#in character ◈ ⊰ something a little like decadence ⊱

[utilitycaster]

to me i feel like the hells were meant for a campaign more like cr2, which i feel like that's been discussed before even on your blog? like idk orym and braius were the only characters who actually fit this campaign, maybe imogen for obvious reasons. but laudna, fearne, ashton, chetney all felt like they belonged in a lower stakes, more personal campaign

Yes, I have talked about this extensively: honestly, either a Campaign 1 or Campaign 2 structure would have served them better. For what it's worth I feel like everyone other than Laudna managed to make something of it - Fearne and Chetney frankly did a lot of work to explore their concepts, it was just never rewarded or frankly in many cases revisited in any way (again, consequences do not mean punishment; they quite literally just mean that one's actions lead to results that follow from said actions), and while I ended up not caring much for Ashton as a character, I actually think Taliesin played them with a strong logical throughline. But it is true that the plot really, in the end, served none of them, not even Orym or Imogen (Braius it kind of did, but he was developed so late in the game that he was designed around its flaws). There was just never space to really explore the dark fairytale Ashley talked about early on; Tuyen and that other toymaker back in Marquet were never revisited nor was Ruidus's impact on Chetney nor was there an appearance of Doreo, and even Drixlich and the offers to the pirates vanished (side note but Travis is perhaps actual play's best plot thread generator and I think it's telling that he kind of gave up on that eventually because it never fucking went anywhere, after two campaigns where it consistently did). When it comes to Imogen I am reminded of the possibly apocryphal theater review for King Lear that went "the lead actor played the king as though he momentarily expected someone to play the ace;" she was a great concept but at no point inhabited her decisions meaningfully on the rare occasions she made them. Orym was never really given the opportunities Caleb had to explore grief and while I personally am okay with his deal with Morri being canceled, it plus the whole Vax thing really feel like a thumbing of the nose at Liam's RP choices across the decade. Ashton's temporary growth and then regression honestly feel very real, just deeply unsympathetic, though the ending of the story where nothing about the All Minds Burn or his talk with Shady Sally or the titans or the Hishari came up and the genuinely great moment of sacrifice turned into another "and then Essek fixes it for you" was narratively empty. But the more I think about it, the more this was largely a failure of Matt to tell a different kind of story with any measure of success. I think this campaign in many ways played hard to Matt, Marisha, and Laura's weaknesses in particular (and a little bit of Liam's if I'm being honest in the end) whereas the others embraced their strengths, and this is what happened; the rest of the cast kind of made the most of it.

[decadeofjoy-au]

This is an AU blog about The Decade Of Joy AU

In this AU, instead of killing off all of the scientist and carrying them to the lower levels of the building, The Prototype instead decides to give them a taste of their own medicine and switches the roles of Toys and Scientist. Now, Scientist are experimented on and are forced to do whatever the Toys say while Toys now work in different parts of the building with their main goal being to have all the orphans be adopted.

As more and more people come to adopt a child, the Toys are thrown more and more questions. “where are the adults?” ���Is that a costume?” “What is that?”

On this blog, you can ask ANY question to either the Toys, Scientist or Me.

🪽RULES🪽

NO WEIRD QUESTIONS: Meaning, don’t ask strange things like “pls marry me” or “can I date you?”

Keep Questions To A Minimum: Please keep questions to a minimum and ask as little characters as you can, I STILL have to answer other people’s questions!

Keep Swearing To A Minimum: You CAN swear, just no heavy curse words.

Please Be Specific About The Questuons: If it’s something like “can I give you a cookie?” then there’s a high chance it will NOT be answered.

Be PATIENT: If I don’t answer your question, don’t DM me about it or repeatedly ask the question. There’s a high chance I saw it and I’m getting to it. And I’m just one person running this blog!

Be NICE Please: No being incredibly nasty or problematic. Such as no racist, creepy, homophobic, transphobic or any other rude comments to other people’s questions.

Have Fun: Overall, just have fun and ask away.

