. And I'm not particularly crazy about the term, but the meaning behind it is absolutely spot on with me. Its crazy that I'm finally finding articles and messages everywhere recently since I started working with messenger Gods and Goddesses. I've been receiving a ton of information about self growth. But a friend of mine called me and Earth Angel yesterday. I had to look it up. I'd heard it before, but it wasn't something that I was interested in because I thought it had to deal with Christianity, Jesus, Mary, and the heavenly pure spirit that makes up "God." or the , "Holy Ghost."

But an earth angel isn't someone who is Christian and follows Christianity, but instead someone who is bound to the earth, Gaia, and ancient natural energies that are in all living things. We attune with these natural energies and feel much more them, when they are by themselves in nature. This is where they go for themselves to recharge, and are overly sensitive to what others say and think about them. These individuals are highly critical and can even be very mean to themselves in a way that is not fair, when others judge them, make fun of them, tease them, because earth angels are sincere. I always try to live by the words, say what you mean, and mean what you say.

These people are easily misunderstood because they are not very common in their ways of thinking, and from the very beginning, Earth Angels go through a lot of shit early on to get their heads straight, and suffer through injustice at a dangerous obnoxious level, and can pick up coping mechanisms that are very unhealthy. But, all so that their soul is ready to help others who are suffering. They live through experience of their own suffering and are great at understanding energies and are the first to know when there is a "...disturbance in the Force." They have a severe passion for helping those who they love, and while Earth Angels don't like violence, or people who fight, they have a great respect for people who have had been through difficult situations because they can feel someone's energy completely and absolutely like they are experiencing the pain of others.

Earth Angels have the positive energy to send out love to the world, feels others problems as their own, cares immensely for others happiness, has the ability to accept others exactly the way that they are. When an earth angel sets their sights on you, and takes an interest in you, its because they see someone with a rare light, a rare soul. If and Earth Angel shows you love an affection they bind a part of their heart to you and you will have that bond and love with them for the rest of your lives. Earth Angels don't abandon people, nor do they forget injured souls. They often think of those that they want to help, and be with, and love.

But sometimes Earth Angels will understand when someone needs to change for themselves, and will give that person the room and tools necessary to realize their own priorities. They can encourage people to have what Tarot Readers call a Tower, moment. And ultimately want to be just a support system for you while you're going through some shit, and growing as a human, and learning life lessons. Earth angels can miss people to the point that it becomes an unhealthy level of stress, and need to find distractions so they aren't constantly worrying about the ones that they love.

The hardest lesson I have learned as an Earth Angel is this, "Everyone is growing and learning and changing at different rates. Just because someone hasn't learned a life lesson that you did, doesn't make them any less of a person. And many people take longer than others to learn lessons like, you cannot change a person, setting healthy boundaries, when someone pushes you away, its not your fault usually, they just didn't understand how I think and feel and communicate. Its hardest to realize that the path someone must walk down sometimes has to be done by themselves, and the Earth Angel just wishes that she could be a support for the person struggling with career, finances, feelings of guilt, anger and resentment.

An Earth angel can forgive, but getting back that trust, is like passing a class. You have to get your shit together and prove to them that you are worthy of their love when you misuse and abuse them. They'll never forget you though. In fact, they'll think of you quite often because they know you'll be happier if you love yourself and be a friend to your spirit. Your soul.

The sooner that people realize that being your own friend and being comfortable who you are, and doing good things to set you up for success is like feeding a pet on time every day the same day. You can learn to trust yourself to say and do the right things, and it absolutely is possible to feel happy. Yes it is. I know. I have that wisdom.

In DND, (Dungeons and Dragons) a tabletop game that is as unique as a fingerprint with those who play ... Knowledge is different than Wisdom. So, ask yourself, what is the difference?

Well, knowledge is information passed down from one person or animal or thing, to another. Basically it is, "He told me that the oven is hot. I trust him to tell me the truth, so I'm going to take his word for it and not touch the oven."

Wisdom is knowing for yourself, that the oven is hot. You touched it, you got burned, therefore you have that wisdom. You know. Not just because you were told, but because you experienced it yourself.

The crazy thing is about Wisdom and Knowledge is, it is just another level of personal experience. People experience things differently. That's why I find it so incredibly interesting to learn other peoples truths, and find out their stories, what they had been through, and how can I make this person happy.

Recently I went through something that scarred me very deeply. I am needing to withdrawal a little bit into myself, and just really give myself a hug because I have been through a lot, and I need to tell myself that everything is going to be ok. My heart spirit was injured, and this has caused me to feel hopeless at first, then sad and depressed, then just crying for others, to the point that people started really worrying if I would be okay. I had friends coming into check in on me, and ended up surviving.

But If I can't help someone, and they must go on their own journey for a while to get their goals, and priorities onto a healthy level, I realize that I can't be with them for this journey, as much as I really really really want to be there for them. But I think of them everyday, and I think about the good things, and how they made my soul happy just being around them. I felt recharged. And they made me grow as well, and question things that I never really had the initial knowledge to understand in the first place.

Tower moments are times in our lives when our personalities, or ways of thinking have to shift in order for us to grow. These life lessons that we as humans have to walk through, are ones that Earth Angels take pride in holding your hand and letting you know that they will always love you, care for you, and do their best to make sure that you know they won't leave you, and you are not alone. An earth angel can suffer and worry about a person more than that person is worried, and the most important qualities to a friendship to an earth angel are honesty, communication, and of course love. They are good at showing others Pure Love, what it is, and how to love yourself.

The love that they show, are understanding, accepting someone exactly the way they are, bringing happiness and joy to others around them. We get bullied because people don't understand that we are helping for the sake of helping.

Altruistic. "/ˌaltro͞oˈistik/ adjective showing a disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others; unselfish. "it was an entirely altruistic act" (borrowed from google dictionary)

Pacifism. pac·i·fism /ˈpasəˌfizəm/ noun the belief that any violence, including war, is unjustifiable under any circumstances, and that all disputes should be settled by peaceful means. "there remains a powerful undercurrent of pacifism" (borrowed from google dictionary)

That we really do feel good when we can make someone smile, or laugh. I myself am not very funny, and enjoy humor that is pure in form. I never liked trickery, or injuring someone's character to take personal pleasure in making someone suffer or feel better to make me feel better. That's not how it works with me. That isn't nice. Sincerity and doing what you say, and being honest with yourself and true to your heart are all qualities that we as Earth Angels like because it is just easier for our soul to be happy. Earth Angels are light workers, and ... "If you had a super power, it would be love." They use light energy to change the world and bring happiness and understanding to those around them. They experience pain and suffering on a larger scale than those around them because they wear their heart on their sleeve, and are easily hurt by those who ever try to hurt an earth angel. Earth Angels can see transformation happening to others, who cant see it, and usually choose to only share their highly intuitive thoughts with those who are very close to them.

Earth Angels can be very artistic. They have a natural ability to work with the arts and spread love and light through their art and their musical ability. Earth angels want everyone to understand each other, and want everyone to be happy. It is possible to have everyone on the same page. It is possible to have everyone be happy, using something called communication.

Opening up your heart when it has been hurt before and scarred is so hard for some people. But earth angels accept this pain and understand it because they bleed for their family and friends in a way that is hard to describe. They are so sensitive to those around them and how they feel.

All I am saying, is that I am 32 now, or 33. I think I'm 32. It changes every year, so I'm not too worried about it. hahaha

Earth angels can see layers of someone's soul by looking and speaking with them. They can tell the sadness and hurt inside someone, and instantly want to make them better. Earth angels are happiest when others are feeling happy, because they feed off of that happy, calm, content energy. And when an Earth angel is kept away from being able to recharge in an environment that is calm happy and content, like a forest or park, that person is more likely to feel overwhelmed, trapped, and stressed out.

Earth Angels shouldn't be confused with Christianity. Most Earth Angels are more prone to believe strongly in energies, what you send out comes back, kahrma, dahrma, and different planes of existence. Earth angels are better at making people feel better, because they truly feel real сочувствие, (seh*choos't*tiah) which translates sort of to empathy, and take great pride in being honest, truthful, and a good friend to others.

Earth angels from my own personal experience, are people who suffer for others, and are a good player two. They seek approval from other people quite often. Not because they can't think for themselves, but because they just want everyone to get along. These people are chameleons and can adapt to other peoples waves of energies and attitudes, in order to better understand someone. They are not trying to be unique and original, they already check those boxes. They just try to understand, provide aid, friendship and good mental health and love to those who are hurting. Earth angels are good to talk to if you need someone to listen to. They'll think about you all the time, and do little things for you to remind you that they care, and they hope you are happy. Earth angels use PURE UNBIASED LOVE AND AFFECTION to express themselves, and are very stern that you shouldn't use people.

Earth Angels kind of keep to themselves. Taking on other people's problems like their own can be very draining, and if you have the attention of an earth angel, they will cry over you, and look into how to help you (on multiple planes tbh) if you ever are suffering uncontrollably or super upset that its affecting your BA. (spirit soul energy) If you have the love from an Earth Angel, they will always love you no matter what, no matter how much you hurt them. They are understanding and extremely sensitive to many things. When Earth angels are injured in their BA, from someone hurting them intentionally, it is the worst thing that you can do to this person because it leaves a very deep deep scar. But they'll always love you, and they'll always listen to you and be there for you if you reach out to them.

