#i'll probably try it again sometime if i can convince my pc it's not a virus

[netherstray]

MMORPGs I’ve played (that I would recommend trying)

Riders of Icarus (6/10) Clunky mechanics in a beautiful world with an incredibly fun and interesting collection system for mounts. Daily rewards are valuable, but getting them means playing with bad controls and laggy gameplay. The interface is garbage, the quality control on the general experience is lackluster, but damn if I don’t keep coming back to this pretty trash fire. 

Guild Wars 2 (4/10) The world is vast and there’s a lot to do. Too much to do. You will be ambushed by things to do. If you do not want things to do, things will be thrown at you. Mechanics change constantly with weapons, but classes do not. Cities are huge and empty, but the players seem nice. Quests are cute, but too much emphasis is placed on the “living world” aspect of the game without any real clarity on what the world is about more broadly.

Final Fantasy XIV (8/10) Finally, an MMORPG I really, really enjoy. Not just in its mechanics and stuff to do, but in its quality of quests and narrative. Very surprising, considering it’s the first Final Fantasy game I’ve actually liked. Despite the typical “chosen one” narrative, the story feels organic and inclusive regardless of the character you make. Characters are not locked to a single class and can train to be every class in the game. Cutscenes are fantastic and worth watching. Damned shame about that mandatory main quest in order to do anything, but with one easy payment of $11 in addition to your subscription, you too can enjoy having alts.

The Elder Scrolls Online (7/10) An MMORPG that aims for MMO teamwork mixed with action game mechanics. No QTEs, but the staples of MMORPGs--tanks, healers, melee dps, ranged dps, etc--are vague to make room for more build customization. May take some getting used to, but housing is accessible and subscribing has big cosmetic, gameplay, and quality of life benefits. Subscribing is not mandatory for a good experience, though.

World of Warcraft (6/10) Longtime players seem to be the saltiest about this one. Unfortunately, I’m a longtime player. The game’s mechanics are solid, classes are solid (also rigid), and the game is solid from a technical standpoint. Glitches are seldom a problem and aren’t common to begin with. Still, there’s no housing, character customization is limited, and the endgame is all grind all the time. But despite all this, I have yet to see an MMORPG that matches the sheer charm and quality of interface to be found in WoW. (Rest in peace, Wildstar; you tried.)

[locktobre]

I have two big multi-part questions that I can think off the top of my head, but I'll put them in two sperate asks, with this being the first: How and why is Joey immortal? How does he find out? How does *Damian* find out, and why does Joey keep him around? (I feel like I've asked the last part before, so apologies if I have DHHFHSHFH)- That PCS Anon

Birthday spoilers!

Note: This is also spoilers for After and The Tower. (I know that doesn’t sound like it makes any sense, but just trust me.)

Simply put: Joey is immortal bc of his biological parents.

To make a long story short, Reina and Robin Goodfellow (also called Puck) are elves who fled from their home planet about 11,000 years ago after a cataclysmic event. They ended up on Earth, along with another elf named Nik, not really planned but holes were opening up in reality and Puck pulled Nik and Reina into one with him, ostensibly to save their lives. They stuck together for awhile bc Earth was crazy compared to their homeworld but eventually parted ways and never saw each other again.

Now, elves are not totally immortal. They can naturally live for about 1,000 years, but can extend their lives with magic if they wish. The problem is... there is no natural magic on Earth, so they didn’t have a lot of options if they wanted to continue living. Reina turned to blood magic, essentially stealing youth and vitality from others. Puck took refuge in the metaphysical center of the planet, which does have magic, technically. And Nik honestly didn’t care to live forever but he ended up traveling north and meditating and he basically lives off of sunlight/starlight and being in tune with the universe, he’s the most chill of the 3 of them and just wants to live in peace. He ended up settling down and starting a family with a human. He and his family, eventually known as the Clausons, strive to do good in the world. (If you’re thinking, is Nik Santa? Or at least a Santa? Well... 🎅)

So, Joey has a good percentage of elf blood, which would have him living for several hundred years on its own. But since one of his great-grandfathers is a watch, that’s what makes him truly immortal, since he inherits a watch’s inability to be injured, and the fact that they don’t need to eat or sleep to stay alive. (Unlike Arsenio, Joey can eat and sleep, but he doesn’t have to.)

