#on the flipside though everything makes sense

[cringecannon]

It isn’t necessarily dark like what you usually write, but would you ever write anything about Halsin X Tav X Astarion. I just think they have a really interesting relationship dynamic

I’m totally cool writing fluff, so don’t worry about sending in dark ideas if that’s not what you’re looking for. However, on the flipside, I could definitely throw a dark spin onto this dynamic! Hero Halsin trying to save you from a feral possessive Astarion is an interesting thought...

I did have to sit on this one a bit because I have a harder time writing for Halsin, but I love the idea of a petty Astarion who doesn't understand why you want someone so... brutish. And Halsin is just so friendly back to him.

Everything you do together, Halsin offers for Astarion to join in but he just won’t stop refusing. There’s no winning with him. He'd rather sit on the sidelines and pout instead of just swallowing his pride. No matter how many times you check in to see if being poly isn't his thing, he reassures you that's not the problem. He doesn't know why he's upset, he just is. It'd take some gentle convincing, but you tell him that sometime you'd like him to try and hang out with you and Halsin. Just once, and never again if he doesn't like it.

One night, as you're making tiny braids in Halsin's hair, you see Astarion idling in the shadows. It's rare to see him so... apprehensive. You catch his eyes and you nod, waving him over subtly. He creeps over and Halsin greets him with a smile, as if he can't sense the other man's tense mood. Astarion takes a stiff seat next to you, and you ask if he'd like a braid too. He scoffs haughtily, he cares far too much about his hair to let just anyone mess with it.

Seeing the hurt look on your face and on the stern one on Halsin's makes him backtrack though. Maybe... a small one, where no one can see it.

You have him sit on the ground between your thighs and Halsin takes a seat next to you on the log, wrapping a big arm around your waist as you start braiding a small section of Astarion's hair in a spot that can be easily hidden. Astarion's eyes flutter closed, letting the gentle attention wash over him.

He finds he doesn't care about the other man's arm around you at all when you're touching him like this.

[tokiro07]

Ichi the Witch ch.6 thoughts

[Let's Goooo Alreadyyy!!!]

(Topics: direction - art/narrative progression, character analysis - Uroro, thematic analysis - truth and lies)

The Clothes Make the Manwitch

I think we're officially out of the groundwork phase, cus this chapter really wanted to get things moving along. I really felt Kumugi's plight as the rest of the cast zipped along through the different departments to get Ichi set up for his first official mission - I wanted to hang out and chat with those cute girls for a little bit!

And based on how they blushed at Ichi, I think they did too 👀

I think Usazaki was just showing off with those designs, honestly. Those girls were clearly incidental characters, one-offs who didn't even warrant getting names (heartbreaking...), but she still went ham on the details, conveying their personalities and tying them into their respective jobs flawlessly. Maybe she figured if they were never going to show up and give her any trouble, she might as well make them as realized as she could while she had the opportunity

On the flipside, I saw a handful of comments complaining about how simple or plain Ichi's new uniform is, but you have to remember that Usazaki is going to need to draw this outfit a lot, in all kinds of poses and scenarios. There's already a surprising amount of detail on it, like the embellishments on the collar and shoulders, the thigh-high boots, the ornate knife handle...it's not a ton to keep track of, but they're finer details than a lot of protagonists tend to get in my experience, and ones that are likely to get a bit finicky as things go on

Moreover, though, Ichi already has an over-the-top, extravagant outfit: his Uroro form. Having a plain and unassuming base form gives contrast to his super form, which will help the latter stand out so much more when the time comes for him to use it. Do you really want Ichi's base form to overshadow his super form???

I didn't think so

Now the question is, when will be the next time we actually get to see his super form?

The Enemy Within

I absolutely adore that Ichi and Uroro have firmly established themselves as enemies, and that they're able to actively communicate and even fight with each other, it's everything I wanted Yuji and Sukuna's relationship to be (at least for now), but with that comparison in mind, there's definitely a question of how long this dynamic will last

As I recall, Sukuna was honestly a pretty minor factor beyond JJK's introductory arc, with Yuji only getting possessed by him twice in the beginning, once in the middle, and then once at the end. Everywhere in between, he was mostly just chilling and waiting, at worst mocking Yuji but never really actively hindering him

Uroro's role is still pretty ambiguous, as he doesn't seem at all capable of possessing Ichi, but he does seem capable of manifesting a physical form that can oppose Ichi. Depending on how much influence he has, he might actively be able to prevent Ichi from using Ultra Amplification or at least interfere when Ichi is trying to use it in battle

Sukuna wanted Yuji to find all the fingers so he could get stronger and escape through Megumi, so any time Yuji was in danger, he was incentivized to at least keep him alive, but Uroro needs Ichi to die in order to escape. He has no reason to ever help him and every reason to hurt him, so the gimmick of the hero and villain inhabiting the same body is greatly amplified in this case

The fact that Ichi can literally feel the malice coming off of Uroro from within his own body to the point of needing to resist gutting himself illustrates this antagonism wonderfully. If Yuji needed to constantly suppress Sukuna, Ichi needs to actively ignore Uroro, and Uroro is absolutely going to make that as difficult as possible

Fortunately, Ichi's sense for malice also acts as a bit of a lie detector for Uroro, which it looks like he's going to need

Unreliable Narrator

We've been wondering for a while now how Uroro actually feels about other Magiks, and this chapter's opening seemed to confirm an earlier assertion that he views them as his friends and brethren, lamenting their enslavement and discrimination at the hands of the witches, until Ichi easily saw through that lie

As Ichi says, Uroro's reaction to seeing Raiko being hunted in ch.3 didn't at all fit the idea that Magiks suffer any kind of injustice. His objections were half-hearted, and his lackadaisical attitude in ch.1 suggests that he has no interest in killing witches for the sake of freeing his captured kin. He kills and destroys for fun, not survival or revenge, but his position as the King of Magiks makes for a convenient excuse that surely he wants his people to be freed from the oppression of witches

Except...his story that humanity appeared and started subjugating Magiks is contradictory to the story we were already told. Ch.1 told us that it was the Magiks who approached humans, offering them dangerous trials seemingly unprompted, luring them in with the promise of power. That fact alone makes it obvious that Uroro was lying to gain sympathy

Or was he? Just because he doesn't actually care about the subjugation of his people doesn't mean it didn't really happen. We were told that a single Magik happened to appear to a single witch one day, which may well have happened, but was that really where it began? What prompted that Magik to do such a thing?