Earth angels are said to be put on this earth to help others understand their soul's connection with the world around them and often remind and show others that there can be a very strong natural and grounding, warm hug energy from the earth, being outside, and the natural energies of the world around them. They are open to the world's energies and often seek out questions on a spiritual level, not to be confused with a religious level, as there is a very big difference between using tools to help you vs. adopting someone else's way of thinking. They like to think for themselves, but learn all they can from others. And they can be naturally good at learning other languages because they've made it their goal to understand and help others ... through understanding itself. One great way to learn about other peoples understanding is through Communication, Understanding, Listening, and learning healthy grounding ways to connect someone's BA, to their environment.

Earth angels are artistically talented but do best in careers where they can work closely with people in order to make them feel better, where they can have one on one connections with people. Earth angels are rare, and usually were people who put up with an unusual amount of pain growing up, and bullied, and who have suffered a lot, and just don't understand or like it when people are mean to others.

They're not perfect. Their not in human. They still have all the problems as someone else, but they know the more that you can understand what it is that is bothering you, the more Wisdom you gain, and the happier and more grounded you can be. Imagine being content and happy with yourself on a very very deep level. <3

I hope you have a good day. I love you, and hope today you do something to remind you to love yourself. I hope you smile today, and really feel it. *hugs*

[lynndoublelegacy]

just a cool dnd meme i saw

Yook so it’s less a meme and more like. a big ol questionare but hey, might as well do it. originally saw it on @/probablyottrpgideas, go check them out

1. Game Master, Player, or both? Why?

Ok so technically I’ve DMed twice but I really don’t find it fun? and don’t ever want to do it again. so. Player. I like building characters and their connections with fellow PCs more than building worlds

2. When did you start roleplaying? How old were you?

oh god, if we’re talking about roleplaying in general? I’ve been doing it basically as long as I can remember. As a kid I would play House, and then once I got older in like 5th grade I actually started making characters and playing out their stories with friends. Google+ is what made me realize this was actually like, a THING, though, and I got into some roleplaying groups there, then on DevaintArt. Dungeons and Dragons is a newer development? I got into it in late 2018 when my sister’s friend invited us to a one-shot, and... well, yea, I got hooked lol

3. What was the first roleplaying book you ever owned?

dude, bold of you to assume I really own any. I don’t have that kind of money and literally only own the Guide to Wildemount, and that was a gift

4. Describe the first game you ever ran or played in.

I mean... it’s not a game but ima describe the one shot, bc my first campaign was a hot mess without a true storyline and I used the same character for it anyway. I played a tiefling bard called Aisling Kai (I didn’t know this was a cliche combo at this point, and I honestly played her like a rogue with a music motif but Whatever) and we were a little group tasked to figure out why the hell anyone who goes into this cave never comes out. So we go in, make our way through the dungeon, fight some frog people (I made one of their ears bleed just by getting a nat 20 on a performance check to play a high f# on flute, that was fun, FWEET), and turns out yep, theres a hill giant down here. We kicked his ass and collapsed the cave on top of us (dw I think we were fine but my memory is a little screwy)

5. What system did you grow up with? / 6. Which system do you play now?

i learned on and currently play dnd 5e. I don’t really know anything else, but I’m debating checking out Vampire of the Masquerade.

7. Longest campaign you’ve run or played in?

That would be my Tal’Dorei campaign group, aka The Fatefallen! Started in the Fall of 2019 and still going to this day, just played our 45th session last week. I play Ilia Liadon, the drow grave cleric, and the only member of our party who has been there for every single session since the beginning.

8. Where did you meet your current gaming group?

...well first I feel the need to mention that I have 3 different groups (2 of them are on hiatus now for pandemic related reasons but! we’re still groups). My first group (with Aisling) was formed slowly over time as friends adopted friends into the group, I think it started as a school club? but that didn’t last long. The other two started from a different school club as well, though one has since branched out into other people as well. 

9. Strategic combat or dramatic plotlines?

I am a roleplayer first and a gamer second. Give me all of the backstories and dramatic plotlines. Don’t get me wrong, I still like combat, but story takes precedent for me.

10. Favorite RPG genre?

I don’t tend to define myself by genre? But I tend to fall into more of a fantasy, at most arcanapunk style. Give me all of the magic, and magic powered tech.

11. Your first character.

I got into her a little bit earlier, but my first character was Aisling, aka Calypso Kai. She was a homebrew subclass bard with a criminal background, who honestly? should’ve been a rogue. I’ve since rebuilt her into an Assassin Rogue/College of Eloguence Bard multiclasser, but this iteration was like. Baby her, baby me new to dnd, I did not know what I was doing. She tried to be edgy, but my mom energy came through HARD and she just. Never really had a set characterization. She deserves better and I plan on playing her better sometime in the future.

12. Your favorite character.

You are making me choose between my children. BUT, if I had to pick, either Ilia Liadon, or! Ashe Wednesday, a protector aasimar drunken master monk and my profile picture. Ashe also deserved a lot better from their campaign, so I have a massive soft spot for them, they were made during a really tough time in my life (as was Ilia) and was going through an equally rough time in-game, since I made them for a Curse of Strahd campaign without understanding what I was getting into. They’re my little rebellious asshole and I love them dearly, someone get this kid therapy. Ilia, on the other hand, is just... she’s a comfort character for me at this point. mostly soft edges, such a mom- while Ashe was me yelling “come at me” at the world while crying, Ilia was just... embracing it. Making it better. basically, if they actually existed, I would die for both of them.

13. Your most ridiculous character.

I don’t usually play super ridiculous characters, but! I would say Keothi “Bookfinder” Vaimeil counts. She was basically me looking all of the goliath barbarian stereotypes in the eye, and going “nah. she’s a nerd.” She’s literally a massive puppy dog, just the sweetest big old thing, sitting in her house and reading all the books she can get her hands on in order to make up for her amnesia. Oh, and did I mention that she’s a zombie? ...yea. She’s wacky, but I love her.

14. The best in-character line you’ve ever had.

“I need sleep. I don’t even sleep and I need sleep.”

~Ilia, after a particularly tough fight and an emotionally draining day

15. Your most epic death.

Ok so... none of my characters in game have ever actually died during the storyline? Keothi obviously has in her backstory, and Ilia might have in hers as well, it was never explicitly stated, but during the game? Nope. Ashe got stupid close, but nope. Since Keothi is my only death period, and her death was pretty epic, I’m just gonna describe that. Her parents and siblings in her Goliath tribe had all fallen ill, so she decided to go searching for a possible cure, and ended up getting conned into helping this cult, since they said they would cure her family. Turns out, yea, they were lying, they just needed a goliath willing to sacrifice themselves with a cursed sword. They made the mistake of revealing this before Keothi was actually dead, so as she was dying, she brought the entire goddamn cultist temple down to the bottom of the sea and took the cultists with her. The sword was why she was undead, in the Shadowfell, and couldn’t remember anything.

16. Your most disappointing death. 

As mentioned, I’ve never died in campaign, but I feel like I have to mention this one that happened to our party in Curse of Strahd. We were in the death house, all 5 of us, still level 1, and our barbarian falls into a pit trap with spikes. None of us realize she’s actually dead, so we send out paladin down to get her... with the monk, the bard, and the warlock holding the rope. ....yea both of them died.

17. Something that shouldn’t have worked, but it did.

I’m stuck between two options for this one. First one was the time our water genasi paladin/rogue bloodbended our gnome cleric into a bridge to keep her from falling all the way down a ravine. The second time was when our party managed to defend a small seaside town from a pirate raid with just an NPC with Control Water, a ballista, ourselves, and some explosives. Neither should’ve worked, but both did. Having a triton in your party can really come in clutch in a seaside campaign.

18. Something that went hilariously awry.

I have one that’s hilarious and one that’s horrifying. Hilarious one: in my first ever campaign, someone from Aisling’s backstory popped up and our sorcerer went “that’s shady” (to be fair, he was) and then went to investigate BY HIMSELF. He obviously got kidnapped by the mafia, and then we went all stealth mission to break him out. Stealth was immediately abandoned after our other bard used a SCREAMING SWORD to break open the locks, then we proceeded to go out the way we came, setting everything on fire on the way out, and with our bard lying their way out the front door (with the rest of us in tow as “prisoners”) by pretending to be a fellow mafia member. It was great. Horrifying one: Ilia tries to Send to a member of the party who left in order to let him know that a fellow party member had died. Forgot that he left bc his mind was invaded by a previously dead, very evil old god, and ends up trapped there with him for a while. Ended up with all of our main spellcasters trapped in their own heads while the barbarian paced around worriedly and the rogue decided he was going to get smashed instead of worrying himself silly.

19. Your most memorable in-character moment.

There are a LOT in Ilia’s campaign, but! If I had to pick one, it would actually be a pretty recent one involving Ilia and our party’s wizard, Liara. They’re basically the embodiment of head vs heart? Anyway, Liara is currently suffering from something called magic corruption, though idk if suffering is the right word. Anyway! It basically resulted in her getting... possessed? by her own magic during the night during Ilia’s watch, and they had a really, really interesting conversation regarding guilt, death, and grief, and yea basically I love them. Honorable mention to our druid’s death (he’s back and better now, but that was my first long-time death in a game, we didn’t know he was coming back) and also the moment that Ilia realized that her childhood bff/crush had been revived in a new body and that this NPC was her best friend. That was a trip.

