#do i have an actual plot idea? absolutely not

[your-reference-here]

Okay, I know I already reblogged this, but my brain has been absolutely gnawing on this AU's possibilities so I had to write some of my ideas down.

Boq is definitely the DM. He seems like the kind of guy who would have gotten into the game back home and then brought it to Shiz. He tries for weeks to get Galinda to play, but it's not until he mentions it to Nessa, who then mentions it to Elphaba, who THEN mentions it to Galinda that a game comes together. Fiyero tags along too because he's curious...or at least that's what he says. It's not until they actually arrive at their session zero character creation that he rolls up with a fully prepared character sheet and they all realize "oh this guy knows this game."

Here's what I think everyone decides to play:

Galinda = College of Glamour Bard. I put this in my original reblog and I'm sticking with that. The whole subclass just feels like it was made for her.

Elphaba = Wild Magic Sorcerer. I was torn on whether Wild Magic or Divine Soul would be her subclass, but thinking it over more I've decided to say fuck it, give her the Wild Magic Sorcerer build because it fits thematically and because its shenanigans are fun. In universe, my excuse is Boq suggested choosing options that they could relate to as a first time player, so there you go.

Nessa = Order Domain Cleric. In my head, Boq mentions that cleric is his favorite class, so Nessa decides to explore those options. Something about the Order Domain just speaks to her...maybe it's the desire for some control over her own life, maybe it's a dark foreshadow of who she will become later. But who's looking into it that deeply?

Fiyero = Cavalier Fighter. He just wants to kick ass on a horse. It's also a nice way to uphold a "knight in shining armor" appearance for his peers. Galinda loves it, while Elphaba just rolls her eyes and calls him out for being a horse boy.

The first game is a simple fetch quest that quickly goes off the rails. This isn't unusual as far as D&D goes, but it does escalate to a loud enough volume that the crew gets kicked out of the library and has to find another spot to play. This could be a number of places, but I like to think Doctor Dillamond is kind enough to allow them access to his classroom, mostly to keep them all out of trouble and because of his soft spot for Elphaba (he's happy to see her making friends and joining in whatever this strange social club is). His only request is that whatever mess they make is cleaned up before the first class the following day. It's very close once or twice.

Now, in terms of how our cast actually are as players...

Galinda is the confused enthusiast who has no idea what she's doing but is going to do everything with an air of exaggerated flair. This results in her being the unintentional button pusher/trap trigger-er/the one the party is constantly yelling "NO!" at a second too late. Somehow, she always manages to pull through whatever mess she is in or has gotten the entire party in, mostly because she's able to gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss everyone else, including the DM, on a whim.

Elphaba is a born rules lawyer who comes to the game having memorized all her spells and abilities, only to find herself consistently exasperated by Galinda's choices and/or fighting with Fiyero who knows the game so well that he's found countless loopholes to exploit. She does end up having fun but hoo boy does she come close to magically throwing a book at someone's head on multiple occasions.

Fiyero is just vibing and, though he won't admit it out loud, is genuinely having a good time with these people and it's the happiest he's been in a long time.

Nessa is the only one trying to keep the party on track with the plot for Boq's sake, who is beginning to question bringing this particular group of people together.

UPDATE: I just saw the spellbook again in the artwork and was like "shit that's really a wizard thing to have a spellbook" and then I remembered the beauty of the multi-class, so my solution is that Elphaba decides to multi-class later on into a School of Transmutation Wizard.

dnd au request

[cokoakeostuff]

AHH Your AU is AMAZING I love it SO MUCH you art style is absolutely BEAUTIFUL(but goodness, that must take a while, your lines are so clean and you coloring is absolutely beautiful, how do you shade so well??? Especially the shiny metal?? Teach me your ways???) also Expressions!!!! They're amazing!! You draw the characters with such personality and emotion, their expressions are so life like they're so beautiful!!(again, how????)

