#hope the answers made sense

[luna-loveboop]

'I've never been in a dungeon before' and 'Who's Ganon?' have literally made some of the BEST reaction panels in Lu I just-

They are very similar conversations- where a Link is pointing out/asking about something that the others have experienced and they haven't. Which is really cool to compare and contrast but they all just freak out about it

Genuinely some of the best conversations in Lu

The lesson here is that apparently the Links will always be freaked out when one of them has missed out on one of the Zelda Fundamentals™

.

Art by Jojo @linkeduniverse au :)

[paintpanic]

Res AU Joronia drawings. Character rambling and bonus doodles under cut.

This AU takes place a good while after the events of Triple Deluxe happened. Since then, Taranza's mostly recovered mentally from everything. He was able to move on from his grief and (somewhat) forgive himself. Now that Joronia's in his life again, seemingly back to her former self, some of those wounds he'd thought were fully healed have started to ache again. He still feels ultimately guilty for what happened to her.

He's thrilled that Joronia's been given a second chance at life, but is somewhat wary deep down. This feels to good to be true, that she's just back with seemingly no strings attached. The other shoe could drop any day now, and he could lose her all over again. Fearing this, he wants to make the most out of what could be a short time to be together again with his friend.

Joronia senses that there's a distance between the two of them now that wasn't there before. It shouldn't be surprising; he's probably still hurt from what she did. Other people definitely are. She's determined, though, to work hard to make it up to everyone she's hurt, and to prove to them (and herself) that she's not really like that, that she's capable of being better.

The Mirror's influence twisted her mind and her perception of reality. It made her feel like she was inadequate, and that everyone else were enemies to be subjugated. Now, she's supposed to be normal and better, but she still feels like there's something wrong with her head. She still doesn't feel good enough, and it still feels like everyone hates her. It's hard to trust herself. She's not sure if it's some lingering effect of the Mirror, or if there's just something inherently wrong with her now. She's scared.

She's afraid that something will happen, that she'll revert to how she was as Queen, and that she'll hurt Taranza again. Someone who'd always helped her, who'd stuck with her even when she was absolutely horrible to him, and who's kindness she's relying on again now, staying at his home as she worked on getting her life back together. She's a burden on him, and she always has been. She hates it.

Still, her deepest, most selfish wish is that they could be real friends again.

---

These two need to have a long, honest discussion about their feelings toward each other and themselves. Both of them are absolutely terrified about that prospect, though, because they each think that the other secretly resents them to some degree. If they actually talked through it, they'd quickly realize that they both want the same thing.

[linterteatime]

what color pencils/markers do u use!!!!!

(Here is a drawing as an example) Hi, i use a lot of highlighters! mostly because they usually have softer colours and don't make ballpoint pens bleed, i usually use the ones that are called "morandi", these:

Because they have some very nice colours, but like, most highlighters from other brands should work just fine as well (and i really mean it because i also use from many others a lot of the time, i just recommend these cuz they are the ones i use the most and also work the best, at least for me) i also use gel pens sometimes if i want more detail and alcohol markers (both not from any particular brand) sometimes.

Also i don't use colour pencils at all anymore lmao (no hate to colour pencils they are just not very comfy for me to use :P)

[nekrosmos]

questions about nikolai and price (originally from an ask meme about original characters but i wanna hear your thoughts):

what do they want to hear?

what do they need to hear?

what do they dread to hear?

Thank you for the ask !! I honestly struggled with the answers, I'm not the best at deep character introspection so this really had me scratching my head. I hope what I came up with makes sense !

What do they want to hear?

Nikolai: "I trust you."

Nik is intimidating, isn't he ? Intelligent, strong, well-connected Nikolai. People know that. It usually takes only a half a second glance to know that you do not want to be on this man's bad side. He's used to it, really. But how many times as he entered a room only to see people shift uncomfortably, suddenly very aware of his presence? He makes people uneasy, whether he wants it or not. It's fine when he's on an op and needs to be menacing, but it gets old quickly when he just wants to relax, sometimes.

He's trustworthy, despite his shady dealings, he's loyal. Thankfully, a handful of people know that.

