#anyway it links to an anon ask on a separate blog because i had gotten shy. the ability to send asks anonymously my beloved

[blaiddraws]

cute little drawing based on a dream i had! they're just. sillies. they're smiling and laughing and having fun and -- 😭 i just love them so much

[larriefails]

First off, I’m not a rad nor a larrie, I’m a louie who hates both. I was just commenting on that because I’ve been in the fandom since 2013 and the de facto leader comment not only came from the boys but also during a billboard interview. In the billboard interview, they highlighted how Louis was the one taking the business calls and talking to their team about certain things. Also it’s not completely impossible to believe that once the 1d train ran out the big producers/names didn’t care to +

Work with him, because he was no “harry styles” liam is the same he even said that Simon didn’t want him on his label as a solo artist despite him having a great rapport with him. But there were other times louis’ business contacts were brought to light such as when he went to the Brits in 2016 and a reporter commented on how he was constantly on his feet to greet big name record executives and businessmen. He has the connects in the business that’s all I was trying to state.

Look, 99% of the time when I reply to an anon “you sound like a conspiracy theorist” it’s not because I think they believe in Larrie or because they’re rads, it’s because they fucking reason like conspiracy theorists

And your reasoning here is just… conspiracy theory mess. I don’t care which parts of it you believe or not, I don’t care what your personal feelings on these specific sets of conspiracy theories are. It doesn’t matter, the point is that you’re reasoning like a conspiracy theorist

I was gonna put this in a separate post, but I think it fits here very well (I might still make a separate post about it who knows)

A few days ago, I saw this video on twitter of a woman talking about her own death like it was nothing in a very matter of factly way, wearing a wig and using a very funny tone. Someone in the replies linked to her IG page so I went to look at it, and when I saw comments telling her “thank you for accepting my follow request” I realized she was usually on private and I’d just been very lucky to find her profile to be open, so I followed her just in case with the intention of watching her funny videos later

Since she was a new follow she continuously appeared on my recent IG feed and I soon realized how relevant what she was saying was to my interests

This is the woman

One day she posted this, and my alarms went off

Let me clarify that I don’t care if she’s a professor or a therapist or not, I followed her because I thought she was funny and that she’d go on private soon, this was all a complete surprise to me. The DM rang close to home to me, seeing as I’ve read Larries for a while now, it was all too familiar, her reply was too

Then she posted this

Once again, I said it before and you can read it here X it doesn’t matter if she’s a professor or not, if their suspicions are real or not, if she’s lying or not, because going through UCLA’s professor roll call is a step too far, and confronting her about it, even more so. And the way she presents it.. she’s right. She just linked the website, she never claimed to work there. If you go to her page, she’s very careful with the information she provides, so the people that want to prove she’s lying have very limited resources. They go with the preconception that she’s lying so they try to find ways to prove their preconception

You have the preconception that Louis was the de facto leader of 1D, so you’re working your way backwards to prove it. You’re looking at bits and pieces of interviews that will prove your theory right, but that’s just not what reality is

“The de facto leader comment not only came from the boys” .. no it didn’t, though? They didn’t say this. Do you know where the “the boys say Louis is the leader” comments come from? Stuff like this

Context for that interview? The Hot Desk, August 2011 X

One Direction had exactly ZERO songs out, this interview was recorded before they even released WMYB. All 5 of them had written on 3 songs of their first album that would come out in November. Savan Kotecha was still running the show. Louis was still 19 and he hadn’t been in show business for a year. How much of a leader that conducted business meetings do you think he was? I’m not gonna watch the entire interview to see the context, but this is not Zayn saying Louis was the de facto leader, this is Zayn kidding

What to even say about this, which is from the video diaries in X Factor?

Or this?

What? No, no they’re not, like, they’re just not, they’re standing in a circle and looking forward

This is just ridiculous

Does the person that created this gif set not realize that this is the performance where Louis doesn’t sing at all? It’s Torn at judges’ houses. It’s infamous for the fact that only Liam Harry and Zayn sang. This is all for dramatic effect because X Factor was a reality show

Louis liking motivation chants means he’s the leader? That he goes to business meetings? I’m so confused

That’s not because “he’s the leader” that’s because he’s the class clown

If accepting an award means he’s the leader then I guess this meme fits 1D very well

They all accepted awards, Christ

Anyway….

