#hes been in agony for decades because of it he doesnt want to give anyone that much control over his heart ever again

[jojotier]

currently going mildly insane over this tropey manwha bc the way the worldbuilding is set up the main saint of the goddess just has 9 platonic ultrapowerful soulmates who are spiritually bound as her knights, protectors, generally share a bond deeper than romance or family, driving all parties to ecstasy at merely being able to know each other, but the narrative is more interested in getting into the saint's conventional heterosexual romance so there's not nearly enough time actually spent going into the Implications of the soulmates thing

[roughentumble]

oh!!! in case anyone was wondering, i did finish that AU that was half-formed as i was falling asleep last night. i dont think anything ever came of it haha-- its basically just misao. not so much in the "little girl gets sexually assaulted and brutally murdered at school" sense, but more like an overarcing "some people enter a haunted building and are locked inside, forced to learn its violent secrets" sort of thing. the ghost-- the "misao"-- in this equation is geralt. he's been missing for a long time, and when they find the house and physically see him as an apparition, that's confirmation on what's become of him.

he's twisted, and violent, and his features look... wrong. innocent people who'd wandered into the house long before any of geralt's friends found it, all lay dead beneath the floorboards. but it is, despite everything, very clearly him.

jaskier is the one who agrees to stay with him(the "aki", if you know the true ending of misao), to abate his loneliness. despite everyone's pleas, he steps forward into geralt's arms, and then the two of them vanish.

it's a bright, sunny day outside. birds chirp. the front door hangs open on its hinges... and jaskier and geralt are gone. their remaining friends take a moment to huddle together and mourn...

and then, miraculously, a few moments later, out of nothing falls geralt and jaskier.

now, what they'd learned along the way, somehow or another, is that the reason geralt is such a strong and dangerous apparition despite not actually being dead that long is because he didnt die normally. he was trying to reason with a mage, it had come to blows, and in his dying moments the mage had been angry. vengeful. "if im to die here, you'll be trapped here too. alone." sort of thing. those feelings, a giant explosion of magic, and the next thing geralt knows he's trapped. not just within the four walls of the building, but he fades in an out, in a sort of... pocket dimension. time passes differently in there, he's been trapped for longer than a few months, or a handful of years, and it's broken him on top of amplifying whatever power he'd have as a specter.

but the two key factors are that he was never actually dead-dead despite what everyone thought, and when jaskier agreed to stay he was no longer actually alone, breaking one of the stipulations of the mage's dying curse.

its obvious, though, despite the brief amount of real time passed, neither is alright. even jaskier shrinks back from the light, clings to geralt wordlessly. it's been far longer for them. (let's say a year for simplicity's sake, but you can make up whatever amount of time works to you.)

that's basically the conclusion, then the epilogue is them healing. jaskier gets better, mostly, but geralt's problems are life-long. it takes a LOT of help, and healing, and magic, to get him anywhere near functioning, and he can't return to the Path. he has a panic attack if he's alone in a room for too long, and he and jaskier are codependant, completely attached at the hip.

to my mind they probably take up residence in oxenfurt. jaskier is offered a position teaching, and even though it's a LOT of people(which is hard for geralt to handle) it's safer than life on the road, and they never have to be apart for any particular reason. geralt sits in with him for his lectures, finds himself comforted by jaskier's voice. no more excitement, or contracts, or daring adventures, but they manage to carve out a life for themselves that's happy enough, make peace with the more painful parts of their past.

im not sure how to make a story of it, or even if i'd want to make a story of it, but it was fun to think about. and you can definitely feel my aversion to major character death, lmao, it'd honestly be simpler to just have them both die, but i do think there's something appealing(for lack of a better word) about there being something so terrible that even the famous white wolf cant come back from it. the isolation was too much, and no matter how much he heals, geralt cant be who he was, but he can become someone who's happy where he is.

of course, there is the supernatural problem-- if you make "passage of time in the void" a direct 1-to-1 to some regular unit of time, then geralt very quickly becomes trapped and tortured with solitude for an unreasonable and frankly goofy amount of time(see dean winchester getting tortured for decades. its not a comprehensible amount of time. that's not a thing a person can endure.) you can either lean into that, and give it the feel of A Ghost Story(numbers arent as important as a proper atmosphere in this case), or you leave the numbers intentionally vague so it doesnt get goofy.

now, you could make an argument for any match-up you like-- instead of jaskier choosing to walk beside him and follow him as he always has, it's yennefer in a clever play on "you've condemned yourself to me". now she's condemning herself to him. or perhaps eskel, two drops of water, it's always been the two of them, and now it will always be just the two of them. lambert, who knows loss and loneliness and agony and decides he cant leave geralt to that fate, even if its reckless to jump into the abyss with him. regis, who's lived a long life and decides the best way to end it is in comforting an old friend. any manner of ship(or gen) works perfectly well-- i choose jaskier because i'm a one trick pony, but i'd honestly read any of these other matches, it all depends on what an author wants to write. and if anyone for some reason feels inspired by my spiel, feel free to write it, as long as you send me a link to the finished product! (and perhaps credit me for inspo? thats not required tho it'd just be nice.)