Price: "You made a difference"

Yes, his hands got bloody, but it was all worth it in the end, right? He saved people by pulling the trigger when it needed to be done. No hesitation, it's what the world needs. So what if he can't sleep at night and his file is covered in black ? He made a difference, the rest, he can live with.

What do they need to hear?

Nikolai: "You need to think of yourself, too."

Nikolai puts others first, this has always been true. He likes to help out, likes to feel useful, ready to answer a call. Loyal to a fault, devoted to his friends. But when was the last time Nik put his needs as a top priority ? Has he ever done that ? He has no trouble flying to the other of the planet at a moment's notice if someone asks him to. How many nights of sleep has he missed because someone needed a hand? How much time has he spent fixing up his helo because it got banged up the last time a friend needed transport in hostile territory ? It's always others first, never himself, and he needs to be reminded of that.

Price: "You matter."

It's easy to forget that you're someone when you've been used as a weapon since you were 16. You forget that you have a purpose outside of your work, too. You forget you're a human first, with needs and wants and desires. You are Captain John Price, but you are also just John Price, and he matters too.

When he comes home for a break, what does he see outside of blank walls and a barely lived in house he never really took the time to make his ? It's temporary, he thinks, he doesn't really live here.

Maybe John needs to be reminded that he exists outside of his work.

What do they dread to hear?

Nikolai: "You don't belong here."

From either side. I think Nik feels strongly about his relationship with his home country, how he's been working against it and how his actions might be perceived by his countrymen. I think he's scared of losing this part of himself, and being rejected, even though all he's done was in the name of his country.

And then on the other side, Nik knows he stands out, knows people see him as a "could have so easily been the enemy" kind of guy. People like him, sure, but how many, aside from Kate, John and Gaz actually trust him ? Everyone else sees him as useful, but ultimately, they still look at him with a suspicious eye.

Where is home for Nikolai, really ?

Price: "You failed them"

Losing people, he's used to it. It never gets easier though, does it? Men and women under his command, people he's known for years, people who trusted him, friends. But, there is something entirely different between losing someone when you did everything you could have done and it was the way it was supposed to go, and losing someone because of your mistake. He failed them, he knows that, and it haunts him.

[vigilskeep]

Do you have any thoughts on the differences (or similarities!) between Sol’s relationship with Viago and Lucanis’ relationship with Caterina? In a mentor/protege sense, I mean

Viago clearly cares about Crow!Rook and worries about their safety so it’s hard for me to imagine him being as cruel as Caterina was, even if it is the norm for the Crows. Then again, Caterina is a prime example that you can love someone and still hurt them

i think the different age gaps are one main difference on a basic level!!

viago is in his like late thirties maybe early forties currently, and probably only became talon after most rooks were finished with training. i can’t imagine anyone is going for more than a 20yr age gap tops, and for my rook i usually hc a 5-10yr age gap. he might have mentored them a little and seen potential in them, but it’s still closer to growing up together than being raised together. he’s not responsible for their situation in the same way, he’s just someone ahead of you going through the same situation. the previous talon would have been in power, so they would have had a “shared enemy” to blame for the hardships in both their training. also, viago is so all bark no bite with rook that personally i truly cannot imagine him being cruel in the direct way caterina was. he doesn’t have that in him imo

(does any of this make rook feel better about the fact that, now he is talon, he must be putting more kids through what they went through together back then? well that’s a different question!)

anyway, my point is that caterina is lucanis’ grandmother and was afaik already first talon. she had all the power in the house and was singularly responsible for raising him. there’s no-one for either of them to blame but herself!

also, you have to remember where viago and caterina were coming from and the effect those differences probably had. caterina had spent a long life in the crows, watching all her family members die and determining it was because they hadn’t been pushed hard enough. viago spent at least the first decade of his life outside the crows, in at least superficial comfort, and probably compared to almost any crow isn’t quite hardened to how their children are treated

caterina devoted a lot of her own energy to her remaining grandchildren (or, you know, to lucanis, and illario was also there) and seems to have been personally training them day to day. whereas i would not be surprised if the worst things that happened to rook were because the person they had latched onto/earned favour with was just a young assassin answering to somebody else and couldn’t be there all or even most of the time. if viago was planning some kind of takeover and that is how he became talon, as i like to hc, it might even have been a bad idea for rook’s safety and a liability for himself for him to be too overtly invested and always intervene when they were having a bad time. which is a hell of a way to justify letting a kid you care about get hurt but that’s the crows for you

to summariseeee i don’t want to completely soften the rook viago dynamic and make them the “exception” to how i read the crows but as i see them as kids who ended up in a survival horror together, i think they basically did the best anyone could’ve expected? whereas caterina was a grown powerful woman fully responsible for her grandchildren, and because she let her own trauma and ambition rule her, she chose to hurt them like that. i think those are quite different setups