And that’s an entire gif set that was solely engineered to show that Louis was the leader and that “the boys said so”…. but they actually didn’t? The only two times it comes up they answer jokingly and it’s before Louis could do anything remotely leader like. But that gif set is so popular, created by a Larrie but that spilled out to the general fandom enough that I saw it on my dash reblogged by non CT blogs X

And it created this notion among some people, especially those who have Louis as their fave, that the other members of 1D had in fact said that Louis was the de facto leader, when they didn’t. It’s conspiracy talk, scouring through hundreds of MILLIONS of milliseconds of footage to pick 9 of them and put them in a gif set to prove a point they’d already decided on

There are also three news articles linked (copying and pasting directly from the source, sorry for the weird formatting idk how to take it off)

1: That’s the number of hotel rooms in Mexico City used for dance rehearsals. The guys locked down a room for three hours. Louis took control of the rehearsals and even helped conceptualize some of the routine.

That’sabout 1D learning the choreography for Best Song Ever

How exactly does it prove that Louis is the de facto leader for him to take over 1 dance rehearsal when everyone in 1D had confessed they couldn’t dance a million times at that point? Louis had some musical theater experience, so that’s that..

Harry: Louis is still loud and mischievous - he likes to test the boundaries. He’s quite outspoken. You need someone like that, because he’s great at standing up for us as a band.

That’s perhaps the most “leader like” comment any of them have ever made about Louis, and it’s not really about him being a leader once you put it by itself instead of surrounding it by “look at all the times they said he was the leader,” right? It’s just more of a testament about the fact that Louis was louder than the rest, which we already knew. If someone had asked me six months into my journey in the fandom who I thought was the loudest in band meetings I would’ve said Louis. That doesn’t mean he’s the leader. A leader has SO many more characteristics than being loud and outspoken. In fact, a lot of leaders aren’t loud or outspoken at all

The last link they put is once again, what How I Met Your Mother explained as the cheerleader effect X which taken away from the time period sounds quite misogynistic but let’s not dwell on that. Basically, it’s when a group of women appear hot when they’re all together but not individually. When you have the gif set all together, it looks like “wow, these are hot arguments as to why EVERYONE thought Louis was the leader,” but look at them individually, see their context and they’re not as hot now, are they? Especially when you realize, once again, that these are very very small morsels of time taken from very very large portions. That’s how Larries operate

Several people in your management and inner circle have described you to me as the unofficial businessman or leader of the group. Is that a fair assessment? I’ve sometimes felt like that, but to be honest most of the time I’m the immature one who needs to be told to get focused. I’m a bit of a perfectionist so I have to be kind of be on board with every minor detail and [I’m] quite opinionated.

And that last link is also the Billboard interview you mention in your ask. Do you know when it’s from? December 2012. One Direction had just released Take Me Home, their second album, which according to the interview that Larries love the most to base their sabotage conspiracies, didn’t very much involve 1D’s input at all

Savan Kotecha: I think by album 3 (Midnight Memories), yeah, not all of them, there was definitely one or two-one especially-that was like, kind of bitter about the fact, that, you know

Ross Golan: They were a boyband?

Savan Kotcha: And he was not the talented one. He wasn’t the singer, and he wasn’t the star. And you know which one I’m talking about…

Ross Golan: Of course.

Savan Kotecha: And he then started having something against me and against that process, I think. And, you know, maybe we could have been more inviting in the creative process during album 2 (Take Me Home) and not been so…authoritative.

At that point, Louis STILL wasn’t in a position where he could really be the leader. None of them were because the creative process wasn’t inviting still. It wouldn’t be until the third album

The conclusion here isn’t that Louis isn’t outspoken, or that he didn’t care about business or that he didn’t defend the band, or that he didn’t want to write more, or that he didn’t want to make connections. No one here is arguing that he didn’t care at all or not giving him credit for anything. The point I‘ve been making for days now and that people don’t seem to get (one way or another, because I’ve gotten very unpleasant messages about how he’s not equipped to be a businessman and shit like that that I’ve just decided not to publish at all), is that things don’t have to be black and white

I don’t think ANYONE was the leader of 1D. I think that Louis’ personality made him stand out more in certain aspects (such as meetings with their team), and because people need to label everything all the time, instead of describing it as it was, it took the position of “de facto leader”

The problem here isn’t even that people believe he’s the de facto leader, that wouldn’t concern me at all in and of itself because who cares? It’s not hurting anyone… The problem is that it puts an excessive amount of weight on Louis’ shoulders, I also explained this. It’s this dichotomy of a person who basically carried the whole band during its five years but that also is completely defenseless and at the mercy of binding contracts to even choose the socks he wears

These sort of preconceptions aren’t harmful by themselves, they wouldn’t be harmful in a normal band. I wouldn’t have a problem with this preconception if Louis was Calum Hood and this was 5SOS, my problem is that this is One Direction and preconceptions and conspiracies have tormented these guys for YEARS. No conspiracy and no preconception is innocent, they all have to be dismantled, we have to examine EVERYTHING that leads to absolutes if we want a chance at healing the fandom, and I don’t mean the 1D fandom because that’s gone now, it’s never gonna heal, I mean Louis’ specifically

