#figuring out who is who in the arcane and gossip girl is fun

[e-rosel]

i know its crazy but... arcane au

Arcane gossip girl au

You heard me right people

[prizrakis]

(MILENA TSCHARNTKE, TWENTY FOUR, CIS WOMAN, SHE/HER) ⮕ Hey, isn’t that [MIKA ANTONOVA]? I heard that they were a part of the crew. According to the wiki it says they’re the [EDITOR] of the group. Avid fans say that they’re [CHARMING], but that they can also be [AVOIDANT]. Maybe that’s because they’re a [SCORPIO]. This gossip forum says they’re in the group because [SHE HAD A SUPERNATURAL EXPERIENCE WHEN SHE WAS YOUNGER]. I wonder if that’s true. I also heard they [DO] believe in ghosts. I wonder if their time in arcane inc will change that. (ooc peyton, 23, est.)

stats.

full name: mika antonova antonov nicknames: none yet! birthdate: november 7th, 1996 occupation: editor for arcane inc nationality: english-russian

orientation: bisexual moral alignment: chaotic neutral myers-briggs: estp temperament: choleric

about.

mika doesn’t remember much about her mother and father. the second child to natasha and maxim, they lost custody of their two children when mika was two years old due to neglect. her brother at the time, adrian, only five. the children’s grandparents agreed to take the two of them in and moved to london so it would be the family’s permeant residence. there were supervised visits with her parents over the course of the next few months but after a year they stopped showing up. she was too young to understand but not too young to feel the pain of abandonment. no one has seen them since.

that being said, mika and adrian had a relatively normal childhood. their grandparents were caring and attentive, albeit strict with the children such as making them go to church every sunday. they were comfortably middle class but lived below their means to teach their grandchildren how to save. mika was a typical happy, energetic, sunshine-y girl who liked to tease her guardians and pull innocent pranks on her older brother. 

she did have a knack for getting in trouble and in her teen years would often find herself grounded for sneaking out of the house or staying out past curfew. her babushka would always say the girl was going to put her in an early grave. 

in high school mika had a podcast that gathered a humble following with two of her best friends. they talked about local legends and ghosts and true crime stories and would sneak into places they weren’t supposed to be so they could record their live reactions. they each had a job to make sure things ran smoothly and she was in charge of editing the audio. it was a a harmless hobby and something to keep the group out of trouble, more or less.

it wasn’t until they stepped foot into an abandoned house, the story was the patriarch of the original family who lived there had gruesomely murdered his own family then every person who lived there after died under mysterious circumstances. of course they had to cover it. they decided to spend the night there and make it part of a special episode before they all went their separate ways to university.

she isn’t sure where it went so wrong. one of the friends had brought an ouija board to see if they could make things more interesting for the audience. when the planchette began to move, they all figured they were messing with each other until all of the lights went out. mika’s memory from that night is pretty hazy but all she knows is that it was bad. by the time they ran out of the house they were scratched up and bruised from some sort of invisible force. they end up all heading to their respective homes but none of them rest.

tw death mention: mika grew paranoid, feeling as if she was being followed and seeing shadowy figures in the corner of her eye. the other two shared how they felt this way as well. something wasn’t right. a sleepless week after the encounter one of them, audrey, was in the hospital for a few days before passing away. it shook mika. it changed her. she didn’t want anything to do with the podcast or her remaining friend anymore. the two don’t speak again and she goes away to school for film. mika avoided any talk about anything supernatural after what happened, though and just wanted to move on with her life. she gets her degree but moves back home immediately after as she didn’t really know what she wanted to do.

anyone that didn’t know about arcane who was on the internet lived under a rock. she was a fan of them when they were just a group of friends because it reminded her so much of her own life. when a school friend recommends the job of editor to mika, she’s hesitant. she didn’t want to relive what happened but she missed the thrill of it all. besides it’d get her out of the house and get her grandparents off her back. 

headcanons.

mika knows english, russian, and british sign language. adrian is deaf so she had to communicate with him some way. 

