#dy actually drawing original characters for once

[elementroar]

Analysis behind the backstory and personal story arcs of A.B.A. and Paracelsus (part 1)

Sorry for the people who waited. Technical and real life delays and all that. On the positive, I happened to run into new resources in the past two days that have helped lining up the facts easier.

Anyway, I originally wanted to compress all the lore into a single post, but I find it’s so much more massive once you really dig into the analysis between the story across multiple mediums, the in-game animations and interactions etc. To make this more readable for you all and to make creating these posts faster, I’m going to separate them up into parts that focus on different facets of their relationship and lore as I progress through them.

This first part goes into their origins, and I hope this big post helps to thoroughly explain who/what A.B.A. and Paracelsus are, their backstories prior to STRIVE, and my own analysis sprinkled on top. I want to try to keep the info/lore dump minimal and focused, so if I mention a character without elaborating, I’ll leave a link but if I’m not elaborating more, it’s because they’re not relevant to A.B.A/Paracelsus' stories that much.

Related links:

Analysis of Paracelsus' initial bloodlust and its longlasting effects on A.B.A (Part 2)

This is the "Why ABA and Paracelsus can feel horny" lore/theory post

Flament Nagel - Paracelsus’ true form theory

The Red King and White Queen alchemical concept in A.B.A and Paracelsus’ relationship

The beginning with A.B.A.

First off, to introduce their individual origins, it’s easiest to start with A.B.A. She’s a homunculus, an artificial lifeform created by a scientist in his mansion, which was located in the mountains of a region called Frasco or Flask. But before she was ‘born’, her creator had been taken away by the military for his skills in creating artificial life, and so A.B.A. woke up alone.

Despite this, within the 10 years she spent alone in the mansion she was able to learn to read, write, and even create some alchemical magic (seen in some of her attacks in games before -STRIVE-). It’s assumed either she was created with a set of memories and skills, or she naturally learns very quickly. It’s probably due to reading leftover journals and research materials that she even learnt her creator’s name was Paracelsus.

Technically, A.B.A. could’ve left the manor quite easily, there was even a village not far from them. However, she understood that she knew nothing about the world outside and was scared to leave the safety of the manor by venturing outside to explore the unknown world. But she did yearn for freedom and to leave Frasco, so she took to fixating on keys, which she found fascinating in being able to unlock doors to different places.

In the last bit of her 10 years in Frasco, A.B.A would accidentally cross paths with the hidden the demon axe Flament Nagel (which she would later rename to ‘Paracelsus’ in honour of her creator, or just cos that’s the only other name she actually knew).

What’s a demon axe doing here anyway?

So what is Paracelsus? He is what’s known as a magical foci, which are objects or even people that get a soul or a collection of memories/emotions/desires attached to them, which eventually leads to them gaining sentience and often supernatural abilities. They draw from the Backyard, which is basically where the information that makes up all reality is stored in the Guilty Gear world, and also the source of magic. This is the origin of ‘demons’ within the GG world, like Paracelsus.

The story of how Paracelsus/Flament Nagel ended up in Frasco actually involves the ancient Nightwalker (technically not a vampire but he's basically a vampire without the bad stuff) known as Slayer.

Now Slayer is this incredibly old, incredibly strong vampire Nightwalker, who nonetheless is a very nice guy who doesn’t need to feed on regular people because his wife, Sharon, is a deathless woman that he can feed on indefinitely without worrying about her dying.

Because of his immense age (AFAIK he’s the oldest of the main GG cast) and overwhelming power (he always holds back in-game), he has very insightful observations of Paracelsus and A.B.A.

The following screenshots are excerpts taken from the English transcript (available here) translated from the Night of Knives Vol.2 audio drama CD (you can listen to it here), and are from the perspective of Slayer recounting his encounters with Paracelsus and A.B.A.

Sometime near the end of the 100 year long war between Gears and humans known as the Crusades, Slayer was roaming a battlefield and came across a mountain of corpses of both Gears and humans. In the middle of it was a wandering blood covered warrior that was swinging an axe wildly. After confronting the man, Slayer realized that it was the axe that was the true master, the man had already lost his mind and was under its full control.

That axe called itself Flament Nagel aka the Flaming Nail, or the Sanguine Gale. I'll still be referring to him as Paracelsus at this point in time though.

Now magical foci start off simple-minded, only repeating small word fragments, and evolve over time to become more intelligent and sapient. At this point, young Paracelsus was a demon axe who had just gained sentience on that battlefield. Hot-headed and hungry for blood, and wanting to prove his combat superiority, he challenged Slayer and got curb stomped. Slayer was disappointed in how primitive Paracelsus still was in mind and soul, so he left him there to rust.

However eventually, Paracelsus was picked up from that battlefield and was sent to the alchemist Paracelsus, creator of A.B.A. We don’t know if the alchemist knew what the demon axe was, or whether he even requested him specifically for research. But the alchemist ultimately didn’t let Paracelsus out, not letting him take control over him and hiding him somewhere in the depths of his mansion.

(Inaccurate information removed, updating with A.B.A.'s JP GG World entry from XRD)

It would be after A.B.A.’s 10 year long isolation that she decided for reasons unknown, to leave the mansion and explore the outside world. By pure chance, she comes across Paracelsus, who because kinda resembled a key, she immediately picked up and she fell in love with him and decided they were married from then on.

Becoming her key

It's always been known that Paracelsus has some form of empathic abilities, and that he could tell that A.B.A. was fixated on keys and assumed the shape of a giant key to entice her to wield him. This was also the first ‘manipulation’ that Paracelsus admitted he had done to A.B.A. during their heart-to-heart talk.

It’s been further clarified in this recent interview, that it wasn’t so much Paracelsus deliberately taking the form of a key to attract ABA, but because ABA had been so heavily fixated on keys that she saw Paracelsus as a key straight away. That image she had of him as a key seemed to immediately imprint itself on him the moment she touched him, because of his true nature as “an axe (that) transforms into the owner’s image” of what his wielder wants him to be.

Slayer actually did mention this was likely the case over 20 IRL years ago in the audio drama CD, when he observed Paracelsus behaviour with A.B.A. in their second encounter.

Because A.B.A. never sees Paracelsus as a weapon, Paracelsus began to change to fit her ideal of what she saw him as, to become something more than just a weapon, and allowing Paracelsus to truly change and evolve physically and emotionally.

It’s important to note, Paracelsus isn’t bound to his wielder, and he doesn’t HAVE to allow this to happen either. Despite being dragged around by A.B.A. and acting like he has no autonomy; he actually has all the power to stop her from the start.

As Slayer notes, Para still has the power to completely take over A.B.A. 's mind and force her to do what he wants if he is truly unhappy. However he has never even threatened A.B.A. with this ability, and if not for Slayer knowing his past, no one would know Paracelsus actually can do this.

Whether consciously or subconsciously, Para was becoming more than just a demon axe from the moment he met A.B.A., and in his heart of hearts, he was begrudgingly accepting of his then situation-ship with her.

Fast forward to STRIVE and it's shown that he still continues to evolve to fulfill her 'vision' of what he is. When described as becoming more key-like, it's more obvious when you place both his old and new design side-by-side.

Notably, the blade part of his axe form has gotten smaller by STRIVE, just as he has sworn off violence and bloodshed by STRIVE.

It's even shown in how A.B.A. wields him., especially when Para partially possess or influences A.B.A. in his Muroha mode in the old games (mechanically this is the Jealous Mode in STRIVE). A.B.A. would wield him like a proper 'axe' blade-first in XX/ACCENT CORE. In STRIVE, since A.B.A. is now the dominant one in Jealous Rage mode, she doesn't wield him like an axe and now wields him by...bashing his head into people.

(Also I'll be going over the in-game animations and what they convey in a future post, don't you worry! You can view the comparison compilation here first.)

This even is shown in how A.B.A. uses Paracelsus as an actual key in her Overdrive "Keeper of the Key", which is a new move for her.

If we go further, I have speculated in this semi-crack theory that due to A.B.A. also interjecting her ideal of Paracelsus being her spouse over the years, that him actually 'reacting' to her advances now could also be an example of his evolution.

Even if he's trying REAL hard not to.

Hope this was an enjoyable read, let me know if you have any suggestions for improving readability or other stuff. Feel free to ask me questions through the inbox in the mean time that I'm working on the next part.

The next part is going to be analyzing and comparing Paracelsus' XX/ACCENT CORE Muroha mode to STRIVE's Jealous Rage mode, which has quite a bit of detail from comparing their effects on A.B.A. in in-game sprites/animations, plus how it reflects on the change in their power dynamics between games.

Edit: Part 2 available here

[yogurtverse]

List of things in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure that have actually happened (mild spoilers for part 7 and 8 if you care)

• A major plot point is foreshadowed by a man having four testicles.

• Two guys start what is basically a magic CIA investigation after a guy gives them suspiciously good tasting water.

• Said guy actually has an extremely powerful healing ability that just makes the healing process look super fucked up, and can cure basically anything but just uses his ability to make really good Italian food.

• A man falls under a spell that turns him into a dinosaur, which he can then permanently control after he gets Jesus Christ's eyeball shoved inside of him.

• A god tests his new abilities by turning his hand into a squirrel which he then effortlessly kills an entire legion of Nazis with.

• A man is quizzed on Weird Al trivia to prove he isn't possessed by vampires.

• A guy blows himself up, straight up disintegrates and comes back. The only explanation given is 'German science is the best in the world!'

• A woman uses her magnet powers to make two men look like they're having sex in public.

• 3 guys do a hypnotic dance to a severed head as an interrogation technique (the head is still alive) (this works)

• A main character melted and readers went eight real world months without knowing what happened to him (the melting wore off in the sewers)

• The main ability of one of the villains was to remove your powers and memories in the form of discs, which kills you incredibly quickly. He can also put a CD inside you and turn your dying body into a CD player.

• Two of the main villains elite guards were so bad at their jobs that the heroes didn't even know they were being attacked. (People also say this arc predicted 9/11)

• A man survives having a dozen knives thrown at him at once by lining his pockets with books in case this exact thing happens.

