#im taking your name for it mims hope u dont mind

[justkeepdancing-nemo]

laur’s 2022 rp questionnaire! 

the video was an intrusive thought i had.

Your Name: laur

Characters: Berlioz, Hades, Merida, Ashleigh, Nemo, Jun, Olaf, Pip, Amity, Snow, John, Michael 

Pick one of your characters and talk about their growth (we recommend choosing an older character, but it’s up to you!) What about their story has surprised you? What are you proud of? How have they changed from their original inception to now?

Last year I wrote Amity for the following question which means now I can write about her for THIS question. Did I succeed in taking Amity where I wanted to take her?? 

Absolutely! 

It was a long time coming, but Amity has broken free from the Blights! She had done what I always intended for her to do: fail, and fail hard, and in spectacular fashion, the kind of heart-breaking, soul-crushing failure that I’m sure every former gifted child is shuddering to think about. I should know; I am one of them.

That kind of failure was very important to me because of the next stage of her journey, where she gets to build herself back up from nothing. What’s surprising so far– it probably shouldn’t be tho, lol– is how haaaaaaaaaaaard that’s going to be. Like, I knew it was going to be hard, but I wanted to make her a ward for the RAS in part to show her that adults can be trusted. However, that part didn’t pan out the way I thought, and y’know, Amity is valid for that. Right now, she very much believes they can’t be. She trusts Riley most of all, and she trusts Mim. And that’s… the entire list. Even Marlin is on thin ice, but she believes she’s safe as long as Mim is looking out for her. 

So yeah, she’s definitely still searching for her purpose. I have lots of ideas for her and the fact we have Grand Prix stuff– and Lilith– means there are lots of interesting ways Amity can go from here! 

Pick another character (or the same character if you only have one) and talk a little about where you WANT them to go. What are your plans for them going into the new year? 

I’ll talk about Snow, briefly (I hope). Year One of a character for me is always very foundational. Im trying to build relationships and that usually means not a lot of like, plotty plot stuff gets done. And hey, i did that! Snow’s got lots of great relationships and she’s established in town, which means that in the coming year, i can maybe kick off some more ‘intentional’ moves with her, both big and small. 

Small Plots: 

-i’d like to do more small-scale necromancy stuff, helping some vamps or doing some medium stuff! I should hook Snow up with Elliot maybe and get that cracking. 

-i’d like to so more small-scale interior design and hotel stuff! Teased this for a task a while back but i want Snow to do some freelance interior design bc i think its neat. And I want to tie both this and the above mediumship thing in because i love the idea of like, redecorating a space as a way to help a restless soul move on. Its got that thematic resonance that i think is true for anyone who has ever felt like a new person after u go thru ur stuff and do a lil make over. 

Big Plots: 

-Big necromancy stuff, which in this case mostly means telling ppl who dont know that she’s a necromancer or that coming into like, actual relevance. I don’t know how yet but im def open to some cool ass spooky yucky death shit lets get it

-Family and Snow’s Past: she hasn’t talked to her parents for a year now. Would love to poke that and maybe have her parents call her. Also, it’s in my mind to have Estella, the woman accused of killing Snow, do a retrial and Snow being implicated in that. 

Pick a thread or a plot that you’re proud of and talk about why you loved it. 

Like always i really have so many. I love a lot of my plots!! 

Amity Demon Prom Arc: obviously this gets a shoutout as it is the biggest plot thing i did this year in terms of affecting the entire rp lol. I was definitely nervous going into it…id done big plots before, but those felt shared among my partners in a way that this didn’t. Amity was def the star, I guess I’m saying– it was her actions and no one else’s, as opposed to helle doing something or the order fall out etc. SO YEAH i was worried about it and felt burdensome asking people to do paras about it, which i know is silly, but IN THE END it worked out! I loved the build up with the blights and also amity’s lil circle– mainly mim and riley. Writing Amimity taking on Ashmedai was super epic and Lins did such a great job writing that action with me. And ofc, all the aftermath which was wrought with emotion and i got to play a completely broken amity but also a strong amity like even though her life was in ruins she stood up to Odalia…ugh. It’s what I envisioned for her from the start. I’m so happy with how it turned out. 

Piplo Surprise Thread: Throwing this one on here bc yeah i know. I know ive done a similar plot before. But i frankly never get tired of turning animals into humans. I think its funny. And this thread WAS funny and also tense and emotional and milo has arrived AT THE PERFECT TIME for pip’s general arc! He like, needs someone like Milo– a confidante who knows about Boba and is endlessly loyal lmfao. Or else can u imagine how much worse he’d be. 