20. The coolest item you ever got and how you came to possess it.

I got this item in the revamp of my first ever campaign and nothing has topped it since which is Sad but hey. Anyway! I got this really cool, possibly cursed dagger after I threw a knife at an absolutely eldritch being and it got stuck in him as he transformed. It looked really badass, and allowed me to cast Inflict Wounds on occasion when I stabbed someone with it. So yea, we love that. Honorable mention to my paladin/bloodhunter’s Helm of the Aberrant Gladiator which allows you to basically do a bunch of fear based affects and psychic stuff.

Numbers 21 through 30 don’t apply to me but. yea. enjoy this summary of my dnd history I guess

[theseerasures]

Conspicuous Media Consumption, 2020

it’s that time of year again! *saddest toot from the party horn*

for those of you just joining us: it’s a “consume a different content every week for 48 weeks of the year” challenge. for a longer explanation, check out last year’s write-up here, and as always, feel free to pop in and ask questions about any and all of this content.

(same disclaimer as last year too: content for this project ONLY here, and not certain...*looks at my billion Sad Cop Lady posts*...hyperfixations.)

(man remember when i was big into X-Men comics earlier this year? better times than these, if only because no one's discoursing about Emma Frost’s woobie/war criminal ratio anymore--her w/w, if you will)

(...i swear at one point i didn’t exclusively like platinum blondes but alas)

Bitter Root (comic, 1 issue finished 1/1/2020): still very cool on a basic concept level, but runs into the Image Comics problem of just not having enough content to keep my interest beyond that. part of that is on me, for picking it up again BEFORE the second arc rolled out, but the first five issues didn’t really follow (or resolve) any cohesive story either, so...meh.

Immortal Hulk (comic, 3 trades finished 1/17/2020): still not gonna be something i care deeply about (maybe one of Bruce’s Hulksonas dyed his hair???), but i do want to give kudos to Al Ewing for sheer consistency in terms of sustaining this level of quality storytelling month by month for more than two years now. working with the dense archive of the Hulk mythos and managing to make it interesting and thoughtful is impressive even if i personally would not expend the same effort.

Disco Elysium (game, finished 1/18/2020): honestly i should have twigged onto what this year was gonna be like when the third thing i drew from the barrel was pure uncut Eastern European flavored depression. i faintly recall people ragging on it for being pretentiously cynical, but i actually thought its core slid more towards idealism than people give it credit for. also gratified that i haven’t heard anything about Robert Kurvitz using slave labor to finish it, which is a thing we have to say about our video games now!!! fun.

Watchmen (TV, 7 episodes finished 1/27/2020): i am a fool who wants to believe in Damon Lindelof and I WAS RIGHT!!! honestly still cannot believe that he pulled off this highwire act with such deft aplomb. might be my favorite TV this year, which is a pretty high bar given how much TV i ended up watching.

On a Sunbeam (comic, finished 2/1/2020): Tillie Walden rightly deserves all the praise for inventive queer storytelling, but i will say that on reread--since i first read this as a webcomic--there ARE some issues with pacing here that clearly come from the foibles of its original intended medium. still just excellent, even if after some plot significant haircuts i was having trouble telling a few folks apart.

Lazarus (comic, 1 trade finished 2/8/2020): it’s so good and i want moooooorrrreee--though obviously Rucka and Lark have the right to take all the time they need. the newer longer issues work really well with the epic prestige drama vibes of the story! i’m into it.

The Good Place (TV, 4 seasons finished 2/18/2020): i’m gonna be super honest: i actually wasn’t a big fan of the finale, nor the last season as a whole. it felt like all of Eleanor’s flaws vanished for a majority of the season, and the Chidi-centric episode where they tried to give a legible justification for why he’s Like This was...i didn’t care for it. still, it’s so good and unique on the WHOLE that we’ll literally never get anything like this ever again, and that counts for a lot.

The Old Republic (game, finished 2/21/2020): it’s an MMO so it will never actually Be Finished so long as the servers aren’t shut down, but i caught up on the content i’d missed in the intervening months. Onslaught thus far has mostly been...kinda bland tbh; going back to Imps vs. Rebs after all the shakeups in the previous expansions feels like a waste.

High Road (album, finished 2/22/2020): someone should tell Kesha not to say that word!! otherwise i was very happy with this album, and happy FOR her even though we don’t know each other. being able to find joy again in the same genre of music you made while you were being horrifically exploited is very cool.

Young Justice (TV, 13 episodes finished 2/28/2020): given how much the middle stuff dragged--STOP KILLING YOUR HIJABI CHARACTER IN HORRIFIC WAYS--i was...actually kinda mad by how the end managed to stick the landing anyway. the day being saved by Vic’s self-acceptance and Violet’s sublime compassion was A+, and even the Brion/Tara switchup was a pleasant surprise, though it relied on me caring about Brion MUCH MORE than i actually did.

Manic (album, finished 2/29/2020): do people still care for/about Halsey? i feel like even That One Song that was on every tumblr gifset ever has kinda faded into obscurity at this point. this album was...okay. i feel like people give Halsey a pass for extremely obvious lyrical turns that they wouldn’t for other folks because of her subject material--which is fine. not really my cup of tea, but i also listened to lots of Relient K this year, so that’s probably a good thing.

Jade Empire (game, 3/10/2020): the only 3D-era Bioware game that didn’t franchise out, and for good fucking reason!!! the Orientalism and appropriation really haven’t aged well, and even beyond that the story was...standard Bioware faire. even my usual “my wife’s a bitch i love her” Bioware type didn’t do it for me, and i just ended up romancing no one. it did make me think a lot about what level of cultural borrowing is accepted nowadays, and why: people still look fondly at Avatar and talk about how ~accurate and respectful it was, for example, despite it being staffed almost entirely by white folks, and the Orientalism ALL OVER the monk class in DND is still fine for some reason.

Alif the Unseen (book, finished 3/31/2020): interesting to have read this AFTER reading The Bird King last year, because it highlights how the intervening years have shifted G. Willow Wilson’s thematic interest and improved her craft. i’m actually quite fond of how her characterization work is rougher here--Alif is extremely flawed to the point of being insufferable, but it makes his development by the end more satisfying. Dina is also just good and i love her

Baldur’s Gate (2 games, finished 5/31/2020): well, having finally finished the series i’m happy to say that it...still doesn’t really do it for me, sorry. any awesome story moments were overshadowed by the EXCRUCIATING inventory management system and the combat (i still don’t know what a THAC0 is and at this point i’m afraid to find out). these games crucially lack the Home Base that later Bioware games were so good about, and that (coupled with the huge cast of characters you can drop off and never see again) really hurts the intimacy for me. by the time we finally did get one it was the Hell Dimension in Throne of Bhaal, and i was just...trying to get through it. (yes, i did just say that about one of the most beloved expansions ever to one of the most beloved games ever.) THIS particular iteration of “my wife’s a bitch i love her” was very good, but the game wouldn’t let me romance her :(

The Underground Railroad (book, finished 6/19/2020): honestly what is there even left to say at this point! it was exactly as good as every critic on the planet said it was, even with my usual aversion to hype. draining and horrifying in turns but still insistent upon a future for Black folks.

Steven Universe (6 seasons and a mooooooviiieeee, finished 7/11/2020): yes, i DID finish the show and almost immediately begin a rewatch. this series is now one of my top five most formative things, and the amount of love and respect i have for it is incalculable. that said: i once again did not love how the central conflict of Future was resolved (just the resolution--i loved the finale just fine). for all of Steven’s breakdown was built up, resolving it with “EVERYONE HUG HIM UNTIL HE CRIES” felt...cheap, especially since up until this point the show had been so good about treating trauma and mental illness with the respect and nuance it deserves. it made me wish some of the earlier, less substantial episodes had been cut so we could spend more time at the end.

What It Is (comic, finished 8/19/2020): y’all i love Lynda Barry SO MUCH. for the longest time i was worried that One Hundred Demons was more a lightning in a bottle situation but every book of hers i pick up makes me feel obscure emotions i didn’t even realize existed. the compassionate way she’s able to describe her child self and how weird and fucked up she was (and still is) is honestly aspirational.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (TV, 5 seasons finished 9/26/2020): so here’s a reversal of what i’ve been complaining about with other shows: i was mostly lukewarm-to-warm about She-Ra, but the later seasons and the finale made me much more into it as a whole. more shows should improve in stakes and overall quality as they age tbh!! i still don’t actively love Catradora (my sole quibble with season 5 actually has to do with the way Adora kept backsliding as a character to make certain Plot/Relationship things happen), but i’m very happy for them nonetheless. i can certainly appreciate a show that will go for High Feeling over tight plot. dark horse standout moments: trees growing everywhere proving that Perfuma Was Right, and Hordak and Adora seeing each other--that weirdly intimate moment of recognition.

Fetch the Bolt Cutters (album, finished 10/7/2020): again i find myself not having much to say that no one else has said. it’s good! once again love it when an artist reclaims something they’d attached with negative affect (anxiety, depression, disordered eating) for better and brighter things.

Solutions and Other Problems (comic, finished 10/25/2020): i was very into Allie Brosh’s ambition with this book, which feels weird to say but i stand by it. it’s cool to see an artist try to make a new medium work for them instead of just sticking to what already works. not all the experimentation was 100% effective, but it was still delightful and occasionally devastating to read, so.