• A guy randomly gains coloured lips mid-fight and the only explanation is that he uses his time manipulation abilities to put on lipstick secretly.

• Two different characters do this btw.

• A main character that's just a sentient colony of plankton.

• A villains ability basically boils down to 'if you think about hurting me reality itself will kill you'

• There's a guy who's power looks exactly like a Lego replica of the white house. Once you bury the Lego white house a pressure field appears around a certain area and makes everyone inside bleed out.

• A main villains origin story is becoming a serial killer after seeing a picture of the Mona Lisa and getting really horny.

• A main character presumed to be dead enthusiastically shows up at his own funeral. However, it should be noted that he didn't know that was his funeral so as far as he knew he was just showing up to some guys funeral to announce that HE didn't die.

• A mans power is just being trapped in a transmission tower forever.

• A guy who canonically shot a god into space almost dies trying to get up an escalator.

• There is an Italian man who's ability is making ice. His name is Ghaccio, which is Italian for ice.

• A main character is implied to be bisexual through a monologue she has about snail sex.

• A main character meets a man claiming to be an alien and immediately uses this to scam a millionaire manga artist out of money.

• Whether or not this guy is an alien is never proven either.

• A main villain has 9 elite bodyguards. One is a bird. Another one is a sword.

• A man gets so mad about a guy insulting surfers he becomes addicted to drugs and bites all his fingers off.

• A child in elementary school has top of the range hidden cameras to watch his parents marriage fall apart in real time.

• It's a real possibility that a guy is so good at drawing manga that he survived the destruction of the universe.

• A guy throws a man out of a window and then compares it to putting on underwear.

• There's a guy dressed like a rabbit who lives on the moon who's sole purpose is fucking with one family and killing them if they don't look at the moon at a specific date. This family is seen once in a spinoff and not important to the actual plot at all.

• Mormonism is the true religion in the JoJo universe.

• A guy has a heart engraved into his skull somehow. Not important to the actual plot, it's just shown at some point and never brought up.

• A man accidentally puts his sock on inside out. This action stops him from being impaled.

[vanderbilt-draws]

pleaseee...draw devwinn interacting... plssss

ok sorry it took forever for me to answer i may have gone slightly overboard with the doodles but I REALLY LIKE DEVWINN AND MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE A WHOLE UNWRITTEN FIC ABOUT THEM IN HIGH SCHOOL AND LIKE 7 MILLION HCS ABOUT HOW THEY MET AND THEIR FUTURES AND UHH UHH hcs/all the stuff leading up to my unwritten fic are all below the cut if youre interested ✨✨

winn moved to dimmadelphia in the fourth grade

pretty much instantly dev "befriended" them and started being really clingy with them. he had a MASSIVE crush on them right from the start

winn wasnt actually all that big a fan of dev at first because yk he was mean to most of the other kids, but they didnt want to hurt his feelings so kind of went along with him

(side note i hc that dev has literally been wearing pretty much the same outfit since forever. hes so autism)

dev and winn only got to being real friends once hazel and dev became friends (bc yk shes got the balls to actually tell dev when hes doing something mean, so thats rlly when dev started improving as a person)

winn and dev had the same homeroom in sixth grade and ended up sitting right next to each other, which was when they really started becoming a Duo

winn broke their arm in a skating accident during the winter break of their sixth grade year, dev was the first one they got to sign the cast :] winn never stopped skating but they did do it a lot less + more carefully after that (by order of their parents)

dev started growing his hair into a mullet in the seventh grade because he "thought it looked cool" (<< started noticing his gender dysphoria and wanted longer hair in an attempt to quell it)

winn thought they were bi for all of seventh grade and most of eighth grade bc they had a crush on dev

SPOILER ALERT dev is a trans girl, she comes out in the eighth grade and her chosen name is devine. she still goes by dev but all her friends know what its short for

dev doesnt want to come out to her dad bc she doesnt know how hell react. (tbh if she did come out, her dad would be super supportive and good with prns and names and terms in public, but slip up a ton in private bc he doesnt care as much when people arent watching)

obv winn told jasmine and hazel about their crush right when it started developing, so it became kind of an inside joke between the three that winn has "transbian senses" after dev came out

just before ninth grade, winn decided to get a buzzcut, and theyve been growing it out ever since (this is mostly bc as much as i love dyed hair undercut enby/trans characters THERES TOO MANY PLEASE CHOOSE A DIFFERENT HAIRSTYLE FOR YOUR FICTIONAL TRANSES AND ENBIES SOBBING)

they bleached it blonde when it was about two inches long, and never bothered to cut off the blonde so now they just have blonde tips

winn ended up being 6'5" and joined varsity basketball in the tenth grade because they didnt wanna waste that height

dev stole their original varsity jacket because it was comfy (and because it was winns and it brings her comfort) and then paid for their replacement jacket

jasmine started learning how to sew and embroider clothes over the summer between ninth and tenth grade and so helped devine sew on her own name tag (dev just told her dad jasmine was a bad speller and tbh dale didnt care and was like ok son whatever)

dev ended up stuck at the spectacular height of a middle schooler (5'2") and winn thinks its adorable. theyre strong enough to pick her up whenever they hug her. sometimes when they get excited they spin her around

dev also started wearing her hair curly occasionally in the tenth grade bc winn told her she looked pretty with it like that. her dad doesnt like it when she doesnt slick it back and gets passive aggressive about it whenever he sees her like that

winn started getting panic attacks from all the pressure of high school after joining the basketball team, and dev usually ends up talking them through it, although jasmine and hazel are also good at helping them

they dont think their anxiety is bad enough to be a disorder so they never get a diagnosis/help (until Things Happen in my fic :]]] )

hazel and jasmine are both aroace (in this timeline at least, ive got a few other fic ideas where hazel is bi) and in a qpr. they are also fandom girlies and fic writers, so when dev finally tells them in the middle of tenth grade that she has a crush on winn (and has for a while) theyre both like OOOOOOOHHHHHH I SHIP IT and they, along with cosmo and wanda, start trying really hard to get them together

unfortunately hazmine and coswan have literally no idea how human teenage romance works irl SO. shenanigans ensue :]]]]]]]

anyways yeah thats my buildup to my fic/my personal hcs, no peri mention because hes ✨elsewhere✨ when all this is happening

[burningvelvet]

I finished Moby Dick. So, to continue my former post(s) documenting my thoughts, here we are (spoilers ahead):

captain ahab: i am once again asking hast thou seen the white whale

Narrator, for the 5 millionth time describing captain ahab: "MONOMANIACAL. MONOMANIAC. MONOMANIA."

I was thinking "the homosexual themes everyone talks about are really exaggerated apparently…" and then I got to the chapter about sperm squeezing

Stubb meeting with the French in chap 91 had the exact vibe of a filler episode on a comedy sitcom

there are a lot of moments that reminded me of The Office ngl like i could just imagine stubb in the little interview chair just talking. so much meme material. he's seriously just doing his own thing. the little random characters like the blacksmith and carpenter just talking shit and side-eyeing ahab in the background lmaoooo

Saint George didn't kill a dragon, it was a whale #THETRUTHREVEALED #WHALETRUTHERS

It would have been hilarious if the British people told Ahab that they already killed Moby Dick already before he could get to it. I was so hoping that would happen. Bonus points if it was the Rachel after he'd turned them away.

Ahab discusses the topic of madness a lot. It's almost like he's… mad...

I vote Ahab for the most Byronic hero to ever Byronic… Heathcliff and Rochester have nothing on him… The origin of the Byronic hero, Byron's titular character from the narrative poem Childe Harold, is literally mentioned by name in the novel and had to be a blatant inspiration - it could not be more obvious! (I have yet to encounter the famed Byronic heroes of Russian literature, most notably Eugene Onegin, a work where Byron is also blatantly name-dropped).

Everyone thinking Queequeg was dying and having a coffin made to his measurements and filled with grave goods at his direction and then him literally climbing into the coffin to test it out and then waiting silently to die…. then all of a sudden getting better and saying he chose to recover bc he remembered he had something on his to-do list….. iconic

Ishmael referring to Queequeg as "my Queequeg…" omg. Queerqueg

Queequeg drawing figures like the ones on his tattoos omg… au story where Queequeg is an artist/tattoo artist when???

I was literally saying "AWWWWW" out loud when Ahab and Pip were having their little moments

The irony of Ahab abandoning the Rachel then it coming back for Ishmael… the coffin lifeboat… etc… good stuff…

okay ahab is my man but yeah he was an asshole to the captain of rachel.

also feel bad for tashtego. he wanted that gold doubloon so bad and ahab was like SIKE, MOTHERFUCKER! umm tashtego did not get cut out of a whale by queequeg to deal with ur shit ahab!

Once again wanting a Black Sails/Moby Dick AU… I found this essay about the similarities between Flint/Ahab https://ijms.nmdl.org/article/view/22389/14361

They only have like 2-3 little moments together but like… Starbuck/Ahab kind of outdoing Ishmael/Queequeg there for a moment… chaps 132/134… oh my godddddddddddddd whyyyyyyy

Captain Ahab's moments in chapters 36/37 AAAAAHHHHH you will see me being normal about this

I noted some of my favorite Ahab moments/chapters and they are 36/37/41/70/99/108/109/113/115/116/119/125/129/132/134/135. Like I may seriously just re-read those chapters (no offense to Melville's whale facts, Stubb's jokes, & Pip's insanity)

the end is kind of similar to the great gatsby in the sense that you finally realize the entire novel was actually written for him to cope with his grief-related trauma & then suddenly it all makes sense. the lingering, the sentimentality regarding seemingly insignificant details or people, the meandering/digressing/procrastinating getting to the end, etc.

there are actually several moments -- i don't know if he actually referred to ahab or the others in past-tense specifically, but there were several moments where i felt like i kind of thought he was giving away the end before he did (it wasn't a shock to me bc i read about the end prior, but still)

[someslothcheese]

You encountered Gym Leader [NAME]!

Alright, Long ass design and lore explanations beneath the cut.

I've already explained my design choices for Doug-Parkzer, but due to my account dying that post is gone, so I'll re-explain. Also, I've gotten better at drawing in style as I've continued, so I might go back and redraw Doug and Parkzer, the designs are fine -probably my favourites thus far- but I don't think the lineart is up to current standard.

