#i aspire to have that kind of uhhh

[casinocarpediem]

Role-playing is so scary to me how do yall do it... AND IN PUBLIC TOO⁉️

[alxandergoth]

aspen foley for @neishroom !! ₊✩‧₊ another lesbian from urs truly 🫶🏻

swears she's psychic

has the creative & vegetarian traits

kinda ditzy

loves dancing, alt music, tween pop music (uhhh i forgot what else i put bc i was rushing so my game wouldn't crash)

charli xcx was her top artist on her spotify wrapped

doesn't have a lot of friends, kind of a loner (maybe gabe can change that?)

raised by a single mother

lowkey has only child syndrome

impulsively dyed her hair blonde and her mum got rly mad

she's a leo

has the teen live fast aspiration

rly good at snowboarding bc her and her mum would go to mt. komorebi every winter break when she was younger

she's actually quite tall, like 6ft

[somerandomdudelmao]

I know you might've been asked this question a lot of times already, but I'm not that often on Tumblr and don't know how to use it properly ^^" So I wanted to ask, what tool do you use to draw with?

I wanted to achieve a similar effect when it comes to your lineart, but I'm just simply inexperienced when it comes to these kinds of things. Would you mind sharing your brush settings or any tips for not only me but also other aspiring artists?

In advance, thank you so much for answering and hope you're having a great day!

Uhhh..you see..

No matter what program, I draw with a basic round brush.

I don't know what effect you're talking about, but it's built into my hand, not my tools.

[kimbapisnotsushi]

i started writing this back in the last week of december going on into january bc we had so many karasuno bdays back then so uhhh TECHNICALLY this is a late bday post honoring like four people LMAO but let's go!!

during kageyama's first birthday at karasuno he gets a mysterious series of texts from an unknown number that goes like > happy birthday > not that this means you're forgiven > just thought it was the right thing to do > i know it's your first since. well. you know > you don't have to text back or anything!!!! > fuck fuck fuck just pretend this never happened BYE

he brings up it up two years later when he, kindaichi, and kunimi are better friends and kindaichi buries his red face in his hands and screams and kageyama isn't sure why

kunimi pats him on the back and tells him not to worry about it

ennoshita has a playlist that is solely just like white noise and creaking sounds and generally just things that would make you shit your pants alone in the dark and when asked why he just goes "it's the only way i can feel anything inside"

tsukki will NEVER admit it but he ASPIRES to be the level of deadpan that ennoshita is

tanaka: "so . . . why do you like him again?" ennoshita, watching a video he recorded of futakuchi walking straight into a lamppost bc he was playing pokemon go: "he makes me laugh"

no joke i think ennoshita is a dateko celebrity bc everyone knows about the guy that futakuchi kenji pines over bc futakuchi kenji is just known in a million ways and maybe like 90% of them are Not Good

a third-year has futakuchi by the collar and they're like "all right PUNK get ready to have your lights punched out you'll be seeing stars when i'm done with you" and futakuchi just sighs longingly and goes "ennoshita has eyes like stars . . ."

daichi is that type of upperclassman who knows very single friend of his juniors' but not in like a cool older sibling way he does it in a cringefail modern parent kind of way

kogane used to be soooooo scared of him before finding out what a huge dork he is

actually kogane isn't scared of asahi bc he's so used to aone and asahi cries over it

(sorry for plugging in dateko so much i just genuinely think they have such a fun relationship with karasuno i ADORE it)

onagawa: "man idk how you do it" narita: "do what?" onagawa: "being the only normal person on your team"

yeah no narita is carrying the weight of the world as the only person with the brain cell on karasuno

sometimes it's ennoshita but he's been dead inside since first year so

suga tells the first years he knows martial arts but all he really did was go to one (1) judo club demonstration during his second year of middle school and somehow managed to flip the captain over by sheer luck and never tried again

for takeda's birthday everyone teams up to get him a really nice fountain pen, a classical poetry book, and a quality bottle of sake. for ukai's birthday tsukki leads a powerpoint presentation on why smoking is bad for you and that he really should stop, backed up with everyone else standing behind him with their arms crossed and nodding along

okay that and they also get him a really cute apron (embroidered with crows!!) for him to wear around the store and a bag of good coffee

kiyoko has all - and i mean ALL - the snacks from the local convenience store on a tier list and when the vbc asked how the fuck she managed to do that she just went "my track team was a lot weirder than you guys"

actually the reason why daichi asked kiyoko to be the manager wasn't because kiyoko was the only one with no club activities going on it was because she gave asahi a hair tie when nobody else would and asahi had been trying to befriend her since (and also return said hair tie) but was too nervous to make the first move

asahi: "noooooo daaaaaaaiiiichiiiiiiiiii i caaaaaaaan't i'm so awkward and embarrassing!!!!" daichi, with all the confidence of a fifteen-year-old constantly winging it: "it's okay, i've got this!"

yeah he's just as surprised as you are that it worked out

especially considering he pitched it to her like a used car salesman

kiyoko carries a lot of hair ties with her when she starts just for asahi and when he leaves the team she doesn't stop bc she tells suga, daichi, and the second-years, "he'll come back, just wait and see"

THEY WERE FRIENDS TOO!!!! THEY WERE FRIENDS TOO!! THEY WERE FRIE -

[hibiscus02]

I just read Legoland and I decided to compile some helpful tidbits about Penny's character, for all your fanfic writer needs!

If you want to write RTC fanfic using her canon personality and backstory, this is the place for you. I apologize if someone has done something similar!

•Let's start with her basic introduction in the play;

"PENNY is a young woman wearing French braids and a private school uniform; she has a bright smile." "PENNY: Hello. My name is Penny Lamb, and I am an aspiring animal conservationist." "PENNY speaks at an incredible speed, being an immensely nervous and self-conscious teenager. She literally trips over her words -- a volcano of passion and eloquence."

Now I'll give you some backstory and character info without getting into Legoland's plot. This is so people who don't have an interest in the story itself can still grasp the basics of Penny's character.

Both Penny and her little brother (Ezra) were homeschooled. They grew up on the Elysium Community Farm, just outside of Uranium City.

When Penny turned 13, she was already getting "itchy" to see the outside world (kids were not allowed to leave Elysium until they turned 16). She thought she knew what to expect after reading 'Anne of Green Gables'.

The Lambs snuck out to a Walmart and found out it was very different from what they thought it would be. They tried to strike up conversations with people but everyone seemed weirded out by them (they snuck out several times to try and "strike up friendly chats")

Eventually the manager called the police who drove them home. That's when "all that trouble happened"

Penny's parents got 15 years in prison for cultivation and trafficking of narcotics. Her and Erza were sent to Saint Cassian Catholic School (which as I'm sure you all know is the same school that the choir members attend, obviously, since Uranium City isn't big enough to have more than one school). It is stated to be a boarding school in this so that's some extra lore for us I guess.

"PENNY: The instant I see the boys staring at me like gaping fish with their heads cut off… and the girls looking at me with those Queen of England smiles… Oh, little Penny wasn’t in Kansas anymore… Uh-uh… I was sent to the charred black bowels of everlasting Hell!"

Despite her homeschooling education Penny is actually very smart, but the values taught to her don't really go over well with a catholic school system. She also likes to use 'big words'.

Penny gets sent to the school psychiatrist, and allegedly diagnosed as Bipolar and manic depressive (to me it seemed implied that the psychiatrist was a crook, but maybe I'm reading too much into it. Do with this information what you will).

She does go through a depressive episode though, or what sure looks like one; "PENNY: Like, sleeping in my room all day… tearing my hair and throwing up, kind of suicidal and depressed and everything… So, one day a bunch of girls were setting fire to my school bag -- second time that week -- and I wasn’t even crying anymore… because, you get to a point… when you’re waaaay beyond crying."

Penny can play the ukulele and she also composes songs (or, she writes at least one during the play, but y'know)

She seems to be very against cussing, just as much as Ocean is, and reprimands Ezra whenever he cusses throughout the play.

Penny is a pescetarian.

She goes on this insane cross-country trip with her brother to the US, and whenever they get to a new state she always recites how many endangered species they have there. I just thought this was cute, and very Jane-like.

So yeah, without getting too much into it, Penny throws hot coffee on this guy and uhhh, bites him? Apparently? The assault charges get dropped and she gets extradited back to Canada, but the story was leaked to the media and she was famous for a little bit.

The way Penny and Ezra got money to travel to the US in the first place was by selling his ADHD prescription meds, so she goes to trial for drug dealing, and gets probation (they don't specify how long she's on probation for in the play).

At the very end of the script, Penny states she'd like to say something about true love. I wanted to include part of what she said because it's quite lovely (and oh y'all can make so much fanfic with this); "In a world where we are ultimately alone, and die in our own arms, love is the closest you come to another person… because it is the closest you come to being another person. So be very careful what you love."

*this quote is apparently also in some versions of rtc, I assume as an easter egg of sorts.

Sorry this is so long. I love Penny Lamb a lot and I also think she's insane <3

[grasslandgirl]

Since from context clues ive gathered a lot of your figgorgug fanfics are like human au or of the like, how do you imagine human gorgug and fig personally?

yes !!!! icr exactly how many are explicitly modern/no magic aus and how many are just canon divergent spyre fics (I usually tag modern no magic on the relevant fics iirc?) but uhhh I don't know? I don't have like a clear human!vision for fig and gorgug- just kind of a hodge-podge of a bunch of my favorite designs from fan artists I've seen/am friends with !! I think human!gorgug specifically i imagine very similar to zac- I'm a sucker for gorgug with glasses, and I definitely hc him as Japanese like Zac is, and having freckles like he does. fig is a little less concrete in terms of like human vision in my head- the more important thing for fig for me is that she's short (<3) and like. how she styles herself? and that changes a little depending on the circumstances of the fic- like whether she's a major rockstar or an aspiring one or just Some Girl etc etc- but Jamie @gilears and I have talked about her having rosacea/eczema which I think is really fun !!!!

[avissapiens]

What would be the middle ground between nerd and himbo or bro? Like the confidence, looks and slutty attitude + brains?

I enjoy questions like these because there is always a range of answers. The archetype system is super versatile and it opens itself up to a range of possibilities. Its almost sociological in that way. So many theories you could take. So i'll give you a frame work of 3 potential options. And since you wanna be a nerd so bad, i'll use big smarty words here and there to keep you interested.

1) Idealist

I think Himbo works best with a nerdy/intellectual dimension. It takes on an almost manipulative character when a Himbo slut has the cunning to really make use of their body and sexuality. It becomes an active application of the right thing at the right time, using the social clout you have be being perceived as a Hot dumb hole to get ahead. Every area of life is benefitted by being sexy as fuck, you could coast by just on that, but it really makes the difference when out of nowhere you can jump and surprise someone with your competence. Slutting it up while knowing your shit. Being the best of both worlds and using each to enhance the other. Never sacrificing one or the other. As an addendum Nerd "culture" is already pretty steeped with Himbos. Many of the role models and inspirations for what a Himbo should be and look like come from games and media properties. And a Himbo loves playing dress up and fun lil video games with his cheeks out and a cock in his mouth.

Bro is harder to mesh with such desires because with the bro mindset there needs to be an active refusal for intellectual pursuit and the mental stress of thinking too much about shit brah. So for bros i think it'd be more like a light switch. You turn on the nerd when you need it, and then when you're done you shove that loser back in a locker and go about your day.

2) Materialist

These Archetypes are Ideal forms, almost Platonic, existing in a higher realm of ideas. But in the material world I never expect anyone to try and adhere to them perfectly 100%. These are meant to be Aspirational, not Hegemonic. They have a form and structure, but there is always room for your unique performance and identification. To bring a part of you in Heteroglossic dialogue with these concepts and Ideas. In a way these archetypes are rather Bahktinian because I have always developed them in conversation with others or with wider social constructs in mind. They grow and shift and change. They are not absolutist conceptions of the world. So for any further questions about whether one thing or another can co-exist with some aspect of an archetype; I might have my own ideas on it (and my ideas are usually pretty damn good), but the answer can usually be yes if you twist and turn it enough times. That said, ya know, i'm still gonna make my archetypes and ideas how i want to. If you want to call yourself a Himbo or a bull without any of the characteristics or aims of being one, that's up to you, but uhhh me and my colleagues in the abyss will laugh at you.

3) Critical Theoretical perspectives on "nerd"

Why are some of the most common questions i get about the maintenance of intellect? Is it really so great? You already admit that you hate the body being a "nerd" gave you enough that you want to change it. You hate the social situation enough and the kind of person it made you. Why are you so hyper attached to concepts of intellect? I think there is a kind of false consciousness to the allure of being smart. It gives you a sense of superiority, when in reality, its just a tool of your own oppression. What does being smart really do for you? Make you more exploitable to the system. Make you more passive and docile because you understand the way the system works. Make you miserable because you perceive everything through the same Iron cage of rationality(that's Weber for you sociologists out there) that industrial capitalism enforces upon the world. I think its a good thing that nerd is becoming an insult again I think the rise in Himbo worship and a return to muscle and shallow aesthetics is a clear response to whole generations of little kids who were encouraged to be smart nerds because nerds would rule the world one day. Those same kids put everything into being smart, their whole meaning and purpose only to realise that it didn't mean shit. And rather than ruling the world, the nerds only ruined it.

As you can tell, I am procrastinating from school assignments to answer this question. If you wanna support me being able to drop out of university to become a bodybuilder feel free to subscribe to my Patreon or to just come and ask to give me money.

[eccentric-nucleus]

i'm gonna be talking about the weird porn game stuff i'm working on now, so you know, watch out

so as you may have gathered from my various posts, i've been working on the hell game 2 engine. currently i have events running mostly-correctly from data files, but i don't currently have state & pc data hooked up correctly so i can't actually e.g., test out various different sex scene variations based on the pc's bodytype. given one of the big failures of hell game (the first) was that i never really got complex event interactions working, i should probably think up some multi-stage demo events and get them working early on, so i don't end up repeating the same mistake

anyway as i have been putting this together i've been reflecting on the stuff i was dissatisfied with with hell game. unfortunately for me one of those things was "the sex scenes weren't as parametric as i wanted". hell game tended to break sex scenes down based on fundamental body plan (what i usually call 'bodytype' b/c that's the variable name for it in the code). that was stuff like: biped, centaur, quadruped, naga, snake, and 'other'. that's already a lot of totally-different variations but given i also let people change size there did kind of also need to be at least some size-based changes. but that's even more stuff to write for a single sex scene to have full coverage.

(this kinda thing is why i love to bring up the whole thing about nagas having a thigh gap in TiTS. they didn't want to change the scene blocking for all the doggystyle sex scenes! you can just say "between your thighs" either way!! i mean i get it, just, lol.)

but the other thing with hell game is that it was always uhhh a very early demo. it was basically a collection of contextless sex scenes with demons, and while there are worse things for a game to be, i did kinda have aspirations of, you know, plot, story, named characters that weren't just procgen demons, etc. so one of the things i've been working on currently is a ~design doc~ that covers setting & story details in a concrete enough way that i can reference off it and not end up writing myself into a corner.

and that gets us to the weird porn part of the post. i haven't fully committed to the current setting concept (scifi space station sucked through an interdimensional portal so it's now orbiting around hell, a la your dooms and hellpoints and the like; i feel like i'm maybe being a little too derivative here) so i won't go into too much detail but on the whole there is probably gonna be a more pronounced, you know, horror/grotesque influence. we'll... see how that works given that it is also a porn game

like yeah yeah plenty of porn games are kind of libidinal nightmare realms. coc had the parasitic dick worms. people love gross sex stuff. i feel like i kinda lost touch with a lot of my audience and now i spend more time around, uh, normal people who don't have deeply-rooted fixations. currently the first encounter i have outlined for this is uhhh a reanimated zombie who... lemme just paste the description in

A thing that was once a dead body, overtaken by something new. Its skin is a faded grey and its muscles are overgrown, proportions inhuman: shoulders impossibly wide, arms and legs slabs of striated muscle. It moves with an inhuman gait, as if the thing inhabiting it is still getting adjusted to human articulation.

There's a squirming thing wrapped around its head, all leathery purple-black flesh. A central mass covers the corpse's head: face smooth, back of the head a mess of overlapping tentacles. It has many long octopus-like tentacles that fan out across its shoulders and back. The tentacles trail down its body, clamped tight to the skin, before they sink into its body across its shoulders, chest, and back, squirming under the skin like gigantic veins. The skin around the punctures is painted with purple-black bruises. Glowing green ichor pulses through its body, pumped into it from its penetrating tentacles, feeding its muscles with unnatural energy. Its skin is a faded grey, streaked with ash, save for where its glowing-green blood flows, forming branching lines of bulging veins that cover its shoulders and chest.

A single loose tentacle extends from its face like an enormous proboscis, tapering in wormlike rings to a squirming tip, slavering shed ichor in gummy lines down its bare chest.

Its cock hangs heavily between its thighs, perpetually bloated and half-hard, with its glowing green ichor visibly pumping through its altered flesh. Its massive, oversized balls churn and lurch behind the fat stalk of its dick, pulsing with burgeoning larvae. Thick, translucent grey pre perpetually spills from its bloated glowing-green cocktip, painting wet smears of fluid down its monstrously-muscular legs.

it talks to you and asks if you wanna get pumped full of squirming zombie larvae so it can reproduce and reanimate more corpses. a lot of the encounter design is very much "what if you could fuck this DOOM monster"

anyway, that's like, normal. that's completely usual actually. having a cop fetish is what's weird and disturbing. okay okay that's just dumb glib moralizing i don't actually think that. but i mean, it is super weird to write stuff like that and then go back into the normal realm where people keep talking about college jocks or w/e.

but before i do much more writing i gotta hammer out the rest of the engine. next up: a lot of variable storage & thinking about how to separate npc data from the events they take part in. that's all stuff that needs to get coded regardless of which setting i go with

[silverwhittlingknife]

Ohhh, what's "the Damian one with amnesia?"

Oh, this one is close to my heart but also kind of a mess and I'm not sure I'll ever actually write it; it's pretty much all "story idea" sdfsfsd It's a Damian + Tim bonding story with a bit of a Damian + Heretic subplot. I guess if I had to compare it to something I'd say it's got some loose similarities to "Tim bonds with Pit-mad!Jason" fanfic, except with Damian and crazy!Tim instead?

I've been sort of stalled on this one because ... I mean various reasons but in terms of "personal writing motivation" I think it's mostly a combination of 1) overly complicated plot, and 2) Dick's only a minor character sfdsfds I find Dick's POV fun to write and Tim and Damian's POVs a bit more difficult, and the story is basically all Tim and Damian, so it's kind of a story that I want to read more than I want to write, you know?

But I am nevertheless attached to it, ridiculous monstrosity that it is. There's amnesia!Tim and BAMF!Damian and curses and reluctant bonding and secret friendship and disguises and misunderstandings and temptation and lots and lots and lots of snowballing lies!

If I ever actually write it the rambling summary below the cut will be completely spoilery; you've been warned sfdsfdsf

OKAY SO there's a convoluted backstory of evil villain plots BUT basically there are TWO PARTS.

Here they are:

Part One: Damian + Amnesia!Tim

Due to [complicated backstory], Tim is basically under a curse where he's alternating between having amnesia and forgetting the past few years, and sometimes being triggered into becoming Evil!Tim who's trying to kill Robin

Damian is under strict orders to go nowhere near him while the Bats scramble to try to fix the Evil!Tim problem

... Damian naturally does not listen to these orders!! He is NOT A CHILD!!!! He is NOT AFRAID!!! He decides to go surveil Drake and then confront him because he's not going to cower in fear!!! He will fight and win!!!

Amnesia!Tim has agreed to be confined to his apartment although he doesn't consistently remember why (it's because nobody has figured out what triggers the appearance of Evil!Tim) and Tim is SO BORED

Tim catches an apparent civilian kid spying on him with binoculars and is immediately charmed

This child is Damian

After whacky shenanigans they bond

Damian makes up an impulsive lie about how he's Definitely Not A Superhero Yet and he's just a Very Innocent Naïve Child who aspires to be a superhero and uhhh that's why he was climbing around with binoculars, definitely

Tim likes him and is also so so bored and offers to train him

Damian does not actually need training bc he is actually already a superhero? BUT this would be a great surveillance opportunity because amnesia!Tim will just tell Damian his weaknesses instead of Damian having to deduce them

so he agrees to "be trained"

It ends up being a lot of fun because first of all Tim is super-impressed with how talented he is and thinks maybe Damian could join Young Justice and Tim could vouch for him, especially since in Tim's opinion Damian's already way more responsible than Superboy *eye roll* (Tim has been dialed back to an earlier age when his relationship with Conner is I Guess We're Friends But Also We Sure Do Annoy Each Other), and it's kinda fun and satisfying for Damian to hear all this praise

And second of all Tim's always been super-tight-lipped around Damian, not that Damian CARES, so THERE, and in order to learn anything about him Damian has had to do things like spend hours hacking into Tim's computer files (out of IDLE CURIOSITY and NOT because he cared) or learning to imitate his voice or spying on him, but now suddenly instead of being tight-lipped Tim is basically an open book? And so now Damian can hear all kinds of thinly-veiled stories that are clearly about Father and Grayson and Todd and Cain and Brown and the Teen Titans, and Tim doesn't realize that Damian actually knows all of these people and can decipher whatever nicknames Tim is giving them, so now suddenly Damian's getting to hear all kinds of relatively-uncensored gossip

And third of all, it turns out to be surprisingly fun playacting at being some nobody who isn't The Son Of Batman and doesn't have to live up to that legacy

And fourth and MOST IMPORTANTLY Damian learns partway through from Grayson that once they've fixed the curse Tim will FORGET EVERYTHING that happened while he was cursed

So this means that Damian is TOTALLY SAFE. He can confess vulnerabilities or be bad at things or admit to confusion and it won't matter because it doesn't count because amnesia!Tim won't remember when he goes back to normal and starts being Damian's insufferable nemesis again!!

And also no one else will ever know because amnesia!Tim has promised to keep their training secret!! And Damian has ofc told no one that he's sneaking into the apartment he's not supposed to be in!!

This is kind of intoxicating and great because normally Damian is being Watched All The Time and very very aware that whatever he does other people will remember and suddenly he is FREE because this particular secret little friendship will stay secret FOREVER and only Damian will ever know about it

By this time he's gotten totally distracted from his "surveil evil!Tim" plan and actually he's over at Tim's place often enough that he's figured out how not to trigger the appearance of evil!Tim

(because Damian started out way less emotionally-invested than the rest of the Bats he's been a much more impartial observer of what's going on PLUS Tim thinks he's just a random kid and hasn't been trying to put up much of an I'm Fine front for him)

Meanwhile the Bats are all super-distracted from Damian by their worries about cursed!Tim so Damian is also kinda lonely which is leading to him getting more and more invested in this secret friendship

AND THEN at some point he finds about Heretic and in this AU Damian is the ONLY ONE who knows about Heretic and he's terrified that he's going to have to fight and maybe kill him and then what will the Bats think??? they will hate him!!! They Can Never Know

... but he HAS to do something because right now Heretic has only been aged up somewhat and he's still younger than Damian, so Damian might if he's very lucky be able to beat him and survive, but the League is planning to magically age Heretic up more and if Damian doesn't do something soon Heretic will be aged into an adult and Damian will have no chance at defeating him, so he has to do something soon...

... maybe amnesia!Tim can help?

Plot ensues; Damian takes amnesia!Tim along on a secret quest to kill Heretic; Damian almost kills Heretic and at first amnesia!Tim is difficult and he's gonna intervene but then he BACKS OFF and then Damian can't bring himself to actually go through with his plan and he saves Heretic's life at the last minute; Tim now tells Damian he let him make the choice because he KNEW HE'D MAKE THE RIGHT ONE; this moment actually fixes Tim's curse because uhhhh gobbledegook having to do with the curse and it's connected back with that old emotional memory that Tim had forgotten with Dick and the Lazarus Pits, so no sooner has Tim said this and started comforting Damian then he gets dizzy and passes out.

So then Damian has to rescue both amnesia!Tim and Heretic which of course he does, with the timely help of a certain Batdragon...

... and even though it scares him, Damian's planning on coming clean and confessing everything, and he knows that amnesia!Tim will back him up....

... and then Tim wakes up. And the curse is fixed. And he's back to "normal." And he doesn't remember anything.

... and he hates Damian again.

Part 2: Damian + Normal!Tim (+ Heretic)

So then the second half of the story was going to be joint Damian and Tim POVs. So on Damian's side he's absolutely determined to conceal his deep dark secret of *checks notes* having befriended amnesia!Tim and then overcome temptation and saved Heretic's life and also saved Tim's life and accidentally broken Tim's curse in the process. And he's made up a complicated fake story about being kidnapped by evil!Tim so that No One Will Know. And also secretly he's kind of miserable about having lost his friend, amnesia!Tim, who's now been replaced by the much more familiar normal!Tim who hates Damian and who Damian hates in return.

And meanwhile! Normal!Tim is certain that Damian's lying because he has very blurry memories that do not match up with the story that Damian is now telling plus his instincts are (correctly!) telling him that it's false, because for mysterious reasons he's finding Damian much easier to read than he used to, and he's intensely suspicious of Damian and certain that he must be concealing something Sinister, and he's trying to figure out what.

And meanwhile Heretic is in a coma and the Bats are trying to heal him and Damian is committed to doing the right thing and not sorry about saving him but also really worried because what if Heretic wakes up and says that Damian tried to kill him, or what if Normal!Tim figures it out, and what if then the Bats hate him forever

(which like. they would not. because this is actually a story about Damian being a hero! but Damian feels guilty about having even considered the initial plan and is mayyyybe not thinking things through very rationally here)

(and also the various things he's been lying about are kinda snowballing at this point)

Anyway meanwhile Tim is conducting extremely intrusive and potentially threatening investigations which might uncover all the lies and then he FINDS SECRET EVIDENCE in the form of Damian's camera with photos and videos plus a sketchbook and Damian is HORRIFIED and tries to FIGHT HIM TO STOP HIM FROM TAKING THESE THINGS and Tim doesn't know what's on the camera but he's so sure it's PROOF of whatever sinister things Damian has been gaslighting him about and whatever sinister things Damian was up to when Tim had amnesia --

-- and then Tim is victorious and gets hold of the camera and takes off with it and gets back to his apartment where he sits down and discovers the DAMNING EVIDENCE of uhhhh. selfies and things where amnesia!Tim and Damian were hanging out.

So Tim is now very very confused and although he still doesn't really understand what's going on it's sinking in that maybe Damian isn't up to anything sinister, just something that Tim... doesn't understand at all, and also now Tim has successfully seized this collection of stuff that turns out to be fairly personal and thus kind of a privacy violation, although also not a privacy violation because it involves Tim damn it, so Tim is very determinedly NOT feeling guilty about this because he has EVERY RIGHT to know what HE HIMSELF was doing that Damian has been lying about, but also it turns out that mostly what Damian's been lying about has been a lot of very wholesome bonding and also some fairly personal confessions that it's obvious he would not want actual!Tim to know, so Tim is NOT feeling guilty but also, okay, fine, he is feeling a little guilty despite himself, and also it is quickly becoming apparent from the little collection of stuff that Damian is... maybe okay? maybe secretly kind of a sweet vulnerable kid? actually? as opposed to Tim's Personal Infuriating Nemesis Child Sent To Torment Him? which is so weird given Tim's entire remembered experience of Damian up until now, and yet the evidence does seem pretty conclusive because he can't figure out what Damian's endgame could possibly be if it was a trick, which means it's not a trick, which means...

And meanwhile Damian is horrified and very upset because he has been FOUND OUT by normal!Tim who hates him, and who will figure out ALL the lies and figure out that Damian was planning to kill Heretic and then he'll tell it all to Father and frame it all in the worst possible light, so to get out in front of it Damian injures himself and goes to Father and tells him that Evil!Tim came back and attacked him and that Tim's very unstable --

And then Damian's BRACED when normal!Tim shows up and Father confronts him with the accusation of having snapped and attacked Damian, and Damian is DETERMINED to stick to his lie and he's not gonna confess NO MATTER WHAT and he's going to say that clearly Tim's memory is wrong again, and then... normal!Tim doesn't deny it. He admits to attacking Damian. Kinda brusquely, but he does. He says he's sorry.

... Tim admits to the thing that he didn't do?

And Tim kinda nods at Damian - now we're even.

Because on Tim's side... he's still not understanding a lot. But he's got the basic idea now. He's gotten that Damian's scared, and he gets that he went too far trying to get hold of the weird evidence. And so he gets that this lie is Damian's retaliation for the privacy violation, and you know what? Fair enough. Tim can lie to Batman too. And besides, this is very clearly something between Tim and Damian, and Tim doesn't really want Bruce involved either.

Now he wants to get Damian alone and find out... well, basically the same thing he's wanted since the beginning, he wants to know what the hell has been going on with him during the huge blank spot in his memory, and he still has the (correct!) instinct that Damian knows all kinds of things he's not telling...

... But now it's slowly dawning on him that Damian might be, like, a Person with Emotions and Vulnerabilities (still such a strange thought!!). Which is also what Damian's afraid of, because when your enemies realize you have emotions and vulnerabilities that's very bad!!! And ever since they met and became Nemeses, Damian has done his best to convince Tim that he has NO VULNERABILITIES WHATSOEVER!!! And now because of his weakness and carelessness with amnesia!Tim he's ruined it all!!! This is disastrous!!!

So when Tim confronts him, he does his level best to convince Tim that he has NO feelings and they were NOT friendly and the bonding was all Damian's convoluted Machiavellian plan, which is actually what Tim believed until he found the evidence, but now Tim has Seen Too Much and doesn't believe that it was just a scheme after all because instead it kinda looks like Damian was... lonely? Because he is a kid? Who was lonely? Kind of like Tim was lonely back in the day? And it's really frustrating to realize this because people (Dick and Bruce) have actually been insisting on Damian's various sympathetic qualities to Tim for ages but it never really felt real before because Tim never managed to see past Damian's façade before and now it just feels very thuddingly obvious?

Anyway the rest is mostly vibes but basically even though Tim still has kinda mixed feelings because he has all his more negative memories of Damian back, he's also had this glimpse at the possibility of a more positive relationship, which he's maybe realizing he might like to have? And maybe he could have it, because he apparently managed it somehow even when his memory was Swiss cheese and also he was sometimes randomly going evil? And also he's feeling super-lonely right now because he has a huge memory gap but he knows Evil!Tim did all kinds of awful things which he feels really guilty about so he's avoiding all his actual friends?

So now Tim tentatively proposes to Damian that maybe they could spend some time together again, and Damian's a little wary because it could be a trap - because this is nemesis!Tim not friend!Tim!!! - but he misses amnesia!Tim so he agrees. So now they're hanging out in secret again, except for real this time and now as themselves instead of amnesia!Tim and disguised!Damian, and they're jointly lying to Bruce about it because thanks to that impulsive lie Bruce is worried that Evil!Tim might come back and has Absolutely Banned Damian from spending any time with him again.

And so then they're Bonding and Tim takes Damian to Blüdhaven to train-surf because Tim has exactly (1) model of how older brothers interact with younger brothers, so that's what he's imitating - and it will probably not surprise you that this is the part I'm most personally attached to and the only part I actually managed to write a bit for sdfsdfds. And Damian has never actually done this weird activity before because Dick didn't do it with him because actually Damian has already trained in pitch darkness, so the whole concept of the blindfolds is pointless for him because the purpose was to get Tim to stop relying on his vision so much, and Damian doesn't rely too much on his vision. So this isn't actually a training exercise that makes much sense for Damian. But Tim is trying and Damian is also trying so they try it together and they end up bonding anyway, because you can't really screw up risking your lives on a train together.

Then we move into the part of the fic that is fuzziest but also full of my favorite ~Vibes~ where Tim and Damian are bonding and lying to Bruce but also they have to lie to Dick too, because Dick believes everything that Bruce believes, and so Tim is having various complicated feelings about lying to Dick and also not getting along super-well with Dick because of all the, you know, lying, plus Dick was one of the people who had to fight evil!Tim so Dick's kinda instinctively wary now because having Tim back feels too good to be true, plus Dick feels guilty for the various things he had to do to subdue evil!Tim, and Tim feels guilty for whatever awful things he did when he was evil!Tim, plus even though he knows it's irrational Tim is secretly kinda mad at Dick and Bruce for believing the lie about the attack, even though it is a lie he is participating in, but look, emotions are complicated. So things between Dick and Tim in the present-day are pretty strained, but simultaneously Tim is revisiting all his best memories with Dick when he was younger because he's trying to figure out ways to bond with Damian.

So Tim is kinda low-key grappling with the problem of I Guess I'm An Older Brother Now, I Don't Feel Old Enough Or Qualified For This And It Alarms Me, much like Dick had to grapple with it back in the day, and simultaneously Damian is also trying to figure out how Older Brother-ing works because Heretic is? maybe? kind of like Damian's younger brother? So Tim is low-key ending up in Dick's position of the Dick-and-Tim relationship, where you're at an exceptional personal low point and estranged from everyone you care about and this very irritating thirteen-year-old keeps hanging around being all up in your business and then somehow you end up hanging out with him and sorta kinda mentoring him a little even though the prospect of being any kind of mentor is deeply alarming because obviously you can't be a mentor, you are not a mentor, you're not even a real adult and your own personal life is a total mess and nobody should listen to you ever, and meanwhile Damian is low-key ending up in Tim's position of the Tim-and-Damian relationship, or rather he's worried he will, because he's got this horrifying younger brother Heretic who will surely try to kill or undermine him as soon as he gets out of the coma, because that's what he's been trained to do, and what if the Bats like Heretic better??? Or what if they decide that Heretic needs Robin more and they won't let Damian be Robin anymore??? And what will happen to Damian then??? And Dick and Bruce are both very worried about Heretic, who's apparently Bruce's second biological son and even younger than Damian and in a coma (and as far as Damian's concerned that's all they know because he hasn't told them anything else, although Dick and Bruce have actually guessed a bit more than Damian realizes), and Damian knows he shouldn't be jealous or paranoid or threatened but actually he is feeling all of those emotions and dreading what might happen when Heretic wakes up and he doesn't want to share his family with Heretic and he doesn't actually want Heretic to be here at all.

BUT ANYWAY it all works out and they gradually all figure out each other's various secrets and Various Emotional Confessions ensue and ultimately Tim and Damian bond, and Dick and Tim get past the strains and get close again, and Tim is able to listen to Damian's anxieties about Heretic and offer some hard-won insights from the older-and-wiser position of Younger Brothers Who Were Trained To Kill You: Admittedly It's Unpleasant At First But At Least One Of Them Is Really Worth It Actually, and then eventually the HAPPY ENDING was going to be Heretic waking up from the coma braced for battle and Damian offering him the Robin costume.

Anyway. I think that's how it would go if I ever actually wrote it. Any and all of the plot ideas are free to a good home if anyone else wants them sdfsfdsfds

[swifty-fox]

Writing ask! 5, 14, and 21!

5. a description I'm proud of

from a book WIP of mine. Dom is why i fell so hard for Gale they're very similar lol

Dom hesitates a moment, then scoffs to himself, shrugging his jacket off and tugging his shirt off over his head. Instantly his skin goosepimples and he rests an uneasy hand on his bicep. Marks of a hard life were on his body. Not the excessive violence of movies and books; not the sort of thing that would garner stares, but Dom knew what the scars were from. Which were innocent human fuck-ups and which were inflicted by an angry parent with too much to drink and too little regard for kindness. His hurts didn’t have to leave marks on his skin to linger; a cigarette burn here, the stinging edge of a belt there, it was all headed by dark scriptwork, shocking against the pale skin and freckles of his shoulders.

Hands Off.  No more than the length between the tip of his thumb and the base of his pinky, black ink turned blue and fuzzy with age and lack of care. 

15. that was out of my comfort zone

I don't like casual dialogue very much so

“Why unicorns?”

The question is sudden and random enough that it startles Bucky, he can tell by the way the other man blinks rapidly.

“Huh?”

“Why are unicorns your favorite extinct animal?”

John laughs, his face creasing in a sunny smile, the type of grin he was known for. All encompassing and enough to light up any room. Enough to light up the entire night sky. If they ever figured out how to capture and bottle a John Egan smile they would make millions. 

“What’s not to like about ‘em? They’re horses which are already a noble animal as is, add a giant stabbing horn on top and you’ve got one badass beast. ‘Sides they represent all things good and pure. That’s pretty neat.”

“What on earth do you know about purity John Clarence Egan?”

21. that i liked but had to cut

I don't really work on drafts so I dont tend to cut but uhhh i've got this?? It probably wont make it into Dom's story

“I think I’m fucking my life up.” Dom hugs his knee closer to his chest. 

Arnie glances over his shoulder at him, hand poised in the dirt where he was subtly tracing Dom’s profile in the dirt. Dom pretended not to notice, Arnie pretended he wasn’t aware of Dom noticing. The arrangement suited them both. 

“You’re twenty-six.” Arnie snorts. The scratching in the dirt resumes, a mechanical inhale as he takes a hit of his vape, releasing a cloud of peach-scented vapor into the oncoming sunset. The sacred heart on his right shoulder flexes with his drawing, bared by the sleeveless Fine Ink t-shirt he wore.

Dom makes a disdainful face “You’re twenty-seven.” 

“Yeah,” Arnie loftily waves his twig for emphasis, “And in my whole extra year of experience qualifies me to tell you that you’re in no way fucking your life up this young.” 

A heavy breeze lifts the hair from Dom’s forehead, catches around the neck of his hoodie and tickles the exposed skin on his ankles. He scowls into it “You’re so full of shit.” 

“And you’re a grouch.” Arnie leans back, the knobs of his spine pressing warmly into Dom’s ribs. The tumble of rocks they were sat on reversed their heights, the top of Arnie’s blue curls only reaching to Dom’s shoulder. “Tell me what you think you’re doing so wrong that the next sixty years are a total wash.” 

“Sixty years is generous,” Dom presses his lips against a smile as the other man elbows his thigh. He sighs and shrugs, ashing his cigarette on the rock and tucking the half-used butt into his pocket for later. “I don’t know. I’m spending my life working in a shithole bar, chasing after a brother who doesn’t want me in his life and dodging phone calls from a father who thinks I’m as unstable as the chick from Sharp Objects.”

“I saw that show.” Arnie says idly.

“I read the book.” Dom shrugs again, heavier this time. “I dunno, fuck, I have no aspirations, no goals, no trajectory, I’m just clinging to the idea that I can be this fucking savior to the most stubborn sixteen-year-old to grace this good green earth.” 

“You know,” Arnie says casually, “sometimes I can really tell your mom was from the bible belt.” Dom elbows the back of his head gently. He laughs, tongue between his teeth and loudly enough to echo around the copse of trees they were taking their refuge under. 

“You have friends, a partner, a job, some pretty fun hobbies and you’ve got a goal, even if it is a tough one. Don’t you think that’s enough?” Arnie asks after a beat of silence.

[razistoricharka]

Opinions on Pathologic as a game and its general reputation/ fans? I'd love to see you discuss it at length tbh. Radost je naći Patho fana sa Balkana!

Pathologic is remarkable to me as a lightning in a bottle incident for an entire cultural sphere of game development as well as games as a whole... When you look at the state of the scene in the rest of east europe there's absolutely no comparison. It has achieved an unique autochtonous sensibility that really stuck to my heart and feels almost homely, an aspiration only GSCs Stalker got close to. Kind of the opposite of the witchers low-fantasy kitsch (no offense!)

Moreover, even in the gameplay design I adore it for the grisly experience it is and how it intentionally plays with conventions of the game design. It's a little trite now but even the third wall breaking was ahead of its time...

This is all trivial compared to the weight I believe it carries ideologically, though. Once you start dissecting the fates of the characters and the symbolism of the world-structure I uhhh fuck I can't get into it now this is supposed to be a brief post. You can ask me if you have any specific thoughts though...

As for the fandom, too much yaoi, not enough yuri.

[canoncallings]

CW: my kin is kinda problematic so uhhh dni if that disturbs you! /gen

Hello hello, my dearest audience~!

I am Tsukasa Tenma, a fictionkin originating from the Project Sekai universe! Though, I wouldn't say I am from the game itself..

Where I'm from, I run a circus with the rest of wondershow (my troupe!). I am the ringmaster of the circus, though I usually present myself as a Jester. My personality is somehwat canon divergent, l am much more egotistical and eccentric than my source, honestly~ However, I also remember being visited by dearest Toya-kun.

He visits my shows and aspires to be a performer like me! How adorable he was, I miss him...

The aforementioned people PLEASE contact me!

Whether you are from my canon or not! (I wouldn't say i had the healthiest relationship with my troupe members. I feel that I was rather manipulative and controlling... still not sure, my memories are jumbled up..) I'd love to meet fellow fictionkins such as myself! Especially since I'm new to this whole thing~! DOUBLES PLEASE ALSO CONTACT ME! /Ih It'd be lovely to see more of me~ No matter what kind! I'm always so fascinating...

My only request is that any family members (that being Saki) please DNI. I didn't have a good relationship with my family, and I dont plan on fixing it. I don't want to look back. Also, no adults (18+) please, for I am a minor!

Also I’m new to being fictionkin, so do guide me~! ☆

My discord is _crimson_lovebird_

good luck!!!!!

[tadpal]

1 and 24 for the questions list? ✨

1. what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are?

uhhh like i feel undeniably i have to be like third generation ex cultist but that kind of feels like a cop out bc like... duh. so let's say: willingness to go to extremes for fresh fruit. (stamping through the brushland no shoes for prickly pears, hanging onto the weedy branches of the cherry guava tree -after climbing out of the second floor window - to get the sweetest berries on the far sunny side, risking all manner of snakes in the shade of the honeysuckle bush, and the fire ants on the avocado tree. in my modern life this looks more like long walks reaching into other people's gardens, making friends with the local green grocers and bringing them gifts, traveling two on train to a market etc. but definitely core for me.

then we have to put childhood aspiration to be a martyr. self explanatory. somewhat worrying. we carry it forward and it eats and aches. nothing more to say

and for a third let's say something i can't explain: there was a pool in a house i lived in that we only cleaned for the heat of summer and even then i never saw the bottom. just the deepest green imaginable. tiles peeling from the bottom so that if you let your feet touch you'd come up bloodied but with so much chlorine in the water you wouldn't feel it until you dried. in the spring the frogs would arrive and the steps would fill with eggs. i could submerge my whole child arm to the hilt and not touch anything but frogspawn. by late spring the shallows would be black with tadpoles, and me, i would go down first light every morning sneak past all of the uncles and aunts and other nebulous guests at a cult group home down to the pool i wasn't allowed at, to scoop frog after frog out of the water. every day another five bloom into adulthood, and then lost to exhaustion and every day i was there with my net and my chubby child hands to get them out. we never installed a ramp bc my shepherd said it would bring a cruel kindness to a natural order and that i needed to learn how to let things die. i passed out from heat exhaustion seven times before they installed a locked gate. i trained the guard dogs to dig me a passage under it. theres SOMETHING here that i have TRIED to express a thousand different ways, like ive done a dissertation about it and everything but like.. man idk. intangible. unreal. everything else fall short you know?

24. what’s one thing you’re proud of yourself for?

if i say number of frogs saved is that a bad joke? but fr i was a part of a chapter of volunteer conservations a while back so like actually: frogs saved :)

[cartchytuns]

ooooh i got tagged by @aposemetric lets do a tag game!

rules: if you get tagged in this, answer the questions that are written and make sure to swap out one (1) question at the end of it for the next person to answer. exciting!

#1 Are you named after anyone? yes, the maternal line in my family :) if i were a boy it would've been the paternal line, but instead of including my great grandfather's name, my dad would've used "atticus" because he just loved that lawyer so much

#2 When was the last time you cried? i prefer to keep my cry count private, lest i play into my star sign (extremely cringe sentence)

#3 Do you have kids? someday....... my cousins are having kids now though so i have plenty of nieces and nephews to dote on :)

#4 Do you use sarcasm? no, i am very bad at lying even when it's funny

#5 What’s the first thing you notice about people? maybe their hair?

#6 What’s your eye color? browne....

#7 Scary movies or happy endings? i like scary movies that have happy endings.... like popcorn

#8 Any special talents? its gross but i can blow spit bubbles that actually fly and land. like you know bubble guns? i can do that with my mouth. when i was in fifth grade i read about a character doing it in a book and got so jealous that i spent like five hours just figuring out how to do it

#9 "What trait in others draws you to them?" if we can have fun conversations

#10 What are your hobbies? playing really garbage pokemon fangames, taking care of my cat, watching drag shows, anything creative if i have the energy for it

#11 Do you have any pets? why yes my perfect cat guy stan :)

#12 What sports do you play/have played? i did basketball, tennis, martial arts, and kickboxing as a kid. i tried out yoga and fencing in college. im not really a sports person though so none of it stuck

#13 How tall are you? im like 5'3"-5'6" range

#14 Favorite subject in school? english in elementary and middle school, theatre in high school

#15 Dream job? building, executing, and performing in haunted houses. hell house is an aspirational tale to me

tagging @zoinkszim @snatchinsometeeth @alissocool @goth-dad-666 @slightlymoldybread @infini-tree @k1spiegel do it if u want :)

uhhh im gonna swap out #2 for "Do you ever go window shopping on sites like Etsy, and if so, what kinds of things do you look at?"

[o-wise-corvid]

Thanks for the tag @i-will-bite! This oughtta be fun.

1. Favorite OC

Oh boy. That is so dang hard. I’m probably going to go with Orin. She started as a self-insert but her story has really just ballooned into such a lovely, juicy tragedy that I can’t even describe. Orin is really the kind of person we all aspire to be. Loving, courageous, warm. She’s very invested in family, even moreso since her retirement as General of the Clones Rights Coalition. The sense of dread hanging over her is something so special to write. To describe nameless fear. It really pushes me.

2. Newest OC

Uhhh weeeeeeell… probably the Iktochi I’m planning. I don’t really have a place for her. But I like the idea of foreknowing, that subtle sense of heightened awareness that their species has. Also the idea for an Iktochi came from Darth Cognis, from the Bane books.

3. Oldest OC

This one’s easy. S’Lus Galenn, my Ishi Tib medical sage on Naboo. He’s a sweet old feller that I HC sounds like Shadow from Homeward Bound. He’s not actually an Ishi Tib, but a being wearing the form of one. He’s part of a cosmic race known as The Born. Beings of pure Force energy who existed before the galaxy formed. He’s very caring and concerned with helping those less fortunate around Naboo, those living in the slums hidden by all the grand architecture and waterfalls.

4. Meanest OC

Ithsa Dooku. What a jerkface. What a Kevin. What a waste of good genetics. Ithsa is the offspring of Komari Vossa and Darth Maul. Don’t worry they’re not a couple; Vossa basically agreed to allow Maul to complete a mission unhindered by trading leaving him be for having sex with her. (Listen to Lockdown, that woman’s slavering after him.) Maul agreed, the act being completely meaningless and truthfully abhorrent to him. Later in life, he’ll see it as SA. The son fathered in that moment is not his son. Regardless of how similarly they look and even act. Ithsa resents his father’s opinion of him and really comes to hate Maul’s chosen child, whom he adores almost to a fault: Happenstance. Boy’s got MAJOR attitude issues.

5. Softest OC

Vagren Dragos. Him just a lil man. Just itty. He’s a very small, very impressionable little Zabrak babby, the Padawan of @crc-jedi-knight-serushna’s Serushna Leliana. To be only like. 6. He’s strong enough to have earned his tattoos before having to leave Dathomir. As a force-sensitive male, he’d have been killed had Nightsisters gotten hold of him. His leaving was better off for him and his village ultimately but in no way easy. He’s gotten his kyber crystal though and he’s learning How To Jedi very quickly. Though… he’s starting to see that not all Jedi are as wonderful as his Master and Grandmaster. And that’s a shame.

6. Aloof/Standoffish OC

That’ll be my Clone OC Fitz, CT-52622. He’s been dishonorably discharged from the GAR but the Jedi who he serves beside as Special Consultant was a Padawan during the war. Rae Dagani lost her Master on Geonosis and Fitz refused to go fight in the battle while she and her sister-Padawan held their Master’s body and wept, undefended and alone. He stayed with them against orders and was punished for insubordination. But they repaid the favor and he works with them as a freelancer and adopted member of Kitchen Sink Squad now. He’s very restrained except with his baby girl, Rae. He’s her safe hiding place and he can let down his walls with her.

7. Dumbest OC

HA. Ummmm. Hm. I think that might be a BD unit OC I’m planning. Just a ditzy little thing that would exasperate BD-1 half to death.

8. Smartest OC

That’s probably Ee’an, another of the Kitchen Sink Squad I co-own with @hotshot9. Those fellas are based on favorite characters of ours from books and movies and he’s based on Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park. He’s all about philosophy and science, and he’ll debate you until he’s blue in the face. He’s got a massive flitterfly tattoo on his throat, wears his hair long to his shoulders, and favors leather jackets now that he’s out of armor mostly anymore. You’ll also find a trail of varactyl tracks winding up one leg and arm along an old scar he got riding one of them.

9. Besties IRL OC

Probably either Orin or Thess Sha. Thess owns a coffee shop on Naboo and breeds blarths. She’s very friendly and loves making people’s lives easier with good food and good drinks. (And free tshirts!)

Hmmmm….

@thesitharts @crc-jedi-knight-serushna @smoooothbrain @alexeithegoat @sweetiepie08 @stardustbee @eloquentmoon @eliduremaybe and anybody else who wants to join in!

[plethomacademia]

Uhhh can I get 🔴, 🔮, and ⚽️ for Maeve?

Answering this meme while I pretend I am writing. Pre-emptively throwing in a jump because there's three and we know how this will go.

🔴 Red- What is a trait your OC has that those around them don't see very often? Is it seen by a rare few or completely overlooked?

Boring trope, but she is very insecure in relationships, especially when it comes to being loved/liked for who she is, not what she is. And she is terrified of asking for it.

Her cult loves her as the flesh of their god. This is her nightmare scenario.

I think Enver sees this insecurity on occasion. I am still deciding what he does about it but it's coming up soon! When she was insecure about her place in the alliance, he told her to stop pouting, so I expect it will go well! But I know deep down she never tells him she loves him because she expects to be rejected, that's why just saying he's her friend is scary enough.

Jaheira sees right through her bullshit for sure. Immediately. The second she joins the camp she pegs Maeve for the giant softy she is.

Astarion sees it only through sheer exposure to her. The night before they go to fight Orin when she thinks she's going to die to Bhaal is the only time she's open about it. That's why I'm going to write that scene one day because it's angstyyyy.

I think most of the party figures it out, she's a lot like Astarion after all and they see right through him. I could see Karlach missing it, only because they butt heads in act 3 so much and I think Karlach suffers from black and white thinking to a degree. She probably sees that brave front Maeve projects and takes it at face value only because Maeve truly is very blunt with Karlach and once Karlach finds out she worked with Gortash, I expect that colored her perspective on Maeve quite a lot.

🔮 Crystal Ball- What kind of future does your OC want to have? What would they do to make it real?

In the short term, she desperately wants to be a traveling story teller. I think she would love finding some kind of traveling circus gig and just being a side act. Like those people at renn fairs that heckle people when they walk by. She just wants to have small moments of human connection and make enough gold to live on.

She doesn't know it in game, obviously, but she did truly love running her cult when it came to the performance aspect. She was created to be convince people to kill, after all. She just wants to not run things for a while. She has been a leader her entire life.

To make it happen, I head canon that she and Astarion do the canon "travel the world" ending but she starts picking up small gigs to get started. Astarion thought it would be all cool stealing and being little goblins, but now he's partnered up with an aspiring Volo. He's a little shit about it.

Even longer term, there's that bard you can talk to that owns the music shop in Baldur's Gate and I think she would love to do something like that when she's ready to pick a city. Just work somewhere she can talk music all day, then play some random shows as she wants.

High elves live so long and she is still really young. Maybe she'll want more, but just getting to exist and experience the world on her own terms, share joy through story and song, that's the dream.

⚽️ Soccer Ball- Who is someone that your OC believes in and roots for? Are they private about their admiration or do they make it well known?

She rooted for Gort so hard she got stabbed in the head. She thought she was being slick about it, but when you aren't allowed to socialiize, well.

For in game, the obvious one is Astarion. Their relationship starts out very shallow but she ends up so impressed by how he sees a problem and just sets to solving it, even though he's usually out of his league. Even his act 2 "hey uh i think i'm falling for you whoops" episode, she thinks he is so brave for just saying that? She would have dumped him if she were in his shoes. That said, she would rather eat rocks than compliment that man to his face.

The real answer is Shadowheart. Maeve thinks Shadowheart is amazing. She talks about how Shadowheart is amazing. She thinks she is so strong, so resilient, so brave, so beautiful. Shadowheart also stood up to a god and she just did the thing. If the game let us do third act romances, Maeve would romance Shadowheart, but act one Maeve does not think she deserves Shadowheart (she deserves no one but she'll play with the fuckboy elf lol). But Maeve is a Shadowheart #1 fan very quickly and EVERYONE hears about it. In the end, Shadowheart is her first real friend.