she has a large scar on her back that goes all the way from her right shoulder blade to the center of her lower back. it’s from that night but she still doesn’t know how it got there. 

likes to go out and have fun! she isn’t exactly the happy little girl she used to be. mika’s pretty dry and sardonic nowadays. her apathy for her own well being makes her a pretty good party buddy though. can and will drink you under the table. she also somehow always has weed on her.

to her nothing can be as bad as what happened so she’s near impossible to scare at this point. if the demons take her then they take her.

listens to a lot of midwest emo like some sort of angsty teen. please show her anything else other than modern baseball.

skater girl. it was her other big hobby and she never got her driver’s license so she had to get around somehow. she never learned how to ride a bike anyway. when she’s procrastinating (as she usually is) she can be found dicking around somewhere with her board.

good with people but not good at keeping friends! stop pushing people away and go to therapy!

wanted connections.

i’m sorry head empty you can just like this and i’ll message you for plots.

[rocketfool]

fawks - 62, 64, 52, 40, 15 | kass - 8, 16, 36, 42, 66 "rainy that's ten questions" "yes :)"

putting these behind a read more to spare people who are not interested in all of this because whoops it got long! 

FAWKS

62. Who does your character think is the most put together in the party?

THIS DEPENDS ON THE PARTY. of the main party, it’s definitely pierce. like sure he has some anxiety but he has not put goo in his mouth unprompted. so that pulls him ahead of fyn, who would be the second choice. of the surface party...probably valytra! like sure she collects souls in her necklace but she seems Polite and like she was a Pleasure to Have in Class, plus you have to have your shit together to be a spy (theoretically). kidar is...put together in that she’s extremely confident in who she is and assured of her own place in the world, but not the typical standard for “put together,” and fyn has put goo in her mouth, so. valytra wins. 

64. What is one thing they want each party member to know?

I’m going to do main party, and out of character! 

pierce: you’re so much braver and more heroic than you give yourself credit for. you deserve your place here just as much as anyone, and have personally inspired me to be a better person. but stop side eying me about scully I am WORKING on having a realization about this!! I’ll get there maybe!

jolene: we both put up such aggressive fronts to hide our vulnerabilities, but I’m discovering it is actually helpful to let people in and care for them, even if it makes you feel exposed. I hope you’re also coming to that realization and maybe one day (IN THE VERY DISTANT FUTURE) we’ll be more honest in our own friendship but for now lmao what is going on with blacksmith girl huh. I would like an update.

fyn: you’re the most optimistic and good-hearted person I know, and I hope you can see what an effect you have on the party. I’m very glad I’ve had you at my side for pursuing the black dragon wyrmspeaker, because I don’t know how I would’ve done it alone. also please stop putting goo in your mouth, we have enough money for quiche and lavender lemonade PLEASE. 

52. If your character was under quarantine, what type of quarantine person would they be? (Productive? Hobbyist? Lazy?)

oh my god fawks in quarantine is off the rails immediately, she cannot be left unsupervised. I think she starts her own youtube channel that people LEGITIMATELY think is supposed to be like a ~found footage narrative fiction channel or other creative project but...it’s never been stated to be and she just keeps appearing in videos to talk very urgently about cryptids and show everyone how she’s converted her kitchen to include a PROPER, homemade fumigation hood. so it’s very unclear. on that note, the vlog probably comes to an end bc she either 1) blows up her kitchen with her own experiments because it is NOT a lab, or 2) breaks into someplace she shouldn’t be and isn’t caught but then uploads the footage to ye olde youtube and it’s like...okay so this is you running around fantasy area 51 right? knock it off. 