Doug Design

The pupil shape matches the bellpepper icon, I was considering doing an expression or shape that matches some of the other versions of the eyes. Jerma fans ate Shuffler's design up tbh. Mad P03 vibes.

"Dyed Hair". I always hated the bleached hair look on Doug, eventually I came to just find it familiar, but thank god it's basically gone by now. I used the blonde-er hair to make a pattern similar to fire.

Guy Fieri patterns on suit. If I was having Doug in a fire Gym I had to have Doug Fieri mentioned at least somewhere.

Orange Tie from Streamer Awards. How was that like almost two years ago? Squeex interviews and Doug won... We had it all...

Shoes from PointCrow Party, when he played the character "Wallace". Man I miss PointCrow Party, if I had known how Autistic I was gonna be over it I would've bought the props. Every day I mourn.

Patterns based around fire on the suit jacket, sort of more triangles though, didn't want to just repeat the same fire spikes everywhere.

Glasses based on Learning Ettique Stream from SamWitch. Doug keeps wearing these types of glasses, I think he's eating them up?

Shoulder Pads are removable from the outfit, I want to have him wear the same outfit but, less, for formal events.

Fire Type was decided on due to the Capsicum/Bell Pepper icon

"Lore"

Matching Charcadet evolutions with Parkzer, is a way of hinting to their friendship and personalities.

Co-Owns gym together. Doug promotes Parkzer because the guy is actually really good at managing the gym, unlike him.

Was originally going to be an electric gym due to Doug's Coding gimmick during battle. (In which random status could apply, random heals could apply, and terrain could change.) but because his partner pokemon Scovillian is a fire type, he just doesn't change it.

Stands out due to his eccentric suit

He currently looks after Eric's Starly for him -Explained later-

PointCrow

Head sprites on the left were the originals, I decided I didn't like the shape, too sharp and the hair differed from how I normally draw PC. This was changed last minute though, so the scar-updated version isn't as interesting as it once was.

The patterns on the wingsuit are from TOTK, Shika patterns I think.

At one point I considered a paraglider similar to Link, but I felt it was too on the nose and opted for this design instead.

At a point, Raruu's arm was considered, but it felt like too much main character energy. Instead, it went to my base design for PC lol.

Flying type was picked due to a combo of icons from the channel (Doodle, "Crow"), and of course, Link and Pointcrow's love for the Zelda series.

The suit and helmet designs were based around Starly, which I thought would be the closest substitute for Doodle.

When originally thinking of this AU, the sketches I made for headshots I wanted to make sure I made PC and Smant similar in design based on the "similar appearances" joke. As someone with face blindness, it's crazy... I think I managed that - more later.

The casualwear outfit sleeve cuffs are red and blue, Mr Miyamoto would be so proud of me. At one point I made the shoes also red and blue but it was too crazy of a design for me.

The scar in his later design was placed on the same eye his bruise was on for the Ludwig Chess Boxing PhotoShoot.

Corviknight was originally going to be a pre-evo whilst Starly would be returned to Eric as a Staraptor, but I decided his Partner would not change without its owner and whilst Eric ages Starly doesn't.

Crobat is on his team to show his love for his Pokemon despite the hermit mindset he has taken on.

Lore

Flier 89 is the name of the famous wingsuit glider in the region. Pointcrow starts training at a young age, becomes Gym leader, and is friends with Smant for the duration, some of the youngest gym leaders in the region's history.

He has a crash one day and loses the ability to fly due to depth perception.

He stops talking to his closest friend who he blames for the crash, as someone tore his suit. Truthfully, it was Eric, who denied it because he wants to push away his friend, due to no longer finding confidence in himself after he lost his "one skill".

Eventually, the trainer finds PC and convinces him to fight them, as it's necessary for their completion of the gym challenges. This is probably through a quest of just walking around with him whilst he talks about his self-worth, why he wants his talent back and why he wants to be "Flier 89" still instead of Eric.

When he fights you, his name changes to Eric in the pop-up despite being in Flier 89's outfit.

He even uses his Starly, which he had given to his friend to look after. No longer being able to stomach the sight of his partner Pokemon due to PTSD.

Smant

Headshape tried to appear similar enough to Eric's design.

Glasses are made to look thinner following both irl similarities and aiming to look separate enough from the other.

Wasn't sure how hard to go with the facial hair because in every instance bro either has a full beard growing in or is clean-shaven.

Hair was odd to do, I don't think his avatar is entirely accurate (though that's normal). So I overlayed the colour onto my original version to try and have the best of both worlds.

The hair shape I had was entirely different at multiple stages, so eventually I just tried to copy his avatar, with a bit more spike. I don't dislike it, but it doesn't sit right with me still.

Originally I wanted to have more of his Gym leader outfit in the splash, but I decided to keep it simple.

I think that he'd look back on his old outfit and cringe, just keeping the accessories and using them along with his base outfit.

Ground Type gym leader so that way he could keep his Quagsire. Though I do think it aligns with his personality pretty well.

A team designed to help with mining, because if Tanner Minecraft Ground Gym Leader isn't Mining and Crafting I don't know who is...

More to come!!!

[tafferling]

Dying Light 2: Game Story Rewrite

I have been tempted (and have since given in to this temptation) to write out one of the alternate Dying Light 2 story campaigns that'd been knocking around in my head ever since I started playing the game.

It sticks to the characters we already know, but aims to- I dunno. Add Taff flavour, I guess.

Enjoy!

Dying Light 2, an alternate main campaign story, by Taff.

While this is not Latchkey Hero, a lot of the main plot rewrites in this does draw from what I cooked up for Monsters, We. So, if you don’t want spoilers for the MW endgame, skip this.

The player character is either Aiden or Mia Caldwell. Because who hasn’t wanted a little more versatility? We start by choosing which one we’d like to play.

The Caldwell siblings are Pilgrims (I love the Pilgrims, okay? The world needs more Dying Light Pilgrims, please send me your Pilgrim OCs so I can give them platonic smooches) and they’re currently doing what they do best: helping people move across the territories. Specifically, you’re escorting a troupe (actors and musicians) from New Paris, who’re headed to Villedor to perform.

You get to know the siblings in the introduction, and see how they interact with not only each other, but the people around them, too. My aim here would’ve been to establish a relationship between Aiden and Mia, giving what’ll happen later more meaning. We learn about the Pilgrims, how they hold a fearful sort of respect from others, and just how good they are at this.

We even get a bit of combat! Defend against a bunch of biters. Fend off a banshee before nightfall. And, hey, we might even get to know some of the troupe a bit better! We’re having a great time.

Once we reach Villedor, we find out that there’s a bit of trouble brewing right now and that the troupe won’t be able to get to its actual destination (The Fish Eye), since there’s a blockade up. We don’t much care, we are getting paid already and we don’t plan on staying. So we stash them at the second best place, the Bazaar.

After that, our plan is to pick up some more work and then be on our way. Explore time! We find out that there are two different types of safe zones/holds in Villedor: Some which require a biomarker to get into, some which do not. The Bazaar, for example, has a no biomarker zone and a main only biomarker zone. We also find out that a lot of people here are infected. In our initial exploration, we get to go anywhere in Old Villedor except into holds that require biomarkers and places which have been sealed by the GRE.

We can do a few side quests! If we pay attention, we’ll also pick up on how there’s trouble brewing in Central Villedor, and also how, oof, be careful, newcomers, lotsa new people who come to Villedor just straight up vanish. Until one quest pops up for another escort. A man who’d like someone to help him get to New Paris. Fair. We’ve just been there, we can do the trip again, no sweat. Aiden and Mia agree and take the man (Dylan) back the same way they’d originally come in.

Things don’t go well.

We’re attacked by masked men (Renegades), who are trying to get something back from Dylan, who is wounded gravely at the start of the ambush. Aiden and Mia fight them off, but the noise attracts attention they don’t need (Volatiles!). It is clear they can’t do much, but before they run off, Dylan gives them something and tells them to take it and go and not let Waltz have it (whoever that may be, our two Pilgrims are not clued in).

As we try to escape, we’re eventually overwhelmed and both of our Pilgrims are (drum rolls) bitten. But before the GAME OVER screen can roll in, a set of Renegades and Waltz show up, ultimately saving their lives. Which may sound neat at first, not so much when we get punched out and dragged off. When our player character comes to again, it’s a vague affair at first. A bit of swimming in and out of it, really, where we realise we are in a lab (spooky) and have been injected with something (cue the OOOOOOOooOOO!). But never you fret! After overhearing a conversation that they’d be taken back to Central Villedor since they haven’t died and something something they have potential, our player character frees themselves. They get their sibling too and try to escape. During this escape, we see hints that some of those “vanished newcomers” may have met their end here, wherever here may be.

We also get our stuff. Which includes the GRE key (no one bothered checking our backpack, wee!).

But, once again, things do not go well. Waltz’s goons chase us, and while our player character manages to escape, our sibling sacrifices themselves and, for all we know, has just died. We want to do something about this, but we have our first full blown seizure, which leads to us falling to what everyone assumes is our death.

All of this is followed with an Oh no, am I turning? sequence, which ends similarly to the original intro of the game, where we are about to get lynched by a mob. Hakon to the rescue! Except this time the rescue is somewhat motivated by how we’ve already made some friends previously: the troupe! They recognized us and they are what we find after Hakon jabs us with our first inhibitor.

Afterwards, this version of the story follows the Bazaar VS PK story line, somewhat, with our player character motivated to reach Central Villedor to get revenge. Why revenge and why not have our sibling recaptured? ‘cause revenge can wait a little and it won’t feel so weird when we get side tracked by side quests.

To get to Central Villedor we must help Aitor solve his murder mystery of their slain commander and to do that we have to get a biomarker (which we can do since we have a GRE key). As we solve the mystery, we find out that the conflict with the bandits and whatnot and the PK’s hand being forced to suspect or even attack the Bazaar was being orchestrated by someone else.

Who, we aren’t sure.