MORE AU INFO

Roles

OCs are Green

Scrapped Canon Toys are Pink

Caretakers: Kissy Missy, Mommy Long Legs, Dogday, Hoppy Hopscotch, Bobby Bearhug, Crafty Corn, Miss Delight and her sisters, Bunzo Bunny, Pj Pug-a-pillar

Medics: Daisy, Medic

Security: Huggy Wuggy, Boxy Boo, Scout, Pianosaurous, Yarnaby, Kicken Chicken, Riley

Scientists: Catnap, The Doctor

Cooks: Candy Cat, Picky Piggy

Engineers: Cat Bee

Multiple roles: Doey The Doughman, Bubba Bubbaphant, Barry, Hixel Pixel

Other: Nightmare Critters, Smiling Critters

Experiments/Scientists: Bron(Thomas Clarke), Clarance The Clayman(Kamren Burch, Martin Lloyd and Jaelyn Dennis)

EDIT: I should clarify that ALL adults were taken to be experimented on during The “Hour” Of Joy! Not just the Scientists

DESIGNS FOR THE AU(to be edited)

[xesnox]

(Post fall) Ancient builder x Illager toxic old man yaoi when

WIP, was planning on doing a ref for every human race but a mutual of mine practically begged me to post these two on their own so you’re probably gonna see this image again. Colors are not yet where I want them to be so I’ll definitely go over it a few more times.

I’d like to take this moment to point out that the way you summon allays in legends, where you play as an ancient builder, is pretty similar to the way evokers summon vexes.

Design / AU rant below cut, as always.

This one’s a little worse written than usual, I’m just rambling.

I practically have an infinite amount of Ancient builder designs because I draw them differently with every piece depending on how I’m feeling, but for this design I got more genuinely speculative and turned on my pattern recognition.

Steve and Alex are canonically 6’2, both of them, and all undead mobs seem to be the same height, if not taller than they are, so I made them average around 6’5. To add to that, all undead builder mobs either don’t have eyes or have solid coloured glowing ones, so I went with the latter.

Minecraft isn’t a stranger to making lifeforms appearances change drastically depending on circumstance, this render is of an Ancient builder post wither attack, around ancient city time, which meant I could adopt the idea the devs mentioned about villagers/illagers, of human skin turning desaturated if they stay out of the sun for long enough, which, if the single generation of Illagers already show signs of I bet the god knows how many decade long underground escapades of the builders probably hit ‘em hard with that trait.

I also for the longest time for some reason forgot cosmetics were very likely a thing, so they’ve got some protection spells and luck enchantments tattooed, both of them do. Doesn’t work very well, as one can probably guess. But they’re superstitious so it felt in character enough.

For the post wither attack Ancient builders I also tend to think of them as more frail, not only because they had no access to their former overworld food supplies and had to rely on the little stuff that did grow in complete lack of sunlight underground, which definitely wasn’t a lot, but also because beyond the military force that did seem to remain from the nether war (ancient city structure name: Barracks, disk 5 marching.) they definitely were no longer strong enough to properly defend themselves against the wither or the warden/mourner on their own accord.

And because they were cowards and skedaddled when the overworld was in danger AND got beat up by the piglin despite being the main kingdom in power which I just find really funny. So think tall and boney but hiding it under a lot of clothing layers to still appear strong. Definitely can’t put on armor anymore though, that back would snap like a twig.

When it comes to the robes I used some of my older armor template designs for reference, made them black and blue to fit the most well known ancient builder sprite as well as vaguely match the one of the evoker. Because, oh well, you caught me, I do believe the cargo cult theory. Got my own interpretation but I’ll leave it at that till the next bestiary entry.

I generally want the villagers to look more varied, and human, while the builders, both neo and ancient, look more unsettling, as if they’re clearly a person, but something just looks, or moves wrong. They’re too symmetrical. Too far removed from what once was flawed but sincerely their own.

A lot of villager beauty standards are inspired by medieval-renaissance era Europe, like for an example having a larger visible forehead and appearing more boxy in shape being seen as more visually appealing, I think despite the illagers trying to subvert that they do still live in a society, so having grown accustomed to it as children they probably still at-least somehow adhere to the beauty standards they know, whether consciously or not.

They perform similar experiments on themselves as the builders, they’re just ever so slightly worse at it, as they haven’t been doing it for as long, so it leaves marks like scarring or visible stitching, though I believe they wear these with pride.

There’s gonna be a dedicated post about them at some point, as I said so I don’t know how much of my design I want to pick apart for now, but I’ll just leave it at that for now.

Here’s some alternative versions.

[bigskydreaming]

Oh no, its been eighty million years since proper Batfam inspiration struck, but seeing this post that I completely forgot ever writing I feel the inspiration swirling, the thoughts, they are percolating.

Its typical to go-to magic and demons and Zataras when musing on Freaky Friday situations in DC settings, but as someone who's spent a fair amount of time in X-Men pastures of late, you know who else can account for Freaky Friday scenarios? Psychics.

And who are two of my favorite little used psychics in the DC universe, both of them directly connected to Dick by way of the Titans?