Joey doesn’t know anything about his biological family, because Robina gave him up specifically to hide him from Marisol, so that Marisol wouldn’t use him like she used Robina, and thus it was a closed adoption. He loves Merliah and Kylie, and doesn’t really have any interest in seeking his biological family, bc he doesn’t feel like he’s missing anything from them, and he figures that they gave him up for a reason, so they probably wouldn’t want to see him, anyway.

Damian, on the other hand, is very interested. He kind of has a complex, bc he knows he was conceived accidentally, and they wanted Joey. (Merliah had reservations about being pregnant, which is why they decided to adopt.) I don’t know how much he would ever know about this, but from my own childhood, I know sometimes you just feel things even if nobody will say it outright.

Obviously, Damian can’t exactly... bully Joey into finding out about his birth family, bc A) Joey cannot be swayed, and B) Damian is a lot smaller than him. So Damian says they should at least find out what Joey can do, bc then maybe they can kind of guess what his birth family was like, at least, bc Joey is... just a little bit odd.

It’s not that he acts out in any way, or even does anything very unusual. He’s very obedient and well-behaved. He eats his vegetables and does his chores and goes to bed when told. He’s very mellow.

To Damian, who’s full of rage, this is unfathomable, but Joey just shrugs it off. He likes to help others and do what he’s told and doesn’t really see any reason to rebel, and never has. What he can’t shrug off is the fact that he can do magic.

Of course, his grandpa on Merliah’s side is Rip, who has spent a good chunk of his life studying magic. And Rip can tell that Joey’s not a mermaid, a fairy, not part mermaid, not part fairy, not any kind of fairy or pixie or merrow or any kind of being that Rip has ever seen. So Rip is also intrigued by Joey, but Merliah and Kylie have said that Joey is not to be studied, not that Rip would ever treat his own grandkid like that, but just like, leave well enough alone and don’t poke at him, and if Joey ever wants you to help him figure himself out, he will come to you when he is ready.

Long story short, Damian pokes at Joey until he decides to ask Grandpa Rip. Joey isn’t curious about it, but Damian is, and he wants Damian to be happy (and also stop bothering him), so like, why not.

So, at that point, they start trying to figure out what exactly Joey can do. He can already breathe underwater after studying his moms’ mermaid form, and he can imitate his Uncle Odie’s fire powers exactly when he tries. And after going on like this for awhile, the question quickly becomes what CAN’T Joey do? bc elves had/have a lot of magic compared to any given fairy or mermaid, and watches are at a comparable level. It’s not nearly at Chelsea’s level (or even WBN’s, bc they are an even older, more powerful kind of elf than Reina, Puck and Nik were, plus they were sitting in one spot absorbing magic for 200,000 years), but basically more powerful than Rip has ever seen, and he spent 17 years in Fairytopia specifically seeking out the most powerful magic known to fairykind/mermaidkind in an effort to get home.

At this point, Joey changes his mind and decides he doesn’t want to continue, bc he doesn’t want to feel strange among his family, and Rip doesn’t push the issue bc he’s frankly a little scared about who or what is out there that could be that powerful, and wherever Joey came from, he doesn’t want to know about it.

Damian’s mad bc he is more curious than ever, but now Rip is on the side of hey don’t push it bc like god help us if Joey turns against us (except not in those words but just like silently thanking god that Joey is the nicest kid in the world without a malicious bone in his body).

Anyway, they kind of go back and forth like that as they grow up, with Damian always trying to figure out what Joey’s limits are, and Joey just not engaging bc he is not interested. And eventually Joey does, quite calmly, ask Damian what the hell his problem is and like can’t you just let this go already and Damian basically is like how can you say that when you have all this power and you don’t do anything with it? And Joey’s like what am I supposed to do exactly and Damian’s like you have to do something and Joey’s like fine if it will make you happy, I’ll do something with my magic. I’ll save the world or something and then you have to leave me alone. And Damian’s like sure, deal. Joey doesn’t really want to play superhero (which is an option by the time he’s grown), but he figures the right thing will call to him when the time is right, and until then, he’ll just hang out and try to convince Damian to chill the hell out.