Random Phinnip Discord Moments: shouting this out bc what i like about it is that emma and i never say to each other what if phinnip are weird and fight in this discord event…they just do that on their own. But yeah got lots of iconic fight moments like pip and phineas doing that weird five dollar quid bet, or pip exposing his nyu drama and also phineas running off to taco bell together… its all very improvised and frankly that kind of fun improv rping has been a huge joy for me this year. 

F.R.O.G. Heist: another silly thread. I just love silly threads can i get EVEN MORE SILLY THREADS. But yeah this was an amazing thread with Drakken and Mim, such an oddball trio and I miss them!! I love this thread because it honestly just has everything: action, comedy, weirdness. It was a challenge to write on my part because I don’t feel confident with action, so I’m proud of how it turned out. Need to somehow throw Nemo back at Drakken as he is an adult Nemo respects, against all odds lmfao. 

The Ashleys Break-up: ive talked about this i think but i just think this plot is not something we do a lot– like a friendship break up. It was HORRIBLE to write because Ashleigh is a horrible person. I didn’t enjoy it but at the same time, like, i did?? Because it was so new and it hurt in a good way. And writing should def make you feel something so there u go 

The Acheron Children Reveal: This thread had it all. Grand reveals, dramatic confrontations, Opal being a little terror, and me getting to RP Hades and Snow’s first meeting, which is a big deal to no one but me. I loved it!! Love this plot in general, it’s very fun, dramatic, and silly to an extent– like, maybe not the same kind of silly as the nihon plot at all, but just the kind of bizarre humor that I really love and thrive at. 

In terms of your own writing, identify 1-3 strengths and talk about why you think it’s one of your strengths.

Ive done this questionnaire too much and i never improve on anything so its just gonna be the same shit yall im so sorry lmfao. 

Image Systems: this is still my best thing i think. Its what really helps a character come into focus for me in the first place and definitely helps me wake up the muse if im struggling. I love using weather metaphors for nemo or a billion pop culture references for pip. I just love an image system.

Crea…tivi…ty? I could just write LORE but gosh atp im almost a cliche @ myself. So i’ll go even broader and just say hey i can come up with a lot of oddball ideas! Maybe its plot related (the nihon plot) or maybe its a spill meme. Maybe its new lore and maybe its a throwaway joke. When im at my best, i feel like an idea factory lolol.

Spontaneity: also a weakness which i’ll use to expose myself in a second but i like taht im a go with the flow rper and will follow my own silly tangents. It makes rp FUN and i hope that people have as much fun reading some of those replies as i do writing them!! 

In terms of your own writing, identify 1-3 areas of improvement.

I have no flaws actually (joke). With this im going to get granular why not

Pay attention to excessive filtering 

Pay attention to use of the beloved m dash

Work on more creative metaphors and imagery

Edit out like 50 percent of characters saying ‘oh’ before they finish their sentences lmfao 

Establish setting better so ppl dont think ur character is inside when u are very much outside (if u know u know) 

Plot more intentionally or check in with partners more about direction of a thread (even if i love for a thread to do whatever it wants lmfao) 

And so on and so forth. 

Pick one of your plots, or even just a character, and come up with a list of 3-5 “mentor texts” where you can look for inspiration or research, then write a short (2-4 sentences) why you picked those texts. (They don’t have to be books, either!)

I guess i’ll do SNOW sure. 

Hometown Cha Cha Cha: This de-light-ful little kdrama really helped me hone the ‘gentle’ part of Snow’s gentle fantasy last fall before she came into this rp. It’s about a city dentist who comes to the small seaside town of Gongjin to set up a private clinic where she meets a town handyman. Does that sound like a Hallmark movie to you? It does. It’s better though. What I loved about this drama was how it made Gongjin the town a character too, and spoke a lot about connection and community. I wanted this for Snow, both with her staff and in Swynlake as a whole. Also, this is why I gave Snow her fabulous LA backstory bc c’mon aren’t we all suckers for the culture shock and hallmark moments we are!!

Gideon the Ninth: it is no secret that I picked this up while working on Snow’s necromancy, but in reality this gave me WAY more Amity inspo. Hilarious, i know. BUT I will say the Seventh House specifically–the rose unblown– really gave me lots of inspo for how Snow THINKS about death. This is a house that finds death inherently beautiful, and the lush descriptions of disease in Gideon the Ninth made me so excited to write about corpses and blood and all that fun yucky stuff. Romanticize the shit out of it. That’s what Snow is here to do. 