@wickedsick once suggested that there may be some kind of internal conflict in Magik society, like a feud between Uroro the king and a Magik queen to help enforce the themes of gender inequality. To turn the tide of battle, it would make sense for some Magiks to give themselves willingly to witches who could wield their power more effectively and defeat their enemies for them

If that's the case, though, then of course some Magiks would view the situation differently. History is written by the victors, and the witches seem to have the advantage at the moment, but Uroro was there, so his word is arguably more weighty than a disembodied voice that presumably is meant to represent common knowledge. That doesn't make him trustworthy by any means, but it's far too early to assume that there's no truth in what he's saying either

This goes for the Witches Association, too, of course. Shirabedonna's opinion may be irrefutable among the witches, but we only have her word so far that anything she says can be taken as gospel. If anything, with this chapter starting with someone lying to Ichi's face, then thematically we have to assume that Shirabedonna's assertion that anything she says is patently correct is, in and of itself, a lie, or at least a misdirect

To have a member of your organization declare with confidence "if I say it's true, it must be" is to have them declare "I can lie with impunity." If it should come to pass that there's some kind of mole within Mantinel, Shirabedonna's position as the foremost authority on facts would make her the perfect cover, even if it's just because she's susceptible to deception magic

For now, though, the status quo is that the witches are good and the Magiks are bad, so we won't worry about how things will shake up until they do. That said, it looks like Nishi already has a pretty good idea of how to pace out the escalation rate

Raising the Stakes

After Uroro's introduction in ch.1, a bird-man with a jewel-encrusted throne on his chest, Raiko honestly seemed like a pretty dramatic step back. However, this was a pretty clever trick narratively, as Uroro's outlandish appearance set the town for the types of strange things we should expect, while Raiko's relatively normal appearance recalibrated us for what's to come

Despite having lightning powers, Raiko was ultimately just an extremely large fox, even in his hunting behaviors, making him a familiar target for Ichi. Aesthetically, Hisame is just a shark, which is itself a lot more unusual than a fox, but it also has the added wrinkle of apparently being able to fly, making it two degrees further away from the ordinary than Raiko was

The next Magik, then, will likely be something a bit more fantastical, but still fairly standard. I imagine a unicorn or a jackalope would be good next steps, since they're just regular animals with horns they shouldn't have, followed by uniquely-shaped creatures like dragons and culminating in more imaginative creatures like that crustacean-man-thing or that biblically accurate angel we briefly saw in ch.2. This kind of progression would help keep the visuals from getting stale, especially if Nishi jumps back and forth a bit rather than forcing Usazaki to constantly find ways to outdo herself

If we got an Eldritch Abomination right at the beginning, then we'd expect a bigger, better abomination next, then a bigger one, and a bigger one, and so on and so forth. By establishing that mundane forms are to be expected, we not only have a much wider range of possibilities going forward, but we also can approach the early-story Magiks with a sense of familiarity. We know what a fox is, and fox-hunting techniques are easy enough to learn. Same for sharks. Tentacle creatures sleeping in volcanos? Fishnet-clad sexy legs chilling in abandoned libraries? Not so much

By the time we get to the more unfamiliar territory, we should have a deeper understanding of the Magiks as a whole, bridging the information gap between the ones that are "just animals" and the ones that are inconceivable monstrosities

Until then, let's enjoy life!

[wellofdean]

hey just saw your tags on dean's anger. and was just thinking, he needs that external focus to keep himself going, and ... yeah. i guess the flipside to it is that without that external focus, he needs to maintain a need for himself, if that makes sense. i think that's what creates the co-dependance. and youre right, grief turned outwards will become anger. it's a safe emotion for men very often.

Hey! Thanks for the thoughtful ask. Yes, I think an external reason to keep fighting holds Dean together a lot, and I think anger is a 'safe' emotion for a lot of people, not just men. Pain, disappointment, fear, guilt, and all manner of other vulnerable emotions are often manifested as anger, and Dean's defining characteristic is being up to his eyeballs in vulnerable emotions that he can't afford to let breathe, but I think in these scenes that main one is grief with a big side-helping of existential terror because he doesn't know if he's ever known a moment of self-determination with Chuck pulling their strings, and Dean no longer knows what's real.

I'm not sure what you mean, though, by "maintain a need for himself" or which co-dependence you mean...but I'm not a huge believer in the notion that co-dependence is always bad, and I don't think Cas and Dean's dependence on one another is unhealthy; I think it's the most healthy thing about them. Co-dependence CAN be bad, but I think we do, in fact, need other people to love us and be there for us, and we need to rely on others, and I think that's exactly the vulnerable need at the root of Dean's argument with Cas. I think at this point, Cas is, for all intents and purposes, Dean's partner, and they are co-parents in the midst of a devastating loss, compounded on top of all their other losses. At the same time, Dean feels like Cas is defaulting to unilateral solutions to their shared problems, and that scares him. So, fear, grief and love become anger.

When I say Dean's anger is a product of his love, I don't mean to excuse bad behavior. I think we, as a culture, do that far too often for angry men. Dean's lashing out at Cas and he has some good reasons, but he also has a need to hide and doesn't feel entirely righteous about it. I think he feels weak and knows he's hiding, and I think he's surprised when Cas leaves because I think Dean knows that Cas is his in a deep, deep way, even if what way isn't clearly articulated, and I think he thinks Cas can absorb his anger and will still love him...and he's right about that! Cas's love for Dean is an incontrovertible and essential fact. But, just at that moment, Cas is in his own pain. He's also lost too much, and he feels like he's failing again, and losing his powers identity, and losing Dean, whom he loves with everything he is. It's just too much for both of them.

I don't get the impulse, in fandom, to assign blame or applaud one or the other of them in this series of events. Both of them are so emotionally compromised that they are doing what they least want to be doing. But, maybe they need space to breathe, and both of them get it, realise that this is not the way, and mend it. Because ultimately? Love.

[felassan]

An interview video with Mark Darrah called "An Interview With Mark Darrah - Creativity, BioWare, and the Industry!": [source and watch link]

Video description: "I was fortunate enough to speak with Mark Darrah, former BioWare vetran, about his time at BioWare, his success, his challenges, and the role of video games in the art world. Thank you again for this chance, Mark!"

Some notes from it under the cut:

There was a question around the topic of games today taking a longer time to come out, getting restarted/rebooted along the way, ideas being scrapped, constant iteration etc. It was asked whether this is unique to BioWare or is it a common issue in the industry more generally. Mark: “So, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf had some particular things involved, some of which are externalities coming from EA, but yeah, video game development, the complexity has been going up exponentially. Games these days, and not just BioWare – five years is probably a good average for games coming out now. That was not the case even five, six years ago. Things have gotten incredibly expensive and much slower.

DA:O was originally conceived as being a spiritual successor to BG. It was a lot of different parts being developed unfortunately independently of each other, and then basically being glued together into something. For example, the darkspawn in DA:O as a faction don’t have very good or sensical visual coherency (they don’t really make sense as a group of things caused by the same thing). Since then there has been a lot more care taken towards the DA IP and making sure it at least has rules that it doesn’t violate, or ones it violates on purpose as opposed to accidentally. The IP has some strong core ideas about characters first (though it wasn’t always saying this out loud), people, power comes at a cost, everyone thinks they are the hero of their own story, etc. Those sorts of things inform most of its development more than anything. You should in most cases be able to look at the villain of the game and go, oh yeah, I get what they’re going for. (In DA:O this is Loghain). “Like, ‘yeah, I get it, I might even agree with you, but I’m not going to let you destroy the world because of what you believe."

EA, like most public companies, is reluctant to spend money to various degrees because the more they spend, the worse it makes their profitability look. One of the reasons why BioWare ended up being bought in the first place was because they had basically run out of money. They ran out of money in the pursuit of quality ahead of everything. But the problem with this strategy is that, if quality is ahead of everything then you’re probably going out of business. On the flipside, in a big public company you often have the opposite problem arising, where it’s profitability ahead of everything. This results in constraints and more constraints on people, and also in more pressure to do more profitable features that might not be quality features. Microtransactions and other monetization models that have arisen in games more recently are sometimes attempted to be rationalized as ‘for the player’, but they’re really money-making features. If you’re putting quality first you’re probably not putting those kinds of features in. If you’re putting money first, then you probably are.