If we want a chance at him being left alone from Larries these things have to go. Stop seeing him as this commodity that you can just paint over and start seeing him as a person, not a caricature

That interview also doesn’t say anything about him taking any calls business or otherwise. I don’t think anyone has ever said it and I have no idea where it came from because I’ve found zero sources. The interview doesn’t mention him “talking about certain things“ either, it’s just what I pasted here. That’s all of it. Everything else comes from years and years of stretching this one question out of this one interview done when Louis was still 20 and 1D had less than 2 years in the music industry. It’s no exactly the smoking gun y’all think it is, guys. Same with the Savan Kotecha podcast

Then the rest of what you say is just noise, man. IDK what to tell you. It’s just noise. If Louis had ran the show BTS for five years, then he’d have access to the best producers and writers on speed dial, why would he not being Harry Styles hinder how he’s perceived by the people that work backstage? They’d recognize the person that was “the backbone of 1D” for who he is because those things spread in the business. If LOUIS said that wasn’t happening, then it’s because your preconception was wrong and you took a bunch of things out of context to create a “narrative” that simply wasn’t real. Louis was dedicated to the band and wanted to write for it and involve himself in the creative side and he GENUINELY WAS IMPORTANT for the band, but he wasn’t its backbone or its de facto leader

Simon didn’t wantt Liam on his label probably because he couldn’t afford him, btw. He decided to stick with Louis because they’ve been thick as thieves since 2014 and those contracts cost money and Syco is a very small label with very limited resources, so they couldn’t offer anything to more than one member. I’m  aware that I’m making assumptions here, but they very much align with reality, especially now that Syco lost so many other acts and now that Fifth Harmony disbanded and Syco landed only Lauren (Camila being like Zayn) and having to leave Ally, Dinah, and Normani go to other labels. That doesn’t mean they saw no value in them (in fact, I think Lauren is the one faring the worst), it’s just that they can only afford so much

And how much can you grin on one report written by the HUFFINGTON POST in 2016?X I’m talking about the “Louis hugged industry people that one time” comment you made. Once again, I’m not saying he doesn’t know anyone. I’m saying I BELIEVE WHAT HE SAYS. If he says he can’t easily get the producers and writers he wants, then I’m going to believe him. And that one report doesn’t really change anything for me. It’s, once again, very conspiracy theorist behavior to put more weight on an isolated report from an untrustworthy source three years ago than on Louis’ own words. If he really had enough reach to be friendly with everyone in the industry, then he’d be able to get any producer he wants

You can’t have this dichotomy that you present in this very ask of “they’re not picking up the phone because he’s Harry Styles” but he was the de facto leader of the biggest band on the planet for five years and everyone in the music industry knows him. It just doesn’t mesh together. You’re placing him in the same impossible position Larries are placing him and that’s harmful. He needs fans that see him as a person and you, I’m sorry to tell you, do not. You see him as a caricaturesque figure that can both be incredibly important and incredibly subjugated

“He has the connects in the business is all I was trying o state” 1. no that’s not all you were trying to state. 2. According to himself, he doesn’t have all the connects. He’s clearly close enough to be friendly with Rob Stringer, but that doesn’t mean that Rob Stringer will lift a finger for him and according to Louis, he’s not.. But that doesn’t mean that Louis can’t get ANYONE or that he’s being sabotaged. As always, truth lies somewhere in the middle. The only reason it’s harder to spot in this case is that people stretch it on every possible side so much

I know this is long as fuck and I probably lost any person that was willing to read my drivel in the first place, but I just really think it’s important that you start taking what LOUIS SAYS ABOUT LOUIS as fact, instead of twisting it around to present alternative facts that would present a reality that will please you more. It starts at “Louis was the de facto leader” and it ends as “he’s been faking fatherhood for three years and lied about his mother’s last few days” Sick..

[ask-shakespearehigh]

Q&A post with the Mods!!!!