Legend of Zelda (3 games: Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Link Between Worlds, finished 11/1/2020): this was the third time i’d played Ocarina of Time, which made it the nice, comforting groove i settled into before Majora’s Mask blatted me in the face. i’m not usually a completionist Zelda person because...the gameplay in Zelda is bad, do not at me it just is, but i really felt like i HAD to be one for Majora’s Mask since the whole point is to get attached to the banalities of the town. i’m sure nobody’s surprised that i loved it, even if it gave me an existential crisis about how life goes on in the game for NPCs when you’re not there to save them from it, and there’s not enough time to save them all all the time (also not a surprise to anyone: Romani and Cremia gave Personal Feelings). Link Between Worlds...bad. not like in a “this is a bad story by every measurable gauge” way, but i was already struggling with the 2D playstyle shift enough that for the whole story to end with some “yes it’s v sad that Lorule is Like This but trying to steal Hyrule’s privilege is Even Worse Actually” noblesse oblige bullshit left a VERY poor taste in my mouth, this year of all years. i did audibly gasp when Ravio took off his mask, though. i’m currently playing Breath of the Wild in cautious increments; it’s the first time i’ve enjoyed early Zelda gameplay, but if they wanted fully voiced cutscenes i wish they got voice actors who...knew what words sound like.

folklore (album, finished 11/6/2020): my belief that Taylor Swift is Just Fine continues, i’m afraid. i LIKED this album, don’t get me wrong, and respect her constant drive to innovate, but i didn’t love it substantially more or less than any other Taylor Swift album. mostly i’m just tickled by how she thinks leaning into the indie aesthetic means borrowing Vita Sackville-West’s entire wardrobe, though i will admit to feeling Something when she swore in a song. i think it was like. savage vindication?? you go ahead and swear, Taylor Swift. you deserve it.

Shore (album, finished 11/19/2020): do people still care about the Fleet Foxes? i think there was some Drama with Josh Tillman a while back but i don’t remember where the discourse landed with who was being more problematic. it was nostalgic for me to listen to their new album--made me remember being an undergrad who exclusively listened to men who mumbled and played acoustic guitar all over again.

Star Wars (3 movies: original trilogy, finished 11/27/2020): there is So Much bad Star Wars these days that every time i rewatch the original trilogy i’m afraid that they will suddenly be bad, but guess what! they’re not. i love these children and their hot mess stories, i love that Lando doesn’t know how to say his best friend’s name. what stood out to me this time was the way Obi-Wan described the Force in A New Hope, which strongly implied that ANYONE can be Force Sensitive; that obviously faded with each subsequent movie, but part of me does wish they’d kept it.

X of Swords (comics, 22 issues finished 12/5/2020): i am enjoying Hickman’s X-lines!!! not so much here for the Grand Conspiracy or whatever, but the character work and highkey weirdness is fabulous--they FEEL like X-Men, despite all the shakeups in-universe. this crossover is a nice microcosm of all that: grandiloquently all over the place, but still full of cool standout moments and genuine hilarity. ILLYANA DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO SPELL MAGIC.

Fire Emblem (4 games: Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, finished 12/14/2020): this was the thing that i was closest to giving up early on, but i ended up hyperfixating on it instead. that’s a credit to what the gameplay does to my lizard brain more than anything else, because the story and character writing is...insipid. it was very bizarre to witness this franchise blunder around with its animal-people racism allegory around the same time i was getting back into RWBY, and ITS animal-people racism allegory blunders. Awakening was the first time i felt anything for the franchise beyond “teehee red units disappear make exp bar go up and brain go ding,” so i’m excited for more mature storytelling in subsequent games (they MUST get better. they MUST). the child husbandry thing is...very bad tho, and Apotheosis being “challenging” entirely through the game changing all the rules is also bad.

once again no vidya games that came out this year--i’ll probably pick up Spiritfarer or Hades after the New Year, though (or maybe TLOU II! but probably not. sry Laura and Ashley). more TV and franchises this year, which made me feel In Touch with the Children but was also kinda exhausting. nothing was so egregiously terrible i dropped it without finishing! in a year like this that feels almost like an accomplishment

[savrenim]

I feel like perhaps my problem is that all my stories eventually metamorph into tragedies. No idea what that says about me! Anyways thank you for the advice :)

I think there’s something super valid about that and I’ve noticed it happening a fair bit to me too so more rambles after the cut?

so this one is coming from a very personal place so I suspect it’s very very different for everyone, but as a kid, my absolute favorite story if I’d had to pick one was Lord of the Rings. especially the movies, I was obsessed with the costuming and production values and music and just the immersive nature of it all, it was gorgeous and I loved it and everything about it sorry legit lotr fandom I have not read the silmarillion but the thing that always stuck out the most to me was how real the ending felt, specifically Frodo not feeling like he was able to return to the Shire because he was too different, the world had changed too much for him

and my childhood felt like a constant battle against the forces of Evil that were trying to crush and destroy my world completely, and the degree to which I fought back, I won, I escaped -- suddenly out in the world I no longer had to be constantly fighting (at least against forces that were specifically trying to crush me instead of, like, general capitalism) and I was a bit at a loss. didn’t know what to do. it didn’t feel like it could be over, what was left in the world after years and years of fighting that consumed the entirety of my world, even if it didn’t destroy it completely. 

and I never really found an answer, until taz: balance? which I won’t spoil at all if you’re unfamiliar and it is long and a podcast and seems like it’s just a joke and everything is comedic bit after comedic bit (some somewhat more crass than others, although none crossed a line for me) and then it just hits you with 

and it genuinely broke my heart and pieced it back together again because suddenly it became a story about characters that had gone through a lifetime of constantly fighting against something that felt like the end of the world and then the ending wasn’t “oh. we’ve saved the world but we’ve changed and this is no longer home”, it was “oh, we’ve saved the world and we’ve changed, and we can make this home.”

and that was weirdly life-changing to me to see that in a story, where the main cast after going through hell could happily settle down into a civilian life which while it wasn’t necessarily a fairy-tale “happily ever after” they didn’t have to fight constantly anymore and didn’t need to and it didn’t destroy them so much that they couldn’t live. they rebuilt, and it was beautiful. there are probably parts of me that are never going to not be consciously or subconsciously preparing to be attacked, but that’s okay, I’m okay with that part of me, and I can live in a mostly chill world where I don’t need to fight without cutting that part out of me, because life exists beyond the end of the world.

a lot of the stories that I’ve written or am writing are either directly about or contain characters based on/ settings/ themes/ arcs/ etc of how I feel. sometimes intended to vent, sometimes intended to comfort. when I had a stupidly huge crush on a camp-counselor-turned-mentor at age 14, the plots of the novels that I wanted to write were “dramatic ya protagonist saved the world oh and also they totally do end up with their several-years-older-but-like-not-too-much-older super cool mentor figure. and it’s all okay because that person is there after Defeating The Evil so it’s totally a happily ever after.” when I’d escaped my abusive household but oops things still were falling apart bc mental health, the stories were “the world is ending biblical imagery this time and time exists as a cycle and consistently always ends and ends like this and the story follows the archangels at the end/beginning of the world as they slowly in horror learn that after killing the archdemons they’ve been fighting for all of existence and time turns and begins again and new archangels appear and cast them out of heaven, that they were the archdemons all along, and there is nothing they can do to change a history that is set in stone to repeat itself and they can just watch as they either slowly sink into insanity and lose sentience and become mindless beasts, or lose hope so much that they lose the will to fight back against their fate and decide to make their past/future selves pay and start the apocalypse all over again” or “alternate universe historical cold war with aliens at a science research base where like the first solid half of the story is the families of all the researchers get trapped in their bunker and the air filtration system isn’t working and they suffocate while the researchers outside watch, also everything has been nuked so even if we succeed in calling off the second wave civilization as we know it is over” or there’s not even any plot so I can only describe it as a psychological horror brainwashing dystopia larp where the fundamental horror besides the inherent horror of the octagon house stemmed from the fact that reality itself seemed to be unravelling at the seams, nothing about the world or knowledge about the world could be trusted, even a happy ending barely felt like a victory or an escape bc the characters didn’t know if everything was about to dissolve into nothingness or if their world even really existed 

anyways things got better and my writing is no longer that, although I’m strongly considering one day polishing up and making something of some of those pieces bc they were pretty cool. but also.....my stories are slightly less obvious about it now but still are just dumping grounds for what I’m feeling trash novel started because I went “you know what there’s too much sadness in my life and my DnD campaigns I want a story where the MC is super powerful and badass and nothing bad happens to her and I can rest assured in that fact and, like, build the rest up from there” and Saes ended up being the “hmmm had childhood trauma but chill and over it” character and Luka ended up being the “hmmm what if I was able to actually act on all of the rage that I felt about my situation instead of keeping it diplomatic to my family constantly” I personally find it impossible to write something that I do not personally feel in some way. mostly because writing is a hobby for me to vent emotions? so.... why am I writing it if I don’t personally feel it type deal, and then editing it and balancing it out and turning it into an actual readable story happens afterwards. if you find things are tending towards tragedy, and always tend towards tragedy when you write, my personal advice at least would be either:

(a) lean into it. write tragedy. write at any given time what vents your emotions the most and gives you the most catharsis, and let your story just be a punching bag for anything terrible that you want to unload. bc it’ll feel like that for the readers too, sometimes everything just needs to be horrible and smashed and get it out and let it be that, it’s okay.