Horses exist in DA:I because at the time it was being made in, a fantasy RPG needed to have horses in it (a ‘table stakes feature’; a feature that needs to be in the game just for it even to have a seat at the table, otherwise people aren’t going to take it seriously). Open world in DA:I was similar. Unfortunately, with open world it needs to be an A or B feature in terms of quality, not a C feature, in order to be good enough for the player. With horses, you do them (at that time) because you have to. With open world, it takes over your entire game unfortunately and modifies the structure of the game as a whole.

Collaboration at BioWare got better over time as the culture matured but also as the structure and systems matured. BG1 had a team of around 65 people, a size which is pretty easy to collaborate at. On DAI the team was well above 400 people when outsourcers are included in the figure. That team size is much bigger, to the point that it wasn't possible to interact with everyone on the team. In the early days of BioWare, disciplines like design and art were considered to be very separate things that didn’t need to interact with each other very much. By the time Mark was leading at BioWare, this had really changed - teams like design and art were working together much more collaboratively, in order to build a better experience. You see this in the games, the more recent ones now have levels that make more sense for the gameplay (now not designed by one discipline in isolation from the other).

By the time BioWare was bought by EA, EA wasn’t buying ‘not-franchises’. DA:O was envisioned as a standalone game. This is why it has lots of weird bits of lore in it still that are kind of timebombs. They largely moved beyond and patched over these, but there are still lots of weird things in it that aren’t fully taken into account. DA:O should never have been a standalone game, it should have always been envisioned as a franchise of some sort as opposed to being retroactively envisioned as one. “So that was a mistake from the beginning.”

On Frostbite as the engine for DA:I: at the time, the political climate [in EA/BioWare] was such that the options were to keep trying to make the game with Eclipse, which was not practical, or Frostbite. There just wasn’t an appetite for anything other than that. DA:I, out of DA:I, ME:A and Anthem, is actually the game that approached Frostbite correctly. It was then followed by the other two games which didn’t do that. “Frostbite is scapegoated and blamed for a lot of BioWare’s woes. On ME:A and Anthem there’s some truth to that, but a DA:I built on Unreal isn’t a radically different or better game.”

ME1 made the engine mistake of trying to force Unreal to be an Eclipse. This essentially meant that the engine was constantly fighting back against the devs.

If Mark had a time machine, he would make some changes to the Hinterlands in DA:I and shave some of the worst edges off of DAII, like moving that one spot in the repeating caves, having Varric lampshade the repeating caves in dialogue, and making it so that you don’t have to fight Orsino. “Anthem’s launch would require more than a time machine.”

ME:A is at least partially a victim of circumstance. It came out with a few particular bugs in it that it didn’t need to. These bugs had been fixed, they just didn’t make it into the release build. The game then landed on top of Zelda and Horizon Zero Dawn, in a climate that was really paying attention and was very critical.

There was a decision during ME:A development to change its tone to a lighter, younger tone than the tone of the MET. The PC of the MET is a Generation X PC, like someone from action movies in the 80s. The PC of ME:A is more like a PC from action movies in the 2000s. This change in tone was controversial. A lot of the pushback ME:A received was more about this tone change. Mark said that he was against it at the time but that he thinks that ME:A probably made the right decision.

“I’m not convinced that BioWare should have been making Anthem. It was conceived by Casey Hudson as something very different than what launched, some sort’ve multiplayer, storytelling. I don’t believe that those problems were actually truly solved. He left in 2014. Whatever he was imagining wasn’t communicated to the team clearly enough for them to execute on his vision. Anthem was basically Destiny, but it was envisioned before Destiny existed. After 2014 they weren’t really acknowledging that they were making Destiny.”

[source and watch link]

[escapetothelake]

Can you do Harvey and Mr. Owl for the ship asks?

hmmm yes yes i can

since it's a boss/employee dynamic (in which the boss asks the employee to kill for him), it won't be the purest relationship? but hopefully you still enjoy

who made the first move: mr. owl did. you could argue that his "first move" was inviting harvey to the lake hotel in the first place.

who kissed who first: mr. owl as well. i could see harvey being a little too.. timid?.. to act first in that he did not want to overstep. mr. owl, who has much experience in his position and in dealing with people, has no such qualms about this sort of thing.

who started the relationship: mr. owl; see above.

who remembers things: i feel that mr. owl almost has this omniscient quality to him, even if he isn't actually omniscient. therefore, mr. owl tends to remember things more.

nicknames for each other: harvey called mr. owl "boss" or "sir" (and still sometimes does). mr owl calls harvey "my friend" (affectionate) or even "pet" (yeah ik he's a little bit icky)

who is more likely to pay for dinner: mr. owl. i bet he's rolling in cash.

who normally cooks: mr. toad cooks for them, but between harvey & mr. owl, harvey would be more likely to cook.

who remembers anniversaries: both!

what would they get each other for gifts: i feel like mr. owl could afford an expensive stopwatch or something, as well as fancy clothes.

most trivial thing they fight over: mr. owl doesn't really "fight". he tells you not to do something again, and that's that. harvey always listens.

how often do they fight: pretty much never.

who uses all the hot water: mr. owl :)

who calls up the super/landlord when the heat’s not working: harvey does. after all, as the butler of the hotel, he has to make sure mr. owl is well taken care of.

who leaves their stuff around: aside from harvey's bloody garments? neither. of course, since it's mr. owl's hotel, he can afford to leave them laying around.

who remembers to buy the milk: mr. owl, but he has harvey get it.

who controls the netflix queue: mr. owl.

who steals the covers at night: i feel like mr. owl would :)

who cusses more: neither, really, but mr. owl talks more.

who does most of the cleaning: if harvey messes up one of his duties, it's on mr. owl to clean up after him.. if that counts? in the case of manual labor, harvey.

what’s their favorite non-sexual activity: i think mr. owl is at his happiest when the lake is running at peak efficiency, and it's during these times when harvey is the most greatly rewarded. i think they just like to enjoy each others' company, and harvey likes to change into his bird form and enjoy some bird seed in the golden cage in mr. owl's office while mr. owl works on paperwork.

who’s the cuddler: lowkey both?

who’s the big spoon/little spoon: harvey sometimes changes into his bird form and sleeps on mr. owl's shoulder, if that counts. mr. owl also likes to hug harvey in his anthropomorphic form.

who’s more dominant: mr. owl.

who is the dirty talker: also mr. owl.

what do they do when they’re away from each other: mr. owl has to continue his duties at the lake, but he's grown to find that he's become pretty dependent on harvey. on the flipside, harvey also finds a sense of security in mr. owl's presence. so yeah, they mutually miss each other when separated.

what would they do if the other one was hurt: when mr. owl is hurt, harvey panics, because he knows that mr. owl is the key to everything. mr. owl always reassures him, though, because he knows that he will be alright, and harvey worrying is unnecessary. on the other hand, when harvey is hurt, mr. owl will see that he is well taken care of. it's unclear the exact extent of mr. owl's powers, but any healing properties he has at his disposal, he will use.

a headcanon: whether you see them as platonic or not, it's undeniable they are very closely intertwined, as we see them together several times (even when mr. owl is in human form and harvey in bird form, such as in theater). i like to think that mr. owl always keeps some birdseed on hand in his pocket, and periodically gives it to bird form harvey as a treat while running his finger over his little green cheek :)

[lgcjo]