Hotel Del Luna: It is ALSO no secret that I basically stole this kdrama’s main premise because it is about a hotel manager for the hotel of the dead, though it’s like, way more about dead people than the Hauntley because unfortunately we don’t have enough dead people in this rp and I have to NPC the ghosts more lol. What this kdrama really did though was give me ideas about how necromancy can be connected to past lives. This is a plot I’m doing right now with Robbie and Nemo and would love to do more because it’s dope, really. Also, Snow’s expensive wardrobe is a homage to Jang Man-wol, the og. I was so so so so close to using IU. I think about her every day. 

IU’s album, Lilac: Ahem, so the concept of Lilac is "greeting/farewell.” I’m going to quote IU now because she can speak for herself "Since I debuted at the age of 18…I'm making this album because I want to say goodbye to those who have been watching over my twenties, and thank you to those who watched until the very end. I want to have a glamorous goodbye. Something glamorous, without sadness. [...] I want to reach my thirties with a clean slate. In the language of flowers, 'lilac' means 'memories of youth.' I wanted to include a farewell with the message 'I'm now going onward to my next chapter' while also greeting my upcoming 30s at the same time.” 

This is very Snow and contains a lot of her themes. Snow’s story begins with goodbye. It begins with literal death. But the whole point of it is that she emerges more hopeful and even more powerful. IU’s album is full of gorgeous spring/winter imagery and songs about the inevitability of aging and like really tackling how contentious that is for women and especially for women in the spotlight. All of that is VERY Snow White, like not even just my snow, but like, The Snow White.  It contains one of the most powerful ballads I’ve ever heard called “My Sea,” which is my fave genre of song, aka, talking to your childhood self and forgiving yourself for your own turbulence. It’s fuckin stunning. 

Random shoutout also to all the architectural digest walk-throughs that I watch, and to Paige Wassal for teaching me about prop styling and Marie Kondo’s book about tidying up and the belief that even every day objects have their own spirits. 

And now, a wishlist! Jot down a few themes or stories or genres etc that you want to maybe pursue in the upcoming year! 

-Tournament Arc: I might have said this last year. I’ve been saying it for a while. But I just think we need to have a canon anime style tournament esp now that we have grand prix lore and shit like i want a proper tournament. Just wanna punch stuff idk. 

- 2 Baddies 2 Baddies 1 Porsche: sorry bad reference but the tl;dr is i would like to do some villain-esque plotting in the new year maybe!! Dabble with the darker sides of stuff. 

-More Silly Stuff: While writing this, i realized how so many of my fave things to write were inherently silly. I should lean into this! I want HIJINKS. I want off the wall things! Dumb stuff. Maybe i should be trying to work on my weaknesses, but nay, i’ll simply indulge them! 

-Ghost plots??? Sort of talked about it with Snow but like… I got an inn full of ghosts. I also have Hades, who is King of the Underworld. Kinda wanna play with some ghosties some more. I did it in my first two years of the rp so maybe getting more into it, esp with Snow (no offense Hades, but snow has more interesting opinions about ghosts). 

-Love Triangle: they get a bad rep i know! But they can be done well and personally I think i could do them well, lmao. 

OPTIONAL: Why do you RP?

I’ve answered this question for like five years in a row, and i dont have anything new to say! RP is my number one hobby and what consumes most of my brain energy, for better or worse. I just love this world and i love my characters and i love finding out what happens and i love that i can do all that and not worry too much about if my writing is “good.” i get to practice in the most generous and supportive playground with all my friends. Thank god i logged onto neopets and starting rping on those forums!! Thank god! 

[futuredeadbranches]

I love this God bodies post canon thing, mind telling and/or drawing us more?

I’m so happy y'all like this idea!! I’m going to try to put my ideas in words, but warning: this is going to be terribly long (and possibly a mess).

Roxy: Dark spots appear randomly across her skin, changing place every day or so. As time passes, the spots grow larger, and at the end of her growth as a goddess, they cover her entire skin. Those spots are made of void, of pure black (not reflecting any light), though her body is still corporeal/material even in places covered by them. She can morph this nothingness into whatever she wants but can also willingly throw anything in it, losing that object forever in the void (yeah, she can pretty much use her body as an unlimited trashcan).When her body is entirely covered by void, she can fully shapeshift into anything she wants.

Dirk: His body splinters and puts itself back together at random intervals. He can still use his limbs even when they’re separated from his body but doesn’t know how to reform himself during his growth. Using his detached limbs, he can, for example, reach stuff in the distance, but learns how to control them gradually. When he touches someone, sometimes a soft pink light glows under his palm, transmitting under the form of a soothing and warm energy, all the care he has for the person he is touching. It’s pleasant, but can be a bit overwhelming, the love washing over one like a powerful wave. Dirk slowly gets used to it, finding comfort in finally being able to express what he is feeling in a way that feels right.