(b) convince yourself in your heart of hearts that there is life after trauma. that some things can never be fixed but they can grow and change and work around the broken bits. write everything that makes your story as terrible and as much of a tragedy as you’d planned. and then make it okay to live afterwards. because if there’s one thing that humans are absolutely incredible for being able to do, it’s keep living and keep making life worth living.

you might write totally different than I do in which case this advice might be thoroughly trash in terms of finding inspiration to write something non tragic. and, like, if you do write from your feelings.... current global situation and general hopes for the future in terms of climate change and fascism and plague all feels hopeless kind of for the human race in general? but humans are pretty hard to destroy. as pessimistic as I feel about current trajectory of the world, civilization might collapse in the next hundred or so years, but I don’t think humanity will be gone. and even if it does go, life certainly won’t be gone. hell as a mathematician I know that there is life out there on other planets, that we live in a universe brimming with life; organic molecules form far too easily and there are far too many planets out there for statistically there not to be more. nothing that’s happening right now can touch a universe that is full of life, and I can live day by day making the world maybe a slightly better place for the people around me, and that’s a good a reason to hope as any. 

just.... write for yourself first and foremost, and what’ll come out will be something beautiful and worthwhile. tragedy or no.

[neshabeingchildish]

League of Extraordinary Geniuses || Chapter 2

Not gonna lie, this chapter is dialogue heavy and a little rushed. Something was going on with my device where I couldn’t quite get the formatting correct and I grew impatient because this is currently the only thing I’m getting feedback on from people other than Lil’ Dynamite and so I wanted to push it out anyway, regardless of errors. I’ll probably go back and change those later. Patience isn’t my ministry. So, whatever. Thanks. Enjoy and sorry. All the platitudes you require, I give. Tagging @kiddangers @just-a-j-reallly and @sunbeameyes (Please lemme know if you wanna be taken off while you do all the stuff you’ve got going on). TW: for alcohol drinking. Idk. Sometimes, that bothers people, even if nobody’s drunk or abusing it.

I Didn’t Say Overthrow the Government

Charlotte gave the twins hugs and kisses before sending them off with their caregiver. It was just something about having access to these children that she couldn’t see them as experiments or projects, even if that was in essence what they were. And the caregiver would definitely have to shapeshift into her at times in order to calm them down, because they were extremely attached to their “mother.” 

Charlotte had a work program for bionics and supers that didn’t want to be heroes. She felt like it was unfair to presume or worse, force people into positions where they had to risk themselves for the rest of the world. She knew that her previous boss had that type of childhood and he never grew up past that of a superpowered 8 year old, then he simply continued to repeat that cycle by inducting underage sidekicks and even opening a school to keep that process going. 

She knew that Chase might have wanted to be something else had he not been raised and forced to be a protector. He mentioned, in passing, as though it was completely ridiculous, that when he was younger, he wanted to be an astronaut/lawyer. He laughed at his expense, until Charlotte wondered, “Why didn’t you do it?” He stared at her as though the question was ludicrous, so she had to tack on, “I have the credentials to be quite a few things that some might laugh at, and you definitely are more than qualified to be an astronaut lawyer, if that’s what you want.” He gave a little chuckle and moved on with the subject.

That was actually the thing that compelled her towards a new project. She loved new projects, because even though it kept her busy, it opened up her brain for new opportunities to touch the world in an impactful way. She went live on her page the next day and asked supers and bionics, “If you could do ANYTHING ELSE in the world, right now, what would it be? I know that some of you have certain abilities that have made it to where you have focused in on using that gift to help the world, but… What if you had the means and the opportunity to do something else? What would you do?” She read all of the comments and in the same conversation made a decision, “You know what… I feel very moved by a lot of these testimonies. So, this is what I’m going to do…” She created an email address and shared it with the viewers and posted it to her website, “I am going to have everyone who is interested in transitioning from an imposed future that revolves around your ability to a career or even just a hobby that you would love to get into to email me so that I can try to figure out how to make a some of these things happen.”

The number of “I STAN!” comments she received were nothing in comparison to the amount of mail that she got. She had a guy named Bob that she heard went to the academy on Bionic Island who had super strength, but was very gentle and hated having to fight. That was exactly the type of person she was trying to seek out. She had Chase introduce her to this guy… he was sweet, but by God, he was not bright. Sort of reminded her of her best friend, Jasper, in that regard. And it hit her! Jasper! “Hey, Jasp… I’ve got this bionic guy named Bob. He doesn’t want to have to be out on missions. He doesn’t like fighting. He’s very nice, but not that smart and he really doesn’t have a lot of skills beyond mission training and superstrength.”

“We ABSOLUTELY could use someone with super strength around here. I can teach him some maintenance stuff to help out around the lair and the shelter while he finds himself and figures out what he wants to do. Henry’s been enrolling in adult classes at the Vision Institute. Bob could maybe do that?” Jasper said.

“Yes, I’m definitely getting him in touch with an advisor, but I was more like checking to see if you had an empty room to put the guy up in and also if you could maybe mentor him a little along the way, since you have a lot in common?” Charlotte said. Jasper gave her ideas that she was already in the process of setting up, but a support system would be a huge part in these transitions. A lot of people who went to the Vision Institute went for the reason it was created - to figure out exactly what they wanted to do with their life now that their brains were fully formed and they were adults who realized that they had spent all of their lives going in directions that they were pulled in, instead of where their minds led them.

NOW, she had to try to get a more nuanced system in place for those bionics and supers who suffered the same existential crisis, but with the added pressure that they HAD to do whatever direction they were pulled in because, “the world depended on them.” Know who else the world depended on? Caretakers and caregivers, and Charlotte found a perfect shape shifting one who just wanted to be able to look after kids and stuff. She was bionic, so she definitely had been trained and conditioned to fight and protect, but now she was able to play with a couple of adorable babies who turned into adorable puppies AND, she would be able to help them hone their shifting, whenever they were ready for it! Charlotte loved that for her. She loved that Bob might be able to live out his dreams. She loved that she put things in motion to help people be happier and more successful and safe. 

The twins were gone to the cottage, which was where they generally stayed, since the castle was fairly new and Charlotte wasn’t even there a lot of the time. With having the guys there, it would be easier anyway. 

She came back inside to Max coming from his guest quarters and almost immediately asking, “Do bionics have twin powers?” She froze and folded her arms, thinking. She didn’t know and he didn’t either, so they both rushed to her desk to work on figuring out if they could figure that out.

.

Chase surfaced later, and found the two of them walking around one in one of Charlotte's famous theory rooms, which was a room with the walls covered in notes and models hanging from the ceiling, and spots where it was clear that experiments were done. It was sort of like if a lab didn’t have everything that was needed to do the work, but had everything that was needed to get to the work. Chase had seen the one that she had in her Dystopia home and the one in the Defender Dome, but this one was bigger, but less used. She and Max went to hover above a model with little figures of people and the scene of what looked like Centium City. “Good afternoon. I made a late start. I think that something is wrong with the guest capsule,” Chase said.

“Do you feel rested and like you’ve had the best sleep ever?” Charlotte wondered.

“As a matter of fact, yes!” 

“Then, how could there be something wrong with it?” She asked, rhetorically, not turning her attention away from the model.

Max asked, “Hey, Bionic Boy, do bionic twins have the ability to tap into twin powers?”

Charlotte gasped and said, “I didn’t even THINK about just asking Chase, and we went through that whole thing earlier only to come out as inconclusive.”

“What are twin powers?” Chase asked. Now, Charlotte and Max looked up from the current tangent/theories that they were mulling through to stare at Chase. He smiled awkwardly. “You know what, I’ll just look it up,” he said and touched his finger to the side of his face. “Okay… um.. No, I don’t think so. It would most likely have to be programmed into the coding for their chips. Kind of like my override, but like… something mutual that becomes something else.”

“The mystery kinda dies with that, doesn’t it?” Max asked Charlotte, disappointed. “Well, at any rate… Definitely gonna work on twin powers for the Swagger Twins,’ Max said, into his phone, recording.

Charlotte added in a smol voice, “They is good boys and they deserve!” Max looked at her, absolutely smitten and smiled. 

Chase watched with some judgment. He knew that Charlotte frequently switched up for who she needed to be, whenever she needed to be it. The Charlotte that she was with her best friends, the professional in a business meeting, the one that had to deal with Mr. Davenport, and so on. This one was new to him, and if he didn’t know any better… he’d say that this one was into Max. There was obviously some type of inside joke there with the strange voice and the grammatically incorrect phrasing, but the smile that Max gave her made him… irritable. “Are we doing some work today? Anything that I can latch on to?”

“Oh! Yes… We were actually just having a discussion about roleplaying, chess, and boardgames,” Charlotte counted off on her fingers. “We’ve been determining - out of the bionics worlds and the supers worlds, which heroes would be which characters or pieces.”

“We keep on switching and changing between chess and DND, because neither of us is making a list. Making a list might cut into the creative juices and this is all for fun…” Max added on. Chase knew all about chess and Dungeons and Dragons, though that was because Mr. Davenport had casually mentioned it one day and of course, it only took him a few moments to research and memorize it all, but he still hadn’t had the chance to ever play it. Charlotte and Max were talking about this current train of thought, until Chase projected a hologram for them, with a chess board and a diagram that he was creating in progress, split screen with the chess board as he explained, and went through all of the bionic people he knew from the database, where they would be on a chess board and why. 