There’s choices to be made of course! Some siding with the PK, or with the Bazaar, and all the while we also have our troupe friends to report back to and help with little side quests. Hey, we may even have a little devil and an angle in our troupe who try and sway us towards specific decision. Plus, Hakon, of course (who, by the way, is telling us he has an idea of where to go once we are in Central Villedor so we can get our sweet SWEET revenge). We also meet the usual suspects of the Bazaar, including Sophie, Alberto, and Co.

And in-between our chores, we are on the hunt for those inhibitors and like to jab ourselves with them like the dumdum we are. SURELY nothing bad can come out of this?!

Anyway.

Now that we have a biomarker, we can access other regions in Old Villedor. More exploring! And, eventually, we get the choice to help the PK see the Bazaar was innocent (and give the Bazaar their water tower back), or we claim the water tower for the PK cause we have a crush on Aitor (why else would you do this?!), OR we can cause absolute mayhem and botch the whole deal, leading to a war between the Bazaar the PK, which the PK narrowly win.

Then off we go into Central Villedor. Escorting our troupe, of course. Gee, maybe we get an LI in there?! I’m thinking too much about the troupe now. Down, Taff. But, seriously, there is someone in the troupe who is defo trying to win us over to “troupe life” maybe and sway us away from all the revenge talk. We aren’t having it though. We loved our sibling.

(No one blows up the windmill, btw. That thing is too damn pretty to die. Taff has spoken. Oh and we probably had another turning scare at some point and are figuring out that something may not be entirely right with us.)

Once we’ve survived some tense escort mission shenanigans (HEY those can be fun if done right, I promise), and as we are nearing the Fish Eye, we get into an argument about our desire to Do Revenge, which leads to use pointing the troupe to the Fish Eye and the fucking off with Hakon.

Cause we trust Hakon.

Hakon who has become a bit quiet now that we are alone with him.

Hakon who is getting a bit weird.

HAKON WHO LED US INTO AN AMBUSH TO GET THE DAMN KEY FROM US.

We are not happy. Especially since we are facing what seems to be a trio of WAY TOO strong people who remind us far too much of volatiles. Gee. Anyway, we manage to get away! Mostly thanks to the timely intervention of a crossbow woman (Lawan).

Fast forward, we end up at the Fish Eye, with Lawan giving us a bit of exposition about Hakon (who she was tracking when she spotted him near the Fish Eye), about Waltz and how he does some really creepy science stuff with young people.

We reunite with the troupe and get to know the Fish Eye. We meet Frank.

The Renegades attack.

Our valiant defense of it goes down just like in the game, which introduces us to the PK and properly begins ACT 2. ACT 3? Look, I am not counting. Also, I need a snack, be right back.

[one snack later; beware, Monsters, We. spoilers ahead cause all of this is ripped right out of my fic]

This act is all about Bringing back some light! The right (or wrong) people have noticed that we have a GRE key and are floating the idea by us that we should take our shapely ass over to the solar farm (ex “Tesla competitor” car factory) and do Villedor a solid. This is a big one, because we get to pick our team to do that. Do we go back to the Bazaar and bring Alberto and Co (if we didn’t botch Old Villedor), or do we go with the PK, organized by Aitor, and bring Tolga and Fatim? I mean Mitaf and Aglot, sorry.

Either way, Lawan comes with us.

As we gear up for this venture (which will not be an easy venture) we begin to also unravel some of the mystery around Waltz. The name X 13 is being floated by us at this point, too, which we begin to ask around about and are told to go get friendly with the Carriers (can I PLEASE rename them to Couriers?) since they hoarded a lot of communications and maps.

Anyway. POWER PLANT. Depending on how we left Old Villedor, our efforts at the power plant are challenged by either: The Renegades (if we prevented a war between the PK and the Bazaar) or the Bazaar (if we botched Old Villedor and the PK beat down the Bazaar).

This is when the “Renegade Mini Bosses” start showing up: Daylight proof volayouths. 20-somethings turned into weapons by Waltz.

During that particular fight, we experience another turning scare, but we’re good. Heheehehe. Yeah. We’re good. :sweating:

Then, after we’ve made it, cause, of course we made it: LET THERE BE LIGHT! This time, racing up to the top of a skyscraper is payoff and Lawan’s joy something we can relate to. We’ve seen Villedor dipped in darkness. Now we see it come alive with way more lights than our Pilgrim has ever seen in their life. It’s an emotional moment, ya’all.

We get a little hear to heart with Lawan, where she reveals some more about Hakon. This is driven by the VNC tower light coming on and her briefly recounting how Hakon betrayed the Nightrunners, the very people who took in Lawan when she was a child. She was a kid back then, but she will never forget the loss Frank (and therefore her family) suffered and she will always blame Hakon for it. Hakon was, in effect, outcast after this, and eventually fell in with Waltz. A lot of people do these days, mostly out of desperation.

After that:

The Courier quest line is turned into a bit of a main quest line this time around, at which end we find out what X 13 is: a massive GRE vault. And Waltz and his Renegades are looking for it. If they are able to crack it open, Villedor is in for a BAD time. Not only will he have all the supplies he needs to keep his operation running when it comes to turning people into whatever it is he is doing, but also because: guns. There is absolutely going to be a stockpile of them in there. Even working together, the PK and the survivors wouldn’t stand a chance against the Renegades.

And thus, the race is on!

To get there first, we need intel. And intel needs communication.

VNC tower time!

Frank and Lawan think its a terrible idea, but the PK are happy to help us; this one goes down pretty much identical to the original climb. I loved that mission, and hanging out with Rowe and his group was absolutely necessary to give the PK some much needed depth which they kinda lost after you lose track of Aitor.

The difference is though that Lawan doesn’t come after us. I felt her easily catching up with Aiden cheapened not only the player’s accomplishment, but the death of Rowe’s squad and the death of the Nightrunners. We do get help from Frank though, which is a big deal, since at that moment, Frank is facing his demons. He is going back to that day when his men died – and in doing so, he saves our life.

We celebrate.

We’re almost feeling at home, really. Our troupe performs at the Fish Eye. We get to see it all, and yeah, we still want revenge, but maybe we’re home?Maybe this is better than revenge? Maybe we don’t have to go back out onto the road (and how can we, we are infected, we are screwed anyway, we can’t go back to our old life, can we?).

Maybe this is good.

If you like romance, maybe there’s a bit of romance there (someone from the troupe? Lawan? BIG SHRUG! You choose!).

The next day the hunt begins: For X 13 and Waltz. This leads to us crossing paths with Hakon again (and a fight not unlike the one in the church in the game). Though this time, the fight ends in a revelation: Hakon tells us that (DRUM ROLL PLEASE) our sibling is alive! Yeah, I know you all saw this one coming.

We then get to choose to kill him or to let him live, but not before he tells us where they are.

And we see red.

Heeding no warnings, we head into what could easily be a trap (as Lawan tells us, cause Hakon is a bleeding liar, don’t trust him), but we don’t care. We go. We HAVE to go. Lawan, since we’ve grown on her, comes with us.

THIS IS THE POINT OF NO RETURN, FINISH ALL YOUR SIDE QUESTS

Surprisingly – it is not a trap. Not really. Not intentionally. We find our sibling, but they aren’t altogether themselves anymore, much as any of the other volayouths we find. They also aren’t leaving with us – and as we try and break them out anyway, Waltz gets in the way.

Forced to abandon our sibling, Lawan manages to get us to flee and come back later, with Waltz and one of his other volayouths chasing us. We manage to kill the volayouth, but Waltz is too much – but thankfully, Lawan is crafty, and she manages to get us out.

Except now its night. And we are kinda in the middle of nowhere with no UV light and– oh no, you know exactly where this is going.

We (as in you, the player, not Lawan) turn.

Look, Veronika was sweet, but I had absolutely 0 emotional connection to her. Let this moment matter.

We kill her.

:RECORD SCRATCH:

Unless! We allowed Hakon to live, in which case he realized just how harebrained we were and shadowed us, swooping in at the last second to jab us with an inhibitor, saving Lawan’s life.

The happiness we were so close to his absolutely shattered now. Regardless of whether Hakon helped save Lawan or not. What happened, happened. There is no coming back from that.

If Lawan is dead, we do not go back to the Fish Eye. We crawl into a hole after we come to and hope to die.

If Lawan is alive, we also do not go back to the Fish Eye. We refuse, even though both Hakon and Lawan insist.

It’s not until Waltz contacts us and says he will trade our sibling for the key and the location of X 13 that we spring (or crawl) back into action.

It is decision time.

We can now choose to either: (a) give up, betray all our friends, and leave Villedor with a half-feral sibling, or (b) return to the Fish Eye and go to claim X 13 for Frank or (c) go to Missy and claim X 13 for the PK.

(a) If we betray our friends, the game ends here and the credits are us returning years later to find Villedor in the worst shape it can possibly be in.

(b) If we go to the Fish Eye, and Lawan and Hakon are alive, Frank will put the Nightrunners back together and they come with us to X 13. If not, we go alone and it will be a lot harder than (c). In this case, Matt leads a squad (which includes Aitor) after us and what happens in that confrontation depends on how we handled Aitor and his situation in Old Villedor. Either Aitor sides with us and turns on Matt, or the Nightrunners stay behind to hold off the PK. If the Nightrunners have not reunited (Lawan is dead), we have to fight the PK alone.

(c) If we go to to Missy, Aitor and one of his squads will come with us. No one challenges us.

Assuming (b) and (c), we manage to claim X 13 in what I would hope is an epic battle. One where we fight through Renegades, volayouths, and, eventually Waltz, who has brought our sibling along and pits us against them. We fight both Waltz and our sister or brother, kill him, and are left to choose to subdue or kill what’s left of our family.

Credits!

If we claimed X 13 for the survivors, Frank has taken a reluctant leadership position and oversees things from the Fish Eye. If Lawan is alive, the Nightrunners have been reestablished for good. They control Villedor’s firearms and the supplies coming out of X 13..

If we claimed it for the PK, the PK control Villedor’s firearms and the supplies coming out of X 13, though the outcome itself depends once again on how we handled Aitor’s situation. If we have Aitor on our side, Matt is overthrown after being overzealous and Aitor takes charge and the survivors and the PK enter a reasonable time of peace. If not, Matt brings Villedor under a militant rule (before he dies).