The Gargoyle (technically kind of a demon but whatever we're focusing on his psychic-ness here) and Lilith, psychic Greek goddess of messiness (not actually a goddess or even Titaness, as conclusively proven back in the eighties but she did not sign off on that retcon-of-a-retcon and refuses to accept its authority. Its fake news. What's fake news, her teammates back in the eighties want to know. Shhh, they'll get the joke eventually, she assures them, though they can go ahead and just laugh now. Its very funny. She wouldn't lie to them about this. Other things, yes. This? Never).

BUT I DIGRESS.

So now I'm thinking.....hmmm, hmmm.....even though Boone doesn't show up in continuity (and re-show up in Dick's life) until the 90s after he's parted ways with the Titans for awhile and Lilith has parted ways with being relevant, with some careful - or utterly haphazard and deeply whimsical - reconfiguring, one could easily imagine a scenario in which the Gargoyle, fresh off another defeat by the Titans, goes seeking a new way of getting revenge on them....and Dick in particular, as he's always held Dick personally responsible for everything that's ever gone wrong. Which is weird, actually. Its like he was a Jason or Tim stan decades before Red Hood or Red Robin storylines were ever a thing. Go figure.

(Yes I know that's a cheap shot. Counterpoint: I laughed when writing it, so....)

SO. Imagine the Gargoyle makes like he's a hunter-gatherer foraging for ways to fuck with him while traversing the tangles of Dick's personal history (which he's very familiar with because of all his time mucking around in Dick's mindscape and nightmares) and dwells upon Dick's memories of Vengeance Academy and Boone. And he ponders. Muses, even. Does a deep dive into his little demon rolodex to see if anyone knows what ever happened to this Boone guy and lo and behold, he's currently a member of the League of Assassins - hey, he knows those guys! And so he pays Boone's dreams a personal visit and makes a sales pitch.

Boone: You had me at "here's how you can fuck with Freddy's head and ruin his life."

Gargoyle: I didn't even get to that part yet.

Boone: I'm very intuitive.

So, in the interests of maximum messiness, the Gargoyle swaps Boone into Dick's body and vice versa via some demonic psychic handwaving and vaguely defined narrative wheee!

As I mentioned before, due to Boone's complete inability to be subtle - and utter lack of interest in even aiming for that - it would take negative 2.5 seconds for anyone and everyone who's ever met Dick to figure out that yo, this Dick Grayson shaped guy is not Dick. Well, actually, going off of precedent like Brother Blood brainwashing and Ric Grayson and various other storylines its actually canonically a damn lie that Dick Grayson acting out of character would instantly net a realization that something is up with Dick Grayson other than OMG HE'S BEING AN ASSHOLE, CHASTISE HIM!

But we're going for humor with this post, not pathos, so we're just going to hydroplane and careen wildly away from that particular direction and course correct to "yes, obviously people will know something is up but not WHAT" and continue merrily along to the predicament that is "even if people guess that Boone-in-Dick's-body-is-not-really-Dick, Dick-in-Boone's-body-can't-just-go-say-hi-and-expect-friends-to-be-like-oh-hey-Mr.-Apparent-Assassin-Person-yes-I-will-take-you-at-face-value-and-believe-what-you-say."

Unless of course, that person is a psychic who knows the particular dysfunctional bent of Dick's mind intimately.

Which casts Lilith as the unlikely pro-protagonist who is the only one who can properly restore Dick to his proper place, and who is of course a good friend and totally on board with helping him do that.

BUT being Lilith (at least as I characterize her), she's also the absolute WORST possible co-pilot for a Dick whose priorities keep getting pre-empted by his desire to match Boone's pettiness one spiteful life derailment at a time.

Lilith: Am I enabling Dick's worst tendencies here when I should be helping steer him towards a quick and speedy resolution? Yes. Is this bad of me? Also yes. Am I going to keep doing this because its fucking hilarious and my priorities also aren't always the best? A third time, yes.

Lilith: Eh, I'll feel bad about it later. I could be Catholic, I bet.

Dick: Lil? Lilith, hellooooo. Where did you go just now? You do remember that most of us can't just follow along with your internal monologues the way you do with everyone else, right?

Lilith: Sounds like a skill issue. Anyway, I was just idly musing on ways you could get back at Boone for the latest grenade he just threw at your life while pretending to be you. I mean. Just as an idle thought experiment. Not because you'd care about that or would even want to know.

Dick: I mean. If you already thought of something, I suppose you might as well share your thoughts. Y'know. Just as an idle thought experiment. No sense in letting them go to waste.