* ✦ ・ hello, new friends! please call me ira! i'm not super prepared for my opening night, but alas, i'm here to inform you of the arrival of my first muse here, jō kitayama! read his profile here, and there's more info below the cut. thank you for reading, can't wait to meet you, and let's write together soon!

jō kitayama was born in tokyo, japan on march 11, 2004 ✦ ballerina dreams from the time he could make memories ✦ graduated from nnt ballet school, went on indefinite hiatus due to risk of health immediately after earning his degree, turned toward the idol dream to scratch the performing itch in a "healthier" way ✦ sometimes feels as though he's wasting his talents, but is learning to be gentler on himself day-by-day ✦ if you're a dancer, especially a trained one, he'd really, really love to dance with you... like really, really

* ✦ ・

jō kitayama might seem stoic and reserved on the surface, but he promises that that's just his face ✦ just wait until you see his smile or hear his laugh ✦ he's a dreamer, but he balances himself with a sense of practicality where it matters, for example, he doesn't get so lost in his head that he'll forget to do his chores or honor his commitments ✦ despite possibly seeming a little spaced out from time to time, jō is someone who does what he says he's going to do. he's very forthright and determined, a dreamer who turns his dreams into his real life despite being an entertainer and artisan for many years, jō has a hard time taking criticism. his feelings get hurt and he's prone to sulking, or even swearing under his breath, but it's only because he's so hard on himself all the time ✦ there's probably no one more passionate about dance as he is ✦ he has a romantic side and can be pretty sensuous, but he tries not to let his heart get in the way of his work ethics ✦ his new love is writing lyrics and poetry, and he's even picked up on playing the piano, too ✦ he'd love to get to know you

* ✦ ・

fellow japanese trainees, please embrace him! he'd love to have a community of people, or at least one person, who reminds him of home and gives him that sense of comfort

he's obsessed with dancing, so if your muse is a dancer, he'll want to pick their brain and learn from them if he's allowed to. new dance partners are always welcome; gender doesn't matter either

during a large portion of his hiatus, he kinda lived life doing nothing, so he got into a lot of anime films ( he's kind of a snob and only likes the top-rated ones ) and video games ( ranging from the legend of zelda to street fighter ). maybe your muse likes these things too and it could lead to a connection?

he also got into k-pop during this time too, so any fans of in-verse groups that he can nerd out with would be cool! he's a fan of them all, and for the record, his biases in some of the groups are: ( v&a ) haru and aj, ( crystallis ) yura, ( fabula ) eunhye, ( nova ) miyu

he's an older brother to two little sisters ( one born in 2006, so could be a connection ), so if your muse is younger than he is, the chances of him doting on them affectionately is pretty high. he takes his stance as a senior to his juniors seriously, so he'll always aim to make a good impression. if your muse was born after 2004, this could be fun to explore too

on the flipside, he'll also take being the junior in the scenario in stride, always aiming to be respectful, just how his parents raised him up to be. though, he may lean on you a little too much sometimes. he's not used to being babied, but secretly wants to be. would someone like to volunteer? >.<

he's a hard worker and puts a lot of time and effort into the arts, but distractions are good for him, especially if they're gorgeous and make his heart flutter! he'd love flirtationships, friends-with-benefits, romance ( casual, serious, anything goes ), and everything in-between. he'll write poems and songs about your muse if he likes them, it'll be cute! ( noting that he identifies as queer, even if he isn't overly expressive about it )

if your muse is a songwriter/musician, jō would love to learn from them! these skills of his are still growing, so getting better at them would make him super happy if your muse has the time to collab

if none of these work, let's brainstorm!

[bthump]

I’m just wondering, the very last thing Casca says before Griffith takes control of the wagon and everything goes to shit is that "if you're Griffith's friend and equal, you have to… even if it's alone, you have to go." Of course it's ambiguous whether Guts would take this advice or not, but the way it's framed seems very definitive especially as a chapter ending. What's more, Griffith's vision is that of Casca caring for him and no Guts to be seen, implying that Guts did leave to discover his own dream.

Guts's reaction to the raiders cheering him on in their encouragement to be their captain is compelling evidence for the flipside, and that would seem to be conclusive to the arc he's been building up towards, but I can't shake the finality of Casca's words especially as they come after this moment, seemingly as a deliberate counterpoint.

Though maybe that makes it even more tragic if Griffith thought Guts was about to leave when really Guts was going to stay

Honestly I feel like it gets such strong framing not because Casca's right in telling Guts to leave, or because Guts would have left, but because it's the final straw that starts the Eclipse ball rolling. This is the exact moment where it becomes too late for Guts to do or say anything to avert it (in theory, if in practice it's impossible to avert due to fate.) This is what makes Griffith snap.

But it's also worth noting that it's not quite the chapter ending. This is:

Which imo is an even stronger statement that Guts intends to stay now. This is what he thought when he saw how much the Raiders missed him, and this is what he thinks now when Casca's telling him to leave again. It's a statement of regret for leaving the first time, a realization that the home he longed for was right here all along, and he abandoned it and now it's altered forever.

And this page especially has a counterpoint sentiment to the page almost previous (with one in between), where Griffith is depicted as a grandiose vision above Guts and Casca while Casca is telling Guts to leave, where here he's depicted as a frail tangible human while Guts reflects on his regret for leaving the first time. So it does read to me as a strong statement that Guts now knows Griffith needed him all along, and, as he says much later here, he had what he wanted in the palm of his hand and then threw it away:

And I see Griffith's vision not as an automatically accurate vision of an alternate future, but the future he envisions for himself after propositioning Casca in the wagon and then hearing her tell Guts to leave. Which imo makes perfect sense as something Griffith assumes will happen, and which then drives him to a suicide attempt.

So yeah, I do definitely think Guts was planning to stay with Griffith this time around, and imo it does make it more tragic, because Guts' realization of what he really needs to do, and what his fatal mistake was, comes just a hair to late to prevent the Eclipse tragedy. It's classic tragedy and I love it!

Thanks for the ask!

[princess-of-the-corner]

*Dabi and Enji squinting/scowling at each other*

Dabi: I dunno RG, I don't see the family resemblance.

Enji: On that we can agree.

RG: For fucks sake we have a DNA test that confirms it, as well as comparisons between Phoenix's and Dabi's appearance.

Dabi & Enji: I still call bullshit on that.

Honestly it's not even that bad because they're not morons(well they are BUT-)

They /can/ see the resemblances. And the one thing that trips them up visually is the fact that Dabi's scars obscure some of his features so it's harder to really see more than just resemblance. And they acknowledge the other things that make sense, like the Quirk. And yeah the- the dna test is hard to ignore.

But it's also just the reality of the situation isn't sinking in, while they also acknowledge that if this is somehow wrong, then the best case scenario is losing everything all over again.

Despite the skepticism, it's actually easier for Enji to come around quick on the idea. Like through just one conversation/interrogation. Because Dabi is upfront about also being hesitant instead of trying his damnedest to convince him. Because Dabi legitimately /doesn't/ know.

For example: since I will use any excuse to add non-human features and y'all voted when I asked, we yeeted some horns and a tail on Dabi which Toya didn't have.

Now, when asked, Dabi just shrugs. Says he's had the horns and tail since he woke up, and assumed he had them before. If he /is/ Toya, he doesn't know when or how he got them. People like AfO exist though, so he supposes that sometime between the fire and the amnesia he could've run into the villain or someone like him who decided to shove the Quirk in, but he doesn't know why.