Plot Plot Plot Plot I love botw/totk so much I'm so glad that's where they are/what they're dealing with, I've been playing totk and it's such a fun/confusing game I can't wait to see where this all goes

anyway thank you so much for creating this AU I'm already 100% invested and I can't wait to see what happens!!!

Also have a little minish, he thinks you're amazing too!

THANK YOU really! and yeah it takes a while, only the lineart took me like 22h lol, but I really enjoy making it so it’s absolutely worth it! even more because of sweet comments like yours fr

And metal must be my favorite thing to render, it has immaculate beauty and Its actually so easy to do, I probably should make a little tutorial later because it’s so easy so easy to achieve that effect! (just look at that, metal i love u)

also istg that I would rather eat my toe than drawing expressionless art, it’s just one of y favorite things to do, like i live for that so u have no idea how much I like that kind of compliments, jiggling and kicking my feet.

Again thanks, i already have the storyboard for the next chapter! it’s kinda short but it’s what i can do atm, have a little minish too! u surely r amazing

[recurring-polynya]

did i just screenshot this post, make a new document in my WIPs folder and paste it there? yes, i did. dammit, @zabiume

[constelationprize]

Thinking many many thoughts about how Jean was Riko's partner for a YEAR and was still rooming with Goon #3. Because that was how unwilling Riko was to let go of Kevin. And how that implies that Jean was placed as his partner both because of the practicality of Kevin being gone AND as a punishment for letting him go in the first place. Being partners with Jean could actually slow Riko down depending on how often he's hurt (because I don't think Riko was all that exempt from the rules to the point where his partner's performance would completely not matter) and he was still placed there. Riko was just THAT angry at him over Kevin's escape. And all the while he was keeping Kevin's side of room like an altar, even back when he didn't even think Kevin could PLAY, because of an injury he caused.

[squiddviscous]

Rereading the manga at the moment and there's two things that I've noticed about Maxwell (that do not make him less of a villain, just an even more tragic one).

First, not only does he seem to have been quite publicly losing the plot for so long that no one in their right mind could have seen fit to just hand him an army and a green light to do whatever the fuck he thought best without expecting something to go as it did, but also some of the early scenes with him discussing plans with Anderson and the Pope seem pretty much like the Vatican, if not exactly planned for him to attack England, weren’t too bothered if he did.

Which makes his very young appointment as Iscariot leader make a bit more sense. He’s shown as being bright, but by no means brilliant, and there are clearly others just as ruthless but a bit more level-headed than him who could have done the job (Makube is older than him). So my new headcanon is that he was probably groomed for the position from very early on, so that Iscariot could be lead by someone who was prepared to do something others wouldn’t (and that they couldn’t dirty their own hands by asking him to do), but was so isolated from anyone who cared about him, and from such ‘sinful’ origins that if and when he did do those things that they couldn’t directly order him to, they could easily wash their hands of him and come across blameless themselves.

Second, for being such a fanatic, he doesn’t actually seem particularly religious. This is me headcanoning again, but if he does actually believe in a God, then he hates him (like he hate everything else, himself and Anderson included). When he dies, he talks about having always been alone, which is at odds with the idea of God being with or loving him, that you’d expect to be something he feels if he truly does believe. So rather than being a genuine fanatic, it seems more like he’s just utterly, utterly misanthropic and disappointed in God (and thinks somehow he could do a better job).

I also get this impression from the way he acts earlier in the manga – gleefully pointing out the Vatican’s hypocrisy to Integra like some kind of teenage edgelord and having Heinkel kill that other bishop for defending them aiding Millenium. He really does just feel contempt for absolutely everything (self included).

Yknow. I think that Enrico Maxwell doesn't get enough attention in the hellsing Fandom, because he's one of the most fascinating tragedies in hellsing.

He's introduced as an arrogant prick with clear malice for Integra, but there's so much to that interaction that can be read into.

Because you have such minimal backstory that tells the whole story. As a child, Maxwell asks Anderson if he was no longer wanted because he was a bastard; Maxwell is a child of infidelity, and it's very clear that he was reminded of that consistently, during his formation years.

