#in favor of the goal of 'post them whenever so the anxiety doesn't win'

[outeremissary]

kasperia character journal please? 👀

Hi Romeo! Sorry this is a lil late (days later edit: now a lot late), time kind of stopped functioning for part of Friday, hahhh . Anyway some good luck on this one being the only one I have screenshots from while my laptop hangs between this world and the next! (days later edit: it's actually dead forever) Anyway, this was admittedly a bit of a cheat because it is a tabletop character journal, but it's a WIP to me and I like working on it. Counts!

Anywayyyy. I don't think it's actually been said on Tumblr at this point, but Kasander and Asperia are two parts of a dissociative identity disorder system (I don't know if this is too jargon-y an explanation...?). Not the only two, but the two who interface the most with the outside world and in some ways have the strongest feelings about "Asperia's" life. In tabletop, their journal is how they communicate with one another to mitigate the effects of losing time and to get some sense of coordination with what they're doing. On a meta level, it helps me track what each of them knows about game events and how they feel about each other (and any other alter who adds something to the journal). Relationships within the system aren't really something that generally makes sense to externalize into regular RP. The journal is a helpful way to develop that running self-exploration side plot without derailing what's happening in session.

It's been a really fun exercise in character voice. I love writing epistolary type stuff- Carmen's mission report character journal was one of my favorite parts of playing her back in 2019- so it's been very relaxing to me. Excited for our hiatus to end to gather more material for it. I've gotten a little off track from some original plans though- one significant concept I'd had going in was that Kasander's parts of the journal are written as direct letters to Asperia, while Asperia's were supposed to be written as a diary as if the other pages didn't exist. Stubborn willful ignorance from someone struggling to come to terms with their reality. Unfortunately, it's very fun to write things that are a little bit more communicative ^^;; I'll probably have to rewrite pieces of recent parts of the journal to be a bit more in line with that intent before adding the next chunk to our party's notes drive. Not a lot room to develop the twins' relationship over time if there's not much distance between the start and the end, after all.

With that said, some of the direct exchanges are very fun. Pros and cons.

It's also fun to think through what's tracked and what's omitted (intentionally or unintentionally). Kasander loves describing the cultural experience of a location but carefully skips mentioning having actually spent money on things. They're always on thin ice with the funds. Asperia keeps (mildly exaggerated) accounts of personal achievements but completely skips over failures, especially failures that involved injury to the body. She needs to communicate a sense of superiority- something that certainly works when Kasander apologizes profusely any time the body is hurt under their care.

(yeah it seemed like a good idea at the time to use a more "handwritten" font for the final thing but I've been having A Lot Of Regrets)

I unfortunately don't have a screenshot, but the journal has also had one small addition from Paracelsus as well. It's just a to-do list of ways to organize and restock the crafting supplies. Very typical of them. Asperia thinks he wrote it, like everything Paracelsus writes.

Also fun to get to work in some in-world explanations for things that raise some meta questions, like not having some items that I need for my character concept (I ran out of starting equipment budgettt). This bit is also consistent with the pattern that Asperia avoids referring to Kasander by name.

How common the two of them actually sabotaging each other's possessions is has yet to truly be established, but it is an aspect of what the party thaumaturge refers to as their "feud."

Pros over BG3: they are aware of and communicating each other, and they didn't have to have five near death experiences for it to happen. Yay!

Cons over BG3: lot more hostility from Asperia persisting past that point. Kasander did in fact ruin their life a little.