Lilith: Aw, look at us bonding. We never hang out like this, we really should do this more often!

Dick: Right yeah sure. Now what were you saying about how I can fuck with Boone's head and ruin his life.

Lilith: I didn't even mention that part yet.

Dick: I'm very intuitive.

Body swap AU where Boone and Dick get swapped mid-fight and the second he realizes what’s happened and the possibilities it opens up, Boone lights up like a kid in a candy store. This is the greatest day of his life. Dick’s like oh no, oh shit, oh this will not end well and gives chase as Boone runs off shrieking “I came in like a wreeeeeeeeecking ball” y’know, like a spoiler alert for what Dick’s personal life looks like in the next 24 hours. Or prophecy more like, on account of the added foreboding and stuff.

Dick’s like FINE, TWO CAN PLAY AT THAT GAME and is like hmm how can I just fucking RUIN his professional reputation, we’re talking total nosedive, scorched earth. By the time I’m done with him, people are gonna be like Shrike who? Oh did you mean Fuzzy Little Chick Guy? 

And its just them just petulantly trying to sledgehammer each other’s lives and reputations and like they’re not even TRYING to be subtle so the Batfam and Titans figure out something’s up in no time flat and they’re like Dick, shouldn’t you be trying to figure out how to get back into your own body? And Dick’s like look I WAS BUSY OKAY. 

[canisalbus]

✦ Freshly ordained ✦

[navree]

"rhaenys could have ended the war by dracarysing all the greens right there" yes because a distant relation to the throne deciding to barbecue an anointed and publicly positively hailed king and his entire family who is well loved within the city and in multiple other parts of the country for the sake of the succession of a far-away princess no one was ever on board with who hasn't been seen by the populace in literal years, her psycho husband, her three obvious bastards, and two toddlers from the psycho husband would go over super well with westeros and especially in king's landing where scores of the still-cheering population were killed for no reason by that same dragon who would do the barbecuing, because when targaryens act unilaterally without thinking of how the people would react there's never any problem, which is why the storming of the dragonpit and robert's rebellion were actually just collective delusions dreamed up by readers who hate rhaenyra and not key parts of the story and house targaryen's history that directly contributed to their demise and are intrinsic to the plot

truly team black stans are made up of only the most genius and media literate amongst us

[gracelesstars]

"Back when you first came into my life, I recalled a place that I knew as a child A special place One that I held close to my heart Won’t you lead me in a dance down this winding road where light and shadow entwine to take hold of the thoughts of the one left far behind? Know that, sometimes, I want to turn around and see the things that I’ve passed on the journey, but know with love on my side, with courage and pride, I’ll fight I will carry on"

R.I.P. Akira Toriyama

[spiritsong]

it's 6am as I'm writing this so I'm scheduling this to post later but

I finally finished the game

holy fuck

[petrichal]

obligatory "Oda thank you for sharing this world with us" post

[sskk-manifesto]

--

[in-fair-verona-we-set-our-scene]

I do think Withers has a really subtle background character arc in bg3. Because at the start it is really clear he doesn't want to be here and he's being forced to clean up his mess by Helm and probably Ao. He doesn't really care either. Everything ends so nothing really matters, he'd like to go back to his paperwork now please.

Except he's stuck babysitting a bunch of traumatized dumbasses as they stumble into dealing with the most recent bad idea of his three fuck-up disappointments. So he brings them back when they die for a pittance, lets them pay for some vengeful ghosts to come back as flesh and blood to wreak bloody vengeance on the Absolute, and starts to... comment, on what's going on, as he follows them on their adventure.

Next thing you know Withers is like, doing things unprompted. He refuses to bring back Alfira (or Quil) but that's an act of compassion, keeping the poor girl from the Urge and letting her rest, his actual duty as a god of death. He tells Arabella to follow her destiny and does that thing to make her grief go away which honestly freaks me out but seems to be him trying to help her. He shows up at Moonrise and prompts us to consider why the Dead Three would want a bunch of soulless illithids that would give them no power, getting us to think of the big picture.

And by the end (especially if you do a resist!Durge playthrough) Withers is actively interfering and seems genuinely invested! He brings Durge back from the dead, free of their father! He encourages us before the final fight with the Netherbrain! He's real fucking smug that the Dead Three lost when he never seemed to care about the destruction they caused before! He throws a reunion party and many of his lines are genuinely touching or kind! Especially if a companion died permanently! He has tea with Gale's mom and Tara! He's like, socializing and shit! Yes, everything is temporary and we all die, but there's great beauty in fighting for that precious time and living it to the fullest!