He blinked it away when he was done and offered, “I’m not as hip to DND, but I have some ideas…” 

“Um, no… Let’s discuss whatever that set up was!” Max said, practically cheering. “You can do cool shit like that, and you… just don’t? You could be fanboy famous with that gift!” Chase blushed a little and Charlotte smiled at this and at Max’s enthusiasm for that display. “You honestly should take that online.”

“But, it doesn’t fit the Chase Davenport brand that Mr. Davenport approved,” Chase said, coming closer into the room.

“Who is Mr. Davenport?” Max asked, looking between the two of them, then gasped and asked, “Wait, is that what you call your Dad? Uncle? Dude?” Max started laughing and shook his head, “You’re ONLY supposed to do that when you’re a corny dude at a fancy meeting and you say the cliche phrase, “Mr. Davenport is my father.” 

“Well… that’s what we call him,” Chase said, annoyed, again. Max backed off and went back to their current mind game…

.

There was definitely still tension, and Max and Chase were being cordial, but it was clear that they still weren’t sold on one another, so Charlotte decided that maybe after a good day of mental stimulation, a few small experiments, a nice meal and some fine drinks, she could talk to them about the future. 

So, after all of that, they retired to the lounge, and she poured wine, lit candles and played easy listening music overlayed on nature sounds. Chase smiled, comfortably and announced, “This is a very satisfying lounge.” Honestly, she was setting it more for him than for Max, so that was good feedback for her.

“I was thinking about something,” she said and picked up her wine glass. “I was thinking about a couple of years ago whenever I started trying to open doors for people who didn’t want to be reduced to their bionics or superpowers. People who just wanted to be people and enjoy their lives whether or not they could fly or breathe underwater… I couldn’t help but to think about it today and the fact that neither of you ever really said anything about wanting to do something else besides be heroes.”

Max narrowed his eyes suspiciously and took a drink of wine. “Gross. I’m raiding your liquor cabinet,” he said, put down his wine and telekinetically collected a few bottles of brown liquor and three shot glasses to himself. 

“Well, I can’t speak for Max, but there really isn’t another option for me,” Chase smelled the wine and took a sip. It was good. How could Max not enjoy it? It was a very excellent year and a perfect aroma…

“But, there ARE though. Today alone, you proved that you could, if you wanted to, create an online presence for fandoms - which don’t give me that look could be extremely successful! - make exciting and fun games, excel in theoretical physics, improve mission suits and super suits, recreate the Internet with better accessibility and less monopolizing, if you wanted to, and like.. Several other things, and that was just today!” She insisted.

Max took a shot of whiskey and poured another, “You want one?” He asked Chase, knowing that whatever Charlotte was about to say, this uptight Chase dude was gonna feel some type of way about it.

“I’ve never had it before…” Chase said, a little leery. Max floated over the shot glass and Chase received it, smelled it and winced. To Charlotte, he said, “Yeah, I enjoyed doing all of that stuff in the theory room, but in real life, I have commitments and obligations…”

“That The Dom forced upon you,” she mentioned, taking a sip of her wine.

“That! That’s what I know that dude as.” He snickered under his breath and mumbled, “Mr. Davenport.”

Chase threw him a short glare, took a sip of the whiskey and groaned, then dropped the shot glass, but Max caught it and floated it back up. “That’s disgusting! Get it away from me! People DRINK this? On purpose??”

“You’re supposed to shoot it, Dude. Like this,” Max demonstrated, blew out a deep breath and nodded, “Then, give it a moment, and it runs through you and feels warm and good.”

“It feels like poison,” Chase said, grabbing the floating shot glass. But, Charlotte had it in her home and Max had just had two, so maybe it wasn’t as bad as the initial taste. He shot it like Max did and slammed the shot glass down, breathing hard and shaking his head, “I’ve decided that I am not a whiskey man.” 

“Fair enough,” Max said, smirking. 

Chase used his own molecular kinesis to put the shot glass away, then told Charlotte, “I thought that you had accepted that I’ve accepted that this is what I’m doing with my life…” 

She furrowed her eyebrows and wondered, “Why did you think that? Chase, you were my motivation to start liberating supers and bionic people from destinies written out for them, so I don’t accept you accepting that, unless you’re accepting it because it’s what you want and not what you believe you should be doing!”

“What’s wrong with keeping a purpose that you’ve already been given?” Chase asked her, looking at her extremely hard and starting to kinda feel what Max was talking about, with the whiskey.

“Nothing… Unless… The person that gave it to you wasn’t qualified to create it for you. Davenport is a genius. We can’t take that away from him. But, he’s not a god and he isn’t infallible. His purpose for you makes A LOT of sense and helps a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean that it’s perfect or shouldn’t be challenged.”

“No, but me trying to do something just to be happy whenever what I do now actually saves lives… I mean… You’re a utilitarian, Charlotte. Does that seem like a better world to you? One where I’m creating games or… Or… being an Internet personality or whatever?”

“She didn’t say that you couldn’t still save the world, Man. I think she’s more like, thinking about the fact that you spend all of you life and make all of your decisions within those confines that Davenport put on you and nothing else. You could have been enjoying things like you did today, instead you’re like… such a Davensnore when you come out of the mission suit. You can save the world and still be your own human,” Max said. Then chuckled again and repeated, “Davensnore. Put it on the books, Folks. That’s his name now.”

“That’s not his name!” Charlotte said, but chuckling at little. “But, he’s right about everything else. IF you accept that what you want is to be a bionic savior and do that, then of course, I support that. But, you seemed so lighthearted and fulfilled today, exercising your smarts for fun and also coming up with very great ideas too, and maybe you’re meant to be a different kind of hero. I feel like I’m a hero and I definitely rarely hit a battlefield personally.” 

“You DO! But… You’re not like me,” Chase said.

“What’s THAT supposed to mean?” Max asked, sitting up straight 

“Just that she was able to grow up with the mentality that you can be what you want to be and do what you want to do and everyone will support it and motivate you, instead of put you in a box.”

“I WHAT?” Charlotte asked, putting her glass down.

“Now, you’re in trouble,” Max said, with a smile.

Chase’s eyes were wide with apprehension of whatever Charlotte was going to say next, but instead of saying anything, she just stared at him, in disappointment. God. That HAD to be worse than whatever he thought she was going to say. She looked so betrayed and let down and he wished that she would just tell him where he messed up at so that he could bring about a solution. Instead, she simply stared at him and thought her explosion inside of her mind...

“I know that you grew up in a basement, so normally, I’d let you slide on that, but you have learned too much history, have read too many books, and have an entire two black female humans in your immediate family and one male counterpart, as well. You have to know on some type of level that that statement you just made is NOT true at all and even now, today, with the things that both of us have accomplished in our own ways, IF you had accomplished the things that I have accomplished, do you know how much more well received and adored that you would be? Have you SEEN some of the criticisms against me and compared and contrasted it with what you get? Have you done the same with the compliments? I’m in your corner, Dude. Don’t… downplay my stuff because you don’t like what I’m saying. If that’s how it’s gonna be, forget that I asked you to venture into this with me.” 

“Well,” she said after five full minutes, Chase noted almost right on the dot. He had upset her SO MUCH, that she just “took a five” and used it to stare at him in upset. It kinda made him miserable. He NEEDED her to say something to him about it. Even now, she didn’t. She picked her wine glass up, shot the rest and pointed at Max, “The scotch, please.”

“Coming right up,” he said, telekinetically pouring the shot and sent it to her. "By the way, what's this venture you and me are doin'? You still hadn't said." 

Chase was quiet, mulling over the things that were unsaid  while the other two talked.

Charlotte was a little flustered, but brightened up as soon as Max asked her about her idea. "I want to find and collect people like us, those who can and could change the world if only they didn't have significant barriers to doing so.  I want to find and gather as many of us as I can, help to guide them in the right direction and with all of our combined intelligence, hard work and determination, we can undo our current, flawed system and rebuild a new and improved one that will benefit everybody."

"You… want to overthrow the government?" Chase tried to clarify.

"I want the government to be changed into something that makes sense and is run by smart and capable representatives, and works for the people in it."Chase looked really bothered and so she explained, "For far too long, the system has been slanted.. it was created by men who were all in the same type of station, with the same interests and they made a system that has been benefiting them and almost exclusively them for so long that it is DEBATABLE for anyone else to have a fair shake. I think, if we really want to change the world and save some lives, we've gotta change the foundation. Just like with Dystopia, but like… farther and wider."

”You had me at “overthrow the government.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You… did. You just used way too many words when you said it.”“Well, I meant enhance life for the people.”

Chase interjected, unsure if she knew what she was suggesting here, “You CAN’T without overthrowing the government!!”

“That sounds like the government’s problem,” Max said, taking his last shot of the night. (He knew his limit).

Charlotte now got up to sit next to Chase and look right at him, the most serious and concerned look on her face that he had ever seen before and he knew that this meant a lot to her and that she needed it to mean something to him too. Something good. He wasn’t FEELING that this could actually lead to something good, but he WANTED to feel what she seemed to want him to feel as she spoke, “Don’t you hate the fact that this country, this WORLD is constantly at war, people are always going without, someone is always oppressed, and almost everybody doesn’t have what they need not just to be happy, but to survive? And who is to blame for it? It shouldn’t be us, but it usually is. Scientists need to find a way. Doctors still haven’t found a cure, etc, so on and so forth. When people like us work beside or even worse BENEATH clueless ingrates who see us as their smart… equipment. And you two understand this more than my previous team. The world does read you a certain way, but also, when they know what you are, they let their biases slip in. They don’t trust bionic humans any more than they do androids. And supers? Not if they don’t know every single solitary fact about that individual and still, they keep them at bay. I don’t feel like I should have to speak about or make a list of my struggles with this place. It. Has. To. Change. We have to try to change it. We’re qualified to and if that isn’t being a hero and saving the world, I guess I just don’t know what is. I don’t want the future to be as oppressive as the present. The world isn’t in God’s hands. It’s in the hands of the smart and the brave.”