If we have killed our sibling and/or Lawan, we leave Villedor, unable to cope with what we’ve done.

If, however, Lawan is alive and we subdued our sibling, our own credit is us looking for a way to help not only our sibling, but all the other volayouths still out there. Including ourselves.

EDIT! I forgot to mention that NG+ has you have guns.

[teleit]

Plot Bunny - Jace took Harvin's lessons a little too close to heart

This plot bunny is destined for the stew, because I simultaneously under-squeezed and over-squeezed it. According to the original idea, purely logically, Aemond should die (you'll understand later), but the thought of it almost gave me a heart attack, a stroke, and thirteen seizures at once. You will take my little beloved son only by digging up my grave and tearing him from my rotting hands. So realism goes somewhere where I have never been and will not, okay?

* * *

"You will die screaming in flames just as your father did!" Aemond growls, holding a stone over little Luke's head. Jace's eyes dart between the stone and his brother, looking warily at his uncle, who has just managed to fight off the three of them and take a hostage. However, as soon as he hears this threat, his face immediately changes - from confused and fearful, it becomes attentive and focused.

"My father’s still alive!" Luke yells, and suddenly Aemond has no interest in threatening physical violence. No, his sharp-tongued uncle has better things to do - while he loved a good fight, consistently winning in his training, he found his true calling in taunts and threats, putting his mind before his sword.

Jace feels his blood boiling like a true dragon's - he's not a cold-blooded seahorse, is he? He's the son of a dragon princess and Harwin Strong. He's lost a father he won't be allowed to mourn, a father he never knew as a parent. More than that, it means he's a bastard, a sin in the eyes of the gods and other men, and everyone, everyone knows it - and Uncle Aemond isn't shy about saying it out loud.

"He doesn’t know, does he, Lord Strong?" Aemond sneers, and that's the last straw for him.

Jace draws his dagger and charges into battle. Aemond throws Luke towards him, and Jace, without much tenderness, throws his younger brother, who had just been choked and almost hit in the head with a rock, aside so that he would not be in the way.

A swing, another swing of the blade - all misses. Aemond is too fast, too agile, even though they are the same age, but the level of combat skills is simply unattainably different in his uncle's favor.

Jace remembers what his father Harvin Strong taught him, and, dodging a rock aimed at his head, strikes again with the dagger, this time faster, more accurately, and harder. And hits.

Aemond does not scream. He gasps weakly, strangled, and sinks to the ground, pressing his hand to the hilt of the dagger protruding from his stomach.

The cave shakes with the deafening, enraged roar of Vhagar.

* * *

The idea, basically, is this: what if Jace had stabbed Aemond in the gut? In canon (BOOK! IT'S THE ONLY CANON I RECOGNIZE! show just gives me characters, a few scenes, and a distaste for life), Vhagar went nuts when her boy got his eye cut out. If Aemond thinks he's dying, the old war criminal lady will burn half of Driftmark before she can be calmed down, and the whole island will be fucked if Aemond actually dies.

But he won't die, because plot armor will suddenly appear, the maesters will patch him up better than a Swiss hospital, because Corlys will do anything to save any part of his house, and because I fucking said so.

There's no denying that this was an assassination attempt on Jace's part anymore - it's weird that the show doesn't say anything about it. How will the investigation go in this case, who is right, who is guilty, and who should get what cut off as punishment? I don't know, but it will be fun =)

PS. English, if you ever come back with the milk you went for, I will throw you out, we barely knew each other, but you made me so many children =/

[sanctus-ingenium]

Can you tell us more about your horses? Are they part of a story? Love the creature design

boy are they

Félix - he's the main character of the 1860s cycle of the Inver setting. Well, one of three main characters. He's my take on the classic Victorian orphan story with a changelinegtwist, and ends up becoming a regular conman who mainly does door to door sales of bullshit snake oil and insurance scams. Also a master of pretending to be hit by a carriage. A falling out with his two best friends/boyfriends results in him trying and failing to make it on his own, and he gets captured by the Púca just as he's basically dying of exposure in the middle of winter. In return for saving his life, the Púca takes on Félix as a faery servant whose job is to feed his new master by tricking humans into falling into the barrow (the endless field in the Otherworld which is the Púca's territory). He tries to patch things up with his friends, only to find that five years have passed since his disappearance, and old arguments have become deep festering wounds. Neither do they believe that it's really him.

Yeah so as a horse(/shapeshifter) he's the youngest, he's spiky all the time, and he tries hard to hide that part of himself. He wants nothing to do with it. He's the one in my icon. Personality-wise he's a manipulative liar who would say anything to keep his friends at his side, even at their expense.

Macha was once in Félix's exact position - snatched up by the Púca who told her she was special, that she was its favourite. But that was hundreds of years ago now, and the Púca has a shiny new toy to play with. Macha has been abandoned and is slowly losing herself to the erosion of time, and the way she sees it, the best way to regain her former status is to take care of the Púca's newest pet.

Macha spends most of her time as a horse and can be distinguished by her long straight mane and tail. She cannot tell the truth no matter how hard she tries, and speaks mainly in riddles.

Puck is the Púca itself, a pure shapeshifter with no human origin, the original master of the field and Lord of Lies. It is intensely clever and loves to fuck with people, and particularly enjoys watching its own underlings fight for its attention. Puck never takes a human form and tends to appear slightly abstract or unreal, not like a flesh and blood creature, with a minimalist silhouette. I'll be honest I have rarely drawn Puck like ever because the whole point of it is fear of the unknown, and I don't feel strong enough artistically to depict it properly.

Pascal is the modern day equivalent of Puck and its de facto replacement as the master of the field. Pascal is nothing like Puck and likes to throw the whole kitchen sink into his appearance in an effort to seem flashy and intimidating. he is in love with his own face and that's why he tends to take his centaur form in a certain... direction. You can learn more about him including details about his origin and human disguise in my sketchbook all about him with like fifty unpublished drawings but basically he's just kind of a dipshit jerk with a massive ego who gets tamed by a bona fide horse trainer. He has a habit of abducting humans to psychologically torture them on his TV set, but he claims that not all of the abductions are his doing, and that, for some, he has been falsely accused...

Unicorn is Pascal's antagonist. It is mysterious and appears to live on or under the water of Lough Cánamac, the centre of magic in the country of Inver. Unicorns are not supposed to exist in this setting, let alone unicorns which might be the actual culprit behind the most brutal abductions

[subaerial-dweller]

aaaAAA I'm on a roll now, I'm just spitting whatever comes into my mind about Generation Loss onto the table now. I love this show very much and I no longer care if people see these posts, I have too many thoughts and I'm writing them down :DD.

PART THREE: FRANK AND CHARACTER ORIGINS

I don't think Frank is a skeleton. We know he's a dude, right? There was that screenshot someone took of Frank's poster in Episode 3, let me see if I can find it.

Here we are. In my search for this screenshot, I did come across a lot of posts that said very similar things to what I was going to say, which was that Frank might just be a rotting corpse they drag around with them, which is really quite insane. I said in my first post of this late-night frenzy of Genloss thinking that I'm not very good at drawing, and in 45 minutes that hasn't actually changed. But I have a very graphic view in my head, and it makes the point where Jerma fucken smacks Frank across the face and breaks his fucking neck or something, it makes it all a lot harder to stomach. It's a gruesome thing, and now I'm just worried about how exactly Frank died.

Sneeg likes him, so maybe he was once the main character, where GL!Ranboo is now? It would make sense, because he's in that cage thing with Sneeg, so they might've just both failed together, but Frank was never going to go beyond the first episode without dying.

OH SPEAKING OF THAT. This is where the "and character origins" part of the post comes from.

I want to talk about where the other characters came from. We see a bunch of them, and they all allude to being in this game for a while before we see this iteration with GL!Ranboo in the main role, but I also have other ideas.

OPTION ONE: they're all, strictly speaking, actors, and Ranboo's the one running through this completely blind. They all know their roles, they understand what they have to do to get the story moving along (Sneeg tackles Austin to get Ranboo through the moving cutout wall thing, for example), and they play those roles. That would explain why Charlie's in every episode: he's the Slime Demon, then he's Surfer Dude/Patient Slime, and then he's Charlie Slimecicle the Streamer. He's a recurring talent (maybe I'll write another thing about where I think GL!Charlie came from, when speaking about option one). They're all mind controlled like Ranboo is, with the same filter layered over reality (except on Austin, I think his malfunctioned which is why he looked so horrified in the clothes room with Ethan, and on the merry-go-round next to rotting corpse!Frank, and Sneeg when he was wearing the hat). They're briefed on their roles, and they follow them, but their main goal is to keep the story moving and get Ranboo to the end. Once again, I think GL!Austin's filter thingy doesn't really work, because he called Jerma "sick", he looked horrified and disgusted to sit next to a dead body, I think he was the only person to care that GL!Ethan had been, you know, brutally murdered, and he also tried to take Ranboo's place in the cutout room.

OPTION TWO: They've all been through the games before. They've all been the main characters, and they've now been moved into other roles with each repetition of the show. So GL!Sneeg was once the main character in Episode 1, and then he fucked up and was locked in the cage with Frank (who also was the protagonist, but then he, uh, well something went wrong and Showfall regrets this Tragic Accident), before Ranboo comes around.

Slimecicle was the main character in Episode 2 once, and he was about to lose the Mousetrap game in the Candy Room, so he ate the piece so the Puzzler couldn't blast him to pieces. Obviously it worked, but he was repurposed as another role, because they took that "oh it's in him" as a great premise for the next time this show went over. Now, our version of Genloss, where GL!Ranboo's the main character, this could happen right after Slime ate the piece, or it could be a while back, but Showfall liked the idea so much they just kept forcing Slime to eat the pieces and random shit, or they cut him open and put it all back inside. Either way, it's not pretty.