But that's not the answer Enji was expecting, because he knows in theory where the features may have come from. He knows that major traumas, whether it be the fire or whatever caused the amnesia, could cause a Quirk Awakening. And that while Awakenings sometimes evolve a Quirk, other times it will pull something out of latent genetics. The horns and the tail was Enji's father's Quirk, something that was laying dormant in him and the kids.

Enji feels that, if Dabi were a fake, he'd be trying to convince him through that. Trying to lead him to that answer. But Dabi doesn't do this. Just shrugs and says he has no idea.

It's a bunch of little things like that which convince Enji that Dabi at least isn't purposely faking this, but he's also lining up with.... everything. And he's slowly feeling the denial ebb away and the reality sink in.

On the flipside though, Dabi takes a bit longer to really fully accept it. Like he does to an extent. Again: can't ignore all the things telling him it's real.

But there's still this doubt, this wonder if things are just coincidence. He projected memories of a sister onto Himiko, how is he sure he's not projecting his memories onto the Todorokis as well?

It's only once he starts remembering more specific things that he starts to really feel like this is real

[spatio-rift]

karins sensory range fluctuates wildly throughout shippuden but as a general rule for myself i go with what it was in her introduction. she could feel everything up to outside the southern hideout naturally without focusing which makes sense, thats why shes head warden at 16 despite having no authority through power. and focusing fully on sensing things Massively extends her range + increases resolution so to speak.

what i dont see mentioned very often is what that means for how she navigates the world even though it is absolutely fascinating. she first feels people then sees them so she would rely on the feel of peoples chakra much more than sight to recognize them (kind of supported by how she didnt recognize kabuto because his chakra changed, and was more rattled by that change in chakra than his physical appearance). meaning you couldnt fool her with a henge, but on the flipside she might be taken by surprise by someone whose chakra radically changed yet has the same appearance. fun stuff

i feel like theres definitely some interesting things to explore when it comes to how much she feels all the time and what the dissonance feels like re: how much she can actually see and hear vs how much she knows is out there without actually seeing or hearing it. i guess for her its just another tuesday because shes lived her whole life like that but its pretty hard to imagine. i feel like sensor types in naruto usually close their eyes when they focus on sensing which makes sense to me the overlap of 2 different kinds of information would be pretty jarring but she just lives like that.

in terms of silly shenanigans... you cant creep up on her. she always knows where you are, and what youre doing to an extent. she can even somewhat detect lies. i feel like normal boundaries are just fundamentally different for karin. i would like to see it acknowledged more! also.... even if shed had a normal childhood, she probably wouldnt have been liked very much, would she :/

[relaxxattack]

Hi its the anon who came up with the aggressively long quadrant wear thingy

I heckin LOVE the idea of just danger revealing like???? Omg?? Thats so great???? Ur calling me big brain (which- ngl made me so fucking happy)

But also!! I had idea for like dumb bullshit you could pull with these ideas because of that one person with the bug spray and bells (i see u)

Matesprit fit(tm)but its like a transforming dress, though instead of being super pretty its just

Pretty black dress w symbol==> crop top/miniskirt with hearts

But that, every single time they see their flush crush. Everytime

Like "hey whats u- wheres youre clothes at."

Pitch wear with an AGRESSIVE amount of spikes. Like too many. Like. bro. Wtf.

Mfs wearing spike masks

Or mfs in their pitch crush's LEAST favorite colors, patterns etc, so its like super tacky and god does their pitch crush fucking hate it

Or, on the flipside, super pretty black fancy outfits with fucking weaponry just. Out there. Black dress holding a rifle, black tux and sword, black minidress and brass knuckles, the works! Makes sure everything is VERY visible

Ashen wear which is just being a stereotypical soccer mom, and carrying snack, bug spray, napkins, bandaids, a spray bottle to spray the people ur ashen for

God just imagine it, someone in all grey sweat pants and sweater spraying two rabid trolls with a water bottle like theyre cats

Beautiful.

Anyways ramble two over BYEEEEEE (ur stuff is still awesome btw and im gonna be completely honest i havent stimmed that hard sense u added onto my ideas i am. Sobbing /vvvpos)

awwww these are really great anon, thank you

[ask-steven-stevenson]

It’s fine, dude. You were still literally going through the process of grieving, and it ain’t your fault an anon threw me to Virginia. Mighta died… though I kinda feel like it wasn’t the first time. Hm, but uh… I carried bubble when they fell asleep. Kinda why they were here before me. Also, I heard you had to go through trivia to get him back?… also heard you threw up till it was bloody, ball your limbs broke… and had to watch Terrence being possessed and unhinged. You.. okay?… I really missed.. being alive. The flipside kinda sucked.

[Yeah, After they were done talking, they took two of the pills. DRY. And.. just sat down, tired and traumatized]

..I missed you guys.

-🔑

“Yea! Bubble. People have been saying things about them. I doubt they are true. But, yes! Rose truly did everything. So, the kudos go to them, really!”

[However. He did slightly tense up at the mention of Terrence.]

“Ah.. yes.. I.. yeah. I take accountability for that part. I went to visit him right after I got word of you being hurt. Apparently, that interaction wasn’t good for him. I guess half of it was me worrying. I had already lost Bubble. I was worried that I’d lose you too. As for him, I hope he comes back soon. I miss Terrence. I hope he returns soon. Anyways, depression aside. I should be fine soon. I have most of my family here. I’m happy for that.”

[Steven seemed to grab something that sat close toward Jake. It was a water bottle!]

“A shadow creature gave it to me. You should drink some water. Once you feel better, Rest. You’ve all had a long day. I’m glad you all are back. Yet, you must rest. Alright? Regain your energy. I will try and set something up with Diane to get food for everyone. Eh.. Tomorrow. I will make sure we actually have a place to sleep that… isn’t an office. But, again. Rest.”

[He did slightly scrunch himself up in a sense. Though, It was to make himself more comfortable and to make sure Jake doesn’t have any neck or shoulder problems later in the morning. He would probably fall asleep like this.]

[hekateinhell]

Devil's Minion AU but it's Armand and modern mortal!Lestat instead of Daniel. Send tweet.

Idk if this has been done before, in terms of set up let's say Lestat has been pursuing Louis (who Armand still spent all those years with, Louis just gets to the theatre via other means and situations) because he met him a few times in a bar and fell head over heels despite Louis disinterest. Anyway Lestat goes too far and finds out too much about what Louis is (completely unperturbed) and that is how he comes to Armand's attention.

What in your opinion happens next? Does Lestat play along with the cat and mouse chase? How well does he hold up over the years in comparison to Daniel? What is the dynamic like with Lestat as the guide to the mortal world, and how well does he do at it? Does this stories version of Night Island look different? When does Armand turn Lestat, is it sooner than he turned Daniel or does he still wait to the last possible second? This is a lot of questions and obviously you don't have to answer them but I can't stop thinking about the different ways this could play out 🤔

I'm supposed to be sleeping but this is my intrusive thought, I can't relax because OH. MY. GOD. Like, I know I've talked on here about what if Lestat and Armand had gotten together in 1781 Paris and it was Lestat that re-introduced him into the world, but I never thought of this.

It's so interesting for me to consider because we know what Lestat was like as a young mortal man! We know about his abusive childhood, his early education, religion, personality, everything! There's no guesswork/pick-your-headcanon like there is with Daniel.