[theheirofthesharingan]

Sorry to bother you, but can you please analyze Itachi’s mannerisms? Like how he talks with different people and stuff? I’m not sure if you have been asked this before.(sorry if you have)

I wasn't asked this before and it's okay. I'm not much familiar with Japanese and the words characters use. I had to talk to a friend for this answer, so it is inspired by the conversation we'd had.

Itachi is considered humble and polite. His way of interacting with people is very, very formal. He doesn't talk to anyone like he's speaking to a friend, but rather that he means business. He shows little to no respect to the Akatsuki members. He's very much disrespectful to Kisame as well, which makes Kisame respecting him even sweeter and their bond more personal than just the two criminals paired up with each other for crimes.

He uses honorifics to address the Konoha Shinobi when he visits the village. He adopts a "softer" tone to talk to them. He refers to Jiraiya as Jiraiya-San (or Jiraiya-sama). He's very, very respectful towards Naruto, addressing him as 'Naruto-kun' even though he doesn't have to be.

The way he talks to Naruto is also quite interesting. The way he talks to everyone else (including Sasuke) is very cryptic. But with Naruto he doesn't beat around the bush. It's probably he thinks Naruto isn't the brightest bulb in the room and others might suspect he's hiding something, so he's more ambiguous talking to them.

Itachi let's himself be slightly more honest with Naruto. Not a lot, but slightly. When he goes to Naruto before his death, he directly asks him why he's obsessed with Sasuke and when Naruto's answer satisfies him, he gives one of his rarest smiles. And then, he sounds desperate to know what Naruto would do if Sasuke were to attack the village and if he'd kill Sasuke.

If it was someone else he was speaking to, Itachi would be on his guard. But here, he wants to know and lets himself look slightly worried (even Naruto himself is perplexed afterwards).

Whenever he's talking to Sasuke, though, he maintains a dignified distance verbally. He has to keep up his facade of looking evil, but he still manages to throw in the double entendre in his statements as if he can't help it. He sees Sasuke after years before his death and his first words are "You've grown a bit taller." He is worried about Sasuke, he is invested in Sasuke's life, but he expresses his concern through the most random phrase ever.

Throughout their fight, Itachi keeps pushing Sasuke and challenging him both verbally and physically. That's the height of him being ambiguous. He's a bit more honest with Naruto but despite being more vulnerable in Sasuke's presence, he shows zero honesty here.

When they reunite again, Itachi is still aloof and formal with Sasuke, and while he doesn't exactly change the way he speaks, he is more expressive through his "jokes" and encouraging words. The English translation of his dialogues in the anime is made to look a bit negative, but he's more encouraging to Sasuke for his achievements (killing Danzo and perfecting susanoo etc.).

Itachi is fragile on an emotional level, but he's also very, very confident, sure of himself on an intellectual level. If he doesn't like you, he'd show it in his words. He's more casual with Sasuke. The kind of words he uses with Sasuke are meant to show he shares a very, very close bond with him.

He uses 'Ore' おれ (I or me) to refer to himself mostly. And talking to Sasuke, he uses 'Omae' お前(you). It's not to show that he sees himself above Sasuke but that their bond is that close that it's okay to use such words.

He's surrounded by the people he doesn't like and respect, so he makes it very clear how he views them. He does come to like Kisame (as is obvious from their interactions).

Throughout his life, he continues to be an enigma. Kind of like he puts on the perfect mask and plays his role perfectly and no one remotely guesses what kind of person he really is.

[starlit-eudemonia]

Me cracking open my old physiology textbook in the summer to see if it’s plausible for Ais to feel through his horns (he probably can b/c they’re probably attached to his skull with living tissue connected there and it probably can’t regrow). Or if they could break off with minimal consequence (they can’t b/c they aren’t structured like antlers).

