#oc: yashtavi kaiaresh

[blackestnight]

one of my favorite things about playing tavi (my starfinder character) as a very high-charisma character who is intentionally very bad at diplomacy is that she has triggered intimidate checks by (among other things):

inviting an npc out for mani-pedis and cocktails

telling a space pirate a knock-knock joke

buying a cute android escort a drink

literally just taking off her sunglasses and smiling

all of which, for the record, were intentional and wildly successful. i rolled a nat 20 on the mani-pedi one and made the npc cry and beg for swift death instead.

[blackestnight]

continuing to spend too much time on profiles for my own amusement. local space siblings are here to cause problems, and it’s only sometimes on purpose. between the two of them they can do pretty much anything except open a pickle jar.

[blackestnight]

sometimes you must go completely feral and spend two hours making a full profile page for your terrible horrible no-good very-bad starship captain. (mobile won’t like that link at all, sorry.)

[blackestnight]

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 ALL OF YOUR OCS ALL OF YOUR OCS ALL OF YOUR OCS (xkits outbox is telling me this got sent but tumblr gave me an error messge so Just In Case)

[/PANIC EMOTE] AAAA OKAY I HOPE YOU REALLY DID MEAN ALL OF THEM BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE GETTING

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦Do they want children?

Hanami would argue that she already has kids--two or three, and at least one of them is sort of legally hers, if you squint. She will openly admit to being the closest thing to a mother that her nephew is likely to get; even if Mune is not allowed to call her “mom” she was still one of the two people most involved with raising him, and one of her life’s greatest regrets is missing so much of his childhood when she left for Eorzea. Rielle might pitch a fit when Sid refers to himself as her foster father, but she has a much easier time seeing Hanami as a...mom-adjacent figure. (She wouldn’t call her a mom, because she has a bad history with those, but definitely a guardian.) Hanami refers to Rielle as her ward, which is almost true, if you count clandestine death matches as custody battles? Ryne makes the most recent addition to her bevy of pseudo-adopted children, although Hanami is gradually settling herself into the role of, like, an especially maternal aunt, as a counterpoint to Thancred’s bumbling attempts at parenting. Ryne is also the only one of her “kids” small enough to fit into her old clothes from when Hanami was a teenager, and since Hanami thinks knife fighting in sandals is a terrible idea, she’s been on the receiving end of a lot of hand-me-downs. As for biological children...well, maybe someday. She’s getting a little old for it. But maybe.

Haruki would just give you a weird look, because hello, little late for that. Mune is the light of his life, though, even if he’d never really planned on kids. He wouldn’t say he wants any more if that’s what you’re asking, because Mune is a sweetheart and super well-behaved, but he’s also a little clingy, and he can be a handful. Not that Haruki’s complaining! (He’s dreading the day when Mune decides it’s no longer cool to give Dad goodnight kisses.)

Rhela’a would love to have kids someday, although he’s not really concerned with whether they’re his biological kids or adopted. It still bothers him that he doesn’t know who his own father is, and he can’t get behind the wandering Keeper stereotype for himself--he loves family life! In the meantime, he’s the absolute best babysitter you’re going to find north of the Guardian Tree; he loves putting on little plays for the village kids and getting them to play and learn Shroud legends at the same time. He is also determined to be The Best Uncle Ever if his sisters have children.

Elysa has no real interest in kids--they’re fun and cute in small doses, when she can hand them back to their parents as soon as they start getting smelly. Besides, she’s way too busy for that--the Resistance is demanding! And dangerous! Definitely not a good place for little ones. And isn’t she still basically a kid herself? C’mon, she’s not that old. 

Addie is also not especially enthused about kids; she got roped into watching a lot of the younger students when she was force-enrolled into the Conjurer’s Guild, and she hated pretty much every minute of it. She’s one of those people who gets exhausted having to watch after kids, and she could never handle it full-time.

Sjanna would make a way better academic counselor than she would a mother, and she’ll be the first person to say so. Her research is her baby--reviving lost forms of magic is taxing and time-consuming, and she has neither the time nor the patience to deal with kits. She’s not opposed to mentoring younger students, and in fact she was a kick-ass TA back in university, but it’s hard to hold her interest without enough foundations in magical theory to come to her with questions and an actual desire to learn. (For the record, she would find Lunya endearing; she likes people who are more interested in answers than manners, and anyway she got her hands on an actual Sharlayan astromancy soulstone, how the fuck. Sharlayans are such tight-asses; what witchcraft did she even use?)

Tavi would make a terrible parent, and a terrible babysitter, and a terrible aunt, and she likes it that way. She’s never had a desire for kids; she has her crew to worry about, and keeping these dumbasses alive is a full-time job. (She would swear they used to have a proper medic; what even happened to that guy?) She thrives on chaos and risk, and her greatest pastime is poking the fabric of spacetime and watching to see what pokes back. Children are just...a bad idea. Besides, she can only imagine the bedtime stories: oh, you want to know why Mommy has creepy, pitch-black eyes? Well you see, Tavi the Smaller, when Mommy was a hip young lashunta she and her mercenary buddies had their souls corrupted by extraplanar forces of evil, all because they tried to meddle with this creepy doomsday murder corporation and pissed off a god of pain and darkness...