This is going to be a long one oh boy

How strict is the delineation of creative control vis-a-vis characters/plays between the mods? (@pedanticlecturer)

We generally have the plays split up along lines of “what we know”— we have a list at the very beginning of the blog. Sometimes we’ll draw the others’ characters (mostly me drawing some of Star’s…) but even then the final say on characterization is up to the “main” mod for that play — mod aster

what aster said -- mod star

What is your favorite play? What is your favorite character in terms of how they were written in the source material? (@pedanticlecturer)

I think my favorite play overall is Macbeth, just because I like the vibes (and the fact that I too could kill Macbeth), the fact that you don’t say it’s name in theatres, and the fact that it’s a play I did a full read through and analysis of in class. Favorite character? Puck from Midsummer. — mod aster

uhhhh,, hmm. ive always had a soft spot for midsummer since i saw it with aster esp bc of how fun the costumes were. of the comedies it has the largest potential to be the most visually pleasing bc of the concept of fairies,,,and im gay and dramatic so i love that. id die if i got to costume design for midsummer,,,or be in it,,,yeah. fav character. hmm. probably mercutio?? i recently saw a version of romeo and juliet where mercutio was played by a woman and oh my god it was amazing!!! not to mention mercutio’s portrayal in baz luhrmann's INCREDIBLE version of r n j!!! (I based my mercutio design on him) he just spends the entire time making dick jokes. love that. -- mod star

How do you answer asks so fast? I mean it's great but I'm impressed 😂 (Anon)

Personally, it’s a mix of: notifications on, quick drawing speed, and using the blog to avoid my class work — mod aster

aster is fast and (as you can see from all of my answers) im lazey -- mod star

Are there any elements/characters of the plays you're covering that you would have liked to work into this blog's plot, but couldn't due to the constraints of the setting or the synthetic nature of the blog? (@pedanticlecturer)

I wanted to make everyone gay but unfortunately due to plot constraints we have to have some hets but that wont stop me from making it lgbt as possible. -- mod star

I did want to make The Tempest more of a central play, but it just didn’t translate well. Similarly, other supernatural elements like the witches in Macbeth. This isn’t so much a constraint mentioned, but my own time/energy means that I want to show the Macbeth backstory, in a specific format, but I can’t right now— mod aster

Is there a hierarchy of import when it comes to each play's individualized impact on shakespeare high's general arc? If so, what plays are crucial to the foundation of the story? Which ones did you do mostly for shits and giggles? (@pedanticlecturer)

This is phrased like an ACT question and i might not answer it right so sorry in advance but: mod aster and i only selected a few plays for each of us to do given we dont know all of shakespeare’s works, but we tend to put more emphasis on the the more well known. But it also comes down to 1. How much we have plotted out for each play and 2. What the followers ask about most. Our two most popular are hamlet and macbeth bc people are familiar w those but around march caesar always becomes relevant again. I didnt even have designs for some of the characters until someone asked about them. -- mod star

I would say the same as star— it generally comes down to what people ask about. I will say that the overall plot is sort of separated into “has happened” and “is happening”. Like, the human potion of Midsummer, Julius Caesar, and Macbeth are all in the “aftermath” portion, while Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet, among others, are happening. We’re trying to incorporate as much as we can, and I don’t think any of them were really put in without some thought.— mod aster

What personal significance does shakespeare hold in ur guys' lives? (@pedanticlecturer)

I go to a theater school rn and so ive dealt w shakespeare (although not all of them) it also helps that i was in loves labours lost last year as moth and that i read hamlet and r n j. Theres also a theater in my state that always does One Big Shakespeare per season and they always do them super well!!! My love for shakespeare probably started w seeing midsummer at that theater w mod aster!!! So. Theater kid rights!! -- mod star

To be honest, I got back into Shakespeare Because of the blog. I’ve been friends with some people that got really Pretentious about Shakespeare, and it kinda put me off of it. I did have a book of abridged plays (the plays’ plots written out in prose, basically) that I read as a kid, which is what got me into not only the plots of a lot of the plays, but also the idea of having them illustrated. And, same as star, the theater in state does the One Big Shakespeare— and they tend to do some really cool things with the costumes, setting them in diff time periods. I haven’t been able to see any lately since I’ve moved, but they still slap. — mod aster

🥰😘💙🥰🥰💜💟🥰I 😍💗💚😍😍LOVE🖤🖤 YALL ♥️♥️🧡💛💚💝❣️💕💘💖💗💓💞💝❤️💛💜 okay now i have a question i swear— how long have the two of you been doing art??? and what were your first shakespeare plays??? (@hellaghosts)

Uhh i started drawing when i was like idk 12 and i have the giant boxes of sketchbooks to prove it!!! I moved to digital art at abt 14-15 but mostly stayed traditional until this yr when i got a Neat New Tablet so some of my sketchbooks are sitting abandoned rip. My first shakespeare was either romeo and juliet or midsummer nights dream and i love both of them v much!!! I have a very old piece of art that i did for r n j for my freshman class assignment on it and it hasnt aged well alsdjfjafd circa 2016 i think??? -- mod star