Mind you, he's around 10-12 when he's given up, which means he spent all of his formative years in an abusive home, implied to be neglectful and verbally abusive. He clearly blames himself for the abuse, considering how determined he is to "make his parents regret giving him up". This leaves room for so much interpretation, and it seems that he believed wholeheartedly that he was the problem, he wasn't enough, he wasn't good enough... as a child.

He's shown to have an almost immediate mood swing when meeting Integra. From an attempt to be amicable to immediate hostility when her reaction isn't mirroring his, so he goes to mirror the hostility that he personally sees. He is incredibly reactive as an adult, when as a child he was quite apathetic in most cases, or downright stubborn and resentful. Really think about his reactions to things, with such immediate mood changes, swinging wildly from amicable to cruelty right back to amicable; he's responding to what he sees.

There really is so much to analyze with him because there's so much substance within the little interactions he has. Because he's gone from an adult child to a childish adult and that is something that I'm so fascinated with because THERE'S SO MUCH MORE TO HIM THAN IS GIVEN CREDIT FOR

[michaeljoncarter]

sorry, i'm still hung up on how bad the writing for sarevok was in bg3. it's not even just "he's so out of character!!" bad. that is just straight up not him. literally who is this man, what the hell is he talking about, and what has he done with the actual sarevok because nothing he says makes ANY sense like....

just as one example of how wild the contradictions/retcons are, this is how bg3 has him recount his resurrection in bg2 -

and this is (parts of) how it actually happened -

like??? it's so bad and weird and dumb and for WHAT???

[newgfblogontheblock]

@mrscaracal

Hmm, I dont have anything thats too coherent without a hefty amount of organized context (That of which I do not have at the moment- At least in art or anything drawn other than some doodles) But I do have stuff in my notes app !!

—

“There was. A lot that happens after. This is when Stan gets thrown out, duffel bag and all. Ford says to go to the Stan O’ War (tears in his eyes, he’s terrified), and Stan understands.

— Ford leaves with a spare duffel bag across his chest and dried blood under his nose and more bruises than he cares to admit when he crosses Filbrick again

“You stop being my son if you walk through that door.”

“No one would want to be your son anyways.” “

—

Again, out of context but its great honestly-

[lloydfrontera]

tfw when you write an entire novel with two protagonists that spent the entire plot getting closer to each other, becoming best friends and eventually both of them deciding they would rather die than allow the other to not live a long, fulfilling life, their friendship carrying most of the emotional weight of the entire plot and the emotional climax being one of them sacrificing his life so the other can live and then the other crossing literal universes to find him, a tearful smile in his face as he confesses how much he missed him. which is the scene you wanted to write and show the most because, again, this is the pay off to the slowburn you've been writing in the entire novel and what everything has been building up to since the very first chapter. and then you end the novel by having them share a smile, finally confident they'll be able to have a happy future.

but you also just gotta have one of them marry offscreen because everyone knows you can't be happy if you're not in a het marriage with kids lmao it's whatever it's okay i'm fiNE-

[maliciousalice]

Hear me out (or don't... it's fine I'm just venting and mean) yeah um I don't believe Chakotay was saved in Prod*gy s2.

[firefl1ezz]

i just. hit s+ rank in splatoon and i never honestly thought this would happen?? am i cool now.. do i get to be a part of the s4? do i get to be watered down to my running joke all the time?

[jeremiahthefroge]