And last but not least, Nahi already has a toddler. The fact that her toddler is four-legged and pink and about the size of a hamster and actually a dragon is irrelevant. She’s like a cat, except she can talk, and breathe fog clouds of ecstasy, and also merge her soul with Nahi’s, and she’s maybe a hundred years old, and also might...be...a fae god? Whatever; it’s fine. Nahi doesn’t do people anyway. She’s perfectly happy with her fae dragon child thing.

[blackestnight]

🖊+ OC + hair! Idk;;;;; (dusked-arcane)

HELLO YOU HAVE STUMBLED UPON A TOPIC ABOUT WHICH I HAVE FEELINGS. time to ramble about my kids and their adventures in dramatic, ill-advised hairstyle changes.

hanami’s natural hair color is brown, but started dyeing her hair pink when she was like...thirteen. both of her mothers dye their hair (maki has purple highlights, shomi’s whole head looks like an orange creamcicle) and her older brother had red streaks in his hair, so it became a family tradition! she kept dyeing it until she was in her 30s; she stripped most of the pink out right before she and the scions sailed to kugane, both because she...really didn’t want to keep up with it anymore and because she didn’t really want to draw all of the attention that looking like a walking stick of bubblegum gets you. she still does double takes when walking past mirrors because it’s so weird seeing her natural hair. she cut her hair very short, very suddenly, after the prisoner exchange in doma; she’s never actually told anyone why but the general impression people get is that she was grieving and possibly a little drunk and did something stupid. she regretted it at first, but has since discovered that short hair is much easier to take care of.

haruki’s natural hair is black, but he dyes it a truly eye-searing shade of teal; unlike his sister he has no intention of going back to black, because he enjoys looking like a peacock threw up on him. he also keeps it in solidarity with a’dewah, who has some Hair Trauma.

elysa kept her hair long until the night that ala mhigo was liberated, at which point she chopped it off up to her chin--not for any particularly dramatic reason, she just did it on a dare from one of her squadmates. her new hairstyle does show off her clan mark on her cheek that she had covered up with her bangs previously, but she doesn’t mind.

and finally, the good captain yashtavi (my starfinder character) dyes her hair a nauseating shade of magenta, and prides herself on doing a terrible job. she likes to cultivate an aura of chaos and irreverence--intentional rips in her clothing, messy day-before makeup--which also means she fries her hair when she bleaches it and doesn’t try to do anything to fix it. the most ideal reaction she can get from a person meeting her for the first time is a quiet, horrified “what the fuck.” her dedication to her disaster hair actually saved her life, once; she and her crew were staying in a spaceport right on the edge of azlanti imperial territory, and azlanti spies hacked the sleeping pods they’d been given so that they would be trapped inside and have all the air vacuumed out. but the pods were high-end, and came with personal grooming services, so tavi opted to sleep on a chair instead of letting a robot try and mess with her hair, which meant she didn’t even know about the assassination attempt until the next morning. (it wouldn’t have killed her anyway; she’s got about a dozen ways to keep herself alive in a vacuum, and even more ways to break open a sealed pod.)

[blackestnight]

[BANGING ON YOUR DOOR WITH SOUP(tm) AND THESE] 8/22/52/76/111/132/161, answer with WHOMSTEVER you please

8. Who has the worst luck?

addie. who is not, technically, one of my Active Kids(TM), but god this poor girl. she gets shot by a poacher, first, and when she wakes up from that it’s only to hear that her best friend for all time slash possibly crush but she’s bad at this emotions thing has up and left for fucking limsa, of all places, and when she manages to haul her own ass there to track elysa down, elysa is gone. again. to goddamn ul’dah. it is, essentially, the saddest, gayest game of cross-continental tag ever. everyone’s sad and no one wins.

22. Do any of your characters have someone named after them? Or are they named after someone else?

rhela’a is technically named after his mom, just because of how keeper names work, but elysa is named after her grandmother (whose full name is actually elysandra but that’s so old fashioned). while not named after a person, hanami’s moms named her hanami because...she was born during a hanami festival...which is like naming your kid “noel” because they were born on christmas day; she kind of hates it. it’s one of the few things she’s actually so embarrassed about that her brother doesn’t make fun of her for it.

52. Would your character prefer to have history know the truth or have many different versions of their life?

hanami doesn’t give a shit either way. what other people choose to think of her is their problem; the only people whose opinions matter to her are her family, the scions, her “kids” (which really just means rielle, because mune is an actual blood relative and ryne is scion-adjacent), and aymeric. sidguru gets a special invitation to fuck off with the judgy looks.

rhela’a would like to write an autobiography, someday, if he ever stops losing all his manuscripts to sudden gusts of wind...or ixal raids...or dropping them in proud creek...or accidentally shuffling them in with adders reports...actually, now that i think of it, he’s got pretty shit luck too, and also needs to actually use a journal.