Basically Wither's character arc is this meme, all because Helm made him go outside and touch grass.

[organised-disaster]

I can't be trusted. When I refer to "my babygirl" it could one of four people (and six entities)

A 16 year old boy

A ~15 year old girl

A plant

A grown ass man with a drinking problem

An agender ghost

A fat yellow dinosaur

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

genuine question but is there any fandom where a character is well written by the majority. im thinking about fandom culture and the spread of frustration when people dont write characters well but. honestly in all the fandoms ive been in there's only like, a Select number of authors who i trust to write Well, let alone write Well AND In Character. character analysis and writing and getting inside characters' heads are all separate skills (all of which are trained by roleplaying fyi can CONFIRM playing pretend with your friends is good for you). there's been more than once where I've disagreed with an interpretation that others agreed with, and then I turned out wrong. or i turned out right. like it doesnt matter WHO is right it just matters that differences in character analysis exist, so even if you DO write well AND write in character, your in character is still going to be someone else's out of character

there's this sort of. vibe. that to play in the sandbox you Need to be able to make a castle, and if you can't make a castle then you shouldn't bother, and it completely dismisses the idea that youre in that sandbox to PLAY in the first place. there's this Weight of disappointing someone if you can't build something that they like, but that forgets that you aren't there to build them a castle. like, be KIND. if you disagree with someone then please make an effort to do so kindly. i dont give a shit about fandom discourse but there is a reason kids get removed from sandboxes if they keep throwing sand in people's eyes. but if they don't like your misshapen sand pile, then youre not obligated to change it. even if you yourself end up hating that same sand pile later- youre not building a legacy. youre playing. and sometimes the result of that play is out of character drivel. theres a reason there are so many authors and so few who i like to consistently read and thats because everyone is Fucking Around in their hobby space. hash tag brag or whatever but i can build castles. ive built several that im v proud of. ive also dug holes in the sand for fun and then tripped on them when trying to get up. I often dug a hole and then got up and fucking- whoops, its a castle now, and i didn't realize i'd made something to be proud of until after the fact. the whole time while creating shit i was Convinced it was bullshit that didn't make sense. and then other times i was Convinced it was bullshit and then i was Right and i can look back and go. huh. ew. but it doesn't matter what the end result was, because i had fun playing in the sandbox

this wasn't meant to turn into a ramble but i have Feelings about bad art and art that's badly perceived and how public perception can screw with your head and how making art youre proud of is fucking. it's so difficult!!! it's hard!! it's really fun, which is why i try to make it, but i promise you it is Okay to not tryhard creativity. even if you CAN, it's okay not to do it all the time. or ever, even. fuck around find out have fun etc

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads / storygraph

The Pomegranate Gate

start of a trilogy set in a high fantasy version of Spain 1942, where Jewish people are being forced to either convert to Christianity or leave

follows a young woman who, when her family are being driven out of the country, stumbles through a pomegranate grove on the full moon and finds herself in another world with two Maziks (mythical magical people) living in a ruined castle

and a young man who saw Toba disappear, who’s left in the company of two old women, trying to figure out what happened to her, and why he dreams of the Mazik and their world

multiple worlds, dreamrealms, politics, learning magic, m/m

[death-rebirth-senshi]

Now that I've finished dungeon meshi I have to say, while I understand the disappointment with fandom's constant obsession with shipping two dudes in fandom typical ways and ignoring the women/men that don't fit a certain mold and basically ignoring the entire rest of the story...

People acting so indignant that people would do gay or even straight shipping, because this manga is such a super women-led yuri show that's all about the power of Marcille's all-consuming love for Falin, are absolutely fucking bonkers and have lost the plot.

That is not to say that these shippers are not insane or can't be annoying in the typical ways that they are, or that Marcille/Falin aren't the most shippable pairing and just about the closest you're gonna get to something romantic in Dungeon Meshi (it's a platonic ass story and I love that), or that it wouldn't be nice for the fandom around something to stay mostly devoted to the closest to a canon pairing most shippable F/F ship. It would. But like. I don't know I'm kind of upset by that attitude now

And my intention is not to be super negative about Marcille/Falin fans, because they are certainly not all like this, it's just. WHOO! That is just so not remotely what Dungeon Meshi is about to a degree I still wasn't prepared for despite being aptly warned.

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

In case it's hard to read/understand: "If I had a nickel for every time I had a story with a blonde girl named after a plant, who has a German father and a French mother but absolutely hates said mom, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice."

weird, extremely-specific tropes in my stories: pt 1