[tumblunni]

Cathedral Tower Defense Game character ideas and stuff so far! I’ve talked about some of these before but I wanna just compile it in summary form, and try and get thinking about more to add. It’d be so cool if I could make it like an early suikoden game where you have the world’s biggest party selection! Or at least have that equivelant but with recruiting shopkeepers and townbuilders and stuff.

So... long post ahoy!

* Protagonist (Sir/Lady/Master Amity) Your selectable renameable main charrie! A badass disabled veteran who lost their family in the war and ended up defending this cathedral town of strangers in order to prevent another tragedy. They’re generally distrusted at the beginning, have a lot of doubts about what philosophy they should take in life, and its up to you to decide how the story plays out. But no matter what, this protagonist is a cool grumpy comically-serious nerd gramp! (or gran or etc) i really REALLY like the idea of changing them to be an older veteran character, it just works so much better and seriously WHY are there like zero grandma protagonists in anything ever? I will vow to make this one as amazing as possible!!

* Florin Generally supportive yet sassy and lazy deutorogonist helper guy. He’s your first ally in this world and maybe kind of a tutorial, lol. Even though he’s a total cinnamon roll, he’s as distrusted as you because he’s a demon. Even the protagonist kinda wonders why on earth he wants to help them, and whether he’s some sort of enemy spy... His elemental realm is over plants, and he has no greater joy than taking a nice nap amoungst the flowers~

* Malachi At the moment the only fully developed idea I have for another party member, aside from Florin. Though I’m not sure if I want him to be optional or mandatory? In either case when you recruit him he’s the catylyst for a lot of character development for Florin, and they end up becoming like a lil adopted family ^_^ Anyway, Mal is a very young and adorable demon child that the party finds sealed away beneath some ruins. Precociously innocent, he seems unaware that he’s become a monster. I mean, everyone eats rocks, right?

* Admiral Chiffon (wip name) A major recurring enemy turned ally! Chiffon starts off as just the eccentric comic relief member of the opposing army, kinda harmless and kinda entertaining. And you might pity her quite a bit, because her coworkers treat her like absolute shit. I basically invented this character because I got sick of seeing the ‘ha ha flambouyant gross comic relief villain’ thing in recent fire emblems, and wondered what it would be like to have a villain whose LGBTQ status is treated as a sympathising aspect instead, leading to a redemption when she finds people who dont treat her like those damn writers treated everyone :P So yeah, she’s a transgender woman who faces a lot of predjudice in her career, and I hope I can make it very heartwarming when she finds true friendship with our heroes! And also I hope it can make the non-comic-relief villains seem extra disgustingly unforgiveable after you see how badly they treat their own teammates. Her personality is gonna be kind of a greedy merchant sort of person, but what if that archetype was a good character instead. She remains sassy and greedy even when she’s been redeemed, i like a good ‘ol vice-filled hero yknow! Character development is my jam! Also all i know about her design so far is that I think I want her to have stylishly skunk striped hair, to represent greying streaks and all. I was imagining her as the token grandma of the cast before I decided to age up the protagonist lol

* Currently unnamed church matron duo, aka Timon And Pumbaa One of my early-ish undeveloped concepts for non-battling town members. These two are florin’s equivelant, they’re the town workers you start off with before the game really starts. I’m thinking they’d be like nuns/priestesses that worked at this place before you came along, and you have a bit of a rivalry here because they pragmatically know they need you to defend the stronghold but they’re also very wary of you. The ‘timon’ one would be the main one who actually holds all these opinions, a sort of crusty matronly mega paranoid lady who thinks you’re gonna backstab us all at any moment! And she’s some sort of super scary chronic sufferer of resting bitch face, even though she sees herself as the ultimate arbiter of justice everyone else thinks she’s terrifying. Just imagine her trying to hug a baby that just cries as if it saw the face of death! Life sucks when you’re a lawful good character stuck in a chaotic evil character design! And then her partner is a funloving pumbaa-esque team chef, who’s actually kinda too loving and innocent to ever distrust anyone. But she always just falls in with whatever her boss says, its like a pinky and the brain situation. Oh and I’m already kinda preemptively shipping these two before I’ve even finished designing them XD