More under the cut bc this is too long:

Jake: Well, as a hero of hope, he gets wings. They grow slowly, the first ones appearing in his back. But Skaia is generous and doesn’t give him just two. Slowly, he gets more and more pairs of wings, on his lower back, his hips, behind his ankles, etc. (à la satan from devilman crybaby). Golden rings appear over his head. He also starts radiating an aura that puts people at ease around him, making them feel lighter, comfortable.

Dave: At any moment, there’s an infinity of different actions he could take, but a human eye couldn’t see them all at once. Instead, he is surrounded by some kind of afterimages of the actions he most likely would do in that precise moment. For him, these actions actually take place, allowing him to do many tasks simultaneously. At first, he has trouble anchoring his ‘other’ actions in the current reality, creating small separated parallel timelines where he has done one thing differently. But with practice, he manages to make them take place in the same timeline and can actually use his new ability to multitask.

Rose: Small specks of light appear on her skin, similar to freckles, staying there (unlike roxy’s). With time, they accumulate on parts of her body, forming together bigger spots, ending up covering her entire body, looking like a sun. During the growth, she has trouble controlling the brightness of the spots, blinding everyone around her if they dare to not wear some kind of protection for their eyes in her company.A third eye appears on her forehead, with which she can see all the time what she should do to go towards a brighter and better path of life.

Jade: Her dark hair grows longer, more quickly than a natural growth, and small stars appear in it at first, twinkling in the darkness. But with time, more and more celestial bodies appear, galaxies, planets, moons, until a small universe exists in her hair. It develops itself and lives, with stars dying, new ones appearing. In addition to that, some kind of gravity field creates itself around her, allowing her to just let go of objects and have them float around her or stick to her skin, depending on the size and weight of it. Lastly, rings appear around her ankles, wrists, and arms.

Jane: Flora begins to grow on her skin, creating a lively garden that constantly moves and changes. The plants of the garden may depend on her emotions, thorns appearing when she’s angry, flowers blooming and covering her when she feels happy. Specific flowers with specific meanings can appear too, showing her emotions more in detail. In addition to that, moss and flowers start to flourish on anything she touches, except on other living beings, so when she walks flowers bloom behind her but die and disappear most fo the time when she’s too far. With time, she learns to control their random apparition, but also to make them last even when she goes away. She attracts any living thing that’s in her vicinity, people and animals are drawn to her, plants grow in her direction, because she’s a source of life, of energy. Lastly, she sometimes gives life to inanimate objects without noticing. They don’t have sentience, as she is only Life and can’t give them a Soul, but they can move on their own, obeying her words. She learns how to control that power too, giving life to anything she chooses.

John: His hair constantly flows in the air. Small clouds appear and float around his head (and sometimes his limbs), depending on his state of mind: the more upset/sadder he is, the darker and the more there are clouds. In a way, they’re helping him finally let out and express the negative feelings buried in him. With time, his emotions impact the sky itself, the weather in the area surrounding him depending on them.We’ve seen in canon that he already knows how to become wind, but at random intervals, some parts of his body start to turn ghost-like, sometimes even disintegrating into wind. He isn’t always fully aware that he’s getting incorporeal, making him drop things or go through people accidentally. He gradually learns how to control it, while simultaneously learning how to shape the breeze the way he wants and turn it into a fog-like matter.Sometimes, completely out of his control, a part of his body shines with a bluish light, and a vision/scenery appears in it, serving as a window to another universe.

Vriska: Trolls get some attributes of their lusus through the godbod, so additional eyes appear on her face and two more pairs of thin arms grow in her back.As a thief of light, she steals the light of every environment she enters. When it’s a room, it goes completely dark and she shines with its light, when she’s outside during the day, there seems to be a dark aura around her, since she takes all the light of her surroundings, her body shining in the middle of it.When she touches people, it arrives that a golden/orange light appears under her palm, giving her a random piece of knowledge from the person (it isn’t necessarily something important, it can be a simple thought). The nature of the information can depend on the part of the body that is touched (infos about one’s feelings closer to the chest, for example)And she can steal luck in the same way 8ut she already has aaaaaaaall the luck.

None of these changes are painful, since this is the kids’ reward and Skaia isn’t trying to inflict them any more pain. But some mild discomfort can accompany the apparition of new limbs and whatnot, since the sensation is strange and foreign.

EDIT: Added some missing godbods