So basically, Damian comes with him bc he was an annoying younger brother (by 5 months) until Joey said fine. (If Damian sounds like a dick, well, not all my ocs are nice lol that would be boring.) And figuring out immortality would really be a matter of time, with Joey not aging even past the age when fairies and mermaids start to age (around 125).

I think Joey might look into his biological family once his immediate family (parents, grandparents, cousins) all died, so he wouldn’t feel like he was betraying them, but that’s several hundred years in the future and I haven’t decided how that goes yet. But we’ll see!

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

37, 47, 49+ Tiffany?

Thanks for the ask! These look like hard ones lol, but I'll do my best.

37. How is your character’s imagination? Daydreaming a lot? Worried most of the time? Living in memories?

It depends on the timeperiod, honestly. She changes a lot. She has a good imagination, and she spent a lot of her early life daydreaming about the day she'd finally reunite with her father.

Once she hit late teens and joined the Seraph, I'd say she was living in memories a lot - it got better after she joined the Vigil and went away entirely after she met Trahearne, and then she was a very present-moment, grounded individual. She can be worried, yes, but more in a sort of 'I'm focusing rn' way and less of a pessimistic kind of way.

It all came back after he died though, and after dying and coming back she slowly started healing, so finally by IBS, I think Marjory says it best after the first strike in Bound by Blood: "Optimism, Commander? From you?" The whispers probably changed that a bit and she got more full of chronic worry - the same thoughts and concerns chasing themselves around in her head - and it got worse the nearer to the end of IBS she got. (It could've just been Jormag trying to keep her quiet and out of the way, but some of it was legitimate concern.)

47. Do they want to project an image of a younger, older, more important person? Does they want to be visible or invisible?

'Want'? I'm not sure. She is aware of her own importance - that moment when she tells Bangar she 'won't let him take credit' because she knows how influential she and her victories are and how much of an inspiration she is. So she very much 'wants to be visible' because that's part of her job, to present a positive front against the dragons despite all the bickering that tends to go on, e.g. during No Quarter and Jormag Rising. You'd also see it in the Commander's speech in Thunderhead Keep and her decision to manage anxiety levels to best of her ability in Bound by Blood.

Now, if we go back to S3, she was completely desperate. She was trying to present an image of competence to hide her own self-loathing for failing again and again in HoT, but she failed at that too, at least in her mind and to those close to her (Dragon's Watch), which may have been a contributing factor to why she ran off to Elona where nobody knew her.

Younger and older don't mean a whole lot to her in general, since she's part-sylvari and even though she's mostly human, she's always been a little advance for her age; her age was never really something she defined herself with. Now, if she'd been more of a social person when she was younger (pre- to mid-teens?) she might have been more self-conscious about her advanced mind and tried to prove she wasn't as immature as everyone else her age, but as it was (shy, bullied all the time, etc.) she was never really concerned about it.

49. What about voice? Pitch? Strength? Tempo and rhythm of speech? Pronunciation? Accent?

Aw, I'm bad at these. I lump this in with visual things (art and whatnot) and call it 'I'm bad at aesthetic things' - I'm more of a mind person.

But there is one moment in early HoT that really characterized my Commander for me in this regard. This was my second time through HoT and I knew how it ended, but Tiffany Commander sounded so confident, so strong, so unwaveringly certain of success that she almost convinced me that things would be alright. I'm not sure when she began sounding that confident, but I'm gonna lump it in with social competence and say she learned it 'sometime after becoming the Commander' and 'sometime before the World Summit.'

Otherwise, she sounds just like the human female PC, because I'm boring lol. But human female PC is bold, strong, and confident - most of the time. The most notable example of a time she wasn't was the famous words at the end of All or Nothing - "I don't know." She sounded genuinely broken, applause to the VA (no idea how the other VAs did it but wow).