* Depression jail janitor Starts as a prisoner you take from one of the enemy raids, but he ends up winning your trust and joining your team. Entirely against his will! he’s a chronically depressed man who was forcibly drafted into the evil army even though he doesnt believe in their cause, but now he feels like he’s unforgiveable anyway. So he spends all his time trying to convince you that he is indeed pure evil! But the more humble he is, the more everyone believes in his genuine kindness. Alas! It doesnt help that he also kinda has chronic hero syndrome and cant resist helping out in every possible way. So that is how a prisoner ended up becoming the one in charge of the jail keys! And he’s like Everyone’s Dad. (Even the people decades older than him...)

* Former bully powerful friend The one other main child character, cos I wanted Malachi to have some friends. They start off at odds and she initially joins in with everyone bullying him, cos she wants to fit in. But he ends up helping her deal with her insecurities and realise she was only resenting him for being ‘weak’ because she saw herself reflected in him. or rather, the traits in herself she’d tried to hide to make everyone like her, even if it meant joining in with bullying and only having horrible asshole friends. So she sacrifices her popularity with the main clique in order to defend malachi, and ends up finding her first true friend with him. They’re better off being outcasts together! So yeah cutie malachi will have some sort of stronge deliquent friend with a heart of gold, and I’m not sure yet whether she’d be playable or not? i kinda feel like its not right to have someone that young join the party unless they have magic powers to protect them. So maybe she can fight by teaming up with malachi, actually? like, she rides atop his stone dragon golem form and supports with ranged weaponry or something. or just acts as an advisor? I liked the idea I had that there would be a buffs-only type of magic stone, and people could cast it on themselves to have enhanced senses at something or other and improve their supporting skills. Like the protagonist would maybe have an eyesight-enhancing buff crystal to act as a sniper scope!

* Rival warrior buff teen person Very undeveloped cos I just came up with them ysterday, lol! I’m thinking possibly make this character female just cos this archetype doesnt get to be female all that often. Kind of a draco malfoy type snooty rival, but with a more sympathetic side and ultimately you do become friends. Theyre just a simple ordinary citizen who was doing the best they could to protect their family before you came along, and now kinda resents the fact you’re all BETTER THAN EVERYONE and taking their job as guardian! They have a lot of anxieties over the fact they struggled so hard to become self-trained and now you’re here making it look easy. So the plot has a general theme of believing too much in ‘destiny’, and that some people are just born with talent and you’ll never succeed if you werent lucky enough. This character started off trying to act like theyre inherantly blessed with that talent, because they’re terrified that they aren’t... Oh and I think once you befriend them I think they might be like a ryuuji/junpei type of friend? But without the weird sexism and homophobia randomness that persona 4 threw onto yosuke. Just like a bit of a cheerful cliche ‘bro’ who isnt all that interested in books and likes to be all ‘cmon do it for the vine’. A good polar opposite to the protagonist who could have some cute interactions!

* Rival warrior’s chilled out older sibling figure of reasonableness Every rin needs a yukio! I think they’d be maybe a bartender or owner of a restaurant or something? Just some sort of super chilled out job where they act as an agony aunt to their customers, the place is very popular because of the great service. (Though also everyone is kinda like ‘yo you dont have to run it all by yourself, yo you dont need to give us bonus extra special treatment, seriously get some sleep dude!!’) But anyway they’re this perpetually relaxed super kind soul who’s always the reasonable response to their lil sib’s ohohoho angry rivalness. But the bad side to it is that they’re also a lil depressed and apathetic about their own life, they’re kinda like someone who really lives for their family, in a bad way. They’ve been like a single parent to their sibling because they had kind of a tragic backstory, and big sib has just grown too used to sacrificing everything in order to help other people and never taking care of themself. And they have a lot of trouble even.. feeling emotions. The outwardly chilled and happy-go-lucky facade covers up just a void of nothing but self hate and emptiness. They feel like they’d already been tainted by the way their abusive parents used to treat them, its too late for them and all they can do is try and save other people from falling down the same path. Oh, and I think maybe the two siblings are actually immigrants from the villain country? Like, when older sib ran away from the abusive family they ended up here, and now they try and keep it secret, to the point that even the younger sibling doesnt know where they were born. Basically I just wanna have a LOT of different subplots showing how the ordinary citizens of this country aren’t all evil just because their government are the bad guys in this story. And especially covering topics like characters who’re part of that ethnicity and get treated like they’re inherantly terrorists even if they were born and raised in a completely different country!