Oh man. I started drawing when I was about 10, but it was Bad. I don’t think I got much into drawing again until I was about 14? Sometime around the end of middle school/beginning of high school. I would say I started getting into drawing as more than doodling/coloring edits sometime around 2015-16? I would draw on my iPad with my finger, then I got a tablet for my computer, and now I pretty much stick to my iPad with an Apple Pencil. My first Shakespeare play was….. uh…… probably Midsummer???? I have No idea. We would go to plays when I was little, so I honestly don’t remember if I saw others before. It may have been Romeo and Juliet— I had that book where it was the original and the “modernized” with the little dog that explained things— which, if you know it makes sense, but if you don’t is probably a bonkers answer. — mod aster

Do you think this blog has like? An overarching thesis (be it b/c intentionally or simply b/c ur own take on the world has bled thru to the point where u believe it’s central to the piece at this point)? (@pedanticlecturer)

Not gonna lie, I had to read that like three times AND dm you to figure out what you were asking from us and all I have is “be gay, respect women, write your own happy endings”. — mod aster

This blog started with an ides of march shitpost and you think we have enough brain energy to write a whole thesis? I projected feelings of found family onto my half of the blog but idk if that counts. Be gay do crime 420 69 -- mod star

What’s the nature/rough dynamic of ur relationship? How do y’all know each other? (@pedanticlecturer)

Met mod aster when i was like 4 and even tho we didnt live close we became like, best friends although the Best part didnt start until we were like 13-ish and eventually we talked like non stop (about anime and homestuck. Yknow. 13 year old kid things) and we didnt see each other a lot bc of Distance and now its even worse bc aster is in colleg.,e but we consider each other siblings regardless of family bc we’re adopted into our own respective families so that bled over into our friendship and it would feel weird calling him anything other than my brother now. We’ve seen each other at our best and worst and if you really want a good insight on what we’re like as siblings watch griffin and justin mcelroy’s overview video of catlateral damage wherein i am griffin and he is the long suffering justin. -- mod star

Star is basically my long distance sibling and functionally the only cousin I recognize bc like their parents are basically an aunt and uncle and like our dads look enough alike that we’ve both accidentally gotten the wrong dad for a hug or similar so like. Anyways yeah Star is the Griffin to my Justin, complete with our absent middle brother who we love dearly— mod aster

Dubiously relevant q but what kind of music do y’all listen to when u do art (if that is indeed a habit either of u partake in) (@pedanticlecturer)

It can depend on the piece? I was working on some (unrelated) oc prints that were song-focused, and for those I just listened to said song on loop. Sometimes I have playlists. Sometimes I’ll just be in a Mood and throw a song on loop. But a lot of time for the blog, I’ll listen to The Adventure Zone for the billionth time, because I have Too Much Attention. I’ve also, on request from Star, linked the most recent “loop song”.— mod aster

I tend to obsess over the same like 3 songs every few weeks so those get listened to on repeat but it also depends on the tone of what im drawing or who im drawing i might genre switch bc of that. If im drawing ophelia i stick to lana del rey and if im drawing hamlet its the neighborhood, horatio is sufjan stevens etc. i have categorized,. Most of the characters i draw into different songs/genres/energies of music but not like i ever follow that. Sometimes i just pull up a really long nonsense video and forget to draw. Essentially: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -- mod star

How’d y’all come up with ur pseudonyms? (@pedanticlecturer)

I love space so much and my main blog is starryeydsailor space gay rights!! Im also tiny and full of energy and bright so basically i;m star -- mod star

Uhhhh i was like “hey i want to do uhhhhhh flower?” And then I google searched flower names until I found one I liked —- mod aster

How did you end up deciding the rough timeline of events in canon? (@pedanticlecturer)

It’s mostly determined by like. How we choose per story? If that makes sense. Like, we just take story by story, and decide “is it happening, has it happened, and when?” And then we fit them together in relation to each other just by dint of. All existing at once. Like, I knew I wanted Macbeth to be in aftermath, because like, even though there’s no murder, the way I’ve translated it to the AU is still kinda heavy, and it’s something that I don’t know that I could do properly if it were happening right now. Also, it’s more interesting IMO to have them at different times. Tl;dr we wing it per story and slot them together— mod aster (mod star agrees I just can word better, in theory)

If you could tell the story of shakespeare high in a different format than an ask blog, would you? Obviously y'all are making very good use of the format, but would you want to write this as a animated series or like? a comic book? or is the form inseparable from the story? (@pedanticlecturer)

I kinda wanted to do a webcomic or maybe to plot develop through like, animatics but the element of surprise comes from the asks we get and really makes us think so the blog is a good start. We didnt think we’d get this far -- mod star