I wonder... knowing that Armand's first time seeing Lestat in Paris immediately conjured up the memory of Marius, would he have felt the same seeing mortal!Lestat? Because I think he would've. And then my follow-up question is: in light of that, do we think Armand would treat him better or worse than he did Daniel in those early days because of it? I could work with either scenario here, but I'm inclined to think that he would have been more merciful because Lestat instantly reminds him of someone he so dearly loved. 

So maybe he skips the whole let's-play-a-game Jigsaw bit and jumps to "You will be my teacher", only 'no' is not an option. There's definitely an element of fear and coercion here, which is missing within that particular scene in Pompeii in Devil's Minion. And on the flipside, we're missing the love that was present then with A/D because Lestat and Armand do not know each other at all yet, but it is kinder than Armand and Daniel's initial meeting.

I think the London/New York years would've played out similarly with mortal!Lestat as they did Daniel. Perhaps a bit wilder even, because Lestat himself has an extremely hedonistic streak (Dionysus and all). They would fall in love incredibly quickly; it was lust at first sight and love at a-couple-sights-later between them in canon, so I'll just translate that over here.

Lestat would probably want to be an actor or a performer of sorts, and Armand would finance him! Think the dancer in QotD but with music or the theater or film! It's weird for me to separate the context of Daniel from Night Island, but Miami could still work for them. Although if Lestat's in entertainment, perhaps an island off the coast of Southern California might make more sense. Armand could create his own film and recording studios for Lestat to do his thing, and if Lestat ever has to make appearances for movie premieres or concerts, it's always at night and via Armand's private jets with Armand in tow.

The most fundamental difference to this AU though is the fact that canonically... Lestat did not want to become a vampire! He was turned against his will! So this immediately eliminates the source of conflict that Armand and Daniel had. Armand and Lestat are not having fights (about that anyway), Lestat's not running away, etc. It's much calmer and less all-consuming because that complete and utter helplessness and desperation on the human's part isn't a factor.

It is the insane '80s though, and Lestat's living it up with his usual enthusiasm for life and absolute recklessness. Maybe he drinks a lot, maybe he's overdosed a couple times and been brought back. And he is shacking up with a vampire that straddles his lap and sucks at his throat every night. He's not dying but he's certainly gambling with his life, and not realizing it in the name of enjoying his youth. Opposite to Daniel, Lestat thinks he's invincible. Armand knows he isn't.

At this point, we have to remember that the whole Devil's Minion arc was for Armand to rediscover his humanity and ultimately make the final surrender by breaking his vow and turning Daniel. I don't think Armand ever intended to turn Daniel during their first years together, it wasn't supposed to happen, this was just an era in Armand's life (like he'd said to Louis about Claudia). But I do think that definitely changed as time went on, and he knew he was going to turn Daniel sooner rather later well before Chicago.

So to think about it with regards to mortal!Lestat, I can easily see a similar outcome where something happens (maybe he's 32, maybe he's older) and Armand arrives in time to ask Lestat for the first time if he wants the Dark Gift. And now, with nothing to lose, Lestat says yes.

~ fin

*remembering when I posted Devil's Minion: Loustat Edition and in the same post noted it just wouldn't be Devil's Minion without it being Armand and Daniel. The Armand/Lestat version is more like Devil's Playmate lmao less edgy and more flirty, a completely different dynamic but oh wow so fun to consider!

[certifiedwerewolf]

Something that is interesting to me about Lou and Zac and how they play Fabian and Gorgug's relationship to their parents is like.

So I would argue that, at least during Freshman Year, Fabian, Gorgug, and Riz have the best relationship with their parents out of the party. Kristen and Adain's parents just flat out suck and even though Fig's parents do love her, the circumstances have strained her relationships with them to the breaking point.

So Riz's relationship with his mom is one where his mom is very attentive and loving, and she and Riz are very much on the same page, even in matters that they disagree. Riz sort of forces Sklonda to treat him as an adult, even if she's constantly pulling him back into childhood and making sure he doesn't grow up too fast, as much as she's able.

But this ain't about them. Anyway.

So Fabian and Gorgug both have very loving and devoted relationships with their parents, albeit in different ways: Fabian does his best to emulate his father until it becomes apparent that he mustn't, that he has to let go of his father's legacy and acquire his own, and Gorgug struggles to connect to his parents despite the fact that it's clear that he does love them devotedly- they don't understand each other as well as they'd like, but that doesn't change his feelings or their closeness. It feels like the most normal teenager-parent relationship out of the group.

And I think Lou and Zac make some really interesting choices in how they play their characters' relationship to their parents.

Now, I don't know how much input they had into the development of their characters' parents- obviously some, but I don't know the ratios that came into play when they and Brennan were concepting them. So I don't know how much of their choices are genuine improv and how much is them leaning into their character regardless of what they themselves are aware of.

So, when Lou is playing off of or talking about Bill, as Fabian, he is very confident. Lou makes choices relating to what Bill would want or think or feel in a way that it's clear that he, Lou, is intimately acquainted with this character to the point that it definitely feels like he and Brennan are writing this character together, and are in perfect sync with his creation. This makes it a lot of fun, and this confidence gives Lou a lot of freedom to characterize Bill as much as Brennan does, which if he lacked, could potentially slow down the flow of the story. Not that not having this intimacy is a bad thing, but it lends itself extremely well to specifically Fabian- and it may just be an extension of Fabian's confidence, that Lou feels carte blanche to just say whatever about Bill Seacaster and know that it will ring true.

And on the flipside, Zac plays Gorgug talking to or about his parents in a way that implies he knows next to nothing about them. Like they're total strangers, except in specific situations where he takes Brennan's lead and plays off of his tone. And conversely, this works just as well as Lou's confident assertions about Bill Seacaster do. Because Gorgug, especially during Freshman year, is not very confident. He's struggling to relate to his parents, he's struggling to understand who he is, he's uncomfortable having a lot of attention paid to him, and often second-guesses himself about everything. Even if there was something Gorgug knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, I think it would still make perfect sense for Zac to play Gorgug as though Brennan created his parents with no input from him and then sprang them on him day one.

I can't think of a single moment where Gorgug confidently asserted something about his parents that hadn't already been established, whereas Fabian was so confident in his understanding of his father that he knew to kill him when he was making death saves. And these are improv choices being made by their players, and I don't know how deliberate this choice was but it works so well with the characters they're playing. It all comes together so seamlessly.

[alister312]

do i even have to ask..... the character ask with gregory. Yes. All of them (if you can think of something)

THERE ARE. 50 OF THESE THINGS.

i honest to god tried but its midnight and im tired so i didn't get to all of them. maybe i will another time. here's the ask game for anyone maybe wanting to see certain ones i skipped answered.

1. Canon I outright reject

There is so little canon to him to even embrace but uhhhhhh. Him being so shit at drawing a directional compass. He's a smart boy I don't think he would fuck up a compass as badly as he did on his map in the movie.

2. A canon or headcanon hill I will die on

He has led a rich boy life. While I do love the idea of his parents as professors, it makes so much more sense if they're wealthy social elites and he's got all these immense expectations placed on his shoulders from a young age. He develops crippling imposter syndrome and anxiety due to this but is extremely good at masking it and accomplishing things so no one knows (except ofc Christophe).