Chase nodded his head, “I... have to think about it. I mean.. How would it work? Are you just compiling a genius database and visiting them like some type of secret society and just inducting them and giving them this speech, or...?”

“Pretty much just like that, Sir,” she said, with a little shrug of her shoulders.”But, do think about it.” She stood up and Max stood up as well. “See you tomorrow,” she said. “I’m going to go unwind.” Max stretched and grabbed the bottles from the table to move to sit closer to Chase, who looked confused as to why Max was moving next to him. Charlotte went through the corridor that passed through her courtyard to go inward to her quarters. 

“Sure you don’t want anymore?” Max asked. 

Chase furrowed his eyebrows and wondered, “You said that I was in trouble... What is it that you know that I don’t about what I said?”

Max scoffed out a little laugh and shook his head, “Have you never read one book about racial injustice or the lingering effects of chattel slavery in America?”

“Yeah, but what does that have to do with - Ohhhhhhhhhhh.”

“You basically just told one of the most historically subjugated and mistreated persons in the nation that she had more privilege than you and the unspoken presumption, that her privilege was why she wanted to take this on.”

“Do you think she’s mad at me for it?”

“I think you hurt her feelings,” Max said. “A genuine apology goes a long way, though.”

“I’ll talk too her tomorrow.” They were quiet for a while, then Chase wondered, “Are you really on board with this? You’re answer is undoubtedly yes, to this idea of hers?”

“Yeah. Not like she asked me to rip out my own heart and throw it at a politician. She’s talking about moving silently to help fix things that a lot of powerful people are often loud and wrong about and STILL gain support. Whatever side of history Charlotte is ever on, I’ll always know its the right side.” He shrugged his shoulders. “But, you’ve gotta do what makes Chase Davensbore happy.”

“I thought it was Davensnore?” Chase said.

Max shrugged his shoulders. “It’s both, Bionic Boy. You’re super bland.”

“Your ego is unwavering.”

“I talk like this ‘cause I can back it up,” Max said. 

“I can too, and I don’t act like this!” 

Max furrowed his eyebrows and wondered, “You don’t know Beyonce song references when you hear them?” He suddenly sat upright and looked right at Chase, like he had something very urgent that just happened. Chase sat up, equally as urgently, in reflex alone, only to have Max ask, “You do know who Beyonce is, right?”

Chase sank back into the seat and sighed, “Ugh. Of course I do... I just don’t know her catalog that well...”

“Just as shameful. I’m going to bed. You’d better apologize to Charlotte.”

“Of course, I will!” Chase snapped and whenever Max was gone, he got up and went to find her. Things were easier to communicate between them without “her other friend,” around. He was convinced that there never would have been any weird miscommunication without Max there, but it didn’t matter now. He was big enough to admit when he was wrong, and even if he wasn’t, in his mind... Charlotte was worth putting himself aside for a moment. Was she worth taking on the world, though? The status quo? He found her on the terrace, wind blowing through her curls. Her silhouette doing nothing more than watching the moon shine down on her and still looking like music. Is she worth it?  Yes. Yes, she is.

[cockbiteproductions]

all prime numbers in the Misc section and all multiples of 10 in the other sections

we shall go backwards as the question list was posted backwards...... (and also why i rbed it.... why is it backwards? i dont know but i love it. edit: now that ive seen question 1 it looks to me like one of those forum profile copy pastes where you fill out the entire thing and put it in your profile.)

200: My crush’s name is: hmm...... well. i would rather not say!!!! they could see this post!!!!!!! and we do not want that happening.......

190: My 1st job was: lifeguard in the summer after 9th or 10th grade i think? it was decently fun. i grew up swimming competitively so the swimming part was a breeze. the remembering what to do if someone is drowning part? a bit harder. memory bad. what to do if someone has a potential broken spine/head injury when they’re in deep water? i don’t know bud. but it involves 3 whole people to get them out. 2 in the water, one person at all times holding their head in line with the rest of their body, the other one strapping them to the board (these two people in the water switch off, too) and then one person standing on the side of the pool looking very concerned. also don’t tell anyone but sometimes if i had like a 6 am shift i would get really groggy and almost fall asleep on the stand.

180: Marriage is: whatever people make of it but unfortunately bogged down with like a lot of societal expectations. to me it just sounds like hanging with your “best” friend until you die but a lot of other people interpret it differently.

170: What did you do yesterday? LOL wouldn’t it be nice if i remembered. wait no i do remember. i woke up “early” and watched a dnd livestream and struggled through buffering from my shit wifi. then i took a nap. then i had a chipotle burrito that was way too spicy. and i played a lot of minecraft. and i wrote a bit. and i also did like another 2-3 pages of the codecademy html intro course im working on.

160: Soul mates: nope. [taylor mason voice] i don’t believe in the concept of a soul. you are compatible with some people more than others and that’s based on your values and interests and personality. nothing Soul about it. it’s fun in fanfic and fiction though, but that’s because it’s fiction.

150: Blondes or Brunettes: brunettes..... i like brown hair! but blonde is nice too.

140: Mac or PC: clown face emoji. mac. It’s A Unix System. more convenient for me. my current mac is a giant piece of shit though. though i think that’s my own fault for keeping all my old files from my old mac. shoulda started over. i think i might try to get this one factory reset or something.

130: Wal-Mart or Target: idk walmart. i go there a lot during college. walmart just has a larger selection. i used to go to target a lot as a kid though because my mom liked it more. i think it’s like slightly more bougie?

120: Gay Marriage: fuckin go for it pals. sad that it took as long as it did to become legal.

110: My Neighbors: they are nice i think. the ones to the right are teachers or something. the ones to the left are.... idk. their kids were like maybe 5 years older than me and my brother when we were growing up though and sometimes they would indulge in us tiny annoying kids and hang with us

100: Cried in front of someone: when the finale of the clone wars came out a few months ago and i was sobbing and i ran into the living room to tell my roommate and friend that i was sobbing. i was sobbing. i also recorded myself watching the entire eps and i Sure Was Sobbing.

90: Texted: actual sms text, yesterday in response to a friend who texted me a tik tok. instant messaging like 20 minutes ago to milo. i havent responded yet because im answering this and i cant multitask for shit.

89: Who makes you laugh the most: me obviously. i think i’m fucking hilarious. me aside, @redvsblue​ is the funniest person on this planet. also my friend holly irl who shares my incredibly dumb sense of humor. also you!

83: The most difficult thing to do is: hmm........ in general or for me personally? idk..... a lot? i am not a very courageous person. so i guess being brave.

79: First time you had a crush: >:( not appreciating this line of questioning that lines up with the prime numbers/mult of 10. i will not be saying as they ALSO follow me on tumblr. though they don’t use it often. shout out to middle school.......

73: Tomorrow: hopefully wake up around 1 pm at the latest. make a plum smoothie. play some more minecraft and get more netherite (new update slaps). do more coding tutorials. get some writing done. the same ol same ol.

71: Next Summer: hopefully i will have a job lined up for the fall and the pandemic is Over. i would like to just [do nothing] for the last summer Ever before job starts. if i don’t have a job then it’s Job Hunting Time.

67: The person that makes me cry the most is: what the fuck...... like in a bad way? good way? cry of laughter? sadness? me, probably. my own damn brain be like “well it’s time to think about Yourself and be sad!” i know. very narcissistic of me. also dave filoni (director, producer, writer on clone wars).

61: My Car: not really mine. i just use it. beige 201? toyota camery. my brother tried to convince my dad he needed it more than i did last school year. my brother, who lived on campus in boston and flies to school from nc when he goes there, needs the car more than me, who lived off campus and drove to and from school to get back to nc, thinks he needed the car more than me. what a guy.

59: The movie I cried at was: last movie huh......... when was the last time i saw a movie? idk probably the rise of skywalker when leia died. i don’t know. i sure as hell didn’t cry at cats.

53: How do you like your steak cooked: i am vegetarian.

47: Who’s your best friend: @worthyghouls​ i guess. but also concept of “best friend” is so weird. No Best Friends. just lots of people i am good friends with. feels weird to all my other friends to pick One of them and be like “well i like you more than everyone else” :)

43: Do you have a 5 year plan: only in the vaguest vaguest vaguest sense. i would like to graduate with my bs degree. i would like to live in a city (doesn’t have to be a super big one. where im at rn is fine). i would like to have my first or second job i feel comfortable doing related to the degree i am getting. i would like to live in my own apartment (with roommates)/not with my parents. i would like to not be rent burdened. i would like my roommate to know how to take care of a cat or be okay with helping me learn how to take care of one. i would like to have a cat with said roommate. and that’s about it tbh. not very ambitious, i know. i just want a simple life......

41: Have you pre-named your children: bold of you to assume i will have children. no. if i ended up with child it would be like that tag on ao3 called “accidental baby acquisition” and i would name it on the spot.