Every appearance of the red-haired menace that is early Laurence forces me to sit here and stew upon how I will fix his introduction in the rewrite. As a coping mechanism. Unfortunately since I can't remember the parts where his character isn't just harassment so I can't cook with the themes the way I'd like to. Like the way he calls Aph "my love" after she very explicitly in the text of the game tells him not to do that... bad vibes. I think I could rock with his character if he'd done the same sort of approach in hitting on Aphmau as heavily, but the moment she lays down an actual boundary, he backs way the hell off. I could even fuck with her trying to be subtle about the boundary and him not getting it and continuing to make her uncomfortable before she snaps at him and he apologizes, saying that he truly didn't mean anything by it, and he respects the boundary she lays like his life depends on it from then on out. It would create some immediate complexity in his need for explicit communication, and backs up the sort of deeper character hinting they seem to try to do when he's talking about Castor and Cadenza, this idea that he deeply cares, if being a bit pushy on accident. It would also make a good detail fueling the conflicts later on with the love triangle that can sort of prevent Laurence from looking like TOO much of a dickhead (him being unaware or misinterpreting situations, and the delicate nature of it making him uncomfortable asking questions, is a compelling reason to see somebody hurting his friends' feelings, and makes him significantly more sympathetic, opening him up for feelings of remorse and guilt).

[ultfreakme]

Okay so.....this is complicated. I'd like to start off by saying, firstly, we are all allowed to write what we please, but we do not hold sway over how art we create is received. Second, there are distinctions in how different art is perceived and the responsibility this art has towards people. Third, all art is political. Fourth, specific to this post, what does "evil" mean in fiction and how does it relate to reality?

You are absolutely free to write a Horde Lord AU! What you include in this up to your judgement and your vision for this. The reason people are often much more critical of original media like Arcane is because of the thing I said in the second point where different art has different levels of responsibility and distinctions in perception.

Fanfiction is fairly niche. You may opt out of reading it if you'd like, there is no pressure to read. But a mainstream show like Arcane is advertised frequently, you really can't avoid or ignore it the way you would a fanfiction. Arcane also has large social impacts. It has kickstarted new forms of drawing and animation, and its storytelling toolkit has been further utilized by others.

The medium is important here, because large-scale corporations and companies can use things like Arcane to push specific messaging and propaganda. We all obviously show our politics to SOME extent in our art, it's impossible to extricate that, but individuals such as fan creators don't have similar influence so even if a fic writer writes something super "problematic", it's fine, because it's an individual creator putting out their art without any urgency for the general population to see it or endorse it. This is important because art can and often has been used to influence political opinions, specifically by corporations.

This difference in the ways in which fanfiction and original media affects the world, and our reaction to story elements in it is because of the above points.

So, yes you can make your lesbians as evil as you want. But a lesbian character in a fanfiction killing everyone and idk, torturing or SA'ing someone would be fine. But put that on the big screen and people will have obvious criticisms because media has often portrayed lesbians as predatory, which in turn propagates lesbophobia. We need to keep in mind this gap.

Now in Arcane, Caitlyn is a cop. She's actually head cop and there are scenes of her brutalizing poor people and their neighbourhoods by gassing them. Her girlfriend Vi is from these poor neighbourhoods, and Caitlyn has told her to her face something along the lines of "your blood makes you as horrible as your sister"(she also once called Vi's people "animals"). Now in fanfiction, this would be questionable but if a reader is uninterested they can just leave if they disagree with this kind of a plot line. It doesn't affect anyone, it doesn't cause waves in pop culture, etc.

But Arcane is HUGE. So if a Cop Character is calling people animals, gassing them, hitting their s/o and they still get their s/o with a happiy ever after and no repercussions- it is deeply political. Defense of Caitlyn for the above actions has stirred a huge wave of racism against a Black character and his VA. People are speaking in rhetoric defending police brutality. The show also neglects prison abuse and SA by ignoring Vi's trauma from being falsely imprisoned.

ALL of these decisions are deeply political when coming from corporation creating a story specifically to sell and audience a product(Arcane as the show, League of Legends as a game). This was not created with the mindset of a singular individual going "what if I explore this idea?" it is a large entity pushing a certain messaging to convince a large audience of a very specific rhetoric.

This is why it's important to be careful and thoughtful to some extent when creating things. Obviously that doesn't mean there is no place for "problematic" or "evil" art, it's just, be aware of the things your art is gonna say. AO3 has a tagging system so we can all go into it with awareness.