Pretty much what Star said— there are certain elements where it’d be neat to do as a comic or as an animatic. Like, the fantasy dream is like, an anthology webcomic of each story, where you can like, see other characters in the background and stuff. But to be honest, we develop a lot by what we’re asked— there was a post about developing worldbuilding by being asked questions and then pretending you’ve thought about the answer, and it’s not far off. Personally, it’s hard to just lay out a story, because I have a whole WORLD and what’s relevant? What are people interested in? It’s by getting questions that I can then focus in on an area to develop. And yeah, we Super didn’t think we’d get this far lmao — mod aster

Any headcanons about your characters that you don't think will ever come up on the blog through asks or plot posts? (@pedanticlecturer)

I could make a whole separate post for this!!!!! Mostly its voice headcanons (and by mostly i mean like 1 or 2) or relationship hcs!!!! -- mod star

Honestly same. I don’t think I have voice headcanons for mine, though I bet I could find some. I’ve got a bunch of miscellaneous headcanons that just kinda float around, but like they’re scattered, too numerous for this post, and also not always things I’m sure are canon yet.— mod aster

[its-morphin-time-xiv]

TBH, I've always wanted to RP with your Belladonna, she seems interesting,but for quite some time now I've never been able to figure out who, or what, she is? I see a lot of what I'm guessing is the power rangers, as aesthetic posts and I've been trying to figure out how that would apply to FFXIV and its lore? I'm not accusing you of lore breaking, and even if you were it's your choice to play how you want! I'm merely just curious how she fits into the FFXIV world and what she is about. Help me?

Hello Anon! I’m actually really glad you asked, I know with how vague the blog itself is in regards to everything like who, or what she is. And quite frankly, Tags on posts aren’t helping either. The concerns or at the very least, curiosity in regards as to how “Power Rangers” fits into FFXIV Lore and the universe itself are entirely understandable, and I’m always more than willing to explain the reasoning as to why its here, or even how!

I’m more than willing to help explain things in a more clear and concise manner, now with that, please bear in mind that this post might be a touch lengthy, but I hope you understand and that this isn’t something that can be explained with full-clarity without getting down and dirty. I hope that by the end of it, some of the fog has been cleared! So without further ado… Let’s get started, shall we?

I’ll go ahead and place everything I’ve got under the cut, I hope you enjoy it!

–

I suppose we can start from the beginning and that, Bella, the initial character concept was created about… maybe two years ago. Three technically if you just count how long this blog has been standing. Initially, Bella is (was) a Thavnairian blooded hyur. Or rather, for a bit more clarification, is from an Island near Thavnair that could be and is considered part of the island.

Now that we’ve gotten an… okay grasp as to how long I’ve been working on this, we can properly start with things, like where she’s from, then we’ll move from there!

If I could place it on the global map we’ve been given of three continents it would be placed around here, right under the span of clouds within the red circle. 

Around there is a fairly good estimate of where I’ve placed the island she’s from, that island being “Gisana” (Yeah, totally original with names, i’m great.) [Not Really] Now, Gisana borrows very basic culture concepts of what Thavnair is, I use Morocco mixed with my own culture, which is Filipino. It’s bit of a homebrew, yes. I take influences from what we know, what we’ve been given, then I slip my own to fill in what gaps I need filled, if that makes any sense. 

Now, the island itself is a moderate size, nothing too extreme or anything like that. If anything? It’s about the size of one of the islands there, circled in blue. The island is surrounded by a maelstrom of whirlpools and actual maelstroms due to the unfortunate blend of the waters of The Bounty, and the Dorvos Narrow. Those two create fairly poor conditions for an island’s existence, so much so that the island lays in the ‘eye’ of an ever churning storm. 

Something I could equate it to visually, was the storm that surrounded Skull Island in the newest King Kong movie. (If you’ve ever seen that, it’s pretty cool). 

The storm itself on the outside and within the clouds were extremely rough, but any sailor with an actual heading and idea of how to travel through the treacherous waters or pilot grave enough to fly the hurricanes could make it through no problem. But solely due to that, this island gets left off the map fairly frequently, which is why it’s counted as nothing in particular outside from just a natural disaster waiting to happen.

Now the reason why the storm remains seemingly like a permanent constant is due to the fluctuations of the aether in the environment, being so turbulent and visceral. Far more than unmanageable than that of Eureka (The Isle of Val) [At least I think that’s what it was called]. 

Due to the fluctuations, the veil between this realm and the Void is thin, very much like how Eorzea is, except on a much more smaller yet just as dangerous scale of that. This meaning, that incursions of the void are more frequent on the island itself and solely on the island (not counting the water of course). 

That’s unfortunate for the inhabitants of the island, which Belladonna was one of them, as a child anyways. Now that’s essentially the ‘Fanon’ locale of where the Rangers essentially originated from. 