76: Would your character like to live on a farm and raise sheep?

hanami wouldn’t mind it! she’s not wild about animals, she’s more used to growing crops, but she kinda misses living on a farm. it’s got structure, you’re not super likely to die if you know what you’re doing, there’s no syndicate members breathing down your neck 24/7...

she’s the only one, though. sjanna especially would hate it. she’s a city girl down to her bones.

111. Do any of your characters have dogs for pets?

hanami does, technically, although she thinks of kira as more of a working dog because she’s a good tracker. she also has a cat, technically, although the cat is longer than she is tall and can rip people’s throats out, so...for given value of “pets” she’s a solid maybe.

132. Who is the precious cinnamon roll?

y’know what, sure, let’s just do the meme.

beautiful cinnamon roll too good for this world, too pure: rhela’a. he’s pastel, he’s smiley, he just wants to have a good time and make cookies.

looks like they could kill you but is actually a cinnamon roll: hanami. she’s the screamo emo “darkness, no parentssss” meme but she’s also such a softie...deep, deep down. no, deeper. keep going. you’ll find it eventually.

looks like a cinnamon roll but could actually kill you: addie. she’s got a vicious streak, despite spending most of her time stuck in white robes and communing with the bushes or whatever.

looks like they could kill you and would actually kill you: sjanna. she’s cursed by an ancient sentient forest that gave her a glowing red eye, okay, she looks scary and she is scary. the fact that she prefers to focus on reviving ancient forms of magic rather than world domination is a blessing.

could kill you, but is still a cinnamon roll: elysa. she’s a sweetheart, even if she’s not afraid to bust out the giant lance when shit hits the fan.

sinnamon roll: haruki. he will not close his shirt properly, he refuses.

would kill for a cinnamon roll: tavi. she’s killed people for worse reasons, probably.

161: Your character’s opinion of pineapple?

hanami thinks it’s okay but she prefers fruits without the sour notes, haruki loves it, elysa would eat it every day if she could afford it, rhela’a doesn’t like it at all, sjanna thinks it’s pretty good but it’s in top form when grilled. sjanna would also eat pineapple pizza.

[blackestnight]

tonight in starfinder, or: I Don’t Always Break Fights But Oh Who Am I Kidding Yes I Do It’s My Job, or: toss a coin to your witchwarper because she’s fun at parties and saves your ass

we were going to visit the friendly neighborhood black market arms dealer, as one does in these sorts of games, and before we even made it in the front door we got ambushed by a bunch of mercenaries and a couple of operatives (basically ninjas, but in space) who were hired by Big Evil Tech, Inc. to kill us after we kind of raided their headquarters the day before, which, fair.

the mercs were mostly annoyances but the operatives were extra annoying, because they were two levels above us and had so much stealth-enhancing gear that the only party member who could even see them was our vanguard with fucking terminator vision. so they were hanging back in the corners sniping us with real nasty plasma rifles, and they were doing a pretty good job of beating up our tanks.

so my character, who for the record is useless in a straight fight because she can’t do damage for shit but who is a great support member, surrounds us in a fog cloud ripped from another reality so they can’t hit us from range anymore. the gm is understandably annoyed, but a couple of our melee fighters are standing outside of my cover so whatever.

then one of the operatives moved to line up a better shot, which triggered a chance for all of us to spot her if we rolled a high enough perception check, and the only one who saw her was me, on a nat 20 (and i barely made the check, that’s how stealthy she was)

so i slammed her with a debuff spell that shook her up so badly she dropped her rifle and forgot how to stealth. she got staggered (twice!) and shaken, which meant she couldn’t stealth and couldn’t attack. we proceeded to maul her.

and then we went inside and i scared the shop owner so badly he almost fainted, because what am i going to use all these ranks in intimidation for if not bullying hapless mobsters.

[blackestnight]

uhhh let's try 50. if you could choose one place you'd always go to relax, where would it be? for anyone you'd like! :)

for hanami–

“There is a tree above the House of the Fierce that has a nice view of the valley. I liked to climb it while we were staying in Yanxia–it’s a very good place to relax. I could fall asleep there. Either there, or the plum orchard in the mountains to the east. They are difficult to reach, but very beautiful, and it is always quiet. But Fortemps Manor is easiest to get to, and I always feel at ease there, and at home with Aymeric.”

and for tavi, my starfinder character, because her last “vacation” went to shit–

“Uh, home. I guess. Pretty sure everyone thinks I’m dead there, which, fair, I was stuck in prison in the ass end of the outer rim for like…months? Maybe? I dunno, it’s not like they gave me a calendar. And as soon as I got sprung I had to go rip apart this secret lab and put the fear of me into some assholes who never learned that just because you can break the world doesn’t mean you should, and hello, I’m saying this? Something is wrong. I guess if going home isn’t an option…well, New Elysium was nice until everyone turned into fucked-up murder zombies. Lots of booze, nice swimming pool…could’ve done without the space pirates, but like, objectively, they weren’t the worst part of that whole thing. Maybe I’ll just go find a nice, abandoned planet with no fucked-up murder zombies and no fucked-up scientists and no heat death cults and stay there for a while.”