3. Obscure headcanon

Big big fan of the "Gregory can play an instrument" headcanon, though I don't always see it implemented. Like, yes he sings but what if he also played the piano or violin? I think he does.

4. Favorite line

I kinda really like his little "O-ho..." after meeting Stan for the first time. It's just a solid line read and further solidifies the headcanon of him as a wealthy upperclass kid. He's clearly uninterested but he's learned he can't say that... he's gotta cage it. Maintain a good public image.

5. Best personality trait

The fact that he's so quick to stand up for others and put himself on the line for them!! Whether it's acting as Wendy's voice against Garrison or volunteering to go to the dangerous USO show, Gregory is willing to put in the work! Doesn't fall into that rich kid cliche.

6. Worst personality trait

Of course it's the flipside of his best trait: the fact that he thinks he has to do everything for everyone. He's gonna exhaust himself as well as come across as extremely controlling!!

7. Age/height/weight headcanon

Age depends on what sort of AU I have going on... though by default I tend to image him in his late twenties, early thirties? Usually makes the most sense.

Gregory maxes out at about 5'10" to me (with Christophe being more 6'1", 2"). Gregory carries himself very well though and may even wear shoes with a bit of height, so people usually believe he's a bit taller than he actually is. He's never slouched once in his life and he won't start now.

Weight I'm honestly not sure? He's fit and slim (swimmer's body type), well balanced. I know that much.

8. Unpopular opinion about them

He would never grow his hair out long. I know the Les Mis stans love to give him a ponytail and the Hell/park fans love to give him a ponytail but I absolutely don't understand. I get him maybe caring deeply about his hair, but that's why he'd keep it short. Much easier to style and manage.

9. Scene that first made me love (or hate) the character

I don't remember but it was probably the line about everyone being rogues. It's just such an iconic line.

10. Best moment on screen (or in the book)

La Resistance. Howard McGillin killed it as his singing voice and the sequence in general is just an absolute highlight of the whole film.

11. Faceclaim for the role

I don't actually have one?? Like I have a very clear image in my mind whenever I draw him but I've never sat down and found real life people who look like that. I'd know if I saw though.

12. Crack headcanon

Gregory really likes fish. Not like in the sea exactly, but big tank aquariums. He knows all about proper tank and fish care and has a beautiful one in his office. His pride and joy.

13. Dumbest thing they’ve ever done

Trusting his bestest friend Christophe to Stan and crew was a pretty dumb move. Especially when he knew how unequipped they were to handle everything.

14. Most heroic moment

Again. La Resistance. He's so good at rallying and motivating people <3

15. Worst thing they’ve ever done

Trusting his bes-- nah. Joking. Worst thing he did was what he DIDN'T do, which is run off to go find Christophe after not seeing him with Stan.

16. Deepest darkest secret they won’t even admit to themselves

Not a secret so much as a fear that all his activism and fighting will be for nothing ultimately and he'll leave the world having not changed it for the better at all. He knows on some level he will, what with the friends he's made, but he wants to do something on a grander scale.

17. Quotes, songs, poems, etc. that I associate with them

A bunch definitely but I am trying so hard to get all these questions done so I cannot dwell.

18. What they’d go to see a therapist about

what WOULDN'T he see a therapist about it. um. parental expectation issues. aforementioned terrible imposter syndrome and anxiety. probably war trauma and mercenary trauma.

19. Vices/bad habits

He can go for days without sleep and very little food. He's just too focused on being busy to really bother. Christophe has had to force him to take a nap many times before.

20. Scars

Ella had such a gorgeous way of putting it in the one gregstophe fic she wrote, with Gregory having some thin snicks of scars from sword blades? Something like that. It's good. He doesn't have scars he can't hide. He's got a public image to maintain.

21. Drink of choice (not just alcoholic)

I do see him as a tea drinker. No sugar, maybe a splash of milk depending on the kind of tea. For alcohol, he's a gin drinker. I'm only projecting a little bit there.

22. Best physical feature

His smile! He was born with perfect teeth... never needed braces and brushes and flosses after every meal. Uses whitening stripes on a regular basis. Flashes it proudly whenever he meets someone new.

23. If they were a scented candle, what would they smell like?

Pamplemousse. It's got a bit of citrus kick but it's on the sweeter side. Also it just sounds the way I imagine he comes off as.

24. Most annoying habit

Spins pens/pencils between his fingers while he's trying to concentrate. The frustrating thing is he always does this perfectly, never drops it. It's just a thing he does and doesn't get it when others ask him how he does it.

25. 3 things they’d want to take with them if they were dropped off in the middle of nowhere

Water bottle with filtration in it, multitool, and his favorite book. He's practical.

26. What they would do if stuck in an elevator with Stan (looking at his keychain rn)

Wait patiently while Stan exhausted himself panicking about being stuck and doing stuff like trying the doors in vain. Once he was done, Gregory would call the fire marshal to come get them out. Stan would hate him for how nonplussed he was the whole time.

[elusium]

helluu i'm so so excited that opening's here wuhu!! i'm blue ( 21+, s/h ) & this is heo yewon, nothing notable to her name </3 she's just some rich astran's personal assistant, waiting for the day her boss promotes her to astra & she can leave this place behind... if that ever happens! u know what it is, profile page here, her tldr & plots are below the cut, pls like to plot or add me on dc ( pomelos. ) & i’ll be there ♡

TLDR

backstory is ur usual ansan born, raised & still stuck here kinda deal. it's not all bad, because she did grow up on the nicer side of the airstrip, but it doesn't mean she's satisfied with this life. there's gotta be something more, something out there meant for her, right?

but she doesn't know what that something is, aimless in that sense. restless, with no reason for it. she's latched onto the idea that astra will be the place for her, the place with all the answers, so she's put her name in the lottery every year & dreams of it, her wes anderson new york fantasy

there's a disconnect between what she thinks of her ansan experience & the reality of it, her dissatisfaction colouring everything a shade darker than it really is. all things considered, she had a fairly calm childhood & a cushy job now, but it doesn't stop yewon from complaining about it! she's been in fairly close proximity to astra & that better life that she can't help but compare it to everything that she doesn't have, not noticing all the things she does

& her job! can we say astra / corpo sellout... yes we can! went from secretary straight out of high school & slogged her way to personal assistant for some fancy rich astran because the company promised that employees who perform well might get promoted to astra. she handles all their ansan business matters & kinda wants to d word from being on call 24/7 but she also gets to stay at their la mariposa apartment for housesitting / keeping purposes

she says she hates her boss & hopes they get eaten by karma... only after she gets to astra, pls. screw the astrans, until she gets to go !

jokes on her though, her boss gambled away some trivial assets on hand... which were all of their ansan businesses & her job... so she's got a new boss she's never met & yikes, he's in town! 😱

anyway she's fully willing to do anything for her boss even if it's shady because she's 1) just a dumb assistant & 2) really wants this promotion to work out! how far is she willing to go so she gets her dream of going to astra? we're gonna find out!

secret family backstory unlocked! daughter of an nightrunner known as an ansan legend for the damage he caused when he went cyberpsycho defending his crew ( insp by david from cyberpunk edgerunners! ), her dad's last job netted her & her mum enough eddies to live on the clean/good life… but she still lost her dad as a child & it's partly why she wants to get out of ansan & also why she looks down on that side of the city even though technically what she has is owed to it. yewon keeps it quiet, her dad known more for the chipware he had on than his name, & it's the only thing she doesn't complain about. super unlikely that muses would know this ic, but it does inform a lot of her actions!