But not quite yet of where a Ranger comes from, per se. In order to do that, I’ll need to divert our attention back to the island, just a little bit. The Island has been present and weathered the passing of the Astral and Umbral eras ever since the age of Allag. And the people of the island have, through this time collected themselves and united to create one settlement, one city for themselves since they could not bear to leave their island home in the state it is. (That and the storm’s a thing too).

While forging themselves a forever home, they raised walls to keep the demons at bay and away from their people. But walls alone do not protect a fortress, so sometime ago, two of the most brilliant minds there sought to create a tool, a weapon, or even a shield of sorts to defend against the darkness that clawed at their doorstep. 

Now I mentioned that the island had been present since the fall of Allag, the “Tek” that the Rangers used are extremely basic in comparison as to what the old Empire had, but it uses old plans and even ideas that they could and would have used back then. Now, I say this because, Nero has a magitek transformation, and Gaius has a powered up transformation too! That only seemed to bolster my idea that or at the very least influence to m that the notion of ‘magitek morphers’ could and would be feasible. 

With this in mind and using it as my springboard, I use it to essentially state that the “Morphers” that they use are inherently modified Allagan devices if not further worked with and attuned for the uses that are needed, in regards to Gisana and it’s constant demon plight. 

Thusly, Ranger (suits) are created via the Morpher itself, first designed outside by an armorer, then the device essentially borrows the design/uses the armor itself and “stores” it within the device. Sort of like Aetherial de-materialization and re-materialization on the spot, via commands of magick incantations and actual magitek innerworkings. Alternatively, you could describe it like they would use a separate method entirely, like how Allagan teleportation nodes work, and it just gets -teleported- onto your person. Either one works honestly but it gets pretty… mumbojumbo at this point, but it’s a fair explanation on things, at least it is from my perspective. 

If that isn’t necessarily as clear as needed, I can further branch upon it, please let me know!

My idea for a city within a wall and the darkness beyond that was pretty inspired by The Last City in Destiny, while the island secluded away, only by natural disaster means was a mix of “Themyscira” and “Wakanda” but also “Skull Island”. More predominantly the latter most than the foremost.

The magitek morphers are also powered by not Ceruleum, but of crystals, more so hypercharged ones. (I am keenly aware of how dangerous that could be in a character/ situation.) But they’re handled on such a far and infantismal level that most characters hardly have to deal with it save for the scientists and Belladonna herself. Crystal shards get reduced and refitted down to be the size of a coin, a “Power Coin”, as it were. Much like how Power Rangers Zeo, Megaforce, Dinocharge, Dinothunder and Lost Galaxy exhibit their Ranger powers and the like. 

I like Lost Galaxy because they use ‘beast spirits’ along with crystals. I akin those to soul essences that are also required to properly use a Ranger’s armaments 

I hope its been clear, or at least a bit more digestible with this explanation! We’ve still got a little more!

So, lorewise this sits a bit snug in with essentially backdrop and background happenings that weren’t really… significant to anything stated already on the timeline. As the Eras passed, the island suffered, but still most encounters go unnoticed or unrecorded at all do to the hostile nature of the island’s environment surrounding it? Or the denizens within the water below. The island itself could and would become what essentially amounts to sailor’s tales, mysteries and myths you’d hear in passing at your sea-side Tavern. 

Sort of like tales of colorful beings in shimmering lights fighting harrowing beasts countless times. Stuff like that! 

Now, let’s take this back to our girl!

(Sorry, I just really love this picture.)

From here and below, if I can recall some writing that could pertain and assist with a bit more contextual understanding, I’ll make sure to link it with bold letters to identify!

But yes, as I stated prior, Bella is a character concept that’s been growing and evolving over the course of the past two years since her first… ‘creation’, in a sense. I suppose its also very important to note that much of her story is very much ‘The past doesn’t stay dead’ kind of thing. Some reading may or may not have figured that from my previous drabbles regarding Belladonna. Essentially, Belladonna, herself has been present and around for a long time now. Fifty or so years at the moment, regarding the Game’s Lore Timeline. 

That being, from an ooc standpoint, I  would run into… rather serious hurdles, regarding my personal life, and to cope, a new concept would be formulated. But I already have trouble playing more than one alt, in regards to RP, i am… poor at attempting it, but I am working on getting better at that. And so, at the time, Balmung was already locked forever™. And I truthfully only had one character to play for a long time. So instead of re-rolling my character and essentially ‘stranding’ myself as it were in regards to RP, I would.. just insert another chunk onto Bella’s timeline. If that makes sense. 

While yes, that is a poor maneuver some might say, it’s helped me, in all truthfulness create very memorable moments.  But that wouldn’t be without my friends who accept my ideas openly, without them? I might not even have this blog anymore. 