And, the idea of "evil". So fictional evil and irl evil are obviously very different. Characters get leeway so long as their story is done well. Irl, murdering hundreds would be bad, but in fiction, no one would care. But, if in fiction a character tortures someone or is a pedophile, people would generally have the same amount of hatred and disgust for the character as an irl person who's done the same. Why? Why do we have these distinctions in crime? That's also deeply political and important to dissect.

Violence has been normalized in media and death as a concept holds different weight in fiction. SA and such are portrayed consistently as horrible and evil, and the nature of these crimes in relation to people vary. Fantasy killing with a giant laser beam or a cool sword is distinctly removed from reality and you can suspend disbelief and that gut reaction people have.

SA, torture, etc, are depicted with a lot more real life connections and thus it feels impossible to separate it from our sentiments in reality.

This is also what happened with CaitVi. Police brutality as it is depicted in Arcane has been inspired by real life police brutality. They used pictures of protests in recent years as references for drawings, and imprisoned the characters in the protests. CaitVi is a harrowingly realistic depiction of a cop character being abusive towards an S/O. In a Horde Lord AU, Catradora are in outer space on a distant planet with magic-tech weapons. SPOP carefully depicts its violence as distantly from reality as possible. CaitVi, does not, and on top of that it tries to make it seem like Caitlyn is the good guy despite all her actions as a cop. This is real. People have experienced this directly and have had their experiences trivialized.

All of these aspects combined led to a disdain for CaitVi. So unless you're like, idk, genuinely writing something with the intent of convincing a large audience that fascism is good, actually, and we as a society irl should all just let any colonizers have at it, you're good.

Does Toxic Yuri have a limit? Genuinely asking here (a potential Horde Lord Catradora AU)

Okay, so for the last while I've been having a kinda exsistential crisis about a particular fic I wanna do. Namely, I want to do my own take on a what if Adora stayed in the Horde AU, aka the Horde Lord AU as some people call it.

I saw another post earlier that was saying that it's obviously okay to have evil characters in a story and whatnot. I'll link it here. https://www.tumblr.com/dovesndecay/760032664866701312?source=share

So like it's clear to me people love their evil, messed up toxic lesbians, right? Except I've been seeing stuff about Arcane on the sidelines and while I haven't seen it yet, I know that some stuff about how the two girls in that show were written and depicted pissed off a lot people.

So is there like some limit on how evil lesbians can actually be in stories that people just don't wanna talk about? Is this just an internet nuance is dead thing?

I've been conflicted about this sort of thing for a while and to be honest I don't really have answer to it. If anyone wishes to chime in and help me out, I'd appreciate it.

[banneriscarried]

Me, after seeing fanart for an au I like: hey! This au idea is awesome! I think I’ll try to write something for it, but first I’ll just play around with the idea, you know? Write some notes, make an outline, have a few preliminary plot points down, just to get a feel for the characters in the setting

24 hours and over 6,000 words in notes, ideas, and very barebones scene concepts later: oh… oh no

[sysig]

One better (Patreon)

[cheswirls]

looking @ old fic i started when i was 14/15 is so funny bc im realizing once again why i never mark fics as abandoned even if its been literal years since i've touched them. specifically i was checking docs for stuff i started and either did or didn't post to ffn.

and its like. nothing is bad??? like i can see where my outside-the-box ideal of fic writing comes from. not just fics but writing in general, i'm p sure. even if it's a total cliche plot setup, there are details on each that rly make it stand out like oh yeahhhhhh i did have this great idea once upon a time.

funny too bc was it executed well in prose??? no absolutely not i wrote like shit when i was 15. would i revive an idea one day and revise it to be less cliche or cringy while still keeping the stand-out elements??? yea maybe. i might. everything i'm currently working on that i started from 2021 up to now still holds my supreme interest, but like i'm not gonna say never.

esp since i write fic first and foremost for my own need and specifically what i like to read, it makes it impossible to consider an idea i've thought extensively about "not worth writing anymore". anyway not making this too long i jus found everything interesting to consider

[quil12]

Honestly, this game feels like drugs sometimes