misc fun facts: all her mods are vanity mods & a made up ver of google / chatgpt ... no protection u could beat her up! also has an ashley too doll ( black mirror inspo ) probably outdated / a relic of the times but she still bops to the songs hey yea whoa-ho!!

personality wise, she's ur cynical uncle's gen z stereotype. expects too much, complains about what she has, doesn't have a backbone to speak of & does whatever is easiest at the moment for her until something easier comes along. thinks she's better & above all of this. & on the flipside, she's more than willing to work & wait for it, whatever it may be; she romanticises everyone's life but her own, loves helping people but for the wrong reasons because it gives her a boost of self-esteem. makes reckless impulsive decisions, doesn't really know what she wants but she's demanding anyway, kind of all over the place but somehow comes in clutch thanks to her caffeine shots. she's trying! not her best, but she swears the trying counts!

chara inspos are portia from the white lotus & the vampire familiars in wwdits... astrans are vampires confirmed??

horoscope chart time she's an aries sun ( fireball ), pisces moon ( anxious insecure fireball ), gemini rising ( anxious insecure fireball who doesn't know where she's headed but she sure is going somewhere, help! ), she's got no earth to ground her at all & her signs are just a conflicted mess all around! good luck girly!

PLOTS

fellow starseeker, spacewalker hopeful? someone who aspires to astra like her, for whatever reasons they might have!

someone who grew up always having a little less than her, a friend as long as she had more & they had less... until now? someone who makes her feel a little better about herself, who may be climbing up the ladders and/or realising she's a bad friend

someone she's envious of, but embarrassed about being envious. they don't have the usual markers of success but they're content in a way she's doesn't understand

fellow victims of capitalism working for revel / hansol. trauma bonding over bad working conditions?

party friends, here to cut loose, live life, get totally smashed & swear they won't do it ever again... until next weekend arrives

someone she screwed over for her current job, maybe she beat them out for it or did something at the behest of her boss while knowing it would screw them over?

ya know the usual... childhood friends/rivals, exes, coworkers, friends, enemies, u name it i would like it!

also lucy & david moon braindance scene that's all i ask!

[beck-nightengale]

Summer Reading/Writing/Arting Tag

Yo, I was tagged by @chennnington over here to do this thing and it does look like fun, so why not!

But I'm also going to be boring since idk who to tag, so anyone is free to fill this thing out if it hits your dashboard. ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ Go knock yourselves out.

1) Describe one creative WIP project you’re planning to work on over the summer.

Thanks to Enderal kicking my creative nuts into gear and being recently liberated from certain "game-master" obligations (long, long ass story that'd probably go over most Tumblr folks' heads, anyway), I finally started diving back into a sapphic-flavored dark fantasy book series that I'd been planning since like around 2016 or so. It was mostly born out of some frustrations with the lack of WLW in general, and while I have some WLW elements in my existing works, I wanted to write something that was more overtly WLW with a leading lady who was outgoing about her sexuality than my previous protagonists (who are either repressed as fuck or too dead to hold a relationship that would function) and wouldn't take her four dang novels to finally kiss a girl.

Anyway, Morane Soraya was created from a whole mess of complicated feelings about women in media. I describe her as a combination of Julie D'aubigny and Anne Lister, with a bit of Christina of Sweden (all of who were badass women in history. Look 'em up!). I wrote a lot about the basics of who she is/what she's all about here.

Morane is a good bean:

Book 1, Bloodtithes, will go into her venturing into a scarcely-visited icy continent to investigate a possible cure or effective treatment to the painful condition she had been forced to live with, which gives her the proficiency she has in Blood Magick (which isn't inherently evil in her world, but very often misunderstood because of its side effects). She's from a mercenary group who all share the same condition and propensity for Blood Magick, so they're interested in this so-called "cure" as well, but not many make it to this country and survive, so Morane is sent alone instead. Along the way, she meets a horned jackal-man named Darius ka Dir, and gets entangled in a plot with a strigoika named Viorica Avanas who has a whole buttload of inner demons of her own (side note: I once played Vio in Skyrim to mess around with Kaidan and they got into some... Situations).

A friend drew Darius and he has a single giant and glorious curl that he is very serious about.

I've also talked a lot about Jade for my Enderal stuff, who was already based on an existing character, and I've figured out how to work her into Morane's world. She won't factor in until Book 2, Cloverleaf, because she's essentially gonna tear down a wall and break freaking everything.

You know. Like she do.

It's still in the planning stages but I'm feeling pretty good about it.

2) Rec a book!

I just started reading Dreams of the Dying by Nicolas Lietzau, which I'm enjoying a lot, but haven't read enough yet to form a coherent recommendation on it. I just got the audiobook though so I'm looking forward to that!

Otherwise, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski is one of my favorite novels of all time and was a major writing inspiration for me. It's creative in how it gets you to feel uneasy while you're reading the book itself, a huge mindfuck, and one of the few novels that actually made me feel a sense of dread while I was reading it.

If you'd like some seriously bonkers reading material, I'd suggest giving it a looksee.

3) Rec a fic! (outside your character tag)

Iiii don't actually read fanfiction that much, so I'm not sure if I can rec one!

On the flipside, feel free to rec me some Enderal fics (or your own, if you have any). I'll read the shit out of it.

4) Rec music!

I can't recommend Murder by Death to people enough. They're my all-time favorite band, one of the few I've ever made an effort to go see live when they were playing in my city (just before lockdown hit, no less), and deserve more love. I've been listening to them since I discovered them high school and their albums just keep getting better and better.

Also it's not hard for me to find some character-centric songs from them because the topics they write about is very versatile. I tend to think of Lost River for Jade's story, and Ditch Lilly and Rumbrave for Rey's.

5) Share one piece of advice!

Writing women! Because I guess this one needs telling as there are people who still find writing female characters daunting or somehow more difficult than it is to write men. Which, fair, I was the same way. Despite having mostly female protagonists in the novels I'd written, the dudes in my earlier stuff somehow ended up taking the spotlight and stealing most of the development. I really struggled to work through some of my own internalized misogyny and "there are no good female characters in media" mindset, and it took a lot of opening my mind up before it got easier. Now I predominately focus on writing women to be that change I want to see - this includes not killing certain ones off to enhance manpain like I used to, which I learned was called "fridging", lol.

My advice for writing them is to just write them as characters. It sounds simple and stupid, but I'm surprised how much people get wrapped up in the "she must be a strong girlboss" brainrot that they end up with a very flat, boring character that literally no one can relate to, so she still gets outshined by the dudes because the writer tried to overcompensate her badass womanliness without giving her actually compelling character traits.

I feel like one of the main reasons why I absolutely adored Ellen Ripley when I was a kid was because she was written to be a man in the first Alien movie, but they changed the character into a woman without changing the script and it just worked. I didn't know that when I was young, but finding that out just made me appreciate Ripley so much more, because the writers didn't treat her like a "strong female character" but as just a character. I think if writers approached this mindset more, we wouldn't have the "no good female characters in media issue" that doesn't need to be an issue in the first place.

These days I approach character-building by not restricting certain traits by gender, and finding a balance between strengths and weaknesses. Just shut off your critical analysis brain to create a "strong female character" and just write "strong character" instead.

I could word vomit more about my own ladies and how much I love them now than I used to but I feel like this has gone on long enough. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