Option Two would explain why GL!Vinesauce says "I've done it before" when he asks Sneeg and Ranboo to throw him across the lasers. It would make sense for the first two episodes, where there are other characters and the storyline seems to be in control (as much as Hetch was manipulating Episode 3, Ranboo did have his own mind back and made his own decisions, like with rescuing Streamer Charlie Slimecicle), because for those, the plotline is simple, straightforward, with barely any variation. The characters can be recycled, it makes sense. However, I think accidents do happen, and sometimes, in the case of Frank, actors only get past one episode before, you know, dying. RIP Frank. Squiggles misses you.

[that-left-turn]

I really want to like your blog. You have these long posts that appear thoughtful. But what I also notice is your unwillingness to call the caryl stuff what it is. The fandom , which I’m apart of, is dying. Not because of amc or people who love that other ship. It’s because we believed in actors and chemistry that doesn’t have legs. The actual actors do not support us. The actual show runners and writers do not support us. We are grasping at straws to support something that doesn’t really exist. Whining and acting like toddlers instead of staying in our area and enjoying what we have. When they had Carol marry Ezekiel I had to call bs and let it go. This is not Valhalla or amc or richonne, it’s us not being willing to admit we saw something that will never be canon. Why can’t we be happy with what we have? You seem smart and I started following you recently because of that but we need to have some reality about us now because we are fighting ghosts and we look stupid. Carol could have married Daryl instead of Ezekiel or sleeping with Tobin 🤮 Daryl could have stayed to watch over the kids with Carol. We need to stop letting twd make us look stupid for trailing us along. And we keep letting them do it.

My perspective on Caryl is rooted in how these things are handled by studios and the productions. There are a lot of instances that want a say regarding what couple goes canon and when, and more than one factor as to why. I agree with you that the fandom is dying and that the "people who love that other ship" isn't the cause, but it's not because Caryl's chemistry wasn't there.

I'll run down the main points of my reasoning:

The industry has changed a lot since the start of TWD. AMC is a basic cable network, which means their traditional means of revenue are ad sales and syndication. Certain rules were observed regarding the main/big ships of the shows that existed in that market space and Caryl is a product of those parameters. The relationships from this programming era were teased endlessly to have people tune in from week to week and the general assumption was that the audience would lose interest once the couple went canon. Also, because episodes aired out of order in syndication, it was normal to try and preserve the status quo from episode to episode.

Daryl is an original character for the TV show, so AMC outright owns the rights to him. That's why he is the most marketed/promoted character—because they stood to profit the most from him. Male (romantic) leads are not written the same way anymore that was true for the early seasons of TWD. They were supposed to be unattainable and most often emotionally unavailable for one reason or another, so the show could maintain what was seen as the core story engine.

AMC is deeply steeped in a white male business culture. (The Dolans are essentially the Roy family from Succession.) As we've seen on TWD, the female characters are by and large irrelevant, interchangeable and something to be pitted against each other unlike their male counterparts. The execs thought they'd draw female viewers by promoting Daryl as the Bachelor of the Apocalypse, especially as he couldn't be paired up with the end-game ship.

Scott M. Gimple is a petty vicious little man.

"The writers" are innocent in all this. They can and often do have their own opinions, but they're not in charge of what happens to a ship. That's a negotiation between the showrunner and the studio. Changes in showrunner changes the vision of the show. Most often because the studio wants that change but sometimes because the showrunner touched someone in ways that are inappropriate. The writers are the Greek chorus: they're not individuals per se, they mimic the voice of the showrunner.

Unless the actors have gone on record somewhere (against the terms of their NDAs) on whether they support a ship or not, assumptions on the topic are subjective. One way or the other.

Ezekiel and Tobin were part of Carol's character arc. Tobin had the same body type that Ed did, so he was a step in Carol reclaiming her sexuality and like Ezekiel, it goes to show the level of control she needs over her intimate partnerships. However, there were also BTS reasons for those choices, which had to do with Gimple's vision for the show. And, Daryl couldn't stay to watch over the kids with Carol because he was headed for the spinoff.

The original Carol and Daryl spinoff was pitched by Josh Sapan who was the AMC Networks CEO (the big boss) at the time. He was aware that there was money to be made by marketing a show about these two characters, otherwise he wouldn't have pushed for it. The intention was for canon Caryl in the spinoff, but due to backstage maneuverings, the showrunner got fired, the concept was revised and "the other lead" was forced out.

Any fan who's happy and enjoying what they have, should continue to do so. I'm not arguing with anyone's feelings on the matter. Just like I think fans who aren't happy have the right to tell AMC what they will pay for; it's a negotiation of a business transaction. I have zero faith in Zabel and Nicotero was the point person for most of TBOC due to the WGA strike, so viewers should go into the situation with their eyes open regardless of their personal preferences.

Personally, I want canon because that's the payoff for how both Carol and Daryl's character arcs have been written—they mirror each other and their joint emotional arc has been romantically coded since the start. Promotion hasn't kicked off yet and I need to hear what TPTB say and, more importantly, what they don't to make an informed decision on what I think.

[amphiptere-art]

Here we have Ralph! Ralph the repair dragon!

From mechanical medic.

There's a lot on this page to go through. Given that Ralph is an intriguing character. There's a whole lore dump right here. But you don't have to read that all the way.

I shall explain everything on the page. I am probably going to over explain

First of all you have wonderful Ralph. I have loved this character to death, but his colors were an idea. I am super happy with how he came out. Big metal dragon with a couple of medical symbols on them. They were not created by fazco. Or well their body and model weren't. That came from another company it was making animatronics for non-entertainment. Ralph's body was originally a large hazard medical unit. Acting as an ambulance that could walk through rubble. Fasco though bought out the body and modified it for animatronic needs. Making a mechanical medic.

There of course was a half done spray job. Painting around the medical symbols to try and make Ralph look more dragonish. Adding horns and such. This also include a fabric membrane and metal rod that formed with some wings. Hazardly putting them on the large industrial arms. Once used for moving rubble. The inside medical stretcher / caring unit was somewhat hollowed out and replaced with a smaller DREAD unit. Now optimized for repairs. They're also was to cable attachment points placed on Ralph. At first they were placed in as a way to make their dragon fly. Of which a unique separate cable system was made. Having a gearbox attached to two loops that allowed for Ralph to tilt in midair.

Ralph also has small mechanical spider-like things called their hands. Pizza Plex attendees call them baby dragons though. Many of them were given googly eyes to draw attention away from the fact that they were not autonomous. There are a lot of these guys. For the most part they are stored within Ralph's repair area. They're able to give an electric shock that can down any animatronic. Able to use there Numbers to drag animatronics out of spaces that Ralph cannot go into.

The original company of course did not have AI in their robots. This was changed. Fazco adding their own AI into the system. Although they were too lazy to actually get mechanical coding for the robot. Instead scanning in some mechanics notebooks from the pizza plex itself. Which now makes up Ralph's mechanical knowledge. This is where the little souls come in.

Ralph's AI was generated to feel like a standard worker. Basically he's tired all the time. He only was supposed to have one AI. But the mechanics notebooks that were scanned in were of dead mechanics. All of them dying within the pizza plex. These formed the red, blue, and hazel spirits. The souls are fractured. Given that they are only the lingering of what was written in the mechanics notebooks. When Ralph first noticed the spirits inhabiting his body he classified them as an error and an extra AI that formed due to the notebooks. This of course was not the case but being very mechanic sounding That is what Ralph believed.

You can often tell it is Ralph in control due to how monotone and bored they sound. Ralphs known for being unnaturally cold and logistical. Not making for a fun conversation. Ralph does know how to dance though. And has enough compassion to drag the daycare attendance out of the daycare when their hours close.

The red soul is known for his outgoing, angry nature. Usually known for being rough and truthful. Later on when Ralph and the spirits start to meld, Ralph's eyes will change to a red triangle when angry or purposely possessed by the spirit.

The blue soul is known for being soft and caring. Often sad or fearful of how events will go. Later on when Ralph and the spirits start to meld, Ralph's eyes will change to a blue circle when calm or sad or purposely possessed by the spirit.

The Hazel spirit is known for being loud and joking. Often very humorous and happy. Later on when Ralph and the spirits start to meld, Ralph's eyes will change to a blue square when happy or humorous or purposely possessed by the spirit.

[hopeymchope]

Saw the following comment on a WatchMojo countdown of Top 10 Worst Things to Happen to Link in the Legend of Zelda series. You think it's accurate?

The worst thing to happen to Link was Zelda taking his house after BOTW

I'd say that the list WatchMojo provided definitely contains multiple things that are worse than having his house taken out from under him. SUCH AS: Having his arm chopped off in TotK, being forcibly transformed into a Deku Scrub in Marjora's Mask, failing to protect Hyrule 100 years earlier in BoTW, seeing everyone he came to care about on Koholint cease to exist in Link's Awakening, and literally dying in one of the canonical OoT endings. :P Admittedly, I just listed things that happened to four different Links, so it's not one person actually endured all that torment.

HOWEVER... ! I want to take this opportunity to submit my latest findings RE: Link's housing situation at the start of TotK.

I've previously written about how irritated I was that he lost his own house in TotK — and I established that the evidence indicates he isn't living with Zelda in the same house, either. But the fact remains the narrative makes it clear that he's still close to her side pretty much all the time. In which case: Where is he sleeping? Where does he live? I figured he had to be somewhere in Hateno Village in order to remain nearby... and I believe I have my answer.

If you cross the bridge right in front of what is now Zelda's house, you soon come across...

...these two modular houses, just over the nearest hill.

In Hateno Village (well… in any occupied village), you normally can't enter any building that isn't currently lived in or being used by some character. You'll see them come and go on various days or times of day, confirming where they live/work. We can enter the left-side house shown here... and sure enough, that house is where Medda lives.

What about the house on the right? Anybody living there?

Once again, we can go right inside. There's a single-person bed and some books here, but not much else. What's really interesting is that, no matter how long I waited? Nobody ever came into or even near this house's entrance.

I think you understand what I'm insinuating: I believe that Link moved to this modular house, one of the two nearest structures to what is now Zelda's residence. It's clearly occupied by somebody (because we can walk right into it), but nobody ever enters except for us. There's a single bed in here for one person. Sure, it looks spartan, but so did our original BotW house before we added more personal touches. It's a shame we can't find those same personal touches in this modular home, though. If this house contained some weapon display frames, that'd REALLY take my theory's evidence over the top.