40. Describe a corruption/redemption arc version of your character.

OKAY corruption arc fawks...like we all know fawks is very, very motivated by ~discovery and has a black and white way of thinking, she’s always poised on a precipice of discovering one powerful magic artifact that makes her risk it all LOL. she’s doing some character development in that area but I think there some very clear seeds of a corruption arc there--her connection to people (such as the party) is what keeps her on the...generally okay if not exactly the Right Path, so I think something awful befalling the party/people she loves where they are all killed would push her firmly into the dark side. I can see her getting lost in pursuing a way to “undo” whatever happened with time travel magic (wow like a certain tower we encountered) instead of reconciling it, and being willing to do whatever it takes to get her way. would prioritize herself and her mission above everything and everyone else, even if it threatens to rip the universe apart or results in killing people because she knows once she discovers this magic it will set things right, not just for her but its uses for the world at large...yeah it’d be bad. :/

REDEMPTION ARC is kind of what she’s on now. she’s discovering she has worth outside of what she produces for science/magic/etc! she’s figuring out she can open up to people and ask for help sometimes! she’s putting things right for her family! things are slowly coming up fawks...maybe.

15. Describe their ideal date. 

OH BOY. fawks is not really uh...into traditional expressions of romance. like she’ll make an effort for the right person but her preference is never going to be a fancy dinner and candlelight. honestly I think the ideal date would start off in the late evening (AFTER A LONG DAY OF SCIENCE), going to a museum of curiosities or for cryptids/the arcane, where she’s allowed to really go in deep with her date on the history of various items/the theories behind everything and listen eagerly to what her date has to say too (in any world where fawks is dating, that person has to have Opinions on this type of thing). they’d stay until close and then head to a food truck to grab something to go while fawks leads the date to a rooftop of an abandoned building she likely discovered cryptid hunting but realized has an amazing view. they’d sit out under the stars and eat together, chatting inevitably about how fawks found the building, maybe do some exploring of it together. and then they head to a 24 hour diner for milkshakes as dessert! 

KASS

8. What is something they cannot resist?

OOOH this is fun because there are a lot of ways to interpret the question. I think kass can never resist a bustling marketplace in whatever city he ends up in--he loves travel and finding out about the local culture, is always curious to see what’s for sale and what the gossip is about town from the merchants he meets there. he spent a lot of time in marketplaces growing up so they’re nostalgic for him--he also loves purchasing trinkets from them anytime he lands somewhere new, particularly if those trinkets are fancy scarves/boots/etc. foodwise, he’s a sucker for baklava and good red wine--he enjoys wine shops/bars over taverns because he’s bougie lmao. oh and if dancing is happening and he’s not the one playing the music, kass is involving himself as is his right as a bard. he can’t resist a good opportunity dance when he has the chance!

16. What keeps them going?

OH BOY a good question. I think kass is a realist in a lot of ways, but has held onto some amount of idealism. he keeps moving forward with the idea that he’s in a losing situation right now, but he’s patient enough to watch and see what way the winds will blow. he justifies his work with the understanding that he has a certain moral code for his behavior when he can make choices, versus when his hands are tied by the zhents. always is keeping one eye out for an opportunity to slip out of those binds completely. 

36. What makes them blush?

HMMMM I don’t think kass gets too worked up over flirting--sometimes it’s literally just part of his job, and in general he’s just confident in himself. and listen he’s been in plenty of seedy taverns and courts rifled with intrigue, so not a lot makes kass bat an eyelash at this point. the things that would make him blush would probably be genuine romantic gestures? he doesn’t have a lot of experience with them so someone doing something very sweet and thoughtful for him would catch him completely off guard. like even getting flowers from the right person, kass is just not used to that type of attention! 

42. Is there something your character isn’t very good at, but enjoys doing nonetheless?

kass would LOVE crossword puzzles I think. he’s been doing them since he was a kid and could filch a newspaper every once in a while, but he’s not super good at them. just enjoys having something to sit back and focus on while drinking his coffee in the mornings. I also don’t think he’s very good at cooking, but he enjoys trying out new recipes!

66. Outward Passion or Quiet Rebellion?

this is hard because I think kass feels pulled between the two very frequently. I think he’d much prefer outward passion, throwing himself heart first into a cause, but he definitely is more likely to commit quiet rebellion and does so frequently. like what the zhents don’t know won’t hurt...him. again, where he has the ability to, kass follows his own heart so he’s willing to work quietly to do some good. but he’d much prefer to be bolder, in the grand scheme of things.