30: Actress: hmm..... lauren marcus. lauren lopez. does fiona nova count if she’s going to be in rvb zero? also lindsay jones. aubrey plaza. idk. not many actresses i follow from project to project. it’s more i will see them in something and appreciate them in that role immensely. 

20: Holiday: halloween is pretty chill. just getting candy from strangers? dope. scary aesthetic? amazing. i also like christmas just for the sole fact that i get time off from [life].

10: Restaurant: a favorite restaurant??? who has one of those???? i sure don’t. and i’m not gonna say something cringey like olive garden or mcdonalds. i simply do not have one.

[spidermilkshake]

A Flood of Characters--ADOM

These are characters in a casual story I’m writing. The story is set in Ancardia, which is the setting of ADOM, but I have expanded it a bit and changed it so much that it's no longer the same thing. The biggest change is that "Always Chaotic Evil" and "Always Lawful Good", as well as the automatic association of darkness with evil and light with good, is bunk and there is a far more nuanced and realistic system of cultures and morality goin' about. XD Something kind of rare in any of the DnD-derivative fantasy type stuff. 

1, “The Honored”, Ravys E’Helemas. probably the oldest of the major characters. He's a Zundweragh ("Light Dwarf") Paladin of the god Morodwyn (super important to the dwarves, but also to lots of other cultures). I have his name here in the title but he mostly goes by the title "The Honored", as all of the highest ranked dwarvish paladins of Morodwyn (and Dhamsar) do. 

2, Linduri Enanturiye, resident High Elf Mage. Really the only high elven character of note in the whole thing, since the majority of the story doesn't take place anywhere near the high elves' borders. She also happens to be an extremely high elf, as in literally at about 6'2". Despite being the wizard-y type one of the bunch she towers over just about every other character.

3, Broudan Gulde, Hurthling merchant. This be Brou, short for Broudan, who is a main character in an Ancardia based thingie I'm doin'. He's a hurthling (aka, them legally-distinct hobbits XD). As with almost all settings belonging to the genre basically invented by Tolkien, there's a little folk main character. Though, tellingly, I abide by the Our [fantasy species] Are Different type tropes, so they won't be hobbit-y quite. Hurthlings are similar sized to hobbits but are notable for their unusual strength for their size. And their feet aren't furry! 

4, Vunoc Kil’shol, Dark Elven Cleric of Night. These Dark Elves are notably not an “evil race”. That’s kind of a warped concept in its own--probably ultimately down to the fact Tolkein was hella racist and super-racist implications were just laced through everything he touched. This fella though is literally the most patient, lovely guy living in a giant underground cave system possible. He’s a subterranean cinnamon bun, delivered to you still warm in a spider-silk napkin. XD

5, Jassol of Ninoorah, Human warrior. Here's a human. He's not from the "Heartland", that low-lying giant valley surrounded by the Drakalor Chain, so he still comes off as a bit atypical by the local yokels. He's a Sostunian human, meaning he's from a country quite close to the South Pole of Ancardia. He also happens to be a quite badass mercenary (working for the protagonists, so not a default baddie like a lot of mercenary characters turn out XD). Every scar or inch of bicep may as well be a level.

6, Aumora E’Delawian, Dwarven Artificer. Ohh lordy, here's a character I am excite about. She's not a Light Dwarf like the old paladin fella, but what are sort of slangishly called Hill Dwarves. Which are dwarfy dwarves, basically. And while she may be on the weedy side for a dwarf, she's still a touch buffer than me. Needs that buff to make her some medieval-steampunk-style robots.

7, Ren Yrma, Gnome Rogue. Ex-thief to be exact. Definitely ex-thief. Super not breaking of the law anymore. Good guy. Okay, well, maybe a few whoopses here and there, but nothing felonious. XD Ren Yrma--basically a petty criminal who took a plea deal to do Ancardian adventure things instead of Gnome prison. Seriously, though, he’s actually a swell fella.

So there is the main cast. :D I love all their faces!

[crowsister-archive]

Whatever you haven't answered out of 1-10, 16-19 for Kyra off the sidestep ask meme?

Questions here (x)

1. what is their secret identity? do they have any nicknames? what is the meaning behind them?

Kyra Kithairon, also known fondly as “Bitch” (Jed @smuteczekbiczo​) and Ky-a-Bye. She gets “Bitch” from Jed for being a bit of one (“The world’s a bitch and now so am I” “For once, in your life, try to win a conversation by not quoting Catwoman”), since they aren’t initially on good terms (this is what happens when you try to declaw a cat, Jedrick). Ky-a-bye she gets from Julia, for always vanishing and for the most common word out of Kyra’s mouth being “bye” before Julia got her to sit still long enough for longer conversation.

2. what is their sexual/romantic orientation and gender?

Kyra’s bisexual and a demigirl! Kyra’s got a lot of issues revolving around her gender, having been pressured into traditional feminine imaging for manipulation purposes. She’s been figuring out what of it she likes and what of it makes her skin crawl since, piecing together her gender. It makes her feel better to label herself as a demigirl for that reason, giving herself an opening to communicate that sort of feeling better right off the bat.

3. what is their villain name? why did they choose it?

Kyra’s villain name is Macavity, chosen for the TS Eliot poem! She chose it because she was angling to be a cat burglar from the get go and thought it was very fitting that she declare that openly via the usage of Macavity.

4. what does their villain armor look like? what is their typical style of dress?

The way I’ve been describing the Macavity suit is “the result of Catwoman blackmailing Tony Stark for a personalized Iron Woman suit”.

It’s matte black, with gentle charcoal low-lights and electric lavender highlights. The eyes glow purple softly, like cat eyes reflecting light in darkness. There are retracting claws in the gloves, though the left glove is bigger and bulkier due to the nanovores. 

Dr. Mortum talked Kyra into adding a cape, which goes just down to under Kyra’s ass in the suit (not a full cape, but something of a half-cape. Something akin to this look x). It’s the same matte black as the suit and adds a softer appearance to Macavity. The suit has telepathic boosters, part of which is housed within cat-ear like apparatuses on the helmet (they also house part of the secure com units in the helmet). There’s also the jump-jets, which Macavity uses when speeding along rooftops around the city. But when she’s dealing with verticality in spaces she has to be silent, I headcanon that there’s an extensive grapnel system in the armor that’s similar to Black Cat’s from Marvel’s Spider-Man. Said grapnel system can sometimes double as a whip.

Kyra’s typical style of dress is that “she was born in leather jackets, she’ll die in leather jackets (probably, maybe)”. This is from the first gift she was ever given was one of Julia’s old leather jackets (which Kyra lightly swam in, being a lanky fuck, with Julia being a beefcake). Kyra typically wears a brown leather jacket, a long sleeve t-shirt, a pair of jeans, and black ankle boots with low heels.

5. what is their zodiac sign?

Kyra’s self-assigned birthday is June 22nd, because she’s such a bleeding heart Cancer that I couldn’t not give her my own birthday.

6. what is their mbti type?

INFJ who tries really hard (too hard) to be INTJ.

7. what is their dnd alignment?

Flips between Lawful Good and Chaotic Good like nobody’s business. Like, normally has Resting Chaotic Good Face, but there’s moments where she springs right past Neutral Good right into Lawful Good (especially when civilians are in the picture).

8. are they more calculating or more sincere in their interactions with others?

Kyra hates how sincere she is in interactions with others. It’s unsafe, but she just cannot help herself in how sincere she is. But she’d hate herself more if she was more manipulative.

9. how honest are they?

Kyra’s as honest as she feels safe being. If she feels safe with a person, like one hundred percent safe, she’s an open book with very few secrets. But if she doesn’t feel safe with you for reasons (Julia: bad Re-Gene opinions and difficulty not charging into things, Chen: doesn’t know where he rests on the Lawful Good-Lawful Stupid line, Herald: unsure if he’s in love with her-her or an idea of her, Argent: “what even is your deal???”, Dr. Mortum: “you’re definitely lusting after Bruce, you’re a mad scientist for hire, I don’t even know how I can begin to trust you with more than I have”, Mia: “...my story would make you pretty famous if it didn’t make you super disappeared”, Anathema: didn’t have enough time to figure out how true the cheerful/joking mask was), she’s gonna keep some secrets.

10. are they a leader or a follower?

Kyra’s a cat, is how I’d answer this one. There’s times where she leads, blazing her own path and hissing at people who tell her otherwise, metaphorically (and rarely, literally) knocking things off desks for telling her what to do. But there’s also times where she’ll step back, let someone else lead because she knows she’s out of her depth or that she’s not in any actual position to lead or just doesn’t feel like it.

16. what is their best virtue?

Kyra’s best virtue is her patience. It can sometimes manifest as an over-patience or hesitation though.

17. what is their ultimate goal?

To reveal the truth in such a way that it tears down everything that was built by those who hurt her and are hurting so many other people with their lies and their facades. 

18. what is their greatest fear?

Hm. The idea that her personality, her “humanity”, the little things that make her her are fake. Pre-programmed. The like of cats, the touches of kindness, the empathy, the puns, the nicknames, petting dogs when their owners aren’t watching, the way the scar on her left hand itches whenever she’s stressed: that all of that is fake.

19. what scarred them the most about the heartbreak incident?

Remembering that she is an outsider who will truly never fully fit in. That those who know her know a constructed image of her, not dissimilar to the image built by those who hurt her for themselves. That if the people she cared about knew, that they’d leave her in an instant.