But anyways, before I get too far off-topic; Belladonna is a woman who has had a lot of history happen, solely through the past. And what you see now, are mostly new developments and new experiences. I guess you could say, a woman out-of-time, as a possible explanation. 

This, however doesn’t explain why she’s an elezen, and not a hyur, as she started, or even why I refer to her as “Mutant” in my writings a lot. You might be sighing and rolling your eyes, but please allow me to explain just a little bit longer. 

At her very core, she is still a ‘hyur’. But the reason she is an elezen now, is due to a unfortunate mishap during one of her adventures in which a voidal summoning turns hectic as a Succubus sought to inhabit Bella’s body. Her aether signature already being in turmoil and a rough state in general due to an Imperial sub-project that she subjected herself to in order to.. “keep up” and “combat” the things she fights with her comrades in arms.

She happened upon a very small trace and trail of the Empire’s workings through connections she had gained while living in Kugane and of her own brief Imperial service. 

The end result of the use of said ‘project’ gave Bella more drawbacks than features. Having lost all sense of pain, she can push past her would-be limits, even if it means self-harm. Her body wasn’t attuned or conditioned to any capacity for it to handle the testing done, so she now suffers a biological and ‘aetherial’ mutation. Since the project itself deal with matters of using Voidblood and essence to infuse Imperial conscripts / criminals with it for further service of the Imperial Banner. 

Learning to live with these new changes, such as biologically having.. a new spine extending from where your old one, being shorter, looking like wade wilson /after/ project x –

– like that, only y’know… “prettier” and with hair. Mildly like a mix of both Wade Wilson and Marrow, if you’ve ever seen them.

I don’t believe there’s any right to call it living, rather than just calling it suffering, because that’s truly what it was. She received extreme chronic pain from her mutations, and.. essentially she wanted an “out”. This was around the time she started really going back to her roots, her roots being… “Rangers”, and the island. 

Slowly, in time, despite the rather… negative results she had been given during her time home in an attempt to “cure” herself. And.. possibly to a degree, she got better. 

With her already weakened state, she looked to intense and darker means to try and find a way to rid herself of her “problems”. This eventually leading to the summoning and the disasters that came swiftly after. The Succubus, seeing her would-be host in no suitable condition to survive, took liberties and adjusted Bella to her liking. After all.. this is a succubus. The change itself was gradual, a hex on a very slow burn after the situation was resolved, albeit messy. 

Slowly she’d see height differences, skin cleansing but some things don’t go away, like the spine. That would learn to stay and not all of her wounds and scars from testing would disappear completely. So she sought after an ink artist, giving her tattoos that coincided along with her scars, some even masking out the worse ones. 

And now, she looks the way she looks. Tall, and a bit more happy too. 

—

Final Fantasy XIV’s Lore leaves a lot to be user interpreted, even with lorebooks being published. And with the Allagan empire and dark magicks abound, there’s still… lots of room to leave up and open to people to have some creative fun and freedom with. 

Knowing this, and using this, and even using the lines from the book(s) themselves, we can come up with amazing stories and do amazing things. All while still being.. in the relative realm of ‘grounded’ to its roots. 

[Here’s a link to her about page as well on her tumblr]

Belladonna Slater is a very… complicated character, she strives to learn her place in the world once more but also sees the past calling back to her to be a “Hero” again, hero being a very loose term now since she has grown from lawful neutral to that more of a chaotic neutral in response to just about everything that has happened to her.  

But I hope that.. me writing this as an answer to your ask, Anon, that this helps clear the air, if by only a little as to worries and or questions you had. I’d also like to note that this isn’t a complete character breakdown, there are still at least one or two elements of her ‘story’ that could be branched upon and explained if asked. 

If you’d like to know about them, you’re more than welcome to ask me, either through Tumblr inbox for the sake of anonymity or even in Tumblr DMs, Discord is also an option as well. 

I also do have a document that I have written out in regards to Ranger Corps. I can leave that in a link here below as well. However: The document itself hasn’t been edited or revised since May of this year, 2018. So there are revisions and slight edits to be made. I just haven’t sat down with the time to do it yet. But let it not discourage you from reading! 

Ranger Corps - Documents and Information 

Anon, I do hope this writing, both the answer to your ask and this document have been able to assuage some of your worries, or curiosities, rather. And if there is anything else from you, specifically, or from anyone else for that matter, that would like to know more, or have a specific question?

You are more than welcome to come and ping me for a conversation! 

I love being able to talk to new people, and well… I hope you’d like to talk to me too!

Thank you for your curiosity and question, Anon. 

I hope I was able to help.

– M