Even if I'm right, there are still plenty gaps to fill in. Did Link gift his house to Zelda to provide her comfort in exchange for her buying the nearest modular home as a guard station for him? Does he think this house is a piece of crap, and that's why he can buy and arrange a new one in TotK? Draw your own conclusions, I suppose.

[tophattrio]

TOP HAT TRIO ARCHIVES: Part 1

Warden: Look at all this lovely art of us! We could fill a museum! Professor: There's so much it seems like we can't keep up... Once-ler: ..... Y'kno what guys? I'm gonna take a break...

((A small fraction of my old old old trio art, most of which has never seen the light of tumblr (under the cut)! None of this is colored. Some of this is pre-blog or just... REALLY early-era Trio art, so some of it is... dated. Also, as indicated by the top, this is part 1. Meaning there will probably be more, LOL...))

((I hope it's okay if I ramble some fun facts in the middle of this!))

We're gonna start off with this silly lil doodle of the lads! This was drawn during the era where I did my silly crossover drawings, before I mustered the courage to turn them into an askblog.

Based on the date, I must've drawn this next one while I was in the process of actually making the blog... potentially their original "profile" images? Or just a doodle I did to get me hyped...

As you can see, all the drawings so far are pencil and ink... that's because (if I remember correctly) this is when I was VERY new to computer tablets! I felt more confident in my traditional art so I would slap quick colors onto the back of a bunch of ink-drawn replies and make minor adjustments with the tablet. I remember being hesitant to switch to a fully digital style since I felt the sketchiness was almost part of the style of trio? But I've come to accept change is good! Everything post-Greed M!A is all (or mostly) digitally lined (with the occasional trad sketch), but if you look closely at the trio in this (and many other) early-day responses, you can definitely see the pencil marks!

Unposted Thneedville High Trio!!! I was SO obsessed with the Once-ler Askblog AU's back in the Once-ler Fandom's hayday... they were a lot of fun to observe on the side and I wanted to be part of that in my small way, but unfortunately, I was a coward so I never did LOL... I'm thinking this was drawn in February or March 2013...

And, something I drew on the same page, Truffula Flu Trio!!!! I think I briefly thought about making it (and thneedville high) a sideblog but I felt like I couldn't commit for multiple reasons: (1) AU hype was dying down a little, (2) It was a bit too serious a concept for Trio; I wanted to keep them lighthearted and silly (covers bad end with a hand). And (3) I was still doubting whether or not my blog counted as a Once-ler blog (being only 1/3 once-ler) and whether I was valid to participate in events. Eventually I got over that fear when I joined Camp Weehawken and participated in the fandom revival of 2015, but the fear was definitely there at the very beginning and I hesitated to jump in on some stuff because of it!!

These were some of my earliest (unanswered) asks! I think for a while I thought I accidentally deleted the Pinkie Pie one, but it mysteriously came back one day?? I don't plan to finish these but might as well get some closure since I already drew them. I had to look up which troll typing was the one being used here so I might be wrong, I know nothing about homestuck except chapter 1 and 2 and whatever I osmosis from my mutuals LOL...

Peacock was drawn before I knew anything about Skullgirls...... within the past few years I recently watched her gameplay/storyline! She's defs a fun character. Trio are probs neutral about her. I'm not confident enough to do anything major with her, but I would love to cameo her more!

I got a few asks / M!A's about genderbent versions of the trio back in early 2013 and these were my doodles for that. The designs were based off of different designs floating around tumblr at the time that I liked. I'm not interested in doing this M!A anymore, but the dresses are cute!

Some glasses shenanigans I never posted for some reason?? (For reference: (1) (2) (3) (4).) It's silly stuff like this that make me realize Trio!Professor is a little bit like "Cheerful Mystery" Professor but like... waaaaay more tame HAHA (I never read the manga back then because I was upset they made Layton OOC, but from what I've seen he's... a lot more chaotic there). Which, ykno, good chance explains why Trio!Professor stays sane around Once-ler and Warden and their wacky selves.

Some wardlers and layclaires!! Also a few super old things I doodled out for Lovestruck M!A part 2 (including warden being a perv and oncie being flustered and confused, LMAO) but... idk if I have the energy to commit to it at the moment... partially bc thinking about getting an influx of shippy-type asks gets me overwhelmed and idk if I can commit to another magic anon all my magic anons manage to kill the blog somehow 😭, but ykno... saving the anons in my inbox in case I change my mind... Love these guys dearly regardless,,, <3

Some doodles of Layton and his rivals!! I think someone sent a small "Descole takes over the blog" M!A (hence the itty bitty chibi head LMAOO) but (again) I don't have the energy to commit to anything but vanilla THT right now. I still thought the idea was fun enough to draw out and anticipate in advance! If I change my mind y'all will know about it...

My first drawing of Wilson from Don't Starve!! I didn't even play Don't Starve at the time, but I wanted to do research if I was going to properly execute the magic anon and I fell in love with him immediately. Unfortunately he (and his game) became my new brainrot and I still feel really bad about that LAUGHS, but hey! Was worth it! Maybe someday I'll redo trio mods for DST...

I may have him cameo again, but potentially after his character update in Don't Starve Together eventually drops, of course, :3 chants give us lore lore loRE LORE-

Aaaaaand that's all I'm gonna show for now... until next time everyone!

PART 1 (you are here!) || PART 2 (TBA) || PART 3 (TBA) || …

[catesartworks]

Answering Asks about Isekai Maid! Pt.2

Asks are down below under the cut, and there are a bunch! Some of these are a bit old, sorry I couldn’t get to them in time. ( T w  T  )

Warning, I’m going to talk about topics like stalking, sui//cide, slavery, and domestic abuse. There’s also some swearing in the asks as well. 

Someone else does it, I have no presence on TVtropes. :P

Thank you! Yes, I really enjoyed making Phantom in the Mirror, it actually helped me a lot and without it I wouldn’t have a lot of the building blocks to make Isekai Maid.

I liked Melissa a lot, Yona and Yuri. Wish Yuri/Melissa were endgame, honestly, but I do like Nine too!

As for dislikes, I feel like Nine’s brother was a bit underdeveloped and I wanted them to really dive deep into his character and why he is the way he is. We get some of it in the side stories, but I really feel like there is something missing about him to make him whole...!

I want an anime dang it!

I think it’s a matter of framing. So much of Otome Isekai in general is about reframing certain scenarios and looking at other character’s points of view. I’m sure that if we were following these characters in a comic/novel, we would be conditioned to accept whatever they do, even if it seems cruel because in this genre many protagonists believe that the ends justify the means as long as they have the excuse of “I need to survive at any cost.”

So Otome Isekai protagonists can justify having servants/commoners dragged away and executed/punished because they “didn’t know their place.” They can excuse things like slavery because “oh well, it’s the world I live in can’t stop it!,” and freely indulge in buying people. And there will be readers who don’t look past the in universe justifications and accept it at face value.

Yes, Phoebe wanted to make sure that Clara didn’t have any allies. Interestingly enough, the original book that Phoebe and Clara were isekai’d into, “Flowers Thrive in Autumn,” was poorly received by audiences because of the tragedy elements and the ultimate fate of the original Phoebe (dying from domestic abuse) and Clara was one of the most hated characters in the book.

Helen, the reincarnator, was one of the readers who couldn’t stand her and thought that Clara didn’t deserve to have a happy ending because she felt it was at the expense of Phoebe. She was also a fan of the prince character, who was a minor character and she wanted to use him for protection. Phoebe reasoned that if Clara had any help or allies whatsoever that it would cause a butterfly effect and the story would make Phoebe die once again.

One week. I work a lot of hours, it’s difficult to keep track because it can vary a lot.

I do 15 hours to do sketching, resketching based on the 3D model where I draw over the rendered image and lineart/flats.

6 hours to render the backgrounds in Blender (I have a specific process where I keep the model and size reference and lineart separated and have to save 3 files at a time).

Roughly it takes about 9 hours to add shadows, textures, and effects (5 hours if I book it!).

2-3 hours for writing dialogue, and about an hour and a half before launching the comic online to check for spelling errors.  And that doesn’t count when I have to reupload chapters after the fact when I notice errors, which can extend my schedule by one day or so.

Sometimes it’s more, since my schedule slips up and I don’t pull all nighters anymore (too tiring!).

Yes, Phoebe is aware that Joshua’s death is an accident. But she felt that Phoebe took most of the brunt of the blame and thinks that Clara should take most of it.

I think that there are so many things in the world that are normal, like demons being such a real threat where they have to alter funeral practices to keep them from spreading, to magic schools and teleportation, that the idea of reincarnation isn’t too far fetched.

Thanks! Unfortunately, I have had the displeasure of watching that film for a film class. It wouldn’t surprise me if readers who justify slavery in stories like Death is the Only Ending for the Villainess, would look at Scarlett O’Hara and think of her as an inspiration.

We already have a lot of slavery isekai (which, honestly...why.), and while it breaks my heart that people justify and gush over slaveowners like Penelope and Scarlett O’Hara, it’s nothing new and is a sign that these kinds of stories are doing harm in how we depict human suffering in slavery.

Even back when the movie was released, people thought of Scarlett as a role model, even when she was the face of the exploitation and gleefully participated in the cruelest forms of human trafficking and suffering. As long as it convenient for the protagonist to do so, people will just about justify anything they do.

Thank you! I find most of my designs from Dover Books, such as “Victorian Fashions: A Pictorial Archive, 965 Illustrations (Dover Pictorial Archive)“ and “Victorian and Edwardian Fashions from "La Mode Illustrée" (Dover Fashion and Costumes)“ You can find them on Amazon or online

Erica did regret it, and she did try to call it off, but it was too late. Erica at one point, truly did love Clara and thought of her as the daughter she never had, but she was also very subconsciously jealous of her older half sister, Misty (Clara’s mom) and took it out on Clara.

Erica and Misty were half sisters on their mother’s side. Their mother had slept with one of her Limpetta butlers, a man named Calvin, when she was an unmarried woman, and gave birth to Misty, who she adored. But her father forced her to give up Misty to Calvin and had them hidden away.