[definitelynotshouting]

now that its been a while since you first came up with the list of what different emotions taste like to grian and you've been writing in hunger au for a while, do you have an updated list? like, is there any specific emotional nuances that have specific tastes to you, or do you just go based on vibe and whatever you need for what youre currently writing? (i mostly ask because i've been trying to figure out a taste for Relief, and the most i've been able to figure is some combination of happiness, anxiety, and maybe a bit of sadness, but those flavors dont exactly play nice together)

I sorta play between both vibes and what i think constitutes as the general categories of emotion!!!

A very long time ago i was introduced to this wheel, and found it super useful as a guide on helping group emotions together-- so whenever im coming up with a new taste, i try to stick to some core tastes that correspond with the 7 emotions defined at the center of the wheel, then introducing nuances that can adapt to the scene at large :]]

Emotions that fall into a happier range taste like sickly sweet burnt sugar, while anger is rich and gamey. Fear fizzles like pop rocks and tastes a bit coppery, often overlapping with anger, while sadness tastes like salt and acid. Surprise i think falls under spicy, disgust is more minty, and "bad" is a bit harder to define. I think bad either doesnt really taste (i cant imagine boredom tasting like Anything except maybe cardboard lol) or just happens to share overlap with anger, fear, and disgust

Aside from that tho yeah i do tend to go for vibes within them EKFHWKDJDK and i have in fact had to go back and be like "DID I ALREADY ESTABLISH THIS. OH MY GODS I GOTTA START TAKING MORE CONSISTENT NOTES" 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 every day my long ass update schedule bites me

Anyway for relief specifically i think i would personally group that closer to happiness and surprise-- if i had to define it in a vacuum, id say it would taste somewhat like honey chipotle for Grian, a sweet-and-spicy mix. But honestly after a while the vibes do hold more sway than the consistency, and thats where all those mixed emotions come in too. Admittedly, them NOT playing well together is actually kinda on purpose-- i like the idea of this incredibly depressed bird having malignant synesthesia /silly

[supernovasilence]

Peter being pissed off that Caspian married his baby borther without permission.

Caspian: Technically I'm king so I have all the permission in the world.

Peter and Caspian have a fight in the garden over it.

Honestly there is some great potential for drama here (it's not that Peter doesn't approve of Caspian, he's just very protective over his siblings, borderline possessive but my thoughts about Their Siblings Are All the Pevensies Have are for another day, and Caspian didn't even ask for Peter's blessing!) I'm just having trouble imagining it because I struggle imagining Peter and Caspian fighting badly. My personal headcanon of their relationship leans closer to the books than the movies, where they don't have an antagonistic relationship at all. (Practically Peter's first words to Caspian are to call him "Your Majesty" and tell him "I haven't come to take your place, you know, but to put you into it," and meanwhile Caspian "was liking Peter very much, but was rather tongue-tied".) Honestly all I can imagine is:

Edmund: stop fighting, you two!

Caspian: LET ME DUEL FOR YOUR HAND IF I WANT TO

Edmund: don't make me get the big guns!

by which he means he will call Lucy to Look At Them With Disappointment

[elbiotipo]

How should nekomimi be inherited to not look weird?

I think that if they are simply humans with certain animalistic traits then it can be done like irl phenotypes, basically "some mixed kids inherit them, some don't" and leave it here, so there can be a community of mostly cat people with some individuals with fully human features to not make it look weird (and vice-versa, some nekomimi people amongst "normal" humans who don't belong to any of the cultures of cat people).

But what about some more complicated feline features like vision or dietary needs and such?

And even more importantly, is my idea of how to do nekomimi genetics in a fantasy setting not weird in itself?

It's NOT weird. The only thing better than catgirls are catgirls who fit in the worldbuilding.

Now, if you want a technobabble excuse, you could always use homeobox genes that you could say develop different kinds of ears, tails (biologist note: this is NOT exactly how homeobox genes work, but they do kinda work as an technobabble excuse) inside a wider, let's say, "humanoid" species or genus. These could be inherited as diverse alleles of such traits (for example, the 'ears' gene could have cat-like, dog-like, human-like, etc. alelles) and also have mendelian or non-mendelian distributions. Suppose you want to make a fantasy mendelian system, you could say "cat ears are recessive, human ears are dominant" (note: "recessive" and "dominant" don't mean "worse" and "better" it just means than an allele is "hidden" or deactivated by the dominant one. Sorry if I make a mistake, I learned all this in Spanish) and figure out inheritance from there, just traits that are cleanly inherited in regular proportions. This is not how most genetics work, however. There's multiple kinds of non-mendelian inheritance... multiple alleles, codominance, sex-linked inheritance, and of course quantitative genetics which is when alleles don't manifest in a single discrete trait but rather a continous measurable one (such as height)... now I feel I'm doing my genetics course again, but I'm sure you can tell how such things can work if you read an intro text about it.

There's a bunch of caveats here, and I'm gonna speak very broadly here. In humans, there aren't single, well defined genes that codify appearance for, for example, hair texture and color, skin/eye color, etc. in the sense that there's a "blue eye gene" or "curly hair gene". In fact this is the case for most genes, most are multi-allelic or quantitative with different 'weights' for a continous trait. Or BOTH. People tend to inherit different genetic 'weights' (very unscientific term here, sorry) from one parent or another and this can be very random, with some expressing different traits even if having the same family (this is why you see people who resemble almost perfectly to one parent instead of a "mix" of both, and of course those who indeed look like a mix of both. And these in turn have nothing to do with genetic diseases, blood types, or other inheritable things) There are hundreds of genes involved in each trait of human appearance and they all interact with each other, and most aren't even known, we don't fully know the genes that regulate skin, hair or eye color, just to give a few examples. So it's almost never stuff like "dominant purple flower, recessive white flower", Mendel was VERY lucky and smart to pick out discrete alleles to find out his laws. Most traits aren't like that at all, especially in animals.

Which brings me to my next point. It's very unlikely mendelian inheritance of traits such as ears or tails would have evolved naturally in animals. The development of characteristics such as ears or tails is deep, deep in the early embryo development, a very fragile period for animals. A species that has such huge genetic variations in such key periods of development faces severe selective pressure and it's unlikely these extreme "alleles" would remain, errors on them would cause extreme malformations or just embryos not developing at all. Even humans have this trouble, the loss of tails in apes, for example, has let us to suffer from spina bifida, every body plan change has a huge cost and this is why animals are sometimes very conservative with it, most body plans are the modification of existing features rather than the apperance or removal of different ones, and this is at evolutionary scales, not even living populations. Of course, some animals are more, let's say, plastic, like dogs, but even they have a general body plan, there aren't dogs without ears or tails, for instance. Even dogs are the consequence of tens of thousands of very intensive artificial selection which did not happen naturally at all, I mean, it's not like poodles or daschunds have any sexual or natural selection advantage for themselves, they are adventageous for us. You can see that wild and feral dogs, without the pressure of human artificial selection tend to converge into a more general dog plan (the so called "pariah dog", but also see dingos, and of course wolves, I'm skipping a lot of stuff here), adapted to local climates.

Surprisingly, I can see diet being less problematic in this sense. After all, we know there are for example human populations adapted to lactose. Dogs have also evolved enzymes to digest carbohydrates which wolves don't have, while not as nutritious as their carnivorous diet it works better with our human diet. Different bacterial flora can also help digest things that are surprising though, such as cellulose (though bacterial flora is still an underrated and ongoing field of study) It's also much easier to imagine changes in dentition than the whole head plan. So I can easily imagine different populations adapting to different diets. Same with eyes, I mean, daltonic and colorblind human population exists, the EYE is mostly the same, but it works differently. But again, the body plan remains the same. Humans or dogs might have different aptitudes for diets, but they don't stop being omnivores or carnivores.

Of course, tis' fantasy. So why expect things to follow natural evolution? Hell, why even expect fantasy people in a pre-industrial setting to know about homeobox genes? Depending on your setting, it might be that these traits are stable and inheritable because of a magical curse/blessing, or that the gods or the inherent magic of the world said so. However, if you have a species that has multiple, very different appearances and those are inheritable, you're dealing with some rather heavy stuff here that redefines your concept of humanity. In Dungeon Meshi, for instance, they talk about this, as the typical "elf, dwarf, halfling, human" fantasy races all can and do have children with each other, and (spoilers!) they seem to have a common origin, and thus all are actually called "humanity" which is a very interesting concept, because, indeed, what else are they if they don't actually have any real biological barriers. Meanwhile, the differences with other more "distant" species? races? such as orcs and kobolds (canine-like) are shown as rather arbitrary and depending on the culture, in fact, even humans (or rather "tallmen") get excluded from "humanity" in some cases. (not even tackling the whole long-short lived races thing). Similarily, you could say these "nekomimi" are just humans with a particular blessing or curse (again, in Dungeon Meshi, there is Izutsumi), but that works on the particular designs of your fantasy world and magic system... and let's say that when such concepts have appeared in real life, well... I don't need to tell you these are rather heavy and controversial topics to tackle. I don't think you should shy away from portraying them, but again, it's something to think about very carefully.

Since this is a heavy topic, I'm gonna take you out of fantasy for a sci-fi perspective. In my biopunk setting (it's on the tag "soft biopunk" on my blog) there are kemonomimi people all around, and in fact, all sort of genetic cosmetics, in fact, one of the main characters is indeed a communist catgirl. Most of it, however, is made in adults, much like getting tattoos or piercings. Tegument (i.e, skin) in humans and most vertebrates is surprisingly plastic, and one can 'grow' ears and implant them, or estimulate the production of feather or scale genes in the skin. Meanwhile, things such as tails have a little more involved surgery, since you also need to take into account nerves, muscles, circulation, etc. Meanwhile stuff such as muzzles and others require very extensive surgery, so it isn't as common. So these are implants (non inheritable) rather than expression from embryos, what geneticists would say germline modification. Such things also occurs but is done way more carefully and is more extensive, and it's nothing you would do just for the sake of cosmetics, when you're doing that, you're basically starting a new branch of humanity with all that implies. On the other hand, sentient "uplift" cats, dogs, and many other animals do exist, but they aren't animals that act like humans, they are sentient animals with a way of thinking and behavior very different to us, you aren't talking to a "cat with human intelligence", you're talking to an intelligent cat (when they want to talk, anyways). So, you can't REALLY turn a Felis catus into a catgirl, but a Homo sapiens can do a rather passable one.

Well, this has been a lot of fun to write and think about, so I hope you enjoyed it, and sorry for the walls of text! I promise to make a better post with some better illustrations of hot catgirls. In any case, if you found this useful, I would be very grateful if you gave me a tip! Given our economic situation here with Milei (the guy who cloned his dog, how appropiate), anything helps!

Feel free to ask anything you'd like!

[soaps-mohawk]

ok wait i have a question about cherry red. like ik it's good that she's asking for things and finally acknowledging what she wants but its genuinely so sad how she feels she has to like compete with ghost and prove herself. and like with the book she shouldn't have to be trying so so so hard to get basic respect from her pack? like even if she's all submissive shouldn't they respect her wishes and listen to her anyways?

idk i feel like its so sad that she feels like she has to be this super tough omega to get respect, and that she feels like ghost isnt integrating her into the pack

It is really sad. A lot of it is her own internalized struggles. She was basically taught how to operate in a pack she'd have very little autonomy in. She'd get told what to do, down to how she dresses and acts. Basically submitting full control over to an alpha.

Instead, though, she was put with a pack that probably would let her get away with a lot of things, so long as they didn't put her or others in danger. Like Gaz said, they'd take over the world for her, but she's kind of floundering a bit and having to learn on the fly how to have autonomy and be her own person. You can see that in her statement about how it's ironic that Soap is bonded to Ghost but can still make his own decisions but she still thinks she's sort of a second class citizen in their rankings.

As far as Ghost goes...part of his issues stem from his upbringing, and the trauma of his past. Things will sort of come to life and get explained a bit more as the story progresses. Don't worry, he's not being an asshole for no reason. Is it right of him to act that way? No. But it's not without reason.

[sincerely-sofie]

🥀

Just curious on how it was while writing your story (since it reached such a character limit lol)

And I was wondering if you had any advice for those who wish to write a story like this? (Not the exact same, just how to write characters interacting lol)

(Referencing this ask game)

🥀 An answer to a question:

It's been difficult— this year's NaNoWriMo didn't go even half as smoothly as last year! Midway through November, I decided to give up on reaching 50k words for the sake of my health. Things shook out in a way that I could take up the challenge again, but by then I had fallen behind on my target word count, and getting back on track was no small task to accomplish. But I've kept at it, and even though I don't like the way this draft is going as I write it, I don't need to. Rough drafts exist to be edited, not to be published! :>

My top pieces of advice when it comes to writing character interacting are to find a way to know how they think, know what they want (and sometimes what they're afraid of) in a given scene, and to give them more depth than the story you're writing explicitly requires.

To write character interactions well, it's important to know how your characters think as well as how they feel. Being aware of what makes them tick is something vital to making them feel like actual people as you write them interacting with others.

In Better the Wool, Narinder is extremely haughty and proud— it's a trait that he's always had, but sank into much deeper after his imprisonment, and defines a lot of his interactions. He looks for ways to boost his ego and will readily belittle others to do that. If you hurt his pride, he'll lash out in response. He always has to get the last word in an argument. He doesn't accept criticism well at all. Egotistical behavior is his bread and butter, and it's largely rooted in shame. He has to act like nothing is his fault, or if it is then it was justified, because it's how he distances himself from his problems. Knowing that makes writing him both in and out of scenes with other characters much easier, and also allows me to recognize that a scene where he strays from his stubborn pride and is undignified and vulnerable will need to have a significant reason for him to behave atypically.

The Lamb, where Narinder is defined by his pride, is defined by her need for control. She is desperate to maintain the peace and unity amongst her followers, and perceives any bump in the status quo as reflecting poorly on her own worthiness as a person. Her need to control people is rooted in a need to keep people around her, as well as herself, safe. She might delegate tasks to others on occasion, but it's a struggle that she only survives out of necessity. Her giving up control of a situation, or even worse, passing it off to someone else entirely, is a choice she would not make lightly, and that's something I keep in mind during every interaction I write for her.

On the subject of knowing what the characters want, knowing what they need in contrast is a great help when writing interactions. Even if Narinder doesn't accept that what he needs is to set his pride down and make amends instead of getting back the Red Crown like he wants, it's always going to be needling away at him in the back of his mind during every interaction he has. This is a method of character development I learned from K. M. Weiland's blog, Helping Writers Become Authors. If you want to learn more about writing a Want vs. a Need, I recommend checking her stuff out!

As for giving characters more depth than your project requires, I like applying this strategy to my OCs the most, but it's relevant in fanfiction as well. I like to think up all sorts of trivia for characters— their favorite food and why they enjoy it (one OC of mine likes brownies with a pretzel crust, but hates brownies without it, because he grew up on his dad's recipe using pretzels and thinks that plain brownies taste bland without it), their thoughts on different concepts like family being the most important thing in one's life (another OC is fundamentally baffled by this idea because her society doesn't have nuclear families and the children in it are raised communally, so it's like asking her if the city she grew up in is the most important thing in her life), etcetera, etcetera. It's a way to get into the characters' heads more and have fun while enriching your understanding of how they perceive and interact with the world around them.

[lennsart]

I see that you're a prince Legend enjoyer. Mind if I tell you about my hc about that? Jsjsjsjajsjs

- His clothes are the only ones that have golden thread. Something only royals can have, still the rest of his clothes are made of common cotton.

- He gave up his right to be the king. But he's still a prince, and he helps Fable in anything he can. He's a free soul, and Fable knows that.

- His uncle is, in fact, the captain of the royal guard. Because of the triforce in Legend's hand (another hc that all the Links have the triforce on their hand, it's just more visible on some of them) everyone knew he was the next hero so the royal family told the captain to take care of Legend and teach him how to use a sword.

- But Legend's uncle saw more in him than just a prince/hero, so he also taught him the value of hard work with the apple field. And tried to save him from his destiny, that's why he tried to save Fable before Legend.

- Almost nobody knows that Legend is a prince. So, for his kingdom he's only an adventurer and he's ok with that.

- The chain knows he's a prince. But they only use that title to tease him.

- Legend often tries to flee from royal events, but Fable stops him. He learned to dance and he sometimes played for the people. In the end, he stays on the events for about 20 minutes, and then he's out of there. He has a small social battery and feels overwhelmed. He also doesn't talk in those events, he prefers to use sign language.

Hello hello, I do not mind at all I love receiving headcanons :D

All of this is interesting !

I like the detail of the golden embroidery being a sign of nobility :0 Four do have them too though if I remember correctly... (Four, something to share with the class...? Lmao no but it could have changed between his time and Legend's, or it could be a gift from his Zelda, who is his best friend in Minish Cap I believe)

I have to admit, I also like the darker take of the royal family supposedly being blessed to only have girls (in the public's eye) since only the women of the family have Hylia's powers... Meaning they abandon/hide Legend at his birth for being a boy D: the drama !

But I never really bothered to think about a way for the royal family to have abandonned Legend without that, and your version do work very well ! The triforce is a powerful sign, but for a public figure to have it... It's ought to bring bad people's attention !

(also yeah in my heart all the Links have the triforce on their hands too hahaha)

I also (in my personal stories !) don't feel the need for Legend to actually give up on the right to be a king, since Hyrule's princesses must be such powerful historical figures... Even if you don't take in account the "only girls" thingy, maybe they at least should get on the throne first ? Sure, we only saw kings in LoZ games, but they never had a queen ; maybe they only get on the throne when the queen dies ?

(Again, you don't have to agree haha ! I do enjoy multiple contradictory headcanons at all time ; I'm just typing as I'm thinking, it's not to dismiss what you told me)

In any way, yeah, I absolutely think that Legend don't want to be king/a noble, and stays the friendly adventurer in his kingdom !

Once the chain knows he's a prince they absolutely tease him to no end haha ! But I do think he wouldn't tell them before a loonnng time (eyeing the "average nobody" line, which gets hilarious with this headcanon). I also would love for him to reveal it by mentioning it casually and everyone losing their mind wondering if he's joking lmao

And omg I think the exact same about his social battery hahaha ! (If only for projecting myself on him not gonna lie 😂)

I do think he has a fun time, especially if he plays like you say— he likes to make people happy ! But put him an hour in here and the boy's brain is absolutely fried. 24 hours nap to ensue !

[xxlady-lunaxx]

AHHHHHH I LOVE your Sanemi angst. It’s SO good and it makes me actually not okay. I adore the way you write it and it feels so… raw

- @ohagi-bites (for some reason tumblr is only letting me submit asks in my first account and not this one so I’m putting the account I want the ask to be submitted in here)

ARGHGHD THANK YOU SO MUCHHH <3 i looove ripping sanemi apart and putting him in a little box called vulnerability

(or in other words: i like making angry and/or emotionally conflicted fictional men turn into what they hoped to never be)

i sound sadistic ngl

sighh tumblr stop being annoying and let the nice person speak

[ni-kol-koru]

Opposite Personalities + Opposite Aesthetics = Siblings

This is how I see the Miyaji brothers 🧡🍍

[monstatron]

Cato...... Cato..... I need Obasi and Nocti's married life PLEASE

Now seriously- tell us a random fact about their relationship I love them so much

WEYEGEGEE YES I HAVE BEEN WAITING TO INFODUMP ABOUT THEM YESYES

to start off, enjoy a brief introduction to them and their relationship, though admittedly i must say they're in more a "situationship" but also its like "oh yeah we're dating but actually we aren't but like we only have feelings for each other and only see each other but we definitely aren't dating i promise" , THEY MAKE ME SICK.

okay, so, as much as i do highlight the hardship of their relationship, i can say with certainty, that's only a small portion of what they endure together. they've been close for over twenty years, practically raised a kid together, and whenever they aren't caught up in the hardships of work, they tend a garden together. obasi lives in an apartment complex in the kyssaro district of haderia, and they basically turned the roof of the complex into a mini garden,,, noctis lives in an apartment on the other side of the district, but she visits obasi's often not only to see her but to help look after the garden. AND SOMETIMES i like to imagine they'll sing songs together while they're looking after all their plants.

noctis is a brutal, bloodsoaked pit fighter and obasi is a cold, stoic crime lord, but together they're just two old women that like plants and music,,,

anyway, here's a bonus gift of noctasi art because admittedly i was gonna post this later but i think this is the perfect opportunity to share the old woman yuri. i love them dearly :'( thank you sm for the question <3 <3