When she's not being the Commander - giving orders and organizing military action - her voice is warm and full of kindness, softer in a way but no less certain.

Now. There's one other thing about Commander's speech: she's bilingual. Trahearne taught her to speak Orrian, and while she doesn't have an accent, certain words she'll pronounce differently. These certain words are usually ones I've noticed Trahearne saying strangely - my favorite example is the time Trahearne was introducing Commander to Sayeh and he said "privacy is paramount" - pronouncing privacy with a short i, so [prih-VAH-see].

Now, on Trahearne it's far more pronounced, because he's immersed himself in the study of this language for twenty-odd years, but you'll notice an oddly-pronounced word from the Commander now and then.

Although, speaking of accents, she might have a slight British accent (which all sylvari have) due to one parent being a sylvari and them living together during the years she was learning to speak, although after he left it might've faded a bit. (Being around sylvari at any time probably draws it out a bit more, though - just subconsciously.)

50. What are the prevailing facial expressions? Sour? Cheerful? Dominating?

Facial expression! I'd pass on this except that I've said, repeatedly, how she has lines all over her body and never really expounded on it. These lines mimic sylvari patterns, so - if she were born more planty and less fleshy - they're basically the outline of what her leaves would have looked like. Very natural and beautiful on a sylvari, but very uncanny valley for humans, which is a reason she was bullied so much in her younger years and why Andrew and Petra were never that nice to her. (hey, maybe that can also be a reason neither of us click well with Kasmeer and Marjory!)

There are a lot more of these lines in her face, because faces are delicate things. I know most sylvari faces are smooth like humans', but the lore of that, iirc, is that sylvari heads, specifically, are formed of plant matter sort of packed together and pressed into shape properly. (Mordrem, afaik, don't really have very humanoid heads, and there are no naturally humanoid Mordrem, which means the Pale Tree had to work hard to make sylvari humanoid.) Anyway, these lines would, at least, denote where those leaves would before being pressed like that, and at best actually be what her face would actually look like if she were more sylvari.

And it's all very patterned, very symmetrical, all that cool stuff, which makes it extra creepy. No random lines going in opposition to anything else like scars; it's just eerily organized. It might remind some people of sylvari, but only the most insightful would make the connection consciously.

Anyway: this all gives her a rather frightening look to those who don't know her. The lines gather most around her eyes and mouth, which makes her look permanently stern and like she's judging everything she sees, and her mouth looks long and relatively thin, sort of like she's holding back some stern remark or comment. The business of the lines around her eyes also creates the illusion that her eyebrows are higher up than they should be, as if she's raising her eyebrows in displeasure or skepticism or something.

Of course, Tiffany Commander isn't feeling anything like this; these lines greatly enhance her 'Commander aura' of authority and control, but it can be very debilitating in personal relationships. She tends to get along much better with members of other races, who get less of an 'uncanny valley' impression and therefore find it much easier to look past her markings, especially once they've seen her be in several different emotions and moods and established that the lines are always like that and aren't relevant to what she's feeling.

There are one or two humans she's clicked well with: her half-sister, Deborah, and also Logan Thackeray. Most people tend to have a sort of flinch reflex in their eyes when they see her; either they stare, or they glance away for a moment, or they blink a few times - and that's usually the best she can hope for. People who 1) have been warned and 2) are naturally in control of their facial expression can keep a composed expression when seeing her, although of course they'll still be surprised. But that's if they've been warned first (e.g. the first time she met Queen Jennah).

So! I'm not a great facial expressions person, and I currently am working on a system of 'strangers see stern angry Commander, friends see normal facial expressions' although I have no idea what 'normal' is for her. She might have a habit of exaggerating her positive emotions and smiling constantly to try to put strangers at ease, but I feel like that would be even more creepy. Anyway, maybe the whole 'sylvari patterns' thing was a derailment of the original question, but that's how the majority of people perceive her facial expression.