Her mother was then made to marry a much older man who was very wealthy. She gave birth to Erica, and while she showed her love but it was always underwhelming. When her husband died from old age, her mother wasted no time in finding Clavin again and marrying him, forgoing any inheritance she may have gotten as his wife and instead giving it to Erica.

Erica felt forgotten and familyless, but tried to maintain a relationship with Misty and be friendly with her. They were close, but there was always a lingering estrangement because Erica could tell that her mother loved Misty more than her.

When Misty got married and had Clara, Erica was given the chance to name her. Erica was touched and remained close to Clara. But the resentment still remained, and came again to the surface after she lost her son. She felt that Clara belonged to her more than Misty, and was the last remnant of her son but hated that she was alive while her son was dead.

I’ve watched both! ( T 7  T   ) Sorry, but I always watch Otome Isekai when it gets an anime adaptation.

Callisto...🤢🤮 Can’t stand slaveowner characters....I’ll take your word for it, I didn’t like him honestly!

Yep! She survived the Three Week Riot, her name is Tabitha Nguyen.

Sorry this answer came so late, but as soon I saw this message (back when the episode was posted) I updated the content warning!

Pretty much. Clara said in passing to Phoebe that she had other lives, but never elaborated much. Phoebe kind of just assumed that she was also a reader who coincidentally read the same book.

Prince Dimitri’s reason (or justification by the original author) for acting the way he is is due to his mother’s death. As a child, he lived the first eight years of his life as a commoner with his mother, a noblewoman. He was the king of Kolt’s son, and his mother wanted to raise him away from the palace life.

He asked where is dad was, and why he wasn’t with them. While searching for his dad, he accidentally revealed to someone in his village information about his noble mother’s whereabouts and they told the king. This lead to the king tracking them down and forcibly making his mother come back to the palace with him.

In most scenarios like this is Otome Isekai stories, the mother is able to repair her relationship with the king as he will be a good father to his son and she doesn’t have a choice either way (so, yeah, kidnapping and gaslighting). But this story took a deadly turn, as the king threatened to execute her for hiding an heir from him (he thought he was infertile and never took a wife).

He applied so much pressure on her that she broke psychologically. She took her own life. Dimitri felt immense guilt and felt that his want for a father lead to his mother’s death.

As a result of his own guilt, the king allowed him to get away with practically anything, even killing people. But Dimitri later kills his father, and there is a coup within the aristocracy that tries to execute the prince, which is how he is almost killed by assassins and meets Clara, or Phoebe depending on the timeline.

The thing is, Phoebe did have feelings for Dimitri, but she wasn’t sure his feelings for her were real, or that he was even a real person. Even years into the marriage she felt like this. Phoebe doesn’t think that the people around her as as real as her, think as deeply as her, or have true autonomy. She thinks that she lives in a world fully of puppets.

To her, all she did was be in the same place as Clara and say the same things as her. On one hand, it could mean that Prince Dimitri is his own person who chooses to be with someone different this timeline. But on the other hand, because she did what Clara did, it also means that he could swayed not by the individual actions person who saves him, but falls in love due to someone fulfilling a role and might as well just be a piece of code going through the motions.

To Phoebe, Prince Dimtri, unlike her father, was faithful and that was good enough for her. She wanted an attack dog that could protect her from her bad ending.

Nope, she’s a different character.

[umbracirrus]

I would like to hear your take on Balgruuf ❤️

Ahhh Balgruuf-!!

A lot of it boils down to the fact that love his dynamics with the Dragonborn a lot! I'm probably forgetting a few things here because it's about 2am and I'm just a bit tired 😅

This is a stranger who survived a dragon attack who goes to him on behalf of Riverwood to keep them safe. Who then proceeds to help not just his court wizard, but then save Whiterun from another dragon attack. He names the dragonborn Thane, and gives them an axe!! I love the little detail about the axe, both he and Ulfric in the civil war quests send the other an axe to see if they are allies or not. It's the only time you're guaranteed an axe when being named Thane if I remember correctly, the rest of the time it's random chance. He's calling the Dragonborn an ally, he trusts them! And you've got to become Thane as part of the main plot.

The dragonborn also helps him to fulfil one of his wishes later in the main quest (if the civil war isn't done), as he mentions that he envies the Dragonborn for being able to take the pilgrimage to High Hrothgar. Well, he gets to do that in Season Unending, even if the circumstances are less than ideal.

The dragonborn also helps find out one of the sources of Nelkir's behaviour if the Daedric quest for Mephala is done. I know that the original version of the quest had Balgruuf dying, but... I like that he gets to live as it is. But he does worry about Nelkir, ("He was always a quiet lad, but lately... something has changed. He's become brooding. Violent. He won't say a word to me, but I don't know how I upset him. If you could speak to him. Draw out the truth. I would be immensely grateful." 😭) so surely it gives him peace of mind once the Ebony blade is out of Dragonsreach. I feel as though that would have an impact on his thoughts and feelings about the Dragonborn too.

He prays to Kynareth for the Dragonborn's safety when they fly off on Odahviing, and it's such a minor thing, but I just love it. Especially after he's told his guards to put their trust in the Dragonborn to capture Odahviing. He wants the Dragonborn to return safely. I mean, of course he would, he wouldn't want to die from Alduin destroying the world, but I like to think that there's something more personal there. Especially with Irileth at his side calling them both brave and a fool.

But I can't help but feel that there's something more than just a Jarl and one of their Thanes when you join the Stormcloaks. In the battle for Whiterun, he gets all snappy and angry at Vignar, another person on the opposing side. But in the aftermath, the line he says to the dragonborn, who was his thane because you can't start the civil war quest without becoming one, it's just painful for me to hear. The delivery of "And you. A Stormcloak? I'd thought better of you." it just. Ooh, it's the main thing which stops me from doing the civil war sometimes. Was he hoping that the Dragonborn was simply being a messenger again as they were for Riverwood when they brought him Ulfric's axe, and not actually a Stormcloak? Was he not wanting to find himself opposing the Dragonborn?

And he's just. He's there from the start. He's there with the Dragonborn throughout. He's there when you start the journey as Dragonborn. He's there when it reaches its end in the run up to Alduin's defeat. He's a constant, he's willing to listen even if you suggest the madness that is capturing a dragon. He's your ally, your friend, and he cares!!

In short. I wish he was a marriage prospect. There's a lot of nuance in his thoughts on the Dragonborn, and you can definitely get married for less in-game (not to diminish any of them-!!! I like most of the characters you can marry no matter what you go through to get to that point!)

Sorry if this is incoherent in any way, I had to write about my favourite character before trying to sleep or else it would have been on my mind 😅

[laincelebi]

Ideas for a trigun werewolf au

So i just had an idea for a trigun au that i think it would be fun. I started drawing Vash as a werewolf and then i thought what if Meryl was the werewolf?

I am still unsure of what all the logistics of why there are werewolves and how that would impact things or what even the plot would be (if it would be different or not).

So worldbuilding ideas after the cut.

Origins

Werewolves are something tied to No Man's Land, there were no werewolves on the ships, just humans. Reports and stories are relatively new too but very few. They have some sort of connection to the plants as a plant dying can trigger a werewolf to go out of control. However, people don't really know anything about them, or where they came from. Most of the theories revolves around plants. Some think it's a gift from the plants to help humans survive in No Man's Land, others think it's some sort of curse or mutation caused by the plants. Werewolves would be so rare that they are basically an urban legend. They are actually born humans, until one day something transforms them, its unknown if people have some pre-disposition to become werewolves also there isn't a set age to transform.

Werewolves

I am between a more alien like appearance and a more traditional one for them. Werewolves would be more resistant than normal humans and have more acute sense but they are not much stronger, they can still be killed with guns (yeah, no need for silver bullets). Since people know nothing about them, its assumed they are monsters that just want to kill, because of that they are hunted and usually when a person is discovered to be a werewolf they are killed on sight. Which makes people who become werewolves always afraid of being discovered and they try to hide what they are at all costs. However, in normal circumstances they have full control of themselves. They can transform at any time however there are a few times that they feel a need to transform and usually can't hold back, it's usually these situations where they are discovered.

They have a certain connection to plants being able to feel their emotions when they are close by which is usually soothing to them, in turn, when the plants are unstable or dying they are directly affected and become violent due to being overwhelmed by a influx of conflicting and chaotic emotions and so far no one knows if they can recover from this state.

About the Characters

Meryl would be a recently turned werewolf, being lucky no one saw her when she turned, and no one knows she is one. She would be in a similar state to Vash, being afraid of others discovering what she is. She doesn't really know what to do nor what really happened to her, having only rumors as information about similar cases to hers, and she prefers to ignore most of them. As they are usually about werewolves being monsters that attack people. Based on her experience ,she can't believe werewolves can lose control and become violent as that never happened to her. So she assumes that's a lie, but once she sees that really happening she would be very afraid that one day she may kill someone.

She recently changed and never got in close proximity to a plant before so she doesn't know what she can do.

When she first encounters Vash, she could be able to sense something weird about him. but can't really tell what it is and she can't feel his emotions like she can with other plants. And in turn Vash would also notice something, though since he never met a werewolf he wouldn't know much.

I kinda picture her being tiny for a werewolf like not much taller than she already is (Vash can still pick her up lol). while she could fight better in this form, her fear of being discovered makes her choose her battles. Only using her werewolf form when completely necessary.

Vash only has heard about werewolves but never met one and he thought that that they didn't exist. He feels some sort of connection with Meryl that he can't really understand.

Plot points

The main one would be her relationship with Vash (yeah this is pretty much a vashmeryl idea), they are in similar and yet different situations. Both are afraid of being discovered, so when they learn about each other there is an understanding between them. I would definitely want to explore what this change would do to their dynamic. Also since plants are directly connected to werewolves, making them go out of control and transforming humans, how would they react to this information?

Another cool point would be Meryl being close to a plant as it's unstable and she loses control and Vash needs to help her regain it before she does something she regrets.

Well this is all i have so far. there is a lot more to think about like how their friends will react, especially Milly and even if